Heart of a Hero

A brittle silence followed the furious torrent of words, but she didn’t speak, merely stood there with her eyes averted. And in her stance he read determination. He knew Phoebe and he knew that posture.

But what—? It hit him then. Stunned, he sank into the chair she’d bolted from. “It’s because of Melanie, isn’t it?”

She sucked in a sharp breath and nodded, and he saw a tear trickle down her cheek.

“Lord God above,” he said quietly. Silence reigned again as he absorbed the information. He’d wondered—no, he’d feared—for more than a year, that she blamed him for Melanie’s death. It had kept him from contacting her after the first time they’d made love, and it had cost him the first months of his child’s life.

When he’d finally decided to try to talk to her about it, she had been gone. And after he’d found her, after he’d learned about Bridget, his guilt had taken a backseat while he had adjusted to fatherhood and pretended that everything was fine and that Phoebe would love him and that they’d spend the rest of their lives together.

He scrubbed his hands over his face and looked down at the table, unable to stand seeing the pity and regret he knew he would see in her eyes.

A letter lay on the table and his name caught his eye. His first name, anyway. As he scanned it, he realized what it was. The foundation to which he’d made the donation in memory of Melanie had sent a thank-you note.

“I opened it by accident.” Phoebe’s tone was flat.

“I thought it would be a meaningful wedding gift.”

“A wedding gift?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know there’s nothing I can say to ever make it up to you—”

“You don’t have to—”

“—and if it helps any, I will never forgive myself for letting Melanie die. If I’d been quicker, I’d have caught her. I’ve relived that night a thousand times and I know why you blame me.” He halted for a moment. “I blame myself, so why shouldn’t I expect you to?”

“Wade—”

“Don’t.” His shoulders slumped. “Just tell me what you want me to do now. Do you want me to leave?” His voice broke. “I will. I hope that you’ll let me see Bridget sometimes, but I won’t push—”

“Wade!”

At the volume and pitch of her voice, he finally stopped talking abruptly for the first time since she’d shoved away from his embrace.

Looking at the anguished set of his features, hearing the pain in his voice, she suddenly realized what he was thinking. It had nothing to do with lost love. He was blaming himself for Melanie’s death! A tidal wave of shock, confusion and compassion crashed over her head and she forgot about her own pain.

“Wade,” she said. He didn’t look at her and she said it again, crossing to the table and touching his arm. “Wade, look at me.”

Slowly, he lifted his gaze to hers and she was astounded by the pleading look in his eyes.

“I don’t blame you,” she whispered. She knelt on the floor beside his chair. “I’ve never blamed you. Melanie was impulsive. She had an ornery streak a mile wide. Her heart was that big, too, most of the time. She had been drinking. Neither one of us is responsible for what happened that night.” She paused and put a hand to his face. “I don’t blame you,” she said again, urgently, as the look on his face eased fractionally.

“Then why?” He swallowed. “Why won’t you marry me? God, Phoebe, I know I was a slow learner, but I realized that night at the dance that you were what had been missing from my life.” He averted his eyes. “I took advantage of you after the funeral. I have no excuse, except that I had finally figured out that I loved you and I couldn’t have walked away from you then any more than I could have stopped breathing.”

He stopped speaking again then, and the only sound in the room was his harsh breathing and the hitching breaths she still took in the aftermath of her storm of tears.

Phoebe was frozen, his words hammering at her brain but not making sense. At least, not making sense in her current framework of reality.

“Phoebe?”

She sank down onto her heels and he looked alarmed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“You love me?”

He stopped. Searched her eyes, his own incredulous. “You didn’t know?” He snorted. “I thought the whole damned world could see it.”

“I didn’t know,” she confirmed. “I thought—believed that you still…”

“Melanie?”

She nodded. “When I saw the letter, I thought you’d done it because you still missed her, and that it was an accident that it came to this address.”

“Oh, sweetheart, no.” He put his hands beneath her elbows and stood, lifting her to her feet. “It was supposed to make you happy. I wanted to do something special to commemorate our marriage.” He paused, looking down at her and she could see him choosing his words with care. “My feelings for your sister were only a crush. Infatuation. Mel and I weren’t well suited. You surely could see that. We were over long before that reunion and I never regretted it.”

