else, is that it?" Matt asked roughly.
"You let yourself get pushed around a bit by your family and then
that jerk out in California and now you're out to prove it won't
happen again."
"Full marks for perception, Matt. As they say in the military, I
think you've got the big picture." She pulled free of his arms,
turning to walk slowly back along the beach to the hotel. He
followed at once, stalking alongside her with the restlessness of
a male who has played his last card and knows it isn't a winner.
"Sabrina, I can't believe you're going to do this to both of us."
He made no attempt now to touch her, and his eyes were on the
lights of the hotel ahead. But forty-eight hours later, when he
put her on the evening flight to Dallas, Matt acknowledged
bitterly that she was, indeed, going to do it. He drove the jeep
back toward town as Sabrina's jet climbed into the evening sky,
and he wondered how he was going to get to sleep that night.
The restlessness was heavy in his blood. Something about the dark
foliage on either side of the road reminded him of that last night
in that fouled-up backwater country farther south. The moon had
cast the same shadows then; created the same pockets of fathomless
darkness in the jungle. He could remember the gut feeling he'd had
that night; the deep certainty that everything was wrong.
He'd been right. It had cost him two men and a career to find out
just how right. But he'd had his orders. Matt's scarred fingers
tightened on the jeep's steering wheel. And he'd been the kind of
officer who did the job he was paid to do.
It had cost him just about everything he had in terms of
willpower and physical ability to get himself and the five
surviving men of his small team back out of that jungle hell after
the ambush. He'd had no choice but to leave the bodies of Jenkins
and Symington behind. He was too pragmatic an officer to risk more
lives going back for bodies.
But the guerrillas had gone back for Jenkins and Symington after
giving up on finding Matt and the others. Three days later they
had produced the bodies amid a blaze of publicity that had
thoroughly embarrassed the U.S. government and the Army.
Matt pushed aside the memories, his mind going back to Sabrina
Chase. She had told him to get rid of the bits and pieces of the
military that still stuck to him. Maybe she hadn't realized those
bits and pieces were keeping him glued together.
Then he thought about Rafferty Coyne and the little man's offer
of a job. Matt wondered what good it would do to prove to himself
that he could still handle that kind of work. Would it stave off
the growing sensation that his world was losing a sense of focus?
Did he really want to spend the rest of his life selling
blood-and-guts adventure fiction and trashy New York best sellers
to tourists who left suntan-oil marks on the covers?
This damned restlessness. He'd never experienced anything quite
like it, not even during the unpleasant period of adjustment he'd
made to civilian life two years before.
Sabrina Chase was the one who had done this to him, Matt decided.
Until she had appeared in his life he'd been doing a fairly good
job of keeping everything under control. Just barely, perhaps, but
under control. Now the immediate future looked as though somehow
it didn't belong to him. Rented, just like his white stucco villa
on the hill.
High overhead Sabrina, too, tried to account for an unfamiliar
sense of dissatisfaction and restlessness. Maybe this was what it
was like to live by your own rules. Would there be many instances
of wistful regret?
No, she told herself, there wouldn't. For the simple reason that
there weren't many ex-Major Matt Augusts running around. She had
really picked one hell of a way to celebrate her birthday.
It was all very complicated, but one thing was for certain. She
had made the right decision. Matt August was all wrong for
"You let yourself get pushed around a bit by your family and then
that jerk out in California and now you're out to prove it won't
happen again."
"Full marks for perception, Matt. As they say in the military, I
think you've got the big picture." She pulled free of his arms,
turning to walk slowly back along the beach to the hotel. He
followed at once, stalking alongside her with the restlessness of
a male who has played his last card and knows it isn't a winner.
"Sabrina, I can't believe you're going to do this to both of us."
He made no attempt now to touch her, and his eyes were on the
lights of the hotel ahead. But forty-eight hours later, when he
put her on the evening flight to Dallas, Matt acknowledged
bitterly that she was, indeed, going to do it. He drove the jeep
back toward town as Sabrina's jet climbed into the evening sky,
and he wondered how he was going to get to sleep that night.
The restlessness was heavy in his blood. Something about the dark
foliage on either side of the road reminded him of that last night
in that fouled-up backwater country farther south. The moon had
cast the same shadows then; created the same pockets of fathomless
darkness in the jungle. He could remember the gut feeling he'd had
that night; the deep certainty that everything was wrong.
He'd been right. It had cost him two men and a career to find out
just how right. But he'd had his orders. Matt's scarred fingers
tightened on the jeep's steering wheel. And he'd been the kind of
officer who did the job he was paid to do.
It had cost him just about everything he had in terms of
willpower and physical ability to get himself and the five
surviving men of his small team back out of that jungle hell after
the ambush. He'd had no choice but to leave the bodies of Jenkins
and Symington behind. He was too pragmatic an officer to risk more
lives going back for bodies.
But the guerrillas had gone back for Jenkins and Symington after
giving up on finding Matt and the others. Three days later they
had produced the bodies amid a blaze of publicity that had
thoroughly embarrassed the U.S. government and the Army.
Matt pushed aside the memories, his mind going back to Sabrina
Chase. She had told him to get rid of the bits and pieces of the
military that still stuck to him. Maybe she hadn't realized those
bits and pieces were keeping him glued together.
Then he thought about Rafferty Coyne and the little man's offer
of a job. Matt wondered what good it would do to prove to himself
that he could still handle that kind of work. Would it stave off
the growing sensation that his world was losing a sense of focus?
Did he really want to spend the rest of his life selling
blood-and-guts adventure fiction and trashy New York best sellers
to tourists who left suntan-oil marks on the covers?
This damned restlessness. He'd never experienced anything quite
like it, not even during the unpleasant period of adjustment he'd
made to civilian life two years before.
Sabrina Chase was the one who had done this to him, Matt decided.
Until she had appeared in his life he'd been doing a fairly good
job of keeping everything under control. Just barely, perhaps, but
under control. Now the immediate future looked as though somehow
it didn't belong to him. Rented, just like his white stucco villa
on the hill.
High overhead Sabrina, too, tried to account for an unfamiliar
sense of dissatisfaction and restlessness. Maybe this was what it
was like to live by your own rules. Would there be many instances
of wistful regret?
No, she told herself, there wouldn't. For the simple reason that
there weren't many ex-Major Matt Augusts running around. She had
really picked one hell of a way to celebrate her birthday.
It was all very complicated, but one thing was for certain. She
had made the right decision. Matt August was all wrong for
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