Commando (15 page)

Morgan gazed around the spare, clean room. “When one of my people gets hurt out in the field, we always try to bring them back home for treatment and recuperation, Shah. I’ve brought the company jet. With your help, we’ll get Jake out of here today and flown stateside to Bethesda Naval Hospital, in Maryland. It’s one of the best, and they have an extensive knowledge of tropical infections, thanks to the Vietnam War.”

Shah gasped. She had hoped for help, but she had never imagined that Morgan Trayhern had this kind of power and influence. She saw his smile deepen, his eyes warm and thoughtful, as he held her gaze.

“Will you act as my interpreter? I’ll need help getting the release from his doctors and clearance from the airport authorities to place Jake in our charge.”

Our charge.
Shah blinked belatedly. “But—”

“I’ve got a doctor, one of my employees, standing by in the jet. She’s fully qualified to take care of him on the trip back to Andrews Air Force Base. I don’t leave my people stranded on a mission if I can help it.”

Overwhelmed by the sudden turn in events, Shah was speechless. Jake as going to be taken home. He was going to be torn from her. She couldn’t possibly afford the thousand-dollar one-way fare to the States to follow him. All her money—what little there was of it—had been donated to the fund to save the rain forest, because Shah had needed so little to live at the Tucanos village. She stood, stunned, unable to think of a way to go home with Jake. Her mother was poor and always gave away most of her money to those on the reservation who were in greater need than she was. And she would never call her father and beg for money.
Never.

“Well, I—Yes, of course I’ll help,” she whispered, her heart breaking into a thousand pieces. “Jake needs the best medical attention he can get. He almost died.” She turned away so that Morgan couldn’t see the tears in her eyes.

Her emotions had been brutalized over the past four days, but from somewhere Shah gathered the strength to force herself to fulfill her promised obligation, despite her pain. Blindly heading for the door, she whispered, “I’ll go find his doctors and get things started, Mr. Trayhern.”

“Fine. Thank you.”

Shah didn’t return for nearly forty-five minutes. She didn’t dare. After getting the release signed by the doctors, Shah went to the nurse’s station and used the phone to call the American embassy in Brazilia, the capital city. The embassy official she spoke to told her there should be no problems with the Brazilian authorities, and promised to call the Manaus airport immediately to explain the situation and make sure Jake could be placed on the jet as soon as he arrived from the hospital. Shah then saw to it that an ambulance was available to transport Jake to the airport. That done, she walked slowly down the highly polished hall toward Jake’s room, weaving slightly with exhaustion. She knew she needed sleep, long, uninterrupted sleep, in order to throw off her dizziness, her confusion in her mind, and see the situation with some clarity.

A lump formed in her throat, and she fought the urge to cry. Jake was leaving within the hour, conscious or not. She loved him, and now he was being torn from her. But he needed the care that an American hospital could give him if he was to make a complete recovery. She wasn’t angry at Morgan Trayhern—just the opposite. There weren’t many businessmen who would spend corporate money to rescue one of their employees.

Slowly opening the door, Shah tried to prepare herself emotionally. But it was impossible. When she entered, she saw Morgan standing next to Jake’s bed. And Jake was awake. Shah let go of the door, stunned. Jake’s ravaged face looked angry, and his gray eyes were flashing with thunderstorm darkness. Her heart sank.

“What’s wrong?” Shah managed, standing tensely.

Morgan moved aside, looking uncomfortable. “I think I’ll come back in about fifteen minutes,” he said, and left the room.

In shock, Shah watched Morgan leave, as quietly as he’d come. Slowly she turned to Jake, who sat up in bed, the white sheet draped haphazardly around his waist. His fists were wrapped in the bedding. Joy clashed with fear as she met and held his dark eyes. “Jake, what’s wrong?”

He winced. “Come here,” he ordered gruffly, his voice sounding like sandpaper. As weak as he was, he lifted his hand, his fingers stretched outward. “Come here, Shah….”

Numbly Shah walked toward him. She realized the effort it cost Jake to lift his hand. Her fingers outstretched, she caught and held it. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Why are you so upset? Are you in pain?”