As their eyes met again, she saw the beginnings of hope creeping into his expression. “You love me?” she said again. Stupid, she knew, but she wasn’t quite sure she’d really heard it the first time.

His taut expression eased and the hope blossomed into a look that warmed her heart. “I love you,” he said. “I’ve loved you since the night you asked me to dance and I realized I’d been chasing the wrong sister for a long time.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “I love you, too,” she said. “Oh, Wade, so much…” She smiled tremulously. “Pinch me. I must be dreaming.”

“No way,” he said. “Either the pinch or the dreaming. This is real, sweetheart. As real as that little girl sleeping upstairs.” He gathered her against his body and pressed his forehead against hers. “Marry me, please, Phoebe?”

She tried to nod. “Yes. I would love to be your wife.”

“Mother of my children,” he prompted.

“Children? As in more than our one?” She slid her arms up around his neck and toyed with the collar of his shirt.

“Definitely more. Bridget would be spoiled stinking rotten if she was an only.” He paused. “When did you realize…?”

“That I loved you?” She laughed. “At the risk of inflating your ego to an unforgivable level, I’ll tell you. I can’t remember when I didn’t love you. I worshipped you when I was eight, nine, ten. I idolized you at eleven and twelve. By thirteen I was hopelessly infatuated. It tore me to pieces when you dated Mel.”

“I never knew.” His tone was wondering. “How could I not have known?”

“I wasn’t exactly the most outgoing kid,” she reminded him.

“Yeah, but you were always comfortable with me. You were—in love with me,” he said ruefully. His expression changed. “God, I could really have blown it, couldn’t I?”

She shrugged. “Doubt it.”

Within ten minutes, he had her flat on her back in the big bed in her room. Their room, she amended silently. Soon she’d be giving herself and everything she had into his care.

Her attention abruptly veered back to the present as one warm, hairy leg pressed between her own legs and Wade’s weight pressed her into the bed. She wriggled beneath him and he growled. “Wait.”

“For what?” she teased, slipping her hands between them and rubbing his small, flat nipples into hard points.

“Tell me,” he demanded, holding himself above her on his forearms, “that you felt it, too, that night we danced. Tell me it wasn’t just me.”

She slipped her hands down his back and he shuddered when he felt them moving lower, trying to pull him closer. Drawing back, he pushed slowly into the welcoming heat of her body, already soft and slick.

She murmured a sound of pleasure as she shifted her hips to accommodate him. “It wasn’t just you.” Then he lowered his head and claimed her mouth and she lost track of anything she’d intended to say as he began to move against her.

A short while later, she lay cuddled against his side. Wade was on his back, his arm around her idly caressing the ball of her shoulder, as another thought struck her. “Holy cow. I forgot all about your interview. How did it go?”

His hand stilled for a moment, then resumed its hypnotic rhythm. “Great!” She tilted her head back to see his face and he grinned at her. “I was offered the job.”

“And you said yes.” It was rhetorical and she was shocked when he shook his head in the negative.

“I said maybe,” he said. His expression sobered, a sheepish quality creeping across his face. “I might have fibbed to you a little bit.”

“Fibbed?” She was flabbergasted. “You made up the job?”

“No, no,” he said hastily. “The job is real, and it’s mine if I want it. But it’s not in New York. In fact, it’s not even on the East Coast.”

“Where—? It’s in California!” Could she get any more surprised? “Isn’t it?”

“Southern California,” he specified. “We’d have to move to San Diego if—”

“Yes!” She nearly shouted it in a totally un-Phoebe-like burst of enthusiasm as she pounded on his chest with her free hand. “You said yes, didn’t you? We’re going back?”

“I said it depended on my wife.” He caught her and held her with ease as she flung herself atop him and wound her arms about his neck. “We wouldn’t be in Carlsbad,” he warned her. “I’d probably need to live somewhere closer to Mission Bay.”

“Call them and tell them you’ll take it!” She wriggled out of his arms and snatched up the portable telephone, thrusting the handset at him.

Wade laughed. “All right, all right. I’ll do it in a few minutes.” He paused, setting aside the phone and drawing her back into his arms. “Are you sure? I mean, I know you wanted to stay here and get tenure, and I can keep looking for a job around here if you’d rather not leave.”

