Читать книгу Identity: Undercover - Lois Richer - Страница 12

Max pushed his sunglasses onto the top of his head and stared at the coastline as his forefinger massaged his temple.

“Callie? Can you come here for a minute? Please?”

He wouldn’t blame her if she ignored him completely. He’d been a total jerk to act as he had, to make her feel as if he’d deliberately cornered her onboard to force her to explain.

Though it wasn’t an excuse, the way he’d been served those papers—the fact that he had been served them at all, made him see red. When she refused to talk to him he’d completely lost all perspective.

Callie responded, but not quickly. He watched her carefully store away the papers she’d been studying. She tucked them into her backpack and stowed it under the seat before she moved toward him.

Max realized how badly he’d fooled himself into believing that all Callie needed was time, that eventually she’d come home and they could start over. He’d never imagined, never let himself even consider that what she really wanted was to escape him.

“You bellowed?” Callie stood poised on the top step, curls dancing in the wind, eyes shadowed by the dark glasses she wore.

“Sorry. I just wanted to tell you that I’ve got to take a break. I’ve got a killer headache.” He pointed ahead. “There’s a little cove there that we can pull into. Is that okay with you?”

“I guess.” She pulled her glasses off to study him. Her blue eyes darkened with uncertainty. “Do you want me to take the wheel?”

“No.” A surge of frustration bubbled inside his heart when she glanced at her watch then frowned. The words burst out before he could check them. “Don’t worry. I won’t hold up your mission. I just need a break.”

“Fine. We’ll take a break. Do you want something to drink?”

“Coffee would be nice.” And some tape on my mouth to hold it shut so I won’t say anything else stupid.

“Fine. Coffee it is.” She turned, walked down the steps. A few minutes later he heard the rattle of the coffee pot. Every so often the rich aroma of percolating grounds caught on the breeze and filled his nostrils, hailing reminders of other sailing days when life with Callie had seemed good, right. Forever.

Long ago days.

Max edged his way into the bay, dropped anchor and climbed down from his perch. Callie had an umbrella set up over one of the loungers. Two steaming cups sat on the side table, one of them filled with a rich mocha-colored liquid.

Strong and creamy. At least she remembered that much.

“Thank you,” he murmured, sinking into the chaise. He took a sip of the smooth, creamed coffee, then let his head tip back against the chair as the pounding took over. He pretended he couldn’t feel her watching him.

“I suppose I should be able to take over the helm but I’ll be just as happy if I don’t have to. I guess that doesn’t make me a very good sailing partner.” The words died away.

After a moment she spoke again, her voice brimming with hesitancy and something else—shame?

“But then I never was a very good partner, period.”

He hated her saying that, hated that he’d obviously made her so unhappy.

“Callie?” Max reached out, grasped her wrist before she could move away. Though he could tell she didn’t like his grip, she remained still. “Could we please just let the past lie for a while? You don’t want to talk about what happened between us. Fine. I’ll try to abide by that. But could we at least make an attempt to enjoy this trip?”

“While I’m a prisoner, you mean?” She did slide her hand away then. Her jaw thrust forward in defiance, letting him know she wouldn’t forgive him so easily.

“Come on, Cal,” Max chided, almost smiling at her stubborn tip-tilted chin. “You’re not a prisoner and you know it. Anytime you ask, I’ll drop you off at the nearest town.”

“That’s not what you said.”

“I know.” He took another sip and decided it was long past time for the truth. “Those papers made me mad, Callie and I reacted badly. We don’t see each other for ages, I can’t get hold of you, don’t know whether you’re alive or dead, and suddenly some man I’ve never even seen before serves me with divorce papers in front of a crowd of people I’m trying to persuade to buy one of my designs.”

“So I embarrassed you with my bad timing. Again.” She winced. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t the timing, Callie.”

“Whatever it was, then. I’m still sorry. I’m always sorry. But it doesn’t seem to help much.” She flopped down opposite him, sipped her own coffee.

Max shook his head, sought for the right words.

“After the ba—when you left, you said you were taking another job because you had to get away, to think things over. Then you wrote you needed more time to get past…”

He swallowed hard, tiptoed around that subject.