“Pain’s the right word,” Jake muttered, closing his fingers around Shah’s hand. “I just woke up, and Morgan said you were getting authorization to send me stateside.”

“Well…he has a jet standing by, with a doctor on board, and—”

“Dammit, I don’t want to go!” He looked up at her drawn, pale face and saw her lower lip tremble. “I told Morgan to shove his plane and his doctor.” His hand tightened on hers. “I’m not leaving you behind, Shah. I can heal here just fine. I’m not letting you go. Do you understand that?”

She stared at him, her mouth dropping open. As weak as he’d become, Jake still had the strength to hold her hand in a painful grip. Clearing her throat, she tried to control her wildly fluctuating emotions. “Don’t I have anything to say about this?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jake demanded, breathing hard.

“Morgan came in here and told me what he was going to do. He’s right, Jake. You stand a better chance of full recovery at a hospital that knows how to treat wounds like yours.”

“Morgan told me I’ve been unconscious for four days. Is that so?”

“Y-yes.”

“Tell me what happened. I don’t remember.”

For the next five minutes, Shah outlined the series of events that had brought him to the hospital in Manaus. He was glaring at her, his chest rising and falling with exertion, and she couldn’t understand why he was so upset. He was going home. Wasn’t that what he wanted?

Jake ruthlessly examined Shah’s suffering features. Hadn’t she heard him say he loved her? He knew he’d spoken the words, and he knew she must have heard them. Why was she behaving like this? Why was she acting so unsure? That last day, as they’d hiked toward the mission, their closeness had melted into a oneness Jake had never before experienced. His anger was ballooning, and so was his frustration, and his fear of losing her.

“Did Morgan ask you to come with us?”

“No. Why should he?”

“Shah, don’t turn away. Look at me, dammit. Look at me!”

She turned and sniffed, her eyes filling with tears. “What do you want?” she cried. “What have I done wrong?”

Her cry tore at his heart. Jake pulled her closer, until she stood next to his bed. Tears blurred his vision. “I’m not leaving you behind, Shah.” His fingers tightened painfully around her hand as he tried to steel himself against the answer she might give to the question he was going to ask. “Will you come home with me? Back to America?” His heart aching, Jake held his breath as he anxiously searched her distraught features. He hadn’t meant to make Shah cry. Tears dripped into the corners of her mouth, and she sniffed.

“Home?” she asked scratchily. “With you?” She saw his reddened eyes fill with tears. Afraid to ask why, she saw him nod once.

“Too much has happened too fast,” he told her, in a rough, emotional tone. “We need time, Shah. You’ve got the proof against Hernandez you wanted. You can send a copy of the video to the Brazilian embassy in Washington. I know Morgan will help you.” He took a deep, ragged breath, wanting so badly to tell her again that he loved her. But he’d told her before, and it was obvious to him that he needed her more than she needed him. “Please,” he said, his voice hoarse, “just see me home. That’s all I ask. I know it’s more than I deserve, but I need you, Shah.”

Need.
She took a deep, halting breath and covered his hand with hers. Didn’t Jake realize how much she needed him? Perhaps even more than he did? “Yes,” she murmured, “I’ll fly back with you.”

Shaken by her soft, anguished tone, Jake closed his eyes, relief flowing through him. “Thank you,” he said unsteadily.

Jake was agitated. He lay on a comfortable, clean gurney on the corporate jet, which was being flown by two Perseus pilots. Morgan was sitting at a small desk just behind the cockpit, phone in hand, talking to someone stateside. To Jake’s left was the medical doctor, Anne Parsons, a woman in her early thirties with short black hair and blue eyes. She had offered a warm, welcoming smile when they’d come aboard earlier at the Manaus airport.

Jake twisted his head and tried to look back toward the rear of the cabin. Dr. Parsons raised her head from a report she was filling out on Jake’s medical condition.

“May I get you something, Mr. Randolph?”

“No.” Jake craned to catch a glimpse of Shah, who had moved to the rear of the plane after takeoff. “Is Shah okay?”

