Desert Rose (16 page)

He held her, absently noting the sound of air–raid sirens in the distance and trying not to think of the next leg of their journey to freedom. If successful, it would end with their parting.

** ** **

Emma jerked awake to the sound of someone knocking on the bedroom door. David’s arm, resting across her midriff, tightened protectively around her. A moment later, he lifted his tousled head and looked at Emma.

"Someone’s at the door," she whispered.

He grunted and forced himself out of the bed. Snagging the towel he’d abandoned the night before, he secured it at his hips, crossed the room, and yanked open the door. Emma tugged the covers up to her chin and listened.

"You’ve got an hour and a half to dress and eat," Winston told David. "Canadian travel documents required to depart the country have been prepared for you. Read the documents and memorize the highlights. The ambassador’s barber will give you a trim, Major, and there are several wigs in the closet in the other bedroom for Miss Hamilton. Tell her to select the auburn bob so that it will match her documents."

"Then we’re leaving in the open?" David asked as he accepted a batch of papers from the security officer.

Winston nodded. "The less subterfuge, the better. The airport guards, security police, and immigration officials are less likely to challenge you that way. Any questions?"

"None. We’ll be ready."

Emma watched the two men shake hands. She wondered if they would ever see Mr. Winston again, but she doubted it. She sensed that he was the kind of man who preferred to remain in the shadows.

David closed the door and turned to Emma as she drew herself up into a seated position against the headboard. The rumpled sheets had snagged at her hips, and the sight of her full, pink–tipped breasts and sleek belly almost made him groan aloud.

He glanced down at the top page of the sheaf of documents he held. "Feel like pretending to be Charlotte Truesdale from Toronto today?"

"I’ll pretend to be a rabbit popping out of a magician’s hat if it’ll get us home." She flipped back the covers and scooted across the bed.

Moving quickly, she exposed those long, shapely legs he adored—legs that he immediately imagined parting and encircling his hips as he sank into the tight wet heat of her body. With tremendous effort he again redirected his gaze to the documents he held while Emma strolled naked into the bathroom.

He shaved before spending five minutes with the barber, who gave him a quick trim. For her part, Emma hurriedly showered. David took his turn in the shower while she applied light make–up, plaited her hair and pinned the braids into a coronet, and then donned the auburn wig. Both were quiet as she slipped into a simple gray silk dress and low pumps, and he dressed in a conservative suit, crisp white shirt, dark tie, and highly–polished dress shoes.

David stored his flight suit and boots in the false bottom of a small suitcase he found in the closet, then added toiletries and miscellaneous items of casual clothing from the bureau in the bedroom they’d used before he zipped it closed.

When they stepped into the sitting room, breakfast awaited them in chafing dishes that had been arranged on the bar that separated the suite’s kitchenette from the dining table. Emma barely tasted her food, but she managed to drink a glass of orange juice and eat a small bowl of hot cereal while she perused the paperwork supplied by Mr. Winston.

David ate with the appetite of a condemned man consuming his last meal as he scanned his portion of the documents. She sensed that it would take more time for him to believe that he would eat regularly again. One of the hazards, she decided, of being imprisoned for several months and wondering if he would ever know freedom or a decent meal again.

"Are you ready?" David asked a little while later as they stood at the door of the suite.

Emma paled, but she squared her shoulders and met his gaze. "Yes."

He dropped a hard kiss on her lips. "We’ll make it, Emma."

She nodded, and then flashed him a quick, strained smile. "No other option, is there?"

He pulled open the door, slid his free arm around her shoulders, and guided her into the hallway. From there they descended a staircase to the central reception lobby of the embassy building. Both knew without discussing it that their departure from the Canadian Embassy would place them in harm’s way yet again.

Once their luggage was loaded into the trunk of an armor–plated limo from the embassy’s fleet of vehicles, they departed the compound with two other Canadian diplomats. Their deliberate visibility and conversational exchanges with their fellow passengers declared to any observer that they were simply visiting Canadian diplomats with nothing whatsoever to hide. In short, their successful flight from the country hinged upon their ability to bluff by giving the performances of a lifetime. The alternative: death by firing squad or globally televised beheadings.

