A Summer Smile

10

Zilah had nearly reached the meadow of wild poppies when she heard the hoofbeats. She didn’t halt or look behind her even when she heard Daniel shouting her name.

Then he was almost on top of her. “Zilah, if you don’t stop, I’m going to have to try to scoop you up like one of those blasted movie heros. You know what a lousy rider I am. We’ll probably both end up in the dirt on our asses.”

“Go away. I can’t talk now.” Her voice was still unsteady though the sobs that had shaken her had finally ceased. “I’ll see you later. I want to be alone.”

“The hell you do,” Daniel said grimly. “You can just cut out the Garbo bit. There’s no way I’m going to let you out of my sight until we get this straightened out. Now, are you going to stop or do I scoop?”

“Daniel, I…” He’d do it. She knew he would. She had seen that bulldog tenacity in action before. Oh, God, she wasn’t going to be able to bear this. She stopped, trying desperately to maintain her delicately balanced control. “Please go away, Daniel.”

He had reined in Dancing Lady and was swinging off the mare. “I can’t do that,” he said simply. “Any more than I can let you go. Ask me anything but that.”

“Your responsibility is over. Hassan has been captured. I’m well again. There’s no reason for you to pretend any longer.”

“Pretend!” His hand grasped her shoulders and he gave her a shake. His eyes were blazing in his white face. “I don’t know how to play games like that. I never learned. I don’t want to learn.”

“You played a fairly intricate one with me,” she said. “You’re obviously not as amateurish at it as you’d have me believe.” She shook her head wearily. “I don’t want to argue. It doesn’t solve anything. I understand why you had to keep me here, Daniel, and I’m not blaming you. You told me Alex Ben Raschid wanted the terrorists. It was very clever of you to use me as a decoy.”

“Decoy? You think I kept you here as a lure for Hassan and his men?”

“Pandora said there was no medical reason for me to be here.” Zilah’s eyes were fixed on the top button of his shirt. She would not start weeping again. “You made the last ten days very pleasurable for me. I’m only sorry I forced you into that situation last night. I didn’t understand.”

Daniel uttered a round of unprintable words that caused her eyes to lift swiftly to his face.

“Come on.” He led her a few paces away from the mare. “Sit down. This may take a while. I’ve never heard such a bunch of bull in my life.” His hands on her shoulders forced her to her knees. He knelt beside her. “Now, I’m going to take this point by point and try to pound some sense into your head. It’s either that or I’m going to go bananas. First, why do you think I wanted you here to use you as bait? Didn’t it ever occur to you there could be another reason?”

“What other reason could there be?” Zilah was staring blindly over his shoulder. “It was a very clever move. Clancy must be pleased with you.”

“For your information, Clancy threatened to nail my ass for keeping you here.”

“He didn’t agree with your plan?” she asked dully. “Well, you proved him wrong, didn’t you?”

“There wasn’t a plan, dammit.” His voice was as exasperated as his expression. “I didn’t have any plan but keeping you with me as long as I could get away with it.”

“You don’t have to spare my feelings. I know you don’t feel anything for me but friendship. You’ve never behaved as anything other than a very kind older brother all the time I’ve been here.” Her lips tightened with pain. “Until I forced myself on you last night.”

“I think one of us is going crazy.” Daniel’s expression was stunned. “For God’s sake, look at me. I’m twice your size and weight. You’re speaking as if you held me down and raped me. I wasn’t exactly fighting you off, was I?”

She shook her head miserably. “You were very kind. You’re always ki-”

“Kind!” It was almost a roar. “Are you blind? I went out of my head loving you last night. I get excited just looking at you. I’ve been one big ache for the last ten days.”

Her eyes widened uncertainly. “Is that true? Then why have you been so…”

“Because when you had that fever you looked at me as if I were some kind of monster. It scared the hell out of me.” His lips were a flat line of remembered pain. “I couldn’t risk your ever looking at me like that again. It hurt too damn much.”

“You felt sorry for me,” she whispered.