Dr. Parsons smiled and nodded. “She’s asleep, Mr. Randolph.” Putting her clipboard aside, she rose. “Matter of fact, I think I’ll put a blanket over her. It’s a little chilly in the cabin. Are you cold?”

Jake grunted a “No” and turned around. Both his arms had IVs in them, and he felt like a fly caught in a spiderweb. He was agitated because Shah had appeared not to really want to come along. He’d whispered his love to her, but she hadn’t responded. Heartsick, frustrated, Jake lay back, his mouth compressed against pain much worse than that in his legs.

He knew he was going to live now. Shah had told him on the way to the airport how close he’d come to dying. Jake knew the prayers of many people had pulled him through, but he also knew that his love for Shah was a powerful part of his will to survive. Shutting his eyes, eaten up by frustration and anger over his medical condition, he tried to fall asleep. As he spiraled downward, somewhere in that twilight zone between sleep and wakefulness, Jake felt Shah’s lips tenderly touching his own, felt her moist breath fanning across his face, felt the gossamer touch of her mouth sliding across his. He dreamed of Shah, of loving her, sharing laughter with her and helping her birth their babies. They were such powerful dreams, wishes, hopes, that Jake fell into a deep, healing sleep.

Shah awoke slowly, the slight vibration of the corporate jet surrounding her, the low growl of the engines at the tail of the aircraft filtering into her consciousness. As she sat up, the blanket slid off her shoulders and pooled around her waist. The cabin was dimly lit and gloomy. Looking out the small window, she saw it was pitch black outside. What time was it? How long had she slept?

The watch on her wrist read 4:00 a.m. They had been in the air for a long time. On a commercial flight, it took nine hours for a jet to fly from Miami to Rio de Janeiro. Morgan’s jet, because it was much smaller, couldn’t hold that sort of fuel load and had to fly back via the long route, up through Brazil and Mexico and then into the U.S. Had they landed and taken on fuel that she hadn’t been aware of? More than likely. That told Shah just how deep her sleep had been.

All of Shah’s awakening attention shifted to the gurney that bore Jake in the center of the cabin. Directly across the aisle Dr. Parsons was curled up in a chair that had been pulled out into a reclining position. Everyone was asleep, except the two pilots up in the cockpit.

Lying back down, Shah sighed and closed her eyes again. The vibration of the plane gave her a faint sense of security, though she felt none in her heart. Why had Jake asked her to come along? Shah refused to believe that she’d heard him whisper that he loved her after she’d kissed him. Her spongy mind, after having gone without sleep for days, had merely made it up. She turned on her side, gripping the blanket, and curled into a fetal position. If only Jake did love her. She loved him. He had nearly given his life for her by standing in the way of that charging boar.

Shah was confused, and she realized that she was still in desperate need of sleep. And what she needed even more was to sit down and have a long, uninterrupted talk with Jake. But she knew that wouldn’t happen soon. According to Dr. Parsons, Jake would need immediate surgery. At least six of the boar’s slashes had torn into leg muscles, and they would all have to be repaired. How Jake had managed to overcome the terrible suffering he must have felt with every step, Shah didn’t know. She was in awe of Jake’s ability to master his pain. Maybe, she thought, losing his family had been the worst possible pain in the world for Jake to survive, and physical agony was nothing in comparison.

Snuggling down into the pillow—the blanket a poor substitute for Jake’s nearness—Shah fell asleep, dreaming of Jake, of his kisses, of his incredible tenderness….

S
hah stood uncertainly at the nurse’s desk on the surgical floor of Bethesda Naval Hospital. Morgan had called at her hotel room at eight o’clock this morning. She’d still been asleep. Jake had come through the leg operation just fine and wanted to see her now that he was out of recovery and in his private room. Gripping the bouquet of flowers that she’d bought downstairs, Shah found out Jake’s room number and slowly walked down the white tiled hall. Nurses and doctors and a few patients and visitors passed her, but she barely saw them.

Last night they’d landed at Andrews Air Force Base, outside Washington, D.C. Shah had accompanied Jake by military ambulance to the prestigious hospital in Maryland, not far from the air force base. They’d held hands all the way to the hospital, few words exchanged between them because of the presence of Dr. Parsons and a military paramedic.

