It was a miracle that he hadn’t bled to death before the river patrol had arrived and rushed him to the nearest hospital. And getting him safely back to the United States had almost required another miracle. Lisa knew that only her stubborn refusal to leave him, which had resulted in Amos’s pulling a multitude of strings, had gotten him out of South Africa with a minimum of questions asked. To the South Africans she had said that he was a journalist like herself, caught up in the fighting through no fault of his own. After one long look at Sam, who exuded toughness even while lying unconscious in a hospital bed, they had been clearly skeptical. But once they found out who she was, and had gotten in touch with Amos through embassy contacts, they had not quite liked to question her word. So Sam, still unconscious in a portable hospital bed, had been allowed to leave the country with Lisa in the small private jet that Amos had sent for them.
All she had told Amos was that Sam had saved her life more than once and that she owed him. Amos understood that—he never could bear to owe anybody anything. Lisa would have told him the truth, would have said that Sam was the man she loved and was going to marry, except for two circumstances: one, she had discovered that it was a touch awkward to describe one man as one’s fiancé while still being legally married to another; and, two, she was not quite sure of Sam’s feelings about announcing their plans to all and sundry. Maybe he would want to tell his son first, or . . . Well, she would wait for him to get well enough to face the world with her. The doctors had assured her that it would be only a matter of time before he was himself again.
Since returning, she had quietly set the wheels in motion for a divorce. She had not yet broken the news to Amos, preferring to wait and tell him everything at once, but Jeff had been very decent about the whole thing. In fact, now that she no longer thought of him as her husband, Lisa had discovered that Jeff could be a very good friend. He was the only one in whom she had confided, and while he had lifted his eyebrows at the thought of her marrying a professional soldier, he had also been quick to offer his best wishes for her happiness. Like herself, he preferred to wait and present Amos and his own family with the divorce as a fait accompli; that way, there would be little anyone could do about it.
Sam’s son, Jay, had been tracked down by one of Amos’s secretaries, and he had spent nearly as much time at the hospital as Lisa had. He was staying with her and Amos (she had moved back into her grandfather’s house, saying that it was nearer to the hospital, which it was; Amos had made no comment). At seventeen, Jay was a gangly version of Sam himself. For this alone Lisa would have loved him, but he was a very likable teenager, polite and well mannered, and clearly devoted to Sam behind the budding machismo that forbade him to say so. He had accepted Lisa’s explanation of how Sam had found her in the jungle and saved her life with much admiration for his father but with few questions. She liked to think that the two of them were on the way to becoming fast friends.
At the moment, Lisa was occupied in staring out the blue-curtained window at the gray waters of Chesapeake Bay. It was the middle of December, so the bright regatta that sailed the bay in summer was absent. Only scudding whitecaps and the occasional far-distant fishing vessel disturbed the rolling waters. Heavy, dark clouds hung low over the surface of the waves, threatening snow later in the day.
It was cold, and Lisa was dressed in a finely tailored jade-green wool skirt suit that she had always liked because it brought out the green of her eyes. A silk blouse with a high, ruffled collar in a paler shade of green and simple brown leather pumps completed her outfit. One of the first things she had done upon getting home was visit the hairdresser, so her blond hair hung in a simple yet sophisticated style around her shoulders, its deep waves caught up on one side by a jade clasp. Her hands were freshly manicured, the nails buffed and shaped into ten perfect ovals and polished a delicate rose. She knew she looked a far different creature from the ragtag female Sam had hauled out of the jungle, and she was eager to hear Sam’s reaction to her changed appearance. To tell the truth, she was dying to bowl him over. But it might be days or even weeks before he was really aware of his surroundings, so she would just have to be patient. At least the doctors seemed certain that he would recover, and that was the main thing.