“I agreed because I figured some space might be good for both of us. But I’ve hardly heard from you, I never know where you are. You certainly never once said anything about divorce in those cryptic little notes Finders Inc. forwarded to me.”

“Again—I’m sorry,” she whispered but she didn’t look at him.

Max was heartily sick of hearing that word, but at the moment there seemed little else either of them could say. He was sorry, too. He’d made his own mistakes, pushed when he should have just been there for her.

As he studied her, Max suddenly realized that this woman was not the Callie Merton he’d married. Body and mind were there. But her soul, the essence that made Callie who she was, now hid in a mask of protection that prevented him from reading her real emotions. She seemed as confident as always, but was it real or simply a front—something to keep him from getting too close?

Callie lifted her cup and he noticed her hand was shaking. He took a second, more deliberate survey of his wife, sans sunglasses and hat. The sight stunned him. There were dark rings around her eyes, she was far too thin, her cheekbones too pronounced even for a fashion model. Physically she looked like she was at the end of her rope. That wouldn’t affect her job, of course. She still projected the same confidence she’d always had in her work. The cause of her frailty must lie elsewhere. It had stolen the joy from her eyes.

Daniel’s warning that Callie had changed rang true. The more Max studied her, the more he realized that she was forcing herself to sit here, to talk to him. She seemed unusually nervous about it and he couldn’t help wondering if maybe seeing him again had helped twig old memories for her, too. Maybe she was rethinking the divorce.

Maybe he still had a chance.

Until now he’d thought only of his own hurt, anger, disappointment. He’d seen himself as the wronged party. But it was clear Callie wasn’t at peace despite her decision to cut herself off from him.

“Can you tell me anything about this mission?” Maybe the reason God had brought them together was for him to help her somehow. “What’s supposed to happen when you get to Ketchikan?”

In the past Max had helped out Finders Inc. several times and as a result Daniel had granted him a certain security clearance. Surely Callie remembered that and wouldn’t try to block his questions, because if she did he’d phone Daniel and get the truth. And while Max had the CEO on the phone, he’d ask him a few hard questions about her latest physical.

“I have to find a man, get him to sign some papers. Piece of cake.”

“Can I know the name of the man?”

She looked at him, raised one eyebrow. “Why?”

“Just curious.”

She lay back on the lounger, kicked off her deck shoes and stretched her toes in the sun. “Josiah Harpnell. Ring any bells for you?”

Max nodded. “As a matter of fact it does. He published some research on the grazing paths of caribou and elk herds when they migrate north in the summer. Once the environmentalists got hold of it in Washington, there were fireworks. I think that was about two years ago.”

“You were considering entering politics then.”

She said it with a certain resignation that made Max remember how much she’d hated his constant political glad-handing, the unending meetings, phone calls, game playing. It was one reason she gave for continuing her killer schedule at Finders Inc. One of many reasons. It was also the argument she’d used against starting the family he thought they’d both wanted.

“I was on a committee to investigate some of Harpnell’s claims,” he mused, dredging up the information. “There was concern that the old migration routes would be disturbed by plans to dig for oil in a protected area.” To ease the throbbing at the back of his neck, Max attempted to massage away the pain. “I’m glad I realized that political life wasn’t for me.”

“To give you more time to focus on your business interests, you said.”

That had been the reason he’d given her, but even back then, Max had known something was wrong between them, that Callie was using his political leanings as an excuse to stay busy and away from him. He’d assumed that cutting back on his schedule would fix whatever wasn’t working with them. He’d been wrong.

“This spring I resigned from a lot of the committees I’m on,” he explained. “Chamber of Commerce, City Council, all of it. Except for the church. I’m still a member there.”

“Ah, yes. The church.” Her voice brimmed with scathing and he recalled how uncomfortable she’d always seemed in the church he’d attended since he was a child.

“My church is important to me.”

“I know.” She watched him through narrowed eyes.

Max leaned back, tried not to wince at the increased pounding. Now of all times he didn’t want to look weak—but Callie already knew about his killer headaches. Her narrowed scrutiny wouldn’t miss a thing. He closed his eyes, feigned sleep.