His breath released explosively. “Okay, let’s go into that question of pity. The very idea seems to blow you sky high. You’re damned right I pity you.”

“Well, you can stop right now.” She lifted her chin. “I don’t want your pity any more than you wanted mine that night in the cave.”

“I can’t cut it off just because you don’t want it,” he said. “It exists. It nearly ripped my heart out when I heard what happened to you. I wanted to commit murder. Then I wanted to pick you up and put you in a glass case, where no one could ever hurt you again.” His hands tightened on her shoulders. “No, not a glass case. I wanted to create a brand new world for you. A world where there was only sunshine and flowers. A place where children would never know pain or hunger or any of the twisted horrors that you did.” His eyes were glistening as they looked into her own. “But I can’t do that. I have to accept the world just as you do. I can only try to protect and care for you now. To make your world as beautiful as I can today and tomorrow.” He shook his head. “But don’t ask me not to pity you, or at least the child you were, Zilah.”

“Will you stop talking about it!” The tears were running down her cheeks again. “I never wanted that. There’s only one thing I ever wanted from you.”

He went still. “And what’s that, Zilah?”

“Never mind.” She tried to shrug his hands from her shoulders. “I don’t want to talk anymore. Please, let me go, Daniel.”

His grip tightened, quelling her resistance. “What did you want from me, Zilah?”

“I wanted you to love me,” she burst out. “Wasn’t that stupid? I wanted your love, not your damn pity.”

His expression was stunned. “What the hell are you talking about? Of course I love you. What do you think all this means?”

“I know you care about me as a friend,” she said huskily. “I want more. I tried to be satisfied with the other, but it’s not enough.”

“Lord, you’re muddle-headed.” His hands left her shoulders and moved up to frame her face. His exasperation was suddenly gone and his expression held such exquisite tenderness that it caused her heart to flutter. “Listen carefully. I will love you as a friend, as a mistress, and as the mother of my future children. I will love you through rain and storm and sunshine. I will love you through peace and war and everything in between. I’ve loved you for so long that it seems forever, and I will love you beyond forever.” He smiled gently. “Is that clear, love?”

Her eyes were misty and uncertain. “Truly?”

“Truly.” He shook his head ruefully. “How could I help but love you? You’re everything any man could want. Why the hell do you persist in doubting it? You’re quite a woman, Zilah Dabala.”

Joy was beginning to spread tentative golden tendrils through her. Daniel loved her. It was too wonderful to believe. Yet how could she help believing when he was looking at her like that? “I know I am.” She smiled shakily. “Only, sometimes, I forget.”

“Why do you forget?” Daniel asked, his expression grave and intent. “Why, Zilah?”

She bit her lip. “It’s part of what happened to me I guess.” She shrugged. “In spite of all the psychiatrist’s soothing words, there are times when I still feel the dirtiness.” She paused. “And the guilt.”

“Guilt?” he asked, astonished. “For God’s sake, you were a victim. An innocent victim of an atrocious crime. Would you feel guilt if you had been shot or stabbed?”

She smiled a little sadly. “But you see, it’s the very nature of the crime that instills the guilt. I know it’s unreasonable. I don’t know whether it’s a reflection of society’s attitude or some holdover from a time when women preferred ‘death before dishonor.’” She looked up at him soberly. “You say you love me, but can you honestly say that you wouldn’t rather I had been wounded by a bullet than forced to spend six months at the House of the Yellow Door?”

“You’re damn right I can.” He was silent a moment as if searching for words. “No, that’s not true.” She inhaled sharply as if he’d struck her. “Dammit, don’t look like that. I didn’t mean that I looked on your experience as any personal affront to me. I only meant that a bullet wouldn’t have left an open festering wound as this has done. That it might have been easier for you. Not because of any so-called stigma.”

“But then, you’re an extraordinary man, Daniel.” She shook her head. “I’ve had to accept the fact that a good many people don’t feel the way you do.”