Trying to gather her strewn emotions, Shah slowed her step even more after she spotted Jake’s room. She had entered the emergency room with Jake last night, only to be shuffled quickly out of the way as Jake’s gurney was surrounded by medical personnel. Jake had tried to call to her, but Shah had moved out the doors and into the visitors’ lobby, reeling with emotional stress and exhaustion. Morgan had come by half an hour later in a rented car, gotten her a posh hotel room near the hospital and taken her there. He’d told her that since Jake would be going directly into surgery there was no use waiting for him at the hospital. What she needed, he’d said, was a shower and sleep, in that order.

Everyone seemed to know what was best for her, and Shah was too numb to fight back. She’d surrendered to Morgan’s assessment of the situation and allowed him to take over. The only clothes she had were the ones she wore, inappropriate for the cold, snowy East Coast.

Morgan had tactfully asked if she had money, and, when Shah had shown him the ten dollars she had in her pocket, he’d slipped three hundred-dollar bills into her hand and told her to buy some clothes at one of the boutiques in the hotel lobby. Shah had protested at first, but Morgan had patiently explained that Jake would want him to help her.

A terrible uncertainty haunted her waking and sleeping hours. This morning, she’d gone to the hotel lobby and purchased a pair of dark brown wool slacks, a camel-colored turtleneck sweater and sensible brown socks and shoes. Luckily, the hotel provided shampoo and conditioner for her hair, and beneath a scaldingly hot shower she had cleansed her hair and her body until she was free of the damp smell of the Amazon.

Now her hair hung in ebony sheets, loose and flowing across the lightweight red nylon jacket she’d also purchased. The paper around the flowers crinkled under the tight grip of her nervous fingers. She lifted her hand to knock, hesitated, then lightly struck the door with her knuckles. Hearing no sound from within, Shah thought Jake might be asleep. Pushing the door open, she peeked around the edge of it.

“Shah?”

She froze. Jake was propped up in bed, a breakfast tray nearby. She tried shakily to smile, and forced herself to move into the room. He looked terribly pale, and both his legs were suspended by a set of cables that kept them inches off the bed.

“Hi…How are you feeling?”

Jake stared at her hungrily. “Better than I was a moment ago,” he groused. Shah looked positively frightened. He waved her into the room. “Come over. I want to know how
you’re
doing.” He almost said that she looked like hell, but it wasn’t true. Shah looked beautiful in the clothes, the brown earth tones complementing her dusky skin, her black hair and her lovely golden eyes.

Shyly Shah handed him the flowers. “Here, these are for you.” And then she laughed a little, nervously, as the small bouquet was swallowed up in his large hands. Hands that had touched her, made her body sing and her heart take flight. Swallowing, Shah choked out, “I guess you need a vase. I’ll go get one from the nurses’ desk, and—”

“Don’t go.”

She halted, a few feet from the door. It was agony to be with Jake, to be around him. Taking a ragged breath, Shah turned back.

“I can ring for a nurse to come in.” Jake examined the flowers and smiled. “That was thoughtful of you, but then again, I’m finding out you’re that way with everyone. It’s a nice trait, Shah. Take off your coat and stay a while.”

Like a robot, Shah took off her coat and hung it over the chair beside Jake’s bed. The room was large and comfortable, painted pale blue rather than a cold hospital white. Outside the window, the trees were coated with a light dusting of snow—the first of the season, she’d heard from the bellman in the hotel lobby who’d called a cab for her.

Jake watched Shah in silence. He laid the pretty bouquet of yellow mums and purple asters on the tray by the bed and pushed them aside. She was so nervous, clasping and unclasping her hands, wringing them unconsciously. The darting look in her eyes told him she felt like a trapped animal. He patted the side of the bed.

“Come over here and sit down,” he coaxed. “We need to talk.”

The words sent a cold, splintering sensation through Shah. Trying to steel herself against what Jake might say, she turned and moved to the side of his bed. Sitting gingerly on the edge, she saw that his eyes were dark with pain and, although he’d recently shaved, his cheeks were gaunt, testament to his recent operation and past week of physical stress. Shah picked up a corner of the blue bedspread and played with it, still unable to meet his searching eyes.