Two members of Winston’s armed security team, the driver and the man riding shotgun in the front passenger seat, focused their attention on the crowded roadway, as well as on the embassy vehicle that preceded them and the one that followed in their wake. Hard–looking, vigilant men, neither one spoke as they wended their way out of the city.

On the advice of the ambassador, who’d wished them a safe trip after he’d shaken hands with David and accepted a hug of thanks from Emma, they performed their roles as mid–level diplomats. David gripped Emma’s hand throughout the journey to the airport.

Their role–playing continued as they entered the sprawling airport complex. They chatted with their fellow passengers through encounters with armed soldiers at various vehicle and document check–points, finally making their way into the international cargo terminal almost an hour later. It was an ear–splitting and congested building populated by a variety of nationalities, all of whom seemed inclined to speak at once.

Forty–five minutes later Emma could barely contain her shock that they’d outwitted the airport officials with their false papers and their pretense of membership in the Canadian diplomatic community. Sinking into one of several metal seats that lined opposite sides of the aircraft’s cargo hold, she buckled her seatbelt and exhaled a sigh of relief.

David joined her a few minutes later, quickly securing his seatbelt. She felt him settle back into his seat as the aircraft began to lumber down the runway. Glancing at him, she noticed the grim expression on his face and felt the tension still rolling off of him in waves. She didn’t question him, because she sensed that the true definition of freedom for him would be the airspace beyond the border of this hellhole of a country.

When David didn’t look at her or speak to her during the entire flight to an Israeli military base, Emma told herself it was because of the excessive noise of the cargo plane’s engines. She did attempt to engage him in conversation after they changed planes and boarded an American military aircraft dispatched to fly them to Germany, but he shook his head and remained unresponsive.

A lump of dread settled in her chest as the plane took off and eventually reached level flight. Without a word of warning, David unbuckled his safety belt and left his seat. He made his way to the cockpit to join the flight crew, abandoning her to the attentions of an enlisted man who supplied her with multiple cups of coffee, snacks, and a warm blanket.

Hurt and bewildered, Emma didn’t understand David’s withdrawal from her, which extended throughout the long flight. She felt unmoored, like a tiny piece of flotsam subjected to the vagaries of a turbulent sea. Even when he returned to sit beside her for their landing in Germany, he remained uncommunicative.

He silently escorted her from the airplane to a helicopter for the fifteen minute ride from Rhein Main Air Force Base to the American Hospital at Wiesbaden. She learned from the helicopter’s crew chief, a burly sergeant with kind eyes and a gruff manner, that it was the first destination of most American citizens, military and civilians alike, who’d been injured or held against their wills in the Middle East before transition to the United States.

She stared at David as he turned to her once the helicopter touched down on the grounds of the hospital. "Take care, babe. I’ll… I’ll see you." His hungry gaze swept over her face—as though to memorize each and every feature—as though he might never see her again.

Even more alarmed now, she grabbed his arm as he began to move away from her. "What are you doing?"

He hesitated and then hunkered back down in front of her. Gripping her hands, he tightened his hold when she tried to free herself. "What’s best for you, Emma."

"You haven’t said a word to me since we left the embassy. Was that
best
for me, too?"

He flinched. Then, he nodded.

The expression on his face was so bleak, Emma very nearly wept. "David, I don’t understand what’s going on, and it’s obvious you’re not willing to tell me. You’re making an impossible situation even worse, and I don’t know why. When your brain starts working again, you owe me an explanation." She broke off then, unable to continue as a surfeit of emotions closed her throat.

He cupped her cheek with his broad palm, his thumb tracing the width of her lower lip. Tears swam in her brilliant blue eyes. He muttered a harsh word, withdrew his hand, and surged up to his feet. And then he turned away from her for the second time in as many minutes.

