Patricia Potter (48 page)

Perhaps Lisa was stronger than she thought. But was anyone strong at twenty, and twenty-two? She hadn’t been. She had thought she was. She had thought herself strong and indestructible and even wise. And she had been so wrong.

Meara had wanted to die those weeks and even months after Easter. Only the baby and Sanders had kept her alive. But she had lost all confidence in herself, and it had stayed lost for a long time.

She couldn’t let that happen to Lisa. She couldn’t destroy Lisa’s world. She couldn’t let Lisa know she had been lied to all these years by both herself and the father she’d loved so completely.

Lies. How easily they took over a life until they almost became truth.

“You look lovely, darling,” she said at last.

Lisa looked nervous. “There’s going to be so many important people there—diplomats, economists….”

“They’ll think you’re enchanting,” Meara said softly, meeting Lisa’s surprised and grateful look. Had she been so stingy on compliments, in talking to Lisa?

“You don’t think this dress makes me look too young?”

“No,” Meara said. “I think you look perfect.”

“I don’t know what time I’ll be home,” Lisa said a little awkwardly, and Meara knew she was being asked not to question Kurt Weimer about that topic.

“Lisa,” Meara said suddenly. “You will be careful, won’t you. He’s…different from the men you know.”

Lisa’s eyes shone in a way that Meara didn’t like at all.

“I know, but he’s been a perfect gentleman. And he’s exciting. Imagine someone like that being…interested in me.”

That, Meara was afraid, was part of the attraction. She had wondered the same thing with Michael Fielding. How could someone so attractive and experienced be interested in her? Well, she had found out. He’d needed her, needed her contacts. Just as Kurt Weimer needed Lisa for some reason of his own.

“Just make sure he continues to be the perfect gentlemen,” Meara warned.

“I will. I have no intention of getting involved with anyone. Not until I finish school. But he
is
fascinating.”

Just then the bell rang, and Meara slowly went to the door, wondering how she could keep the aversion and dislike from her eyes.

Kurt Weimer was breathtakingly handsome in formal clothes. He bowed slightly in a European manner, or what Meara thought was a European manner.

“Mrs. Evans,” he said smoothly with a smile. “Is Lisa ready?”

Meara nodded, turning away before he could see the cold hostility in her eyes. She went over to Lisa, touching her lightly. She wanted to grab Lisa, to hold her away from this…intruder. But she merely said “Good night.”

Then they were gone, and she felt herself crumpling into a ball on the sofa. How could she? Dear God, how could she let Lisa leave with the man? Cold chills ran through her until she shook.

She couldn’t do it. She started for the door, opening it, ready to go after them. As she opened it, Michael was standing there, tall and strong, his eyes serious and concerned, his mouth grim.

“She’ll be all right,” he promised. “I swear she’ll be all right.”

He’d known. He’d known exactly how she felt. She looked up at him, knowing her heart was in her eyes, and he opened his arms and pulled her against him. “She’ll be all right,” he said again, and, God help her, she believed him.

He stayed for several hours, talking. After the initial embrace, he very carefully kept his distance, sitting in a chair away from hers. He was there, she knew, to keep her from going crazy, from doing something that might ruin everything.

He talked about Seattle, his business. About everything but their common past.

He made them some coffee, several pots, and they drank them all, the act of bringing a cup to lips a distraction against what they both feared, a defense against moving together.

Chris sprawled in his chair, his mind every bit as frantic as he knew Meara’s must be. He had nearly gone crazy earlier in the afternoon. He had slowly walked up and down the street at the time he expected Weimer, and had watched the man come and leave…with Lisa. With his daughter. He had to restrain himself from charging the man, from killing him then and there.

He had been a bundle of erupting violence when he bounded up to Meara’s door. Her white face, her shaking body, had stunned him to the point he could only open his arms to her. She had felt so good in them. For a few moments until she had jerked back, wariness still in her eyes. But she hadn’t asked him to leave. She needed him. As much as he needed her.

He had to fight himself. Every minute he had to fight himself. He wanted to touch her, to hold her, to comfort her, to comfort himself. But he had taken advantage of her before, and he wouldn’t do it again. He might be no wiser now in wanting something he couldn’t have, no less susceptible to her, but he had learned control. Dear God, how he had learned control.

So he soothed with neutral words, with neutral actions, although every part of his mind and soul ached for more.

They talked, almost as friends, but not quite. There was always the sharp sword there between them, a reminder of past hurts and past betrayal, and past pain.

He often found her gaze on him, steady and searching, trying, he guessed, to decide whether or not to trust him. And every time she did so, he felt emotion slamming through him, his body tensing with almost unbearable need.

She was so pretty. So soft and pretty, with the red gold hair feathering around her face and the green eyes so vulnerable and her lips red and swollen from where she had bit them. She had curled her legs under her body, and she looked like a girl, like the girl who once sat that way on the beach happy and carefree. How he wanted to give those two things back to her.

Searching almost desperately to break the leaden, taut silence, Meara asked the question she had been asking herself for years. “What’s your real name?”

“Eric.” There was a rough uncertain edge in his voice. He didn’t want the reminder. But he owed it to her. He owed that and much more. “Eric von Steimen.”

“Eric,” she tried, lifting her eyes to meet his directly. “It suits you.” It did. He had once seemed a blond God to her, and the Viking image fit him well. Sailor. Raider. Warrior.

“I haven’t heard it for a long time,” he said, almost wonderingly.

“Your family…?”