“How do you feel?” she asked, casting frantically about for some safe topic of conversation.

“Lousy. But what really hurts is my heart, Shah.”

Her head snapped up, her eyes widening. The blue spread fell from between her fingers. “What?”

Jake longed to reach out and caress her suddenly rosy cheek. “I said,” he told her quietly, “my heart hurts.”

“But…your legs were cut up by the boar…”

Patience,
Jake cautioned himself. “My heart’s taking a worse beating, if you want to know the truth.” He looked deeply into Shah’s golden eyes and tried to gauge the depth of her inability to believe that someone could love her. Jake knew in his heart that Shah had heard him say those words to her in Manaus. He’d spent all morning replaying the sequence of events, feeling his way through it.

When Jake reached over and claimed her hand, Shah swallowed convulsively. “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

“I know. At least I think I know.” Jake’s heart started a slow, almost painful pounding. “Tell me something. Did your father ever say he loved you?”

Startled by the question, Shah laughed a little. “Him? No. His way of showing his love was taking off his belt to punish me, and telling me it was going to hurt him worse than it was going to hurt me.” She gave a bitter laugh. “I never understood that one.”

Jake scowled heavily. “What about Robert? Did he say he loved you?”

“Yes.”

“But you knew six months later that he really didn’t.”

“I guess I wanted to believe he loved me, Jake. I guess the truth is, he said it to get me into bed. When I realized that, I felt betrayed. He lied to me. He used the word
love
to lure me into his arms. I never forgave him for that.” Shah compressed her lips. “That lie made me realize how little men value the word.”

Jake held on to his very real anger at the callousness of the men in Shah’s life. “I thought so.”

She tilted her head. “Jake, what’s going on? You’re going somewhere with this conversation, I can tell.”

He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it. Instantly he saw the golden fire flare in her eyes. Jake took hope, and plunged forward with his plan. “In Manaus, when I was just coming awake after you kissed me, I whispered something to you, Shah.” He looked up and captured her startled gaze. “What did I say to you?”

The silence deepened, and Shah sat transfixed. A part of her, a large part, wanted to run. Just as she had run from Robert, and, earlier, from her father. She watched as Jake took her hand and gently stroked it with his fingers. The tingling sensation went all the way up her arm, and she pulled in a strangled breath.

“What did you hear me say to you?” he repeated quietly.

Licking her lips, Shah whispered, “I—I’m not sure, Jake. I thought I was making it up.”

“You didn’t make it up.”

Oh, what if she’d heard it wrong? What if her heart and her foggy brain had made up what she wanted to hear, and it wasn’t what Jake had said at all? She was going to appear to be a bigger fool in Jake’s eyes if she mouthed those words. Bowing her head, Shah closed her eyes and whispered, “I think you said you loved me….”

Tipping her chin up so that she was forced to meet his patient gaze, Jake said, “That’s right, I did.” He watched surprise flare in her eyes. Why surprise?

“I didn’t want to believe you said it, I guess.”

“Why?”

Shah gave an embarrassed shrug, unable to hold his burning, intense gaze. “I was so tired. You have to understand, Jake, I’d gone without sleep for almost three days. When I kissed you, it was wonderful. When you woke up, I was so happy. I didn’t see how someone like you could love someone like me. So I thought I’d made it up in my groggy head…” Her voice trailed off.

Jake whispered her name and framed her face. “I love you, Shah Sungilo,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “I love you with my heart and all of my soul.” He caressed her cheek. “This time, you know your mind didn’t make it up. This time, you can’t deny it.”

With a little cry, Shah pressed her hand against her lips. Jake’s mouth curved into a tender smile, and she could only stare at him in the silence.

“All your life,” Jake began heavily, “men have abused you in one form or another, sweetheart. I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand why you didn’t respond when I said I loved you. This morning—” Jake shook his head and gazed around the room “—I lay here a long time trying to figure out why you hadn’t heard me. And then I realized, you had, but you’ve been so hurt so many times by men who were incapable of loving that you didn’t believe your ears. Am I right?”

