Kathleen Creighton: Secret Agent Sam

What surprised him-shocked him, actually-was the twisting he still felt in his guts when her name…her image…flashed through his mind. Not Amelia’s, of course.

Samantha.

Before Tony could reply, the door to the left of the windows opened and a man bustled in, showing tobacco-stained teeth in a wide, welcoming smile shaped like a lying-down half moon. He was of indeterminate age and ethnicity, with long salt-and-pepper hair pulled loosely back in a clubbed ponytail that left a halo of loose frizz around his broad, swarthy face. He wore rumpled light tan slacks and a Hawaiian-print shirt that hung unbuttoned over a dirty vest-type undershirt and a solid-looking mound of belly.

“Welcome to SEA Charters,” he said, slightly out of breath, in an accent that sounded vaguely Australian, adding, “Sounds like a boat business, dun’it? Stands for South East Asia. We pretty much cover the islands from here to New Zealand…Indonesia…anywhere you want to go. That’s our motto. Anywhere you want to go, we can get you there. I’m Will, by the way.” In what appeared to be a habitual gesture, and probably explained most of the dirt on the undershirt, he brushed his hand across his belly before thrusting it over the counter to shake first Cory’s hand, then Tony’s.

“I’m guessing you’re the reporters, right? Going to…” Still bustling, muttering under his breath, he dodged back behind the computer monitor, tapped some keys and bent over to peer at the screen. “Let’s see…” He glanced up, shaking his head as he whistled softly. “Not too many people going in there these days. Government warnings, you know. That province is in rebel hands. Well-off and on, anyways. Been a lot of government activity goin’ on up in those hills lately. ‘Government activity’-that’s a euphemism for fightin’, you know. They been warnin’ foreigners to stay away.”

“I was told you could fly us in.” Cory was fishing in his shirt pocket for the folded paper that contained his e-mail confirmation.

The other man waved it away with a fatalistic shrug. “Oh, yeah, we can get you there, that’s no problem.” His lips quirked and his eyes gleamed. “Getting you back could be, though.” Then the smile broadened into the half moon again, and his eyes narrowed into cheery little upside-down half moons to match. “Just kidding. Government always tends to exaggerate these things-you know how it goes.” He tilted his head toward the windows. “That’s your ride, right there, all gassed up and ready to go. So…lemme see…that was Visa, right? I’m just gonna need your card for a minute…”

While Cory was hauling out his wallet and extracting the plastic, Will pushed a sheet of paper across the counter toward him. “And if the two of you’ll just sign this waiver…” The half moons came out again. “Just a formality-since there is a government caution in effect. Nothin’ to it, really.”

Nothing to it, Cory thought as he scrawled his signature on the appropriate line at the bottom of the paper, except several hundred terrorists, a few-dozen tourist kidnappings, an occasional car bombing and a couple of missionaries held hostage for over a year.

He shoved the paper and pen toward Tony, who poked at them and tried not to look nervous.

“So, that’s our pilot?” Tony asked with a casual nod toward the windows as he pretended to study the paper. Cory cleared his throat and nudged him with his elbow.

Will looked up from making an old-fashioned slide impression of Cory’s credit card to beam at him. “Yep-she’s one of our best.”

“Wow, a woman, huh?” Tony was still fingering the pen.

Cory elbowed him in the ribs again and muttered, “Sign the damn thing, already. What’s the matter with you?”

“Like I said, one of our best.” Will brought the credit card slip to the counter and waited for Cory to sign it, after which he tore off and handed him his copy and tossed the other onto the cluttered desk.

“Okay, if you’ll come right this way, please.” He unhooked and folded up a section of countertop to let them through.

Cory tucked the credit card slip into his pocket and went to collect his bags. Tony, after hastily scrawling his signature on the waiver, did the same.

As they sidled through the door Will was holding for them-and tried not to gag as the heat assaulted them with renewed force-Will said in a chummy, confidential aside, “Hey, man, don’t you worry about Sam, there. The woman could probably put that bird down on a tennis court, providing you get the net out of her way.” He showed them his teeth and his half-moon eyes briefly as he pulled a cigarette pack from his shirt pocket, then turned away to light one.

For which courtesy Cory was intensely grateful. How would he have explained the look of blank shock that must have come over his face just then?

As it was, his step stumbled as if he’d taken a blow, and to cover it he paused briefly to shift his laptop carrier strap on his shoulder. When he continued on, there was a ringing sound in his ears.

Sam? Can’t be. Can’t be can’t be. In all this world, he told himself, there had to be more than one female pilot named Sam. Had to be.

A coincidence. A little quirk of fate.

Out on the shimmering runway, the pilot straightened and moved out of the wing’s shadow. Her movements were unhurried…lazy, even. She stood waiting for them to approach, attitude relaxed, even arrogant…hands clasped behind her, one knee slightly bent, one hip slightly canted…chin up, head tilted back.

How well he knew that stance. She’d stood just that way, he remembered, the first time he’d seen her, that day in the White House rose garden.

Her eyes, in the shadows beneath the bill of her cap, would be half-closed, he knew, measuring their approach with the cool appraisal of a well-trained sniper.

“God,” he whispered, not knowing whether or not it was a prayer.

Anger, joy, resentment, regret, pain, lust-all those things and others he couldn’t name-thumped deep in his belly and exploded through his brain like mortar rounds, leaving him reeling. Shell-shocked. Numb.

For which small favor he was fervently thankful. Because the numbness was the only thing that made it possible for him to continue to function. To walk up to her with a steady step, to nod and calmly say, with the coolest of smiles, “Hello, Sam. Small world.”

Oh, boy, thought Sammi June, I’ll bet he’s mad.

At least she told herself-half-hopefully-that he must be, and that, as determined as he might be to hide it from her, there would be telltale signs. A steely glint in his normally compassionate eyes, perhaps…those dark blue eyes, set deep behind the wire-rimmed glasses he almost always wore, eyes she’d always felt could see inside her soul…except, okay, right now his eyes were barely visible behind darkened lenses, but there was the tiny muscle flexing in the hinge of his jaw, the set of his mouth, the almost imperceptible hardening…

His mouth…normally so sensitive. So incredibly skilled. She remembered the way it felt like warm silk on her skin…sometimes. And at other times like liquid fire. And it tasted like…

No. I can’t. I can’t.

A thrill of excitement, of-God help her-anticipation shivered through her, astringent and heady as chilled wine.

“Helluva small world,” she replied easily, nodding at him. “Hello, Pearse.”

She thought it best not to offer him a hand to shake, since hers were cold as ice. Hoping he wouldn’t notice, she tucked them casually in her back pockets to warm them.

And saw the quick flicker of his eyes. Of course he’d notice. He was a reporter. He noticed everything. Especially if it had to do with her. He always had.