TO HOLD AN EAGLE Page 6

  He said nothing, waiting, and eventually she looked at him.

  "Are you still in the navy?"

  He knew what she was doing, making casual conversation in order to avoid the inquisition she feared was coming. Knowing how frightened she still was, he was willing to let her get away with it—for now. And up to a point.

  "I don't usually discuss myself with people whose name I don't even know," he said, careful to keep his voice unthreatening. Still, she drew back a little, and he saw her glance at the cabin steps, as if she were gauging the distance.

  "Just a name, mermaid," he said softly. "Is that so much to ask?"

  Her gaze shot back to his face, and after a moment he saw her shoulders slump. "I… My name is Chandra."

  "Unusual," he said, keeping any note of satisfaction out of his voice.

  She nodded. He noticed she didn't ask for his name in return, but then she probably already knew it. She could have found it in any number of places on board, from the boat's registration to the stack of bills and receipts in the drawer of the chart table. And a copy of his navy commission was here somewhere, stored away; the original hung on the wall in his father's house, next to his father's, dated twenty years to the class earlier.

  "It means … moonlike," she said after a moment. "In Sanskrit, I think."

  "I gather your hair was that color when you were born?"

  One slim hand shot upward, jerkily, as if she still wasn't sure exactly how short she'd cut it. She found the ends, drying a little wispily now, and nodded slowly.

  "Who picked it?"

  She stared at him for a moment, as if assessing if there was anything threatening in the question, or in her answering it. "My mother," she said finally. "I think she read it in a book once."

  "Is that what everyone calls you?"

  "Sometimes … my friends, in school … they called me Channie."

  Linc merely nodded. He watched her watch him. She was waiting, he knew, for him to push for more, for the last name that would tell him who she was. Instead he said simply, "Yes."

  She blinked. "What?"

  He gestured at the picture. "Yes to your question," he said, without clarifying which of the two he was answering. It was pointless to deny his navy connection, but Con's warning was fresh in his mind; until he knew for certain that she hadn't been left to drown in his path on purpose, he had to be even more careful than she with what he revealed.

  "Oh." Something in her wary look changed, but he wasn't sure it was relief. "Is that … were you getting a medal, or something?"

  He chuckled. "Or something. That was graduation day at Annapolis. Just surviving was a medal."

  Chandra gave him a smile so quick, so tentative, that it was the merest flicker across her lips. "When…?"

  "A long, long time ago," he said, with an intensity that took the words out of the realm of mere answer to her question; indeed, it felt like forever since that sunlit day in Maryland.

  "It can't be that long," she said, studying the picture again. "I mean, you look older, but not much." She was speaking slowly, staring at the photograph, talking as if she'd almost forgotten he was there, forgotten the tension that hung between them. "You look just as fit now as then… I think it's in your eyes. Like you've seen too much—"

  Linc was startled at her perception. Although he could see the changes in himself, in the lines of sun and sea around his eyes, and the scars—both inside and out—that he'd acquired since that day, generally, he was almost as fit as he had been then. What weight he'd gained had been muscle, turning the lean, twenty-one-year-old youth in that picture into a solidly muscled adult male. He'd made sure of it. He'd had to; too often his life depended on it.

  And those occasions when his life was challenged had put that look in his eyes. The look that had been in his father's eyes for as long as he could remember. The look he'd seen mirrored in Con's eyes. The look that had so frightened Shiloh when he had come home from Vietnam, battered and on the edge of surrender.

  When Chandra looked away hastily, Linc realized he'd been staring at her. Her words, when they came, tumbled out just as hastily.

  "She's very beautiful."

  Linc saw that her gaze had shifted to the only other photograph on the bulkhead, a formal portrait of Shiloh at twenty-one, the result of a sitting that had, Linc always teased her, been the only time he'd seen her stop racing around and sit still for more than ten minutes at a time. In return, in typical Shiloh style, she had scrawled across one upper corner, "To Linc—I love you with all my racing little heart! Shiloh."