She detected the slightest trace of diffidence in his tone and her heart melted all over again. “You’d really do that for me?”

“For us,” he qualified. “Wherever we decide to live, I want you to be completely happy with the decision.”

She sighed, sliding her hands into his hair and drawing his head down to hers. “Silly man. Don’t you know I’d be happy anywhere with you?” She kissed him tenderly. “All I need is you, and our family. Going back to California would be wonderful, but all I really want is to spend the rest of my life with you.”

And as he drew her back down to the bed, she realized the dream she’d had for so many years had truly become a reality. “I love you,” she murmured.

“And I love you.” He kissed her, then slid his hands down her body. “But I have to confess, that’s not the only thing I want to do with you.”

She laughed, too happy for words. Wade, the child they’d made together in love, and a future that looked as rosy as Bridget’s cheeks. She thought of Melanie, and for the first time a true sense of peace filtered into Phoebe’s heart. She had a hunch that wherever she was, Mel was doing a happy angel dance for her. And charming every male angel within sight.

* * *

THE HEART OF A MERCENARY

LORETH ANNE WHITE

About the Author

LORETH ANNE WHITE was born and raised in southern Africa, but now lives in Whistler, a ski resort in the moody British Columbia Coast Mountain range. It’s a place of vast, wild and often dangerous mountains, larger-than-life characters, epic adventure and romance —the perfect place to escape reality. It’s no wonder it was here she was inspired to abandon a sixteen-year career as a journalist, features writer and editor to escape into the world of romance fiction.

When she’s not writing, you will fine her long-distance running, skiing on the trails, and generally trying to avoid the bears. She calls this work, because it’s when some of the best ideas come. Loreth loves to hear from readers. Visit her website at www.lorethannewhite.com.

As always, to Susan Litman. Without her I wouldn’t be here.

To Marlin, who keeps me focused on the importance of story in our world.

To the rest of my family for too many reasons to mention.

And to Maretta and Toni, for just being there.

Prologue

18:27 Alpha. Republic of the Congo. Sunday, September 21

The doctor’s head sagged sideways. His eyes glazed into a fixed stare behind his protective goggles, and blood dribbled slowly down from the corner of his mouth, soaking into the white surgical mask bunched beneath his chin.

Sarah Burdett wriggled out of the coffin-size hole in the floor and scrambled frantically over the packed red dirt to where the doctor lay slumped against the leg of his autopsy bench.

She grabbed his shoulders. “Dr. Regnaud!” she whispered, her breath hot and damp under her own mask, sweat trickling down between her breasts. She tried to move him, to get a sense of his injuries, but as she did, his body flopped back onto the dirt and she caught sight of the dark crimson stain blossoming out over the fabric of his lab coat. Her breath caught sharply in her throat.

With shaking fingers she ripped off the clumsy plastic bags that covered the surgical gloves on her hands. There were no neoprene or rubber gloves in the makeshift clinic, no proper biosafety gear. They’d had to make do with what they had. “Doctor…” She felt his wrist through her latex gloves. Nothing.

She yanked at his mask, searching for the carotid arteries at his neck, praying to find the faint beat of a pulse under her gloved fingertips. There was none.

Her heart plummeted. Dr. Guy Regnaud, a brilliant, kind, generous, warm-hearted man…was dead.

She was alone.

The soldiers had killed everyone. They’d stormed the compound, slain the nurses, the two nuns, the priest, even the patients. And they’d taken the seven autopsied bodies before dousing the palm-thatched roofs in petroleum and torching the mission compound.

Sarah lifted the doctor’s goggles up onto his head with trembling hands, and looked into the fixed stare of his blue eyes. Even in death they seemed to drill into hers, driving home the urgency of the mission he’d handed her just seconds before the men had stormed the medical hut and shot him dead.

“Whatever happens, Sarah, get these samples to the CDC,” Dr. Regnaud had whispered as he’d shoved her and a sealed biohazard container into a hole in the floor of the baked-mud hut. “And trust no one. This is the Congo. Everyone has a price.” He’d concealed her tomb with a plank and a reed mat, while outside, gunfire peppered the compound and gut-wrenching screams sliced the air. Then the soldiers had burst in….

