“Gotta…talk to Aaron,” he mumbled, and lurched off to where the FBI agent was about to be loaded into a waiting EMS wagon.
“Hey, Hawkins,” Campbell greeted him, sounding weak but grinning anyway.
“Hey, yourself,” Hawk said gruffly. “I’d shake your hand, but…”
“Yeah, looks like I’m kinda tied up at the moment.”
“Yeah, well…” Hawk stuck his hands in his jacket pockets and shifted uneasily; moments like this were never easy for him. He coughed and muttered, “Just wanted to say thanks, before they, uh, haul you in for repairs.”
“Hey, you too.”
“Oh-well.” Hawk made a dismissive gesture and looked off into the distance. Campbell followed his gaze.
“That’s one helluva lady,” he said softly. “But I expect you know that, don’t you?”
Hawk didn’t answer. Two paramedics hoisted the FBI agent’s gurney onto its wheels and began rolling it toward the waiting van. Campbell lifted his head. “Hey, Hawk?”
“Yeah?” He took a few steps, keeping pace with the gumey.
“Take good care of her, you hear?”
He halted. “Hey, wait It’s not like that.”
“The hell it’s not.” The gumey slid into the van, but Campbell’s eyes still followed him, glowing like coals in his pale face. “Look man, just because it’s never happened to me, doesn’t mean I don’t know it when I see it. You let that lady go, you’re crazy, you hear me? Crazy.”
The van’s door began to close. The last thing Hawk heard Aaron Campbell say before they did was, “Hey-ask her if she’s got a daughter!”
Jane watched the two men in immaculate gray suits walk away across the dusty parking lot and disappear around a corner.
“What’d they want?” Tom growled, startling her. She was still a little bemused, and hadn’t heard him come back.
“Oh,” she said, smiling up at him from the gurney’s hard pillow, “they were just being nice.” Under the edge of the rough EMS blanket, she was fingering a plain white business card.
Tom was glowering-there was no other word for it. “They’re CIA.”
“Yes,” Jane murmured, “I know.” And they asked me to give them a call-me! Jane Carlysle. She wouldn’t, of course; the very idea was, well, preposterous. But still…the CIA.
Jane Carlysle…spy.
Oh my.
“They’re gonna want to take you over to the hospital…check everything out,” Tom said, still scowling at her, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets. “Just to be on the safe side.”
“Yes, I guess.” She took a deep breath. Her heart began to hurt. She pressed her fist into her stomach and felt her pulse bang against her knuckles. “And what about you? What’s next for you. Tom?”
He shifted restlessly and looked off into the distance. “I’ll be going back to Washington.”
“Oh,” she said. “Of course.” Please, God. don’t let me fall apart.
“I’ve got some things to do there. There’s…someone I need to see.”
“I see,” she whispered, though she didn’t, not at all. I won’t ask if he’s coming back… I won’t. Please, God, don’t let me ask “There’s someone…I have to say goodbye to.” His voice sounded strange…thick and husky.
Jane’s breath seemed to catch in her throat. She could only stare at him, suspended in a strange, shimmering state, like a newly emerging chrysalis. Do I dare? If he would only look at me…
She never knew where she got the strength to say the words, calmly, quietly. “When are you leaving?”
“I dunno…depends.” And now at last he was looking at her, rocking a little onto the balls of his feet, then back again, as if he felt ill at ease. His frown seemed less severe than usual. Almost wary. “I’ve got a few things to wrap up around here first Then, I guess it pretty much depends on when they let you go.”
“I don’t understand.” But she did. Oh, she did. And she felt as if her heart would fly right out of her chest. Surely he would see it. Surely he must know.
“I want…I’d like you to come with me.”
Somehow she knew that was all he would say. All he could say. And it was enough.
She reached for his hand. He took hold of hers like a drowning man thrown a rope, and after a moment, raised it, closed his eyes and pressed his lips against her palm. She felt a shudder pass through him. and then a sigh.
Epilogue
“This isn’t quite what I expected,” Jane said, laughing nervously.
The woman walking beside her chuckled. It was a warm sound, to match her warm brown eyes, which glowed like fine old brandy when she smiled. “No, 1 suppose not.” She shook her head and sighed. “Tom always did lack a certain degree of…”
“Tact?” suggested Jane.
Emma Hostetler smiled. “Grace. When it comes to matters of the heart, Tom is, well, rather like a newborn foal trying out its legs for the first time. He had so little experience with love, you know, when he was growing up.”
“No,” said Jane, “I didn’t know.” She knew so little about the man she loved. Learning about him was still a new and exciting voyage of discovery, and every detail a small source of awe.
Emma sighed. “Oh, yes…his father was seldom there, of course, and his mother…” She paused and made a gesture, as if brushing away a fly. “Well. That’s for Tom to tell you. Let’s just say, I don’t know what might have happened to him if…”
“He hadn’t met your daughter…Jenny.”
Why doesn’t this hurt more? she wondered, lifting her face to the April sun, drawing in a deep breath filled with the smells of new grass, flowers…lilacs. This was his wife’s home, these were her parents. She’d felt so scared about coming here. But from the moment she’d met Emma Hostetler and her gaunt, twinkly-eyed, pipe-smoking, college-professor husband, Frank. she’d felt warm. Embraced. Accepted.
“He told me he loved her very much. I wonder if he’ll ever-” She stopped, and sighed.
Emma looked at her in surprise. “Of course he will. He loves you. Anyone can see that. Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”
Jane laughed a little and said, “Oh…well, I don’t know about that. He says…”
“If you’re waiting for Tom. to tell you,” Emma said dryly, stooping to clip a daffodil stern, “don’t hold your breath.” She dropped the flower into the basket on Jane’s arm and paused, turning to look up at the gracious Georgian house they’d left behind. Her face was gentle, and a little sad. “He never told Jenny, either, you know. I think maybe that’s why it’s been so hard for him to let her go.”
Jen …
Hawk stood in the upstairs corner bedroom that had been hers, looking down on the sweep of lawn and the gardens beyond. The casement windows were open to let in the soft April breezes, and the voices of the two women walking there drifted up to him like the lazy murmur of bees. As he watched, a low ripple of laughter seemed to stir across his auditory nerves like a playful sprite playing peekaboo with his memory.
You love her, Tom?
He took a deep breath, trying to ease the ache inside him.
Then why don’t you say it?
His jaw tightened and his eyes burned. He’d loved Jen…so much.
The laughter skirled like a breeze around the corners of his mind. He thought it sounded a trifle smug. Of course you did.
The air seemed full of pollen suddenly. He felt something building like a sneeze at the back of his throat, behind his eyelids. Because he’d never told her.