  "Yes," he agreed, "she is."

  "You must … love her very much, to name your boat after her."

  "I do. Very much."

  "That's … wonderful." He couldn't hear the tiny sigh, but saw it escape her just before she bit her lower lip. "Was there a Shiloh I?"

  "Just a Shiloh," he answered, willing to let her slide by a little longer; she was relaxing with every passing moment. "I had her for a long time," he said, figuring he could spin this old story safely enough. "While I did, my life sailed along as smoothly as she did. But when I left for Nam, I didn't want my dad to have to keep her up, so I sold her. Big mistake."

  Chandra was watching him, wide-eyed. "Why?"

  "Murphy's Law. Everything that could go wrong, did."

  She seemed to go a little paler, although he didn't see how that was possible. "Were you … hurt?"

  "A bit." He shrugged off the ordeal that had nearly broken him. He didn't like talking about it anyway, and he wasn't about to do it here, and now. "The first thing I did when I got back—" well, he amended silently, the first thing after he got back on his feet again "—was buy this boat. Couldn't get her christened fast enough. Just call me superstitious, but I haven't had a real problem since."

  It wasn't quite true, there had been the time in the Philippines that Con had saved his bacon, but overall nothing had come close to the lengthy disaster that had nearly ended his life in that steamy jungle.

  "You've known her that long?"

  Chandra's voice was so wistful Linc caught himself pondering that odd note and thought he'd missed some part of her question.

  "Known who?"

  "Your wife."

  "My … what?"

  Her eyes went to Shiloh's photograph once more. Understanding dawned. "Shiloh," Linc said, with a haste he didn't understand, "is my sister. I'm not married."

  Chandra gaped at him. "Your sister?"

  He nodded. Slowly. Wondering what on earth had possessed him to let that out. Was he crazy? God, he knew better than that! Yet he'd forgotten all the lessons learned the hard way and given this unknown woman a weapon that could hurt him like no other. You're a fool, Reese, he thought scathingly, and the only thing that distracted him from his self-directed wrath was a mote of curiosity at the odd look that had crossed Chandra's face at his words.

  There was a long, silent moment before she said, "You really have… I mean, you were really calling your sister?"

  So that was it, he thought as his mind flashed back to that first day, when she had been so desperate to stop him from placing that call. Yet somehow that odd look and her words seemed unconnected, as if she had really been thinking something else. In any case, he didn't think this was the time to tell her he'd really been about to call the harbor patrol that day.

  "Yes," he said, "I was really going to call my sister. I told you that."

  "I know, but … I thought you were just making it up."

  Linc wondered if she thought everybody lied so easily. He still found it hard on occasion—now, for instance—and he'd had to do it for years. He didn't mind that he found it hard; as he had once told Shiloh, when it got easier to lie than to tell the truth, it was time for a vacation.

  He gestured at the picture. "Did you really think," he said lightly, hoping to ease the atmosphere that had suddenly become tense once again, "that a guy with my name would just happen to come across a woman with hers?"

 
"Oh," she said, looking a little abashed. "Shiloh. I didn't think … then Linc is short for…?"

  "Lincoln," he confirmed.

  That smile again, faint and fleeting, a smile that teased him with the thought of what it might be like to see a genuine one curve her soft lips.

  "Who picked it?" she asked, parroting his earlier question in a voice that, had it been a little steadier and a little less wary, almost would have been teasing.

  "My father," he told her, wishing with a fierceness that startled him that he could just once hear that voice he knew had to exist. "Dad has this thing about the Civil War," he added with a wry grin.

  The grin faltered when she drew back, staring at him. He'd done it again, somehow, he supposed, frightened her without meaning to.

  "What's wrong?"

  "I … nothing. You just look so … different. When you smile."

  That startled him. Was he really so fierce? So intimidating? He knew he could be if he intended to be, he'd been told often enough that when he was intent on something he gave the impression that Neptune rising out of the sea wouldn't stop him. But he'd been going purposefully the other way with her, trying to get her to relax, to trust him. Damn, she was as touchy as a tiller in a light wind; a few degrees off, one wrong move, and he was dead in the water.

  Or, he thought grimly, she was just an accomplished actress, coached, perhaps, on the perfect way to get to him. He didn't want to think that, didn't want to think that she might have been planted by someone who knew him so well, someone who would know just what buttons to push to bring on that damned white hat syndrome he couldn't seem to shake.

  There was no one who knew him that well, outside of his family, he insisted silently. Yet he knew that it wouldn't take much more than a careful perusal of his record to show an astute observer what kind of man he was. Except that observer would have to be on the inside. Way inside. That, and the fact that he hadn't been working on anything lately that would make him a particular thorn in someone's side, made him put the possibility at the bottom, but not off, his list. A list, he decided, it was time to get to work on.

  He reached across the table for her plate. "You could have fixed yourself something to eat, you know."

  "I … felt funny about it."

  He raised a brow. He didn't point out that what was funny was having scruples about stealing food after she'd already committed burglary; one look at her face told him he didn't have to. Then he shrugged.

  "I wouldn't have minded," he said mildly. "Two days is a long time to go on an orange and a slice of stale bread. Unless you've been out shopping? Or maybe borrowing from the neighbors?"

  "No!" she said instantly at the thinly veiled accusation. "I didn't! I haven't left here since I came back that ni—"

  She trailed off, her eyes widening as she realized what she'd admitted. This was going to be easy, Linc thought as he got up, dumped the plates in the galley's stainless steel sink, and turned around. If, of course, he could keep pushing when all he really wanted to do was erase that fear in her eyes.

  He thought of doing this interrogation—there really wasn't any other word for it—while he was standing; he was so much taller than she. Sheer height would give him an intimidation advantage. But he couldn't bring himself to try and scare answers out of her; she was too frightened already. He would save that for later, he thought, and hope it wasn't necessary. He went back to the table and sat once more, knowing she was watching his every move as if she expected him to pounce at any moment.

  "You're looking at me as if Shy were right," he said wryly.

  "Shy…? Oh, your sister." She smiled, a little weakly. "Right about what?"

  "She says I get crazy sometimes. Like when I think someone's hurt her. That I act like a gorilla."

  The smile was stronger this time, whether at his words or the image they brought on, he didn't know. He found he didn't much like the idea of her laughing at him, and wondered why he'd ever brought it up.

  "I can imagine you would," Chandra said softly, a note he could only describe as envy in her voice. It puzzled him, but her next words explained it with poignant clarity. "It must be nice to care that much about someone."

  She shrugged, a simple little movement of one fragile shoulder that made Linc want to pick her up and cuddle her, to ease away the pain. The sight of that pale silken skin as her shoulder lifted gave rise to another urge he smothered instantly as she added quietly, "It must be nice to have someone care that much about you."

  There was no way she could be faking that aura of desolate loneliness, Linc thought. It was real, he could feel it, it came off her in waves. Whatever else she was, he had no doubt left that she was utterly alone. He just wasn't certain what that meant. It could mean she had been abandoned by whoever put her up to this. It could mean she just wasn't used to operating solo. Or, he thought, shaking himself out of his professional assessment of her, it could simply mean that she was innocent, at least as far as his work was concerned. And he'd had about enough of not knowing which was the truth.

  "It's time for some answers, Chandra." His voice was gentle, but he saw by her look that she had heard the undertone; he'd hit the end of his patience, and she knew it. She tightened the towel around her as she glanced at the steps up to the cockpit once more.

  So it wasn't going to be so easy, he thought with an inner sigh. "I'd beat you to it," he promised. "And I'd be a lot madder than I am now."