Tears welled in her eyes. Dr. Regnaud had saved her life, and it had cost him his own. The trembling in her hands intensified, shuddering uncontrollably through her entire body. Her protective goggles misted with tears and body heat. She fisted her hands against the fear. If she lost control now, she’d be as good as dead.

As she tried to focus, she slowly became aware of thick smoke billowing from the thatched roofs of the adjoining buildings. The air was growing black and bitter as the choking haze filled the clearing and hung low in the thick equatorial heat. Flames crackled louder, closer, brighter, engulfing the compound. The sound was so close…. With a dull jolt of panic she realized the roof of the hut she was in was also on fire. But she couldn’t move. She felt dazed. Time stretched, slowed, warped. She couldn’t begin to comprehend what was happening. Why had soldiers with assault rifles stormed out of the jungle in hazmat suits? Why had they taken the autopsied bodies?

“This is big, Sarah. Nothing science has seen before…” She latched on to Dr. Regnaud’s words. For some reason, she alone had been spared death. She had to hold on to that. She had a duty now. She had to somehow get those biological samples to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. She would not—could not—let the doctor down.

She made a quick sign of the cross over Dr. Regnaud’s body, gently closed his eyes and then scrambled on her hands and knees toward the radio on the desk near the door.

She had no idea how to use it. How could she have been so stupid, so naive not to learn how to do this simple thing? She tried to tell herself she would’ve learned in a few more days. But the villagers had begun to arrive with symptoms of the horrific disease, and chaos had erupted. She hadn’t had the luxury of time to even begin to understand this bizarre jungle environment, let alone figure out how to use the darn radio.

She fiddled with the dials and buttons, trying to recall what she’d seen Dr. Regnaud doing. Static crackled. Her pulse leaped. Her heart hammered.

“Mayday! Mayday!” Sarah yelled into the transceiver. Did people even say that anymore? Was it only for ships at sea? Or planes? Or old movies? “Mayday! Help! Help! 9-1-1—” Oh God, she was panicking again. This was Africa. They didn’t know about 9-1-1 here. She cleared her throat, wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her sleeve, tried to get hold of herself. The smoke was scorching her nasal passages even through her mask. “This…this is Sarah Burdett. Emergency. Can anybody hear me? I’m a nurse from Ishonga clinic…northeast of Ouesso near the Oyambo River. Unidentified deadly virus…we’ve been attacked. Soldiers—”

A chunk of burning thatch crashed through the roof and exploded onto the floor in a shower of orange sparks. Acrid smoke instantly engulfed the room. Panic gripped her. “Help me! Please, oh God, someone help me!” The fire leaped to a stack of papers and crackled through a wicker basket. She dropped the handset, leaving it dangling by a wire from the desk. She had to get out or she’d be as dead as the rest of them.

Trying to stay beneath the pall of suffocating smoke, Sarah groped her way to an overturned metal cabinet. She’d seen a flashlight in there. She wildly fingered the dirt floor, searching the scattered contents of the drawers. She found the flashlight, stuffed it deep into a pocket under her plastic apron. She found another drawer, groped around inside, felt the doctor’s handgun, jammed it into her other pocket. The soldiers had ransacked the room, but hadn’t taken a thing, not even the gun. Whatever they’d been looking for, they hadn’t found.

They had to be searching for the tissue samples in the biohazard container.

She crawled across the dirt floor, reached into the hole, grasped the handle of the aluminum canister and yanked it free. Clutching her deadly package, Sarah stumbled blindly through the hut, out the door.

She froze in her tracks.

Blackened skeletons of charred wood and the shocking smell of burning human flesh seared into her brain. The wooden roof of the tiny clinic church burned fiercely, shooting a shower of orange stars into the night sky. She swayed on her feet as her vision blurred.

Move, Sarah. Do this for them. You owe them this much.

Gripping the container, she forced one foot in front of the other, woodenly making her way toward the periphery of the clearing, toward the living, breathing, inhospitable jungle. Her sneakers were still encased in plastic bags tied at her ankles, her hair still tucked into a cotton head covering, her protective apron still smeared with the doctor’s blood.

She was only vaguely aware that her path was lit by burning huts, that night had fallen, fast and complete, around six o’clock, as it did every day so near the equator.

Twelve hours of blackness loomed ahead of her. And with it came sheer, sickening terror.

She was truly alone.

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