Ashamed of herself, Shah hung her head. “Yes…”

With a sigh, Jake captured her clasped hands in his. “Only time can prove to you that I love you, Shah. Not because I want you beside me in bed. I want that, too, but sex is only a small part of what love is all about. You need to know that I love you for you, not for what you can give me, or what I can take from you.” He saw tears forming in her eyes.

“I have a plan I want to share with you. The doc told me I’ll need two months to recuperate. I want to go home, Shah. Home to the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. And I want you there, with me.” He watched her face closely. “In a way, we both need to heal from a lot of wounds we’ve accumulated in the last decade. I need to come to terms with the loss of my family—and you need to realize that you can trust me,” he added with a small, hopeful smile. “I can’t undo what your father and Robert did to you, Shah, but I can show you a whole new world, a place where love is shared. Let me give you that chance to heal.”

Shah sat for a long time, assimilating Jake’s words and, more important, the feelings behind his words. Her heart burst with such joy at the knowledge that she hadn’t made up Jake’s whispered words that she could barely think, much less talk. “I guess,” she joked nervously, “I’m more Indian than I ever realized. I can’t get out how I feel about this, Jake. We don’t talk much, you know. We let our actions speak for us instead.”

“Your walk is your talk. Fair enough,” Jake told her. “Let me prove that my walk is my talk, too.” And it would be. “Then you’ll come home with me? To Oregon?” he asked again.

She gave a him a small smile. “If I didn’t, who would take care of you? You’re strung up like a Christmas goose ready to be baked in an oven, Jake Randolph.”

He laughed. Every movement hurt his legs, but Jake didn’t care. His laughter boomed and rolled around the room. Shah was going to come home with him! He loved her more than she could possibly know. He smiled up at Shah. Her face no longer seemed as haunted as before. There was happiness there, along with uncertainty. “I’m not going to be a very good patient,” he warned her. “I hate being bed-bound.”

“I think I can deal with your grouchiness,” she told him seriously. The joy written on Jake’s face simply amazed Shah. He was like a little boy who had gotten the most wonderful gift in the world. She didn’t feel like a prize, though. In fact, she didn’t know what he saw in her. “I’m not used to living with someone,” she warned him.

“We’ll take it a day at a time.”

Shah hung her head as she felt her way through a myriad of emotions. “It’s such a chance. I don’t know if I’m capable of that kind of risk.”

Patiently Jake said, “You risk your life all the time in the name of worthy causes. Don’t you think
you’re
a worthy cause?”

His insight into her wounded heart astonished her. Weighing his words, his observation, for several long, silent moments, she whispered, “I think I am worthy.”

“So do I.”

Rallying beneath his beaming smile, Shah felt as if the sunshine were coming out in her life for the first time. “Okay,” she said with a shy laugh. She looked forward to Oregon, to seeing Jake’s home there. And yet Shah couldn’t help wondering if she was being trapped in a new and different way. Only time would tell.

“I still will work on rain-forest issues, Jake.”

“Fine,” he agreed. “Maybe I can do something to help you. You never know. I’ll need something to keep me occupied while I’m mending. I have a fax, a computer, a modem and several phone lines for business purposes. You can use them all you want.”

Shah was pleased and surprised by Jake’s enthusiasm, and by the sincerity burning in his eyes. “Well,” she stumbled, “I’d planned on working with the Sierra Club on this issue, getting petitions signed and learning to lobby Congress, once I came back to America.”

“I was a little worried you might be bored out in Oregon, but I can see you’ll be busy.”

Shah was unable to stop staring at Jake’s mobile mouth, which was wreathed in a contented smile. She longed to kiss him, to share the joy bubbling up through her. But to be fair to Jake, to be fair to herself, she couldn’t succumb to the heated kisses that had kindled that unknown but welcome fire in her body. Robert had trapped her that way, and she had to prove to herself that Jake wasn’t like that. Her paranoid head warned her that he knew she loved his touch, hungered for it and wanted more. Her heart, that soft voice that acted on feelings alone, told her that she loved Jake with a fierceness she’d never felt before, and that because it was such a new and overwhelming experience it was scaring her, making her overly cautious.