Hindsight (59 page)

‘How to see things in a new light.’ He stroked her hair softly, somehow managing to make her legs feel even weaker. ‘How to appreciate more of the things that matter in life. Big things. Little things — and amazing things like this …’

He cupped her cheek and lifted her face gently, then slowly and very gently brought his lips to hers. Her body sparked with renewed excitement, and as he drew her against his chest, and his kiss became passionate, she closed her eyes and melted into him, longing for more — longing for Ben — aching … Then he broke away, leaving her gasping.

‘Did you feel that, Mira? That’s what you do to me.’

Bewildered, she reached up to read his expression with her fingertips and found him with a frown, his furrowed brows only softening under her touch. ‘Are you angry at me?’

‘I’m angry at myself. You belong to another man.’

‘I don’t belong to anybody.’

‘But you want to. Your heart’s so sweet for love, I can taste it in the air around you. I can tell you burn for more, and you make me burn, too. I came to see you today, because I
had
to. I tried staying away this past week and it nearly killed me.’

Mira spun away, reeling with conflicts and suspicions — needing to put space between them, but her feet failed her. ‘I thought you’d
died
,’ she confessed over her shoulder to him. ‘Or been transferred away …’

He came to her again and touched her hand. ‘Would it have made any difference?’

She tried to walk away again, but he pulled her back to him.

‘Would it?’ he demanded.

She closed her eyes and touched his chest as a silent plea to release her, and reluctantly, he did.

‘I don’t know … maybe,’ she conceded. ‘I know there’s a lot of things I’d love you to show me. Waking in a field of wild horses at dawn, for one, and more campfire music under a million stars. Heaven knows, Ben’s been making it quite clear how he feels about me, and whether it’s his fault or not, I need to do something to stop myself going crazy. It’s hard to imagine him wanting me near him any time soon. But I won’t
use
you. I’m not looking for love — I’m
not
! I don’t want to be dependent on anyone ever again.’

‘I wouldn’t want you to be dependent. I said it the first day I saw you on Straddie — and I recognised it straight up, the first day we met in the hall at Serenity. You’re a free spirit, Mira. A gutsy wildcat. I was happy enough just being in your company around the campfire, so if it’s all the same to you — I mean, if you have no objections — I’d appreciate the chance to get to know you better. No strings attached. No pressure. If you want me to leave, just say so.’

Fear compelled her to say so right there and then. ‘I’m not the person you think I am,’ she confessed. ‘You scare me.’

‘Me?’ he laughed. ‘I’m harmless. No uniform. No ties to the army. I don’t want to pressure you with a heavy relationship. Call me security if you need emotional distance. Home handyman, driver or whatever. I just need to know you’re safe. I need it for
me
until I’m done fighting my own demons. Is that too selfish?’

Mira closed her eyes, longing for something so similar, but a small voice inside her continued to resist, and the vision of Ben in an army uniform continued to haunt her. It had to be her worst fear trying to manifest. She knew enough about Freddie’s predictions to know the future could be edited with sufficient willpower, means and opportunity, and Lockman could certainly help her with all of that to prevent that part of the vision from ever coming true. But every time she’d worked that close to Lockman, she’d weakened and succumbed to him personally — and then something bad always happened.

She could imagine the real Ben on his way home from hospital by now with Gabby and Mel — their lives going on without her, no doubt wishing they’d never crossed paths with her in the first place. How swiftly hope for a fresh life had turned to despair for all of them. And now here was Lockman, a virtual stranger, offering a fresh handful of hope. Armfuls of it, and she needed hope more than anything; yearned for it like a drowning swimmer burning for air.

‘Lieutenant …? Oh, now I don’t even know what to call you.’

‘How about Adam?’

‘Is that your real name? Or a code name?’

‘It’s real enough.’

Trembling, she offered her hands to him. ‘Oh, Adam. Please …?’ She needed him to understand the difference between who she was and who she wanted to be, and she tried desperately to be as strong as he believed her to be, knowing herself to be so weak, but he swept her into his arms and kissed her, whispering her name and dissolving through her emotional defences as if she no longer needed them.

And then a phone rang.

He let it ring again and again in his back pocket, disentangling himself from her only with great reluctance.

‘I have to take this,’ he said, withdrawing further away from her, then he spoke in low tones, giving only yes or no responses, but Mira could tell from his shift in mood that whatever bad news he’d received, it involved her.

‘This phone was meant to be yours,’ he said as he came back to her. ‘The one Garland suggested you might want to keep here for emergencies. I didn’t think you’d want it but—’

‘You’re a good boy scout, I know.’ Mira sighed and removed her glasses to clean them on the hem of her skirt. ‘What did she want this time?’

‘Just a message from her surveillance unit, and it’s not so much a string as a catch.’ He stroked her arm as if that might help soften the coming blow. ‘If you want to run away right now, just say the word and pick a direction. I may not be a specialist in escape and evasion, but I know a few things.’

‘You may not have noticed,’ she said, summoning a smile for him, ‘… but I’m blind. Direction makes little difference to me. My life keeps turning in circles anyway.’

He chuckled. ‘Yeah, I was beginning to suspect that.’

‘Then you should know I can’t run from anything until I understand the full shape of things — and if there’s one thing Ben taught me, it’s that I have to face my demons or else they just keep haunting me. Looking back now at that first day near the bridge, I can see the longer I leave it, the worse it gets for everybody around me.’

‘It’s already bad though,’ he said, placing a steadier hand on her shoulder.

‘Yeah, I was beginning to suspect that. Just give me the dot points.’

He caressed her cheek and sighed, but sounded resolved, not defeated. ‘Twenty minutes ago, General Garland lost contact with the civilian phone she’d been tracking aboard the rogue
Delta III
. That’s Kitching’s Russian-made submarine. Two minutes before that, from an estuary near the border, a text message was sent from that phone to the national emergency centre — specifically, the emergency number: one-zero-six. I believe you’re familiar with that?’

She nodded, already fearing the shadows, and among them the longest that stretched like elastic all the way back to Serenity. ‘It’s the emergency number for people with disabilities.’

‘The message was one word: Help.’

‘And the sender?’

‘Matron Madonna Sanchez.’

Snap!

Mira’s final ties to Serenity whipped out into the world to bite her. With hindsight, it seemed inevitable, and yet she shook her head in disbelief. When the snap came, she’d expected to be the one flung back into a life of captivity. Instead it was Sanchez, a prisoner now, and at the mercy of the same murderous colonel who’d shot Ben and tortured Lockman.

‘You don’t have to do a thing,’ Lockman assured her. ‘I can guess what she means to you, but Garland didn’t call to solicit your help. She only called to keep you informed so you could stay on your guard, while she takes care of it.’

‘Stay on
your
guard, you mean. If she sends another security team anywhere near me, I’d rather you shoot them. Or better yet, teach me a few new tricks so next time I can attack my problems before they attack me.’

‘I’m up for that,’ he said, ushering her swiftly back to the car. ‘Just let me bury this phone first and …’

‘Grab Pockets.’

‘Right, and we’ll make a run for as far from here as we can get before nightfall.’

‘Not just anywhere,’ Mira said as she fastened her seatbelt. ‘I’m done living my life in circles. I want to go see that estuary, the last known location for Matron Maddy. We’ll need a boat, and maybe some diving gear.’

‘Did I miss something? You’re going to
offer
your services to Garland?’

Mira shook her head, stiffening her shoulders as well as her resolve. ‘I’m taking control from the start this time, but if you need tactical support, you make the call.’

‘Oh, she’s not going to like that.’

Mira laughed. ‘Suits me. We’ll see who uses who from now on.’