“Look at me, Max.” She grasped his chin, forced him to look at her. “Is it a migraine? Because you don’t have to go with me you know. I can manage on my own. I always do.”

As if she hadn’t told him that a thousand times before. “It’s just a headache.”

“You’re sure?” Callie’s fingers dropped from his face, wrapped around his wrist.

She was taking his pulse, he realized suddenly. The feel of her skin brought back a thousand memories…He yanked his hand away.

“I don’t need your first aid, Callie. I know Finders equips you to handle anything, but I’m fine. I’ll rest for a bit and it will go away.”

“That’s what you always said—right before it turned into a whopper.” She leaned closer to check his pupils.

Max caught the lemony scent of her favorite shampoo and shifted away from temptation. Callie glared at him.

“Why didn’t you mention you had a headache? You can hardly expect it to go away while you’re squinting into the sun.” Her voice lowered, sounded almost friendly. “I’ve got some medication. Do you want a tablet?”

“Sure.” Anything to ease the band of pain that was making his eyes blur and weakening his ability to remain angry at her.

A few moments later he swallowed the medication she offered then forced himself to lie prone on the lounger as the gentle lap of the waves lulled him into a dreamy floating state. It reminded him of the second honeymoon he’d thought about surprising her with many times in the past. Somehow he’d never gotten around to planning it. What had he been doing that was so important?

“I could man the helm for a while if you want,” Callie offered after a long silence.

“Thanks anyway, but I’d like to keep this boat in its present condition.”

Max bit his tongue, opened one eye to see how she’d taken his rude and unnecessary rebuff.

“Yeah, sure. I guess sailing was like a lot of other things in our marriage. I never did get the hang of it,” she mumbled, her face bright red.

He ignored the last part, tried to make a joke of her ineptness at steering a craft.

“Your problem with direction while sailing is rather strange when you consider the job you do, isn’t it?” Whatever she’d given him was working fast. Max felt the bolts of pain that gripped his brain loosening. His whole body was relaxing inch by inch. “Daniel said you’re one of the best locators Finders has.”

“Daniel’s a very nice man.”

“Daniel doesn’t exaggerate.” He stared at her and wished Callie would open up and just talk, let the words flow without checking every sentence, without censoring every word. Once he’d thought it was shyness, thought she’d get over it. He knew better than that now. Callie kept a tight rein on herself all the time, but now the rein was choking her. “How can you locate a thing or a person if you don’t know your directions?”

“I don’t get my directions confused on land, Maxwell. Just when I’m on the water, when I don’t have any reference points. On good old terra firma I know exactly where I’m going. It’s a land sense, I guess. Something I was born with. As opposed to sea sense.”

Better. At least she was talking.

“What were you doing in Australia?”

“Locating a creep.” She made a face. “Worst assignment I ever had.”

“Why?” Immediately his radar went up.

“Nothing horrible. It was just busywork once I located him, tailing him to make sure he didn’t disappear.” She gave him a sideways look while considering her answer. “The guy was a total sleazebag. He made his second home in the bars, nightclubs, strip joints—all the garbage Sydney and every other city has to offer.”

Callie had never really told him much about her work before. He’d told himself it was a security thing, or because she wanted their time together to be free of Finders Inc., but his heart had known better. Max felt a wiggle of satisfaction that she’d willingly explained this much with so little prodding.

“How long did you follow him?”

“Two months, day and night.”

“And in all that time he didn’t notice you?” He could hardly believe it.

Even thin as a rail, Callie was gorgeous. A cap of curls that shone like rubbed mahogany, sapphire-blue eyes and a mouth that tilted upward in an impish grin when she laughed. She was tall and slim with a swift agility he’d always admired. How could anyone not notice Callie Merton?

“We use disguises, Max.” She made a face. “Trust me, he never even knew I was there.”

“Why were you tailing him for so long?” he asked, curious as to whether her absence from his world all that time had been by choice or by request. “You used to take cases that lasted only a week or two.”

“Our client didn’t want him to go missing before they could get immigration to bring him back into the country and since I was already on the case—” She shrugged. “It wasn’t as bad as I made it out to be. He usually slept till noon or later. Believe me, I got lots of time on the beach. The ocean was great and I soaked up a few rays, as well.”

