Familiar Stranger

He wanted this over. All of it. Being Jonah. Hiding secrets. Telling lies. Just over. He wasn’t the first man to give up his identity for the good of his country and he wouldn’t be the last. But he’d given up more than an identity, and that was what dug at him in the wee hours of the mornings when sleep eluded him.

He’d given up Cara.

Unconsciously, he increased his speed as the memory of her face crept into his mind. So pretty. So young. And they’d been so much in love. Looking back, he would say crazy in love.

He ducked on the path to avoid a low-hanging branch and swiped his arm across his forehead, catching the sweat before it ran in his eyes. His calves were starting to burn. The pain felt good—a reminder that he was more than just a machine for Uncle Sam.

Cara.

My God, what had he been thinking? They were only sixteen years old and he’d begged her to run away with him. What had he thought they’d do? Better yet, where in hell would they have gone? The fact that she’d pleaded with him to wait until they were out of college said something for the theory that girls matured faster than boys. In their case, she certainly had. She’d known what he’d refused to consider, and because they’d fought and then been too stubborn to admit they were wrong, their lives had turned upside down.

A large bird flew across his line of vision, and he could tell by the absence of sound at its passing that it was an owl, probably on its way home from a night of hunting.

If only he’d had the sense to go home after their fight, but no, he’d had to show the world—and maybe himself—that he was a man. And what better way to do that than to go fight a war?

His older brother, Frank, had signed up months earlier and was already somewhere in the jungles of Vietnam. The family had gotten one letter from him in all that time, and their mother had cried herself to sleep when it came. But that hadn’t occurred to David then. All he’d wanted to do was prove that he was man enough for Cara to love.

When he told her he’d enlisted, he hadn’t expected her to like it, but he’d expected her to wait for him to come back. Instead, she’d cried hysterically, claiming that he’d chosen the army over her. Unable to undo all the choices he’d made, he got on the bus and never came back, although at first, that hadn’t been his plan.

He’d written to her religiously, but to his dismay she never replied. Over a year and a half later and a world away in Saigon, it had all come undone. Receiving a package containing all of his letters unopened was rough, but it was the two accompanying newspaper clippings that nearly killed him. One was the announcement of her wedding, the second the birth of her first child.

He knew Cara, and he’d done the math. The baