One Man's War (25 page)

Across the hall Tess's door was closed. Pete had such a fierce desire to open it and seek the security of her arms. He was trembling badly, and he knew only Tess's strength would help calm him. Halting, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. No, he couldn't do that to her. He couldn't take advantage of Tess without her knowing the full truth of his actions.

With a muffled sound, Pete turned and quickly walked down the hall. Memories of Nam haunted him like harpy eagles wheeling around him. Coffee always helped to calm him. When he'd returned to Nam after being home with Tess, he'd quit going to the O club to drink beer or whiskey. Instead, he'd chosen coffee over alcohol, and with good reason. He'd seen what it had done to Tess, and he had no desire to be driven to that limit.

Padding quietly through the living room, Pete headed for the kitchen. He jerked to a halt at the doorway. Tess was sitting at the darkened table with a cup in her hands.

“Tess.”

She looked up. Pete stood tensely in the doorway, his face and body deeply etched by moonlight and darkness. “Pete...”

He hesitated, his heart starting to pound unrelentingly. Tess was dressed in a dark jade silk robe, her hair loose and framing her face. She looked excruciatingly beautiful bathed in the moonlight shining through the kitchen windows.

“I...uh—”

“Nightmares?” Tess guessed softly, getting up and coming around the table. Her heart was skittering as she took in his magnificently taut body. The white towel hung low on his hips, barely grazing his knees. Being around Pete dissolved her thinking processes, and Tess reacted out of instinct, from her heart.

Pete's eyes widened as Tess approached. He caught a whiff of her wonderful womanly scent. If she touched him, if she—

Without speaking, Tess lifted her arms and placed them around Pete. The instant she glided against his firm, trembling body, his arms wrapped around her like hard steel bands. The air rushed out of her lungs as he gripped her and buried his face in her thick hair. Whispering his name, Tess held him as strongly as she could. Pete's trembling gradually dissolved as the moments spun to a halt. All Tess was aware of was their mutual, ragged breathing, their hearts pounding in crazy unison, and the smooth, firm warmth of him as a man pressed against her.

“I love you so much,” she quavered, closing her eyes and simply holding him.

“I need you. God, I need you so much, Tess,” he growled rawly.

“It's going to be all right. The shaking will stop soon, I promise....”

How long Pete stood in the doorway with Tess in his arms, he didn't know. Miraculously, Tess's promise came true, and finally he lifted his head enough to meet her dark, lustrous eyes. He nodded.

“I didn't think I'd have nightmares,” he confided.

She smiled sadly. “With time, they won't come as often—or be as potent.” Sliding her hand across his shoulder, she felt the dampness of perspiration on his flesh. “Would you like a cup of tea? That's what I was having.”

“Coffee?”

“Sure.” Tess hated to part from him, and saw the same feeling mirrored in his smoky blue eyes. “I couldn't sleep, either,” she confessed with a slight smile.

“You had nightmares, too?” Pete asked, finally releasing Tess. He took the chair next to where she'd been sitting. Like a starving man, he watched as she walked to the counter to make him coffee, her movements economical yet graceful.

Wryly, Tess glanced across her shoulder at him. “I couldn't sleep because you were right across the hall from me. My dreams...thoughts...weren't exactly what I'd term nightmares.”

Pete managed a faint smile. “More torrid than bad?” he guessed huskily.

“Very torrid. And all about you—and me.”

Heat and longing avalanched through Pete's entire body. Tess turned away, and though there was very little light, he could tell she was blushing. Rubbing his face, Pete knew he couldn't go on this way any longer. “Look,” he rasped, “there's something I need to own up to, Tess. Something we've got to clear up between us before...well, before we can plan a future together.”

Tess felt her heart twinge with real fear. She plugged in the coffee maker and came and sat down next to Pete. She saw the grimness in his eyes and the set of his mouth. His hair was tousled, and beads of perspiration still dotted his broad forehead. “Whatever it is,” she whispered, gripping his folded hands on the table, “we'll take it together. Like we did in the past. One day at a time, Pete. One problem at a time.”

A fierce wave of love replaced his fear momentarily. Pete unfolded his hands and captured her long, slender fingers between his, rubbing them against his cheek. “I've never loved a woman like I love you,” Pete admitted thickly, “so I'm on quicksand, Tess. I'm scared as hell of telling you this—of what it might do to what we have, to what I want for us.” He lifted his head and met her warm, tender gaze.

“Tell me,” she urged softly.

Pete couldn't meet the compassion and love in her eyes. He dropped his gaze to their entwined hands on the table. “I saw you going downhill in Nam,” he began in a hoarse voice, “and I loved you so damned much I was going crazy with worry. I knew you had to get out of there, that Nam was killing you a little piece at a time.” Taking a deep, unsteady breath, Pete dove on. “So I contacted a friend of mine in the government, a buddy. He owed me a big favor from years ago. I told him about you, how I loved you and wanted you out of Nam because of your emotional condition.”

Lifting his head, Pete forced himself to meet and hold Tess's shadowy gaze. His hand tightened perceptibly around hers. “My friend promised to wangle a set of orders from the US AID department to get you transferred out of Vietnam to Stateside duty.” Pete's mouth went dry as he saw first surprise, then anguish in Tess's eyes. “He owed me, and he gave me what I wanted. That's when your supervisor flew up from Saigon with the set of orders.”

“You did that?” Tess cried softly.

Pete's grip tightened on her hand, her cry serrating his heart, triggering the worst of his fears. “Yeah,” he said heavily. “I was the one responsible for getting you home. I'm not sorry I did it, Tess. I am sorry for the reactions it triggered. I—I didn't know that would happen. I've felt like hell about it. I didn't mean to hurt you more than you were hurting already.”

Tess got up suddenly, pulling her hand free. She moved to the counter, her emotions in violent turmoil. The kitchen was quiet save for her ragged breathing. Gripping the cool counter, she stared blindly out the window into the darkness. Minutes rolled by and the silence deepened.

Pete got up, the chair scraping against the white tile floor, the sound grating against his taut nerves. He moved over to where Tess stood, tense and unmoving. Wanting to touch her shoulder but not daring to, he allowed his arm to drop.

“I did it because I loved you, Tess,” he rasped. Her profile was filled with suffering, her mouth pulled into a line of pain. “I knew you had battle fatigue, and I knew that if you didn't get out of there soon, you'd crack up. Honey, I didn't want that to happen.”

Tess jerked a look in his direction. To her surprise, she saw agony in Pete's eyes. But it was her pain, not his. Some of her anger dissolved. “Why didn't you give me a choice, Pete? Why didn't you come clean from the start? What you did was sneaky and underhanded!”

Wincing at the truth of her words, Pete hung his head. He stared down at his feet. “Yeah,” he admitted roughly, “it was sneaky and underhanded.”

“You didn't trust me with the truth.”

Pete shook his head. “No, I didn't. You were too committed to your villagers, Tess. I made a command decision based on knowing you, the situation and my gut response to it.” Looking up, he held her angry, accusing gaze. “Just try and keep in mind why I did it. I'm sorry I didn't tell you because it's hurt you—and what I want for us.” He opened his hands. “Honey, you taught me how to quit running. But in another way, you were running at that time, too.”

“How?” Tess demanded scratchily, wiping the tears angrily from her eyes.

“There's such a thing as getting overinvolved in something, Tess,” Pete said heavily, “and that's a form of extremism. To me, that's another form of running. You get so enmeshed in what you're doing, you disregard your own emotional and physical needs, driving yourself at breakneck speed toward that wall at the other end. You don't know when to stop, when to rest or when to step away from it. I was running away from commitment. You were running toward commitment to the extent that it was beginning to destroy you. And no commitment, no matter what it is, should do that to a person.”

His words fell hard on Tess. Her eyes blurred with tears, and a wealth of new and startling emotions roiled through her as she stared up at Pete in the darkness. Moments jagged by, creating a gulf between them.

Finally, Tess touched her trembling lower lip with her fingers.

Pete groaned and reached out, but Tess backed away from him. His heart plunged with fear. His worst nightmare was coming true. The tears tracking down her cheeks tore at him and he stood there, helpless.

“I'm sorry,” he croaked, “I'm sorry I hurt you like this, Tess. My intentions were good, but it backfired on me—on you. God, I love you. Maybe my love, however twisted or screwed up it is, fouled my ability to see things...us...clearly. I never loved before, Tess. I never allowed a woman inside those walls you saw around me. You gave me the faith to begin to trust a woman again, to trust you. I did, all the way. I never knew love could be like this—the euphoria I'd feel sometimes when I'd think of you...or the fear I'd feel knowing I had to tell you the truth and what it might do to our relationship. God, Tess, I'm sorry. I guess I still don't know what real love is all about, because look what I've done to you...to what we might have had—” He whirled around and stalked out of the kitchen, hearing Tess's sobs behind him, each one tearing him apart just a little more.

* * *

The first light of dawn stained the east as Pete stood by the corral full of lowing Herefords and their calves. The metal was cool against his damp hands as he gripped the pipe fence, watching dawn blossom from gray to a deep purple, then red, and finally a pale gold high in the cloudless sky. He was immune to the beauty that surrounded him, enmeshed in his own suffering, the web of deceit he'd spun for Tess and himself. He could still hear the way her sobs had sounded as he'd rushed down the hall to his bedroom to get dressed and escape from the house.

Hanging his head, he laughed derisively at himself. This time, he'd run, not Tess. He'd left her when he should have stayed and helped her, or taken the heat he deserved. With a ragged sigh, Pete rested his brow on his arms, a tiredness sweeping through him worse than the one he'd brought back from Nam. Tears crept into his tightly shut lids, and a scream, forming deep down inside his gut, wrenched upward. It took away his breath, jamming high in his chest while his throat constricted. Pete wanted to howl like a wolf that had lost its mate. Never had he felt so alone, so abandoned. And the worst of it was, he'd created the situation. Tess hadn't abandoned him. He'd run from himself.

“Pete?”

Swallowing hard, Pete slowly raised his head. He blinked back the tears, thinking he'd heard Tess call him.
Impossible.
And then he felt her hand tremble as it lightly touched his shoulder. Disbelieving, Pete turned around.

Tess winced at the tears she saw in Pete's narrowed eyes. She allowed her hand to drop back to her side and stood before him, terribly unsure of herself. In the dawn light his face was deeply carved with shadows of grief.

“Forgive me,” she whispered, “for everything....”

Pete was afraid to breathe. He stood there, staring down at her. Tess's face was pale, her eyes dark with suffering as she huddled in her silk robe, the coolness of the dawn surrounding them. “What?”

“I've been so blind, Pete,” she began unsteadily, and wrapped her arms more tightly around her body. “I'm sorry I yelled at you.” Tess shook her head. “War—God, I hate war. It tears us up, skews our perspective and rips the hearts out of us.” Taking a huge breath, Tess took a step closer, hoping that the love she held for Pete was enough to see them through this last, terrible test. She wouldn't blame him if he walked out of her life for good.

“The last few hours, I've had time to think...feel, really. That's part of my problem: I think too much, and I keep stuffing down my emotions, which is what got me in trouble in the first place.” She gave a small, nervous laugh.

Pete felt first one muscle and then the next begin to ease within his tense body. He attempted to smile. “Yeah, I got the same problem. At least we have that in common, Tess.”

Taking a terrible risk, Tess reached out, her hand settling on his arm. “We share so much more, Pete. Good things. Wonderful things. I—I just got off track when you told me what you'd done. At first,” she said, holding his bleak gaze, “I was angry at you for having done it. But then, when I had time to feel my way through what you'd confessed, I realized you'd done it out of love. Maybe even necessity.” With a shake of her head, Tess's voice cracked. “How can I be angry at you when you did it out of unselfish love for me?”

Blindly, Pete groped for and found Tess. He hauled her into his arms and crushed her against him. “Jesus, I love you,” he whispered brokenly. “I'd never do anything intentionally to hurt you, Tess.
Never.
”

With a small cry, she reached up and framed his suffering face. “I love you. And I'm afraid I may have damaged your love for me because of what I did back there in the kitchen. I'm afraid I'm going to lose you....”

Pete realized the utter, raw courage it took for Tess to admit her deepest, darkest fear to him. With a little laugh, he gripped her by the shoulders. “That's my fear, too.”