She didn’t look tanned and rested. She looked—tense.

Callie wasn’t telling him everything. Max had a hunch it was important to find out what she’d deliberately omitted. In the past he’d shied away from asking too many questions. Maybe that had been a mistake.

“He stole some crack from a fellow who doesn’t like to be messed with. To get away, our boy headed for the Outback.” She grimaced. “There my cover was that I was a scientist conducting experiments in the area. Once he dried out, we got to be pals. There were no bars in the area, you see. When immigration finally picked him up, I think he’d been sober the longest in his life.”

“Some good from the bad then.” He kept his focus on her, realized she wasn’t going to tell him any more.

“I suppose, though it took me a couple of hours in the shower to get rid of all that dust. It’s not a place I’d recommend as a holiday spot even though it is beautiful.” Callie grinned at him, blue eyes dancing with fun. “It sure cured me of camping, though. I don’t think I ever want to sleep in a tent again.”

“That’s something to be thankful for.” He grinned back, remembering the first few months they’d been married. How many weekends had he left work early, packed up their sleeping bags and that ratty tent she loved? He’d trekked behind her up and down the mountain for miles until she found exactly the right place to make camp so they could sleep in the outdoors.

“I think I’m too old to sleep on the ground again.”

“Me, too.” She giggled.

The laughter died away until only silence hung between them.

“I’m sorry that I hurt you, Max,” she whispered, her voice so faint he had to lean in to hear. “I didn’t mean to do that. It’s just—I can’t stay married to you anymore.”

“Why?” He needed something to silence the desperate whisper in his heart. What they’d shared couldn’t be beyond repair. He wouldn’t accept that. “What was it I did that was so terrible you had to run away, and keep running?”

“It wasn’t you!” She stared at him, her eyes huge in her heart-shaped face. “Of course it wasn’t you. It was me. It is me. I’m an embarrassment to you, a nuisance, the proverbial square peg in a round hole.”

“Callie, that’s not true.”

“Of course it is.” She shook her head, her face rueful. “Did you think I didn’t notice how many times you had to apologize for me to your friends, your employees, your family?”

“I didn’t apologize for you!” She made it sound like he’d been ashamed of her. That had never been true.

“You did, Max.” She nodded her head, curls tumbling down over one eye. She shoved them out of the way. “That time I tried to bring a casserole to the church potluck—don’t you remember? ‘Callie didn’t realize,’ you told them.”

“Well you didn’t, but that was my fault for not explaining that it was supposed to be a dessert potluck.” He couldn’t fathom the cause of the despair flooding her face. “What was wrong with saying that?”

“Nothing. Except that you had to keep saying it. Over and over. ‘Excuse Callie.’ ‘Sorry, Callie didn’t understand.’ ‘Poor dumb Callie.’” She laughed but it caught in her throat and sounded more like a sob.

“I never said—”

“I became an embarrassment to myself. Especially with your church friends. I didn’t fit in with them, Max, no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t share their stories the way you could. I never went to their youth meetings, their parties. I wasn’t part of their group. I even failed at trying to entertain them.”

He remembered the New Year’s Eve party she’d begged to host, the elaborate preparations she’d gone to, how flat and lifeless it had seemed.

“So maybe we should have met new people.”

“We did, remember? I still blew it and you were still embarrassed so don’t pretend.” Her blue eyes hardened. “I’m not the kind of person who impresses people like the ones you know, Max. We should have realized from the start that my ability as a chameleon only extends to my work.”

“That’s not—”

“I can’t pretend to be the person you need anymore,” she told him, her voice brimming with a desperation he’d never heard before. “I can’t be your wife. That’s what I figured out in the Outback. That’s why I had the papers drawn up as soon as I got back. I knew I had to do it.”

“But we made a commitment, Callie. We’re married. You can’t just walk away from that!” Max felt like he was slipping and couldn’t regain his footing. “You can’t just stop being married.”

“I already have. That’s why you got those papers.”

“Really?” Her flat tones infuriated him. “Why now? What’s the rush? Is there someone else?”