Except for a brief phone call to Grace at the
Star
to let her know that she had made it back to the United States in one piece after all, Lisa had had no contact with anyone from the paper. She suspected that Amos had had something to do with that. Grace, upset by Mary Blass’s death but too much of a reporter not to think of the scoop Lisa could write for them—an eyewitness account of a massacre of an entire family, no less!—had almost pleaded with her to do the story. Lisa had said no as tactfully as she could, but Grace was persistent by nature and profession. Lisa knew the other woman well enough to know that she would never have let the matter rest unless pressure was brought to bear. And Amos was the only one with the will as well as the authority to apply the necessary pressure. He had been horrified at her carefully edited account of what had happened at the Blass farm and afterward, horrified to think that his granddaughter had been exposed to such horror, had lived with such fear. Seeing the remembered horror and fear reflected in Lisa’s eyes, he had hugged her—an unusually emotional gesture for him—and told her to put it out of her mind. And he apparently meant to see to it that she did. At any rate, after that one phone call to Grace, no one at the
Star
had tried to get in touch with her. And Lisa did not contact them again. Aside from all the other considerations, it had occurred to Lisa that explaining just what Sam and his men had been doing in Rhodesia might prove a little sticky. She wasn’t positive, but Lisa suspected that there was some sort of law against what Sam had been up to. She thought it might even be illegal to be a mercenary. It would be best all around to keep the story out of the newspapers, she decided, and was thankful that the power that went hand in hand with Amos’s money permitted him to do that.
Sighing, she turned her attention from the view out the window to the man in the hospital bed behind her. His eyes were closed, and a small white bandage adorned his forehead where the bullet had struck just above his temple. His hair, which had been trimmed but was still longer than he usually wore it, looked very black against the crisp white pillow. His skin was still deeply bronzed. He was clean-shaven, thanks to the nurses who performed that chore for him daily, and his lean, hard jaw looked aggressive even in sleep. His wide shoulders were left bare by the blanket that came up only as far as his armpits. The outline of his powerful physique could be seen clearly through the bedclothes, and it had provoked more than one admiring glance from the younger nurses. An intravenous needle was taped to his left arm, its cord extending like a long, slender umbilical to the I.V. unit beside the bed. His right leg was in traction, strung up above the bed by a contraption that looked like a triangular pulley. It, too, was covered by the white blanket.
Lisa’s face softened as she came to stand beside the bed, her hand going automatically to smooth away the curls that fell over his forehead. He murmured something, moving restlessly, and Lisa wondered if he was in pain. They had been giving him drugs to control it, but they wore off from time to time and the doctors were afraid to give him too much: they didn’t want him to leave the hospital an addict.
From the time the last bullet had crashed into his chest, leaving him unconscious and, Lisa had feared, possibly dying on the floor of the boat, she had never been sure that he was aware of her presence. Oh, he had opened his eyes and looked at her, but Lisa couldn’t tell if he recognized her. But she liked to think so—at least, this time, he had not called for Beth.
“How is he?” Jay spoke from the door, his voice hushed.
Lisa looked up to smile at him, and saw her grandfather following him into the room. Her smile widened to include them both. Amos must have brought Jay over. . . .
“Still the same,” she answered cheerfully. She had stopped whispering in Sam’s presence weeks ago. He would wake up when his body was ready, the doctors had told her, and until then there was no need to worry about disturbing him.
“I told the boy he wouldn’t be awake,” Amos said testily, “but he insisted on coming by just to make sure. I told him you’d let us know if there’s any change.”
Lisa nodded. “Yes, I will, but I’m sure Jay wanted to see for himself. After all, Sam is his father.”
“Yeah,” Jay agreed, coming around the end of the bed to stand beside Lisa and look down at Sam’s recumbent form with a slight frown on his face. “If I was in here, he’d be here every day, I know. He’s that kind of guy.”
This was the closest Jay had ever gotten to putting into words the deep love he and Sam shared, and it clearly embarrassed him. Lisa hid a smile as she watched dark color creep up over his cheeks. He was very sensitive about his status as an adult male, and he wasn’t yet old enough to confess to feeling any softer emotions without being afraid of seeming unmanly. He was a scant eight years younger than herself, but Lisa, looking at him as he stood towering beside her, his hands jammed deep into the pockets of his corduroy car coat and his long legs clad in the inevitable jeans, felt aeons older.
“What are you two going to do this afternoon?” she asked, knowing that Amos enjoyed being with the boy and that the two of them spent much time together while she was sitting with Sam.