“Then they’re fools,” Daniel said harshly. “And so are you if you pay any attention to them.” He kissed her with a gentleness that was as beautiful as his words were rough. Joy again, blossoming, growing. She could almost accept it. He lifted his head, and when he spoke his voice was no longer harsh. It was deep and uneven and it rang with absolute truth. “Why should I find anything repulsive in what happened to you other than the pain itself? That experience is part of what made you what you are today. Do you know something? There’s no question that I would have loved the girl you might have been without that experience. But, somehow, I’m not sure I would have loved her as much. You’re stronger, deeper, wiser for what happened to you. It may have hurt you, but it also made you more gentle and sensitive to other people’s pain.” He had to stop for a moment before he could go on. “Do you remember what you told me about the poppy and how you had learned to accept the knowledge that it could also bring darkness and pain?”

She nodded slowly.

“You’re like that poppy, Zilah. The stream of darkness only served to make you more hardy to endure the buffeting of the winds. It only made your blossoms brighter and more beautiful.”

Her heart was so full that for a time she couldn’t speak. He had said that he wasn’t like David Bradford, but in that moment it was as if David were speaking. How lucky she was to have two such men in her life. “You do love me.” There was a touch of wonder in her voice. Then as he frowned she held up her hand and grinned. “Sorry. You’re right. I’m positively wonderful. I deserve to have everyone in the whole cockeyed world love me.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “But oh, I’m so glad that you do. Is it all right if I say that?”

“As long as you accompany it with a little declaration of your own,” he said gruffly. “I have a few insecurities myself.”

Her expression was stricken. “Oh, Lord, I didn’t say it, did I? But you had to know. I practically threw myself at you last night.”

“Women, on occasion, have been known to crave my irresistible physique without being in love with me.” His dark blue eyes were twinkling. “Not many, you understand. I can count them on one-”

He broke off as she flew into his arms. “I love you.” Her arms were hugging him with a force that took his breath. “I love you so much. I never thought I could love anyone the way I do you, Daniel. I’ve loved you ever since you tore off that silly false ear on the plane and threw it at Hassan.” Her lips were brushing swift, frantic kisses over his throat, his bearded cheeks, his ears. “Sometimes I thought I couldn’t stand it when you were being so platonic. Not that it wasn’t beautiful too, but…”

“Okay. Okay.” He was chuckling, but as he pushed her away she could see that his eyes were suspiciously bright. “When you make a declaration, you don’t spare the horses.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “And I thought I did the platonic bit very well, considering I was going through the fires of hell trying to keep you on a pedestal and out of my bed.”

“Pedestal.” Her smile faded slightly. “I have an idea we’ve been having a massive communication breakdown.” Her face was suddenly thoughtful. “I have no use for that glass case you wanted to put me in, Daniel. I don’t melt in the rain and I don’t break with a little rough handling. In spite of all your fine words about how strong I am, I don’t think you really understand that. I’ve had years of being looked after as though I were so fragile that a breath would blow me away. It was all done for the best of reasons and perhaps I needed it at first.” She shook her head. “But not now. You’ve been whipping yourself because you thought you were so rough and selfish with me that night in the cave.” She touched his lips with a trembling finger. “Don’t you realize how I treasured that night? You were everything that was strong and true, and yet you needed me. You didn’t take anything from me that night. I gave and it was wonderful. I want to keep on giving.” Her words were just above a whisper. “Don’t shut me away in your dream world of sunshine and flowers. I want to live in the real world. Because that’s where you live, Daniel. And I couldn’t live in a world without you, no matter how beautiful it was.”

“The real world,” he agreed huskily. “For the rest of our lives. But don’t be too generous with your giving, love. I may take too much. I’ve never needed anyone this much before. I’m not sure I know how to handle it.”

She pulled his head down to kiss him with loving tenderness. “I’ll handle-” She broke off and slowly shook her head. “No, we’ll handle it. Together.” She smiled at him. It was the summer smile he loved so much. Wise and warm with the sweet promise of joy and fulfillment to come.

A gust of wind stirred. It touched their cheeks with fresh coolness and brought with it the intoxicating scent of poppies and wild grass…and a sunrise world newly reborn from the darkness.