Kathleen Creighton: Secret Agent Sam

Sam glanced back at him as he stepped through the radio operator’s compartment, lips curving in a smug little Sammi June smile he remembered well. He couldn’t see her eyes because of her sunglasses. He wished he could have seen them, though he wasn’t sure why. Was he remembering the way they’d once lit up at the sight of him, wondering if the glasses were hiding that same glow now?

Wishful thinking, he told himself.

She tilted her head toward the right-hand seat. “Hey, Pearse-have a seat.”

He eased past the controls and settled himself gingerly, his fascinated gaze sliding over the bewildering array of gauges and levers and dials to the view through the wide rectangular windshield. “Wow,” he said.

Sam said lightly, “I guess this is a first.” She threw him a smile. “You’ve never flown with me before.”

“With you at the controls, you mean. No,” he said, gazing once more at the hazy horizon, remembering other times when she’d seemed unknowingly to echo his thoughts. “I guess not.”

There was a pause before she asked, with a slight edge of impatience, “Well, what do you think?”

He hedged, naturally, since there wasn’t any way he could have told her the truth. Which was that he’d lost the ability to think the moment he’d set eyes on her, standing there beside the old World War Two airplane, wearing the arrogance that had always captivated him so, that was like her very own signature perfume.

In that first moment, the years since he’d last seen her had evaporated and it was as if she’d never been gone from his life or his mind, not for an instant. It was all there, in total recall-her face, her body, her voice, her laugh…the way her skin felt, its texture and heat…its softness and its tiny imperfections…the freckles, the way she smelled, the way her hands felt touching him…the way she tasted.

“Of the airplane,” he dryly asked, “or you?”

She laughed, that husky chortle he’d always liked. “The plane, of course.” Once again her smile quirked sideways. “Me being a pilot isn’t exactly news.”

“I never had a problem with you being a pilot. You know that.”

“Yeah, right. ”

He shifted in his seat and changed the timbre of his voice, the way driving a car he might have shifted gears to gain traction through a muddy patch. “Somehow I never would have pictured you flying World War Two prop planes for a dumpy little back-water charter outfit in the Philippines, though. The last I heard, you were crewing on passenger jets to China. How in the hell did you wind up here?” He let go of an incredulous huff of laughter. “I’m still trying to get my mind around the coincidence of that.”

She shrugged and said lightly, “Long story,” as she reached to tap some dials and gauges, an activity that, as far as Cory could tell, produced no changes whatsoever in the plane’s behavior.

“We’ve got time.”

Sam felt herself tensing up; she couldn’t help it. It was the calm, almost gentle way he said it that got to her-hadn’t it always?

As the old resentment flared, she fought the urge to glare at him, kept her eyes fixed on the horizon and said sweetly, “I don’t know, I guess it must have been my ‘childish lust for adventure.’ Isn’t that what you called it?”

And she couldn’t help the little glow of satisfaction she got from the silence that followed, even though voices were hissing and moaning in dismay in the back of her mind. Ooh, what did you wanna go and say that for, Samantha June? You don’t wanna dredge up all that old stuff again. That’s water under the bridge, honey-child…you should just leave it be.

She could feel his eyes on her again, that quiet, steady gaze that made her squirm because it seemed it must see right inside her.

“You could have warned me,” he said mildly.

Now she looked at him, her lips curving in an evil grin. “Deprive myself of the look on your face when you saw who your pilot was? No way.”

He chuckled and shook his head, and his eyes found hers even through the shielding lenses of her sunglasses. “Same old Sammi June. Always got to be on top.”

Something thumped hard in her belly. She kept the smile, but it no longer felt like part of her face. More like the clay mask again. “You used to like that about me.”

He held her eyes for a long, intense, awful moment, then eased his shoulders back in the copilot’s seat and exhaled, sounding weary. “I used to like a lot of things about you, Sam.”

Damn you, Pearse. Damn Will, too, for requesting me for this assignment. And damn me for being stupid-no, arrogant-enough to think I could handle it. What was I thinking?

What were you thinking, Sam? How about that you’re a highly trained professional, with the skills and guts it takes to do this job?

So, do it already. Focus, Sam. Do your job. So you had an affair with the man once upon a time. Forget it.

An affair. She cringed at the word. It made the whole thing with Cory sound…frivolous. Fleeting. Bittersweet and nostalgic-rather old-fashioned, really. Like something you’d read about in an old diary.

But it wasn’t just an “affair,” dammit. I loved you, Cory Pearson. You were the love of my life. And you broke my heart. No-you tore out my heart, tore it into itty-bitty pieces and stomped them in the dirt! God, how I hate you for that.

She did-oh, she did. But most of all she hated that she’d never known if she’d succeeded in hurting him back. She’d tried-you’d better believe she’d tried-but if she had managed to hurt him, he’d never let her see it. Not once.

And for that, more than anything, I swear I am never gonna forgive you.

She cleared her throat, took a deep breath. “Look, Pearse…I know this is probably awkward for you-”

“Awkward?” She heard the smile in his voice, and irony that was gentle, not bitter. “Like… hell is awkward, you mean?”

So, he thinks seeing me again after two solid years is hell? Well, good. I’m glad.

She was glad. So why did she feel a need to grit her teeth and swallow hard before she could answer him?

“Yeah, well…I’m gonna need to know if you’re okay with it. If you’re not, just say the word. When we get to Zamboanga-”

“Of course I can handle it,” he said softly.

Of course he can handle it, she thought, sarcastically. He’d handle it the way he handled everything. Like a journalist, clear-eyed and objective, but careful to keep himself one step removed from the messy stuff. Stuff like…emotional turmoil. And pain. It was the way he’d handled Iraq and its aftermath, wasn’t it? And probably all sorts of stuff that had happened to him in his distant past he’d never been willing to talk about to anyone, not even her.

Seconds ticked by in silence, while the farmlands and forests of Mindanao unfolded slowly below them.

“So, tell me,” Sam said in a falsely bright, conversational voice, shaking off the strangling sense of futility that had coiled around her, “how’s Karen these days?”

She heard his sharp hiss of exasperation and felt her cheeks heat with a weird mixture of triumph and shame. What was it that made her want to needle him? The forlorn hope he might lose his cool? That was never going to happen. And even if it did, what would that accomplish?

At least I’d know he cared. That I’d hurt him, maybe a fraction as badly as he hurt me.

Okay, the devil made me do it…

“For God’s sake, Samantha,” he said in a weary voice.

“What?” She threw him a wounded look. “She was your wife for…what was it, a whole year? Knowing you, I’m sure the divorce was amicable. You probably keep in touch, exchange Christmas cards…all that stuff, right?” She lifted a shoulder and turned her eyes back to the horizon. “I was just wondering how she was doing. She looked like a nice person. I wish her well.” Sure you do. You wish her in hell, is what you mean.