The Phoenix Encounter

Having spent the last two years in a country decimated by civil war, hunger and indiscriminate violence, Lily thought she had endured every kind of shock a human being could endure. She’d seen things she couldn’t fathom. Things she refused to think of once the lights were out and she was alone in her bed. A few minutes earlier, she’d thought she could handle just about anything fate saw fit to throw her way.

She’d been wrong.

Not even the horrors of war had prepared her for seeing Robert again. She simply couldn’t believe he was standing in her living room, as warm and alive as the last time she’d seen him. The night she’d hurt him terribly and then watched as he’d been cut down by shrapnel.

God in heaven, how was she going to handle this? How was she going to tell him everything that had happened since he’d left? Things that would change both their lives forever. The questions gnawed at her like voracious little beasts. Questions that terrified her more than the threat of any bomb or soldier’s bayonet or stray bullet. Questions she had absolutely no idea how to answer.

Standing next to the hearth, Robert regarded her with hard, suspicious eyes. He may look the same, she mused, but the last months had changed him. Made him hard. Maybe even bitter. She considered the bitterness in her own heart and wondered if the last months had been as hard for him as they had been for her. She didn’t see how.

Still, the steely gaze that swept the length of her remained starkly familiar. The pull was still there, too, she realized, and a shiver rippled through her hard enough to make her hands shake. She endured his scrutiny with stoic silence, hoping he couldn’t hear the deafening rush of blood through her veins or see her shake.

Refusing to be cowed, Lily stared at him, trying to keep her thoughts on the business at hand and failing miserably. He offered a commanding presence that unnerved her as much as the sight of any enemy soldier. Broad shoulders. Lean hips. Legs slightly bowed with muscle. He seemed taller than she remembered even though she knew that was an impossibility. He had the most fascinating face of any man she’d ever seen. Intelligence and a subtle cunning burned bright and hot behind piercing blue eyes. Laugh lines cupped a mouth that was much more harsh than it had been when she’d known him. A five-o’clock shadow darkened a square jaw that lent him a hostile countenance. Even from three feet away she could smell him, an out-of-doors scent that reminded her of mountains and rain—and a time when he’d ruled her senses as surely as he’d held her heart in the palm of his hand.

Lily cut the thought short with brutal precision. Now wasn’t the time to remember how well she’d once known this man.

“You can’t possibly be my contact,” he said after an excruciating minute.

“I am.” Having lost her appetite for the tea, she took it to the sink and dumped it.

“Lily, for God’s sake, I thought you were dead.”

For a while, Lily had thought she’d been dead, too, only to realize that sometimes it was much more painful to be alive. The old pain roiled inside her as the memories shifted restlessly. Memories she’d refused to think of because the pain was too great. Memories that had eaten at her from the inside out for nearly two years. If it hadn’t been for Jack, she wasn’t sure she would have survived. Sweet, precious Jack had given her hope when the last of her hope had been all but ripped from her heart.

Gathering her frazzled nerves and the tangled remnants of her composure, she turned to face him. “As you can see, I’m very much alive.”

“I can see that. But…my God, how—”

“I was injured.” Self-conscious, she touched the scar at her temple and tried not to remember that her physical injuries had not been the worst of what she’d endured.

He stared at her with those hard eyes, and she knew the shock of seeing her was giving way to the need for an explanation. A explanation she had absolutely no idea how to relay. She’d consoled herself with anger in the weeks she’d been held captive, tried hard to convince herself that Robert had abandoned her. Some days she’d even believed it. Days when it was easier to be angry than it was to hurt.

“Why didn’t you contact me?” he asked incredulously. “Why didn’t you let me know you were alive?”

Because she hadn’t the slightest clue how to answer him without opening a Pandora’s box of pain that would change both of their lives irrevocably, she turned to rinse the cup. Stacking it neatly on the rack, she crossed to the fire to warm her hands, aware that Robert had trailed her.

“I can’t discuss that right now,” she said.

