Diamond Bay Read online

  She closed her eyes, hating her own weakness for trying to hold on to him when she’d known from the first that she couldn’t. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “Of course you can. We’ll go now, if you want.”

  Kell watched her silently; if there was any one moment that revealed the strength of the woman, it was now, and it only made the leaving harder. He didn’t want to call Sullivan; he didn’t want to hurry the day when this would have to end. He wanted to stretch time to its utmost limits, to spend the hot, lazy days lying on the beach with her, getting to know every minute facet of her personality and making love to her whenever they wanted. And the nights…those long, warm, fragrant nights, spent tangled together on the damp, twisted sheets. Yes, that was what he wanted. Only the sure knowledge that she was in increasing danger could force him to make that call to Sullivan. His instinct told him that time was running out.

  He was silent so long that Rachel opened her eyes and found him looking at her with that intent way of his. “What I want,” he said deliberately, “is to make love again.”

  That was all it took, just that look of his and the words, and she felt herself growing warm and moist as her body automatically tightened, but she knew that she wouldn’t be able to comfortably accept him. She looked at him with poignant regret. “I don’t think I can.”

  He touched her cheek, his hard, rough fingers stroking the contours of her face with incredible tenderness. “I’m sorry. I should have realized.”

  She gave him a smile that wasn’t as steady as she wished. “Let me change clothes and brush my hair, and we’ll leave.”

  Because she wasn’t the type to linger in front of a mirror, they were on their way in five minutes. Sabin was alert, his dark eyes noting every detail of the countryside and examining every car they met. Rachel found herself watching the rearview mirror in case they were being followed.

  “I need a phone booth off the main drag. I don’t want to be seen by six hundred people on their way to buy groceries.” The words were terse, his attention on the traffic.

  Obediently she searched out a phone booth next to a service station on the edge of town and parked the car next to it. Kell opened the door, then shut it again without getting out. He turned to her with a smile of real amusement on his lips. “I don’t have any money.”

  His smile relieved the tension inside her, and she chuckled as she reached for her purse. “You could use my credit card number.”

  “No. If anyone checked it could lead them to Sullivan.”

  He took the handful of change she gave him and went into the phone booth, closing the door behind him. Rachel watched as he fed coins into the slot, then looked around to see if anyone else was watching him, but the only other person in sight was the man at the service station, and he was sitting in a chair in the front office, leaning back against the wall with the front legs of the chair off the ground while he read a newspaper.

  Kell was back in only a few minutes, and Rachel started the car as he slid onto the seat and slammed the door. “That didn’t take long,” she said.

  “Sullivan doesn’t waste words.”

  “He’ll come?”

  “Yeah.” Suddenly he smiled again, that rare, true smile. “His biggest problem is getting out of the house without his wife following him.”

  The humor, on that particular subject, was unexpected. “She doesn’t understand about his job?”

  He snorted. “It isn’t his job—he’s a farmer. And it’ll make Jane madder than hell that he didn’t take her with him.”

  “Farmer!”

  “He retired from the agency a couple of years ago.”

  “Was his wife an agent, too?”

  “No, thank God,” he said with real feeling.

  “Don’t you like her?”

  “It’s impossible not to like her. I’m just glad Sullivan has her under control on that farm.”

  Rachel gave him a dubious glance. “Is he any good? How old is he, anyway?”

  “He’s about my age. He retired himself. The government would have been glad to keep him another twenty years, but he got out.”

  “And he’s good?”

  Kell’s dark eyebrows lifted. “He’s the best agent I ever had. We trained together in Nam.”

  That reassured her; even more than her dread at his leaving, she feared the danger he would have to face. Not a hint of it would ever surface in any newspaper, but there would be a small war in the nation’s capital. Kell wouldn’t rest until his section was clean again, even at the cost of his own life. The knowledge ate at her. If she could, if he would let her, she would go with him and do whatever she could to protect him.

  “Stop at a drugstore,” he instructed, swiveling in his seat to check behind them.

  “What do you want at a drugstore?” She looked at him again and found him watching her with faint amusement.

  “Birth control. Or haven’t you realized what a chance we’ve been taking?”

  “Yes, I’d realized,” she admitted in a low voice.

  “You weren’t going to say anything or do anything about it?”

  Her hands tightened on the steering wheel until the knuckles were white, and she concentrated on the traffic. “No.”

  Just that one, calmly uttered word had the power to jerk his head up, and she felt his gaze burning on her. “I don’t want to get you pregnant. I can’t stay, Rachel. You’d be alone, with a baby to raise.”

  She braked for a red light and turned her head to meet his gaze. “It would be worth it, to have your baby.”

  His jaw tightened, and he swore under his breath. Damn, he was hard again just at the thought of getting her pregnant, of her bearing his child and nursing it at her pretty breasts. He wanted to. He wanted to take her with him and go home to her every night, but he couldn’t turn his back on his job and his country. Security was critical, now more than ever, and his services were invaluable. It was something he had to do; endangering Rachel was something he couldn’t do.

  Her gray eyes were dark with mingled love and pain. “I won’t make it easy for you to leave me,” she whispered. “I won’t hide what I feel and wave you off with a smile.”

  His profile was hard and unreadable as he turned back to watch the road; he didn’t answer, and when the light changed to green again she drove carefully to the nearest drugstore. Without speaking, she took a twenty from her purse and handed it to him.

  His hand clenched on the crisp bill, and he looked like murder. “It’s either this or abstinence.”

  She drew a deep breath. “Then I suppose you’d better go in, hadn’t you?”

  No, she wasn’t making it any easier; she was making it so difficult that it was tearing him apart. Damn it, he’d give her a baby every year if things were different, he thought savagely as he went into the drugstore and made his purchase. Maybe he was too late; maybe she was already pregnant. Only the naive or the careless could discount the possibility.

  He left the cash register and had started for the door, when Rachel came through it, her face strained, her eyes wide and urgent. Without hesitation he turned and walked several aisles over to intently examine a high stack of insulated beverage coolers. Rachel walked past, to the cosmetic department. Sabin waited, and a moment later the door opened again. He caught a glimpse of sandy hair and ducked his own head down, automatically reaching behind his back for the pistol, but his waistband was empty. The pistol was in the car. His eyes narrowed, and a cold, deadly look settled over his features; moving silently, he began trailing Ellis.

  Rachel had seen the blue Ford driving down the street and had known immediately that it was Ellis; her only thought had been to warn Kell before he walked out of the drugstore and let Ellis see him. If Ellis had been following them it was already too late, but she was fairly certain that wasn’t the case. This was just an unhappy coincidence; it had to be. Sh