“My father died in the early days of the war,” he said, his voice suddenly harsh. “My mother and younger brother died in the bombing. They thought I had died here. A German hero.” The last comment was bitter and self-mocking. “She was Canadian—that’s one reason I was selected, that and the fact I spoke English perfectly because of her. She was trapped in Germany, and they used her as a weapon against me. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.”

Meara stared at him, hearing the frustrated helplessness in his voice.

“Why…Christopher Chandler?”

He smiled, a tight, grim smile without humor. “A tombstone. Now that
was
something I learned in Admiral Canaris’s little spy school…how to obtain a new identity. Find the grave of a child. There’s usually a birth certificate available, and then you can get any kind of identification you require.” Self-loathing was evident in his voice as he recited the procedure as if by rote.

Meara absorbed each piece of information, weighing the cold words against the swift emotions moving across his face. She was amazed that they were there; they had seldom been there in the past.

“How did you get away that night?”

He didn’t want to answer. He didn’t want her to know he had planned everything. But he was through lying.

“There was a fishing boat I’d found earlier. When I was in St. Simons with Sanders, I purchased a small motor. After the…explosion, I swam to the other end of the island and reached it.”

Meara closed her eyes, remembering the fiery explosion. “I…thought…”

He flinched against the sound of her voice. Grief was still in it. Grief for him, even after she’d learned about him.

“I…wanted to die too,” she continued in a small voice.

Spasms shook him. He looked down and his hand was shaking, but he couldn’t stop it. He fought for breath that was caught somewhere in his throat. Revulsion at what he had done to her, the memories he had made her live with, swamped him. He wanted to hold out his hand to her, but he couldn’t. Even if he did, she’d have every right and reason to knock it away.

Saying he was sorry wasn’t enough. Nothing would ever be enough. But perhaps by helping her now, by helping Lisa, he could mitigate some of the terrible injury he had done her.

He looked at her levelly. “Do you want me to go?”

“Yes…no…I don’t know,” Meara said. And she didn’t. He offered strength and power at the moment, strength she badly needed, yet he still sent her senses spiraling in storm-tossed confusion. She would always look at him and, under that stoic handsome facade, see something else, something she didn’t know if she could ever accept.

“I think I do,” he said softly as he rose. “Call me if you need anything.”

“Do you really think she’ll be all right?” Meara said. “The thought of him touching her—”

“The agency I hired specializes in protection,” he replied softly. “We’ll get him. I don’t know exactly how yet, but we will. And Lisa is bright and sensible.”

“I thought I was too,” Meara said wistfully and without malice.

The words were like a razor to him, shredding skin away piece by piece, as he realized she was comparing him with Weimer.

Well, she had no reason not to.

“Good night,” he said carefully, not wanting to show how much her words, intended or not, had wounded. “I’ll call you if I hear anything.”

She nodded, not rising from the sofa, sitting there blankly as she heard the door close behind him. Don’t go, she said silently. Please don’t go.

But it was too late.

Lisa felt like Cinderella. It had been an exciting, stimulating, thrilling evening, and Kurt Weimer was her prince.

She had never felt quite as pretty as when he leaned over and whispered compliments in her ear, his soft breath intimate as it brushed her skin. She was the loveliest woman in the room, he’d said.

She couldn’t help it, but she was swept up by the power here. Economists and diplomats from around the world stopped at their table, their greetings respectful when directed at Kurt and flattering when addressed to her. Kurt translated, and it was quite obvious that he spoke several languages fluently.

This was one of the few formal occasions of the conference, he had told her, and was hosted by the U.S. State Department. Most of the other women there were wives of American hosts and delegates.

There were formal toasts and the food was exquisite, each course served with a different wine. Baked Alaska climaxed the elaborate meal. Entertainment included a Broadway star who sang a selection of Rodgers and Hammerstein songs, and finally an orchestra for dancing.

When Kurt first asked her to dance, she felt a flurry of fear that she might embarrass him, but he was a superb dancer, graceful and powerful, and she found herself more comfortable than she had ever been on the dance floor. He was incredibly easy to follow. When she looked up at him, his eyes were warm and admiring, his mouth smiling.

“Happy?” he asked as he led them back to the table after one dance.

“Hummmm,” she murmured, her mind still whirling like a dervish.

He held the chair out for her as she sat, and excused himself for a moment. “There’s someone I must see a moment,” he said, his eyes lingering on her face a moment before leaving.

Lisa glanced around the table. She was the only woman among the eight. The others included five economists and an executive from the
Wall Street Journal,
and he had interested her more than the others although Kurt had claimed most of her attention. The newsman was heavyset with alert eyes and a lively sense of humor.

“A delightful picture,” he observed. “You look like you’d been dancing together all your lives.”

Lisa blushed. “He’s a very good dancer.”

“Ah, but he can’t do it alone.”

“No,” Lisa admitted with a gleam of humor as she considered Kurt dancing by himself in the middle of the room.

“Perhaps you would honor me with a dance?” he said, “although I have to warn you that my feet are not nearly as light as Mr. Weimer’s.”

“I think I’ll risk it,” she said, unable to refuse his good-natured invitation.

He was much lighter than he looked, and a much better dancer than his words, and Lisa found herself enjoying his thoroughly disrespectful monologue as he discussed the recent toasts. “International cooperation, indeed,” he chuckled. “Given a chance they would all cut each other’s throats for a deutsche mark or a pound or a franc. They’re here to discover how to outwit each other.”

“You’re a cynic, Mr. Taylor.”

“Ah yes, a necessity of my trade, lovely lady. And how did Mr. Weimer happen to find you?”

“I live here.”

“Ah, he has a fine eye for opportunity.”

Lisa leaned back. “I don’t know if I exactly like…that choice of words.”