Too stunned to move, Emma watched him exit the helicopter, pause to salute the American flag rippling in the breeze on a nearby flagpole, and greet the cluster of Marine Corps officers waiting nearby.

She instinctively reached out to him as he walked away from her. She saw him stiffen and then pause in mid–stride. She held her breath, praying that he would turn around and come back to her. But he resumed that long–legged stride of his, spine stiff and hands fisted at his sides as he moved farther and farther away from her. Then, he disappeared from sight.

Her hand dropped into her lap. She sucked in a sharp breath, fighting to steady herself.

The frowning crew chief freed her from her shoulder harness, gently helped her to her feet, and patted her shoulder. "It’ll be alright, Miss."

She met the man’s sympathetic gaze, her own still reflecting her shock. "I don’t think so."

Despair lodged like a boulder in her chest. Emma wanted to scream herself hoarse and then pummel something with her fists. She did neither. Instead, she gathered her wits, summoned her pride, and jumped down from the helicopter with the crew chief’s assistance.

Waiting for her was a team composed of various medical personnel. An orderly hustled her into a wheelchair, despite her repeated assurances that she was perfectly capable of walking on her own. The man wheeled her into a state of the art medical facility, everyone around her chattering about her ordeal.

A physician informed her that she would undergo physical and psychological examinations before she left the hospital to resume her journey home. No one said a word about Major David Winslow of the United States Marine Corps. And with every surreal moment that passed, Emma struggled to understand why he had abandoned her.

Despite a taxing day of travel, medical tests, an interview with the hospital’s psychologist, and a lengthy phone conversation with her parents, Emma couldn’t sleep. She slouched against the pillows plumped behind her, the covers drawn up to her waist, and she stared into the semi–darkness.

The quiet of Freedom Hall, the section of the hospital reserved for newly liberated Americans in transit to the United States, seemed deafening in contrast to the violent sounds she’d grown accustomed to during her imprisonment.

Emma loathed the isolation of her private hospital room. And she ached for David, which made her feel pathetic and stupid when she forced herself to recall his apparent change of heart now that they were free.

Emma reminded herself yet again that being free—of actually being able to resume her life—should have been enough of a blessing for her, but she knew she was lying to herself every time the thought crossed her mind. It wasn’t enough. It never would be. The feelings of grief that had built up inside of her throughout the day persisted, leaving her with a shattered heart and a distrust of her own instincts.

How could she have been so wrong about David? She sank lower onto the bed and closed her eyes, her mind racing a hundred miles a second as she tried to make sense of what had happened.

How, she wondered, could he have told her he loved her and then treated her with such casual disregard? After what they’d survived together, why had he retreated into himself and then walked away from her without even a backward glance? She closed her hands into fists, struggling not to surrender to the urge to wail like a wounded animal.

"Why? Someone please tell me why?" she whispered, hot tears seeping from her eyes. "I don’t… understand."

Frustrated with herself, she swiped at her tears. She pressed a button on the bed’s control panel, wincing against the faint illumination provided by the light on the wall behind her bed. She lifted her hands to her temples and massaged the throbbing area with her fingertips. When the pain failed to abate, she decided to make her way to the nurse’s station down the hall and ask for some aspirin.

Straightening, she threw back the covers and slid to the edge of the bed, but she went perfectly still when the door to her room swung open.

David stood in the doorway.

The shock of his sudden appearance made her heart pound like a jackhammer. Emma remained poised on the edge of the bed, staring at him in disbelief.

He stepped into the room, shut and locked the door, and then moved toward her. He paused less than a foot away, his expression intent as he studied her. "How are you feeling?" he asked after a long minute of contemplation.

Her temper ignited, sarcasm and anger edging her voice when she spoke. "Terrific! Couldn’t be better, Major. But I’m not your problem any longer, so you can leave now."

"You couldn’t be a problem even if you tried."

She heard his fatigue, but she steeled herself against responding to it. "What do you want?"