“Don’t be stupid.” She offered him a glance of pity. “In the Outback I had a lot of time to look at what I’d made of my life, what I’d done to yours. You need to be married to someone like one of your friends, Max. Someone who knows how things work in your circle, who’s used to your way of doing things.”

“It’s nice to know you’ve decided that for both of us,” he snapped, saw the icy frost over her eyes. Or maybe it was tears. “What about what I want?” he asked quietly.

“You already told me what you don’t want.” The words bit into him with a pain he couldn’t avoid. They were his words. “You don’t want a wife who does what I do, you don’t want to be married to someone who might have to leave on a moment’s notice and can’t guarantee when she’ll return. You want the kind of life I can’t live.”

“Can’t or won’t?” He tilted her chin so he could see into her eyes.

She met his gaze. Just for an instant he thought he saw a glimmer of the person he’d fallen in love with three years ago, the girl with no past, no family, but who threw herself into love wholeheartedly.

The girl he now knew he’d never really known at all.

Callie pulled out of his grasp, rose. “I’ll go make some dinner. I guess we missed lunch.”

He let her go, watched through the window as she mucked about in the galley. As usual, she was focused on the moment, intent on her work. But he couldn’t help wondering—did she ever think about that day?

“It’s ready,” she told him, huffing a little under the weight of the huge tray she carried up the stairs.

Max took it from her, set it on the table. Callie laid two mismatched placemats across from each other, then carefully arranged the place settings on them. He’d specifically equipped his vessel with two complete sets of tableware, one for more formal occasions, which she’d chosen to place in front of him, one plainer set, which she’d selected for herself. He opened his mouth to ask why, quickly clamped it shut. One thing he’d learned—Callie’s actions were never random.

Callie always had a reason for her behavior. Only now Max was beginning to realize that most of the time he’d never bothered to find out what her reasons were. The different dishes were meant to point out the differences between them.

He sat silent. Now was hardly the time to argue. It would only emphasize her belief that she didn’t fit—as she’d claimed—into his life.

Shouldn’t that be their life?

Chagrin chewed at him as he recalled the many accommodations she’d made to fit into his life—and the few he’d made to fit his life to hers.

“Aren’t you going to sit down?”

Max sat, sampled her cooking and found it as exotic as ever. The flavors were different, complex but delicious nonetheless.

“It’s very good,” he told her, picking up his water glass. He clinked the glass of it against her plastic tumbler. “To the cook.”

“You used to say I made things too spicy. I used a lot of peppers. Is the shrimp going to bother your stomach?” she asked, her eyebrows pulled together in a furrow of concern as she sipped her water. “I guess lots of people find my food too hot.”

People like who? he wanted to demand, jealousy growing inside.

But while she’d been cooking he’d rethought his confrontational approach. Callie thought their differences were too great to be overcome. Maybe it was time to help her see the similarities they shared. Max leaned back in his chair and let the flavors burst onto his tongue while he launched into phase one of his new plan to get his wife back.

“It’s not too hot, Callie, nor too spicy,” he told her quietly. “It just takes a few minutes to identify the flavors hitting my tastebuds. I like it very much.”

“Which is a nice way of saying you can’t figure out what kind of sauce it’s supposed to be.” She watched his face, eyes brimming with curiosity. “Your stomach must have gotten stronger. You didn’t even comment on the paprika.”

Max let that pass, finished his meal, then pushed away the plate. “Nobody cooks like you, Callie,” he told her sincerely.

She seemed confused by his words, as if she couldn’t understand that he actually liked what she’d prepared. How humbling to realize that things he’d said and done had made her feel inadequate.

They sat in the silence as twilight fell around them. Encouraged by the fact that she didn’t make some excuse to hurry below to do the dishes, Max told her stories about the dog he’d adopted, the chocolate Lab he’d named Radar.

“Why Radar?”

“He can sense table scraps coming his way at a hundred feet,” he told her with a grin. “He’s boarding at the vet’s.”

Callie’s whole face seemed to soften as she stared out over the water. “I always wanted a dog,” she whispered. “But where I lived, dogs weren’t—”

Her cell phone rang. Max longed to beg her to ignore it, to finish what she’d been going to say. But she jumped up, hurried away from the table to dig it out of her backpack.

“Yes?” She listened for several minutes, then clicked it closed.

“Anything important?”

“An update. Finders got a report that Josiah was spotted on his way to Ketchikan. Apparently he hates staying in town so he’ll probably camp out with a couple of friends for two nights and show up in Ketchikan sometime the day after tomorrow. He usually doesn’t stay longer than a day.”

Meaning they had to get there ASAP. Max sighed. Always her work came between them. At least that’s what he was blaming it on this time.

He rose.

“I’ll get us under way if you don’t mind cleaning up this mess. Thanks for dinner, too. It was great.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll bring you up some tea when it’s ready.” She watched him ascend to the upper deck. “Isn’t it dangerous to sail at night?”

“We haven’t got time to sail, Callie. You need to get there fast so we’ll use the engines. I have radar, GPS, the whole deal installed on Hope so there’s not much danger. If I push it, we just might make it to Ketchikan in time to meet Josiah. A good thing I had the engine upgraded when I designed this baby.”

Max pulled anchor and backed them out of the cove, set his bearings and plotted his course. It was going to be tight, but there was an outside chance he could get her there by the day after tomorrow and he was taking it.

A balloon of pride lodged inside his gut as Hope skimmed over the smooth, flat surface of the water. His creation, his design. And they both worked beautifully. He made a small course correction, noticed a new blip on his radar. Someone else was going their way. Not unusual given they were traveling the Inside Passage.

Just for fun, he tracked starboard for a while. The blip followed. He pushed the throttle up a couple of knots. The distance between them expanded only for a few seconds, then the blip caught up. Someone was monitoring their course so closely they adjusted their own to follow.

Now that was odd.

Max wasn’t sure how much time passed before Callie returned with an insulated mug of steaming hot tea. He took a sip and smiled. Sugared exactly right. “Perfect. Thank you.”

“Is your headache gone?” she asked quietly.

“Yes, thanks. Whatever you gave me certainly did the trick.”

She stood beside him, protected by the cabin’s glass surround, facing forward as the bow cut through the water.

A soft, sweet rush of comfort filled him that she was there, beside him—until she spoke and the peace between them disintegrated like fog in sun.

“You’re trying, Max. And I really appreciate that.”

He noted a little tremble in her voice, saw her lick her lips, draw a deep breath.

“I didn’t file for divorce lightly, but the truth we both know is that you can’t forgive me for what I did. I can’t forgive myself. That’s why I had the papers drawn up and sent to you. Once we reach Ketchikan, I hope you’ll sign them.”

What she’d done? He frowned, fought to make sense of her words. Did Callie really think that she alone was responsible for whatever had gone wrong between them? He knew losing the baby had changed her, that he should have talked about it more, tried to understand what she was going through. But he’d been so angry when she’d immediately taken another assignment overseas—he couldn’t understand that. Why had she run away? Why then?

He’d told her from the beginning that he wanted a family. But after she’d taken off and stayed away, he’d begun to wonder if Callie had wanted a child—or if she’d just let him think she did.

“You’re in a bit of a rush to file for divorce already, aren’t you?” he asked tightly. “We haven’t even tried to talk, haven’t spent time trying to figure out if we can fix what’s gone wrong. I think we owe our marriage that.”

“There is no point in talking. You don’t know me, Max. You never did. That’s not your fault. It’s mine, it’s who I am. I’m not the kind of person you should have married. I realize that now. But I can’t take any more guilt for the past. I—” She hiccupped a sob, stifled it. “I can’t.”

As quietly as she came, she disappeared below. Except for the well-tuned purr of the motor, all was quiet on the boat. But Max knew Callie wasn’t sleeping.

The past, one tiny chunk of it, lay between them, dead, buried even, but not forgotten.

Never forgotten.

Max preferred to face life head-on, hit the hard spots and work his way through to a resolution. But to do that in this marriage he needed Callie’s cooperation and it was clear she wasn’t about to talk to him—not tonight, not ever—by the sounds of what she’d just said.

So what now?

He glanced at the console, noted the tiny red blip on the radar that continued to draw closer. He changed his course three times, watched the blip move three times.

This wasn’t just another craft traveling the Inside Passage. Someone was deliberately following them.

Why?