  Her head snapped back around. She sank into the cushions of the settee, as if to prove to him that she wasn't going to chance it. She bit her lip, that full lower lip that made him want to lick his own, as she tried to match his look.

  "I … I'm sorry." Her voice quavered. "I know you're angry."

  He wasn't really, he was just uneasy; he always was when no matter how he added two and two he kept coming up with five. But he didn't try to dissuade her; if she thought he was truly angry, he might get some answers. It looked like that was the only way he would. He got up then, and stood looking down at her from his full six-one.

  "Don't you think I have a right to be?" he asked. "I pull you out of the ocean, and you return the favor by drawing down on me, with my own gun, mind you, then splitting on me the minute my back's turned. Then you come back and break into my boat."

  "I know," she said in a tiny voice. She'd given up trying to match his steady stare the moment he'd stood up, and was studying the table once more.

  "I think I've got a right to some answers."

  "I know," she repeated, her voice not much stronger.

  "So?"

  "I … can't."

  "Then where do I go for my answers, Channie?" he said softly, using the nickname for the first time, just as he let slip into his voice some of the steel he wielded so well on the job. It was a combination that made her shiver. "To the police? The press, maybe?"

  She winced. "Please…"

  "I'm going to get those answers, Chandra. Whether it's your version or someone else's is up to you."

  Her head shot up and her startled gaze flew to his face. He'd hit home with that one, he thought.

  "Talk to me, Channie," he urged. "How much worse off can you be?"

  She shook her head slowly, as if in pain. "Oh, God…"

  "Tell me," Linc insisted, knowing she was close to cracking. "What were you doing out there? What boat left you there? Why weren't they looking for you?"

  He leaned over and put his hands flat on the table, knowing that she would see the difference between their broad strength and the fragility of her own. Knowing she would see the scars that traversed his left hand, and the scars on the knuckles of his right, and would think he'd resorted to violence in the past. So many little tricks, he thought, and made himself go on, harshly.

  "What has you so damned scared that you'd try to use a gun when you've obviously never held one in your life? That you'd commit a burglary even though you can't bring yourself to steal a little food when you're two days hungry? What, Chandra?"

&nb
sp; "No," she whimpered, almost cowering away from him.

  "Yes," he said, hating it, but leaning down farther, pressing harder. "You had to have been on a boat, that far out. But there were none in sight. Where was it? Why didn't it stop? Didn't they know? Or didn't they care?"

  She was shaking now, and suddenly Linc couldn't stand it. Without turning a hair, he'd questioned grown men until they'd broken under the pressure, without turning a hair, but this pale, flaxen-haired waif was tying him in large, painful knots. He straightened up and backed away until he came up against the mast footing.

  "Damn it," he said, his voice husky with strain, "I don't want to scare it out of you. You're too damn scared already. Just tell me, Chandra. Please. What the hell happened?"

  He saw her suck in a breath. She bit her lip again. He saw her jaw tighten. And then, after all her efforts to hold it back had failed, it burst from her in a rush.

  "I jumped. That's what happened."

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  « ^ »

  "Why?"

  Chandra stared at Linc, as if dazed by the simple question. He could see that she had expected him to be shocked, maybe even horrified, but then she didn't know he wasn't the average citizen she thought he was, or even the average military man. He'd learned to absorb much more startling, more appalling things than this without flicking an eyelash. Besides, this answer had already occurred to him, although he hadn't quite believed it.

  He wasn't sure he believed it now. There had been something in her tone, some underlying note of bitterness that told him there was much more to it than those simple words.

  "Why?" he repeated.

  "Isn't it obvious? I'm crazy." It was even more obvious now, that flippant, sharp inflection. "Unbalanced. Nuts. Wacko. Whatever you want to call it."

  Linc leaned back against the base of the mast where it went through the cabin. He crossed his arms over his chest.

  He studied her for a long, silent moment, until she looked away.

  "So," he said slowly, "you're crazy. And you just happened to have gone haywire on a boat that was miles from shore, is that it?"