Amos grinned. Lisa thought with pride how very well he looked for seventy-two. His body was still strong and erect, although he wasn’t much taller than she was herself—tallness wasn’t a characteristic of the Bennets, although, Lisa amended with a quick look at Sam’s considerable length, it might be in the future. Amos’s iron-gray hair might be a little thin on top, but he had all his own teeth and was almost never sick. Today, dressed as he always was in a conservative business suit topped by a camel-colored cashmere overcoat, he could easily have passed for sixty.
“Oh, we thought we might drive down to D.C., maybe take in a show.” From Amos’s shifty-eyed reply, Lisa inferred that he and Jay really had quite different intentions. Probably they were going Christmas shopping, she guessed, remembering that there were less than two weeks remaining until the holiday. She had some shopping to do herself; she’d been so wrapped up with Sam that she had not yet bought a single present. Maybe this weekend . . .
“That sounds nice.” She went along with Amos’s explanation without so much as the bat of an eyelash to reveal that she saw clear through him. He had always liked to do his shopping in secret, pretending that Christmas was the last thing on his mind until the big day itself, when she would come downstairs to find enormous piles of presents. Lisa smiled, remembering. Amos had always spoiled her rotten.
“Well, maybe now that the boy here has seen for himself that his dad is still in one piece, we can get on with it. Eh, boy?”
“Okay.” Jay had quickly gotten used to Amos’s irascible manner, and his only response to this testy speech was a tolerant grin. “I’ll come by again later, Lisa, and stay with him for a couple of hours while you go home and rest.”
“Thanks, Jay.” Lisa smiled at him gratefully as he moved back around the bed to join Amos by the door. He looked so much like Sam that he pulled her heartstrings, but even if he hadn’t, she thought, he was a fine boy. Sam could be proud, she told herself. He had done a hell of a job raising his son.
“Why you two think the man needs somebody with him constantly when he doesn’t even know where he is is beyond me,” Amos grumbled, as he had done frequently since Lisa had returned and had taken to spending nearly every hour of the day in Sam’s room. He gestured at the traction unit. “You got him by the leg; he’s not going anywhere.”
“I want somebody to be here in case he wakes up,” Lisa said stubbornly. Amos shook his head at her, then shepherded Jay out the door.
“That’s awful nice of you,” observed a faint but familiar voice.
Lisa whirled, her eyes widening as she met Sam’s blue ones—wide awake and plainly aware.
“Sam!” she exclaimed joyfully, moving to bend over him.
“Lisa,” he mocked, but he smiled at her. She returned his smile with a delighted one of her own.
“How long have you been awake?” she asked, wondering why he hadn’t spoken to his son.
“Long enough. I would have said something sooner, but I didn’t feel up to tackling that formidable old gentleman who was growling at you and Jay.”
“That was Amos,” Lisa explained, still smiling foolishly down at him.
Sam grimaced. “I figured it was.” Then his voice changed. “Don’t I get a kiss?” he asked plaintively.
Lisa’s eyes softened, and she bent down to press her lips against his mouth. When his lips hardened and he would have deepened the kiss, she straightened away from him.
“What’s the matter?” He was frowning. Lisa ran a teasing finger across his lower lip; he caught it between his teeth, nipping it sharply before releasing it.
“Ouch!” Lisa shook her finger at him admonishingly. “That hurt!”
“Changed your mind?” he asked, so casually that she didn’t immediately understand what he was getting at.
“About what?” She stared down at him, puzzled.
“Marrying me.”
“No way. Were you hoping?” Her words were teasing, but her eyes were tender as they met his. He had been afraid she had changed her mind, she realized, seeing his quick look of relief before he grinned at her.
“Just a little,” he said, and then his hand moved to catch hers and squeeze it warmly. The I.V. bottle swung precariously with his movement, and Sam shot it a look of distaste.
“I feel like a trussed chicken,” he complained, glaring at his leg, which was suspended from the ceiling, to the I.V. unit that dripped liquid steadily down into his arm. “I hope this place doesn’t catch on fire. I don’t think I can move.”