He stared at her, his expression incredulous and angry. “I deserve an explanation, damn it. We were…together.”

Pulse pounding like a jackhammer, she stared at him. “It’s in the past, Robert. Let it go. I’ve moved on. Maybe you should have, too.”

Robert felt as if he’d been slapped. “I want to know what happened.”

“No, you don’t.” Because she couldn’t bear to look at him and think of those terrible days, she walked into the small living area and motioned for him to take one of two chairs in front of the hearth.

Never taking his eyes from her, he started for the farthest chair, but had to cross in front of her to reach it. Feeling as if she’d suddenly strayed too close to a rogue tiger in a flimsy cage, she backed up a step, trying not to notice the way he winced when he sat down.

“You’re limping,” she said, watching him closely.

“It’s an old injury.”

She wondered which were worse, the injuries that left scars on flesh or the ones that left an indelible mark on the psyche and shattered the heart. “If you want to get into some dry clothes, I can hang yours near the fire.”

He looked at the sweater and jeans that clung damply to his frame. “I’ve got a change of clothes in the duffel.”

“You can change in the back. There’s a room for you.”

Robert grabbed his duffel and slung it over his shoulder. Lily rose and walked through the kitchen to the small room that had been added to the cottage as a pantry many years ago, back when people had had food. With wood plank floors and shelves holding a meager supply of canned vegetables and fruits, it was barely large enough for the cot, let alone a man of Robert’s size. But it was all she had and it was going to have to do.

He stepped into the room and set his duffel on the narrow cot. The mirror above the sink caught his stare, and their eyes met, held.

Lily felt the contact like the blast of a mortar. Looking quickly away, she stepped back. “There’s no door, but Jacques put up this curtain to give you some privacy.”

“This is fine.”

“I’ll just…be in the living room.”

“I’ll be there in a minute.”

She wasn’t sure why she hesitated. Maybe because there was so much more she needed to say. Maybe because she wasn’t quite sure if he was a figment of her imagination. But she couldn’t stop looking at him. By the time she realized what she was doing, it was too late for her to escape.

Never taking his eyes from hers, Robert reached for the hem of his sweater and pulled it over his head. Lily’s breath stalled in her lungs as his magnificent chest loomed into view. She saw a thatch of dark hair. The ripple of muscle beneath taut flesh. Vivid blue eyes that discerned a hell of a lot more than they revealed. The sight of him shook her, and for a moment she couldn’t move. She’d faced a lot of terrible things in the years she’d been in Rebelia, but oddly none of those things had unnerved her as much as the sight of Dr. Robert Davidson taking off his shirt.

“Maybe you want to stay while I change pants, too,” he said.

Feeling a hot blush burn her cheeks, she yanked the muslin curtain closed and fled.

Lily’s heart was still beating heavily against her breast a few minutes later when Robert walked into the living area and found her at the hearth.

“Where do you want me to put my clothes?” he asked.

She turned to find him standing right behind her, his wet clothes in a bundle. He’d put on a flannel shirt over a black T-shirt. The faded jeans he wore fit him loosely, but there was no denying the sinew of his legs or the bulge of his manhood beneath.

Barely sparing him a glance, she took the clothes from him. Pulling a ring set into the wall over the hearth, she stretched the thin cord to the opposite wall and secured it to a small hook. Once the line was taut, she set about draping his jeans, shirt and jacket over the cord. She could feel his eyes on her as she worked, but she didn’t dare turn to face him. She had to get herself calmed down first.

“How is it that you’re here?” he asked when she’d finished.

Because she didn’t feel capable of explaining something so complex at the moment, she hedged. “I could ask you the same question.”

“All right. I’m working with a group of French doctors on a humanitarian—”

She swung to face him. “That doesn’t explain why you’re here. In my house. I wasn’t expecting an American.”

“Exactly who were you expecting?”

“Someone…who needed information. For the cause.”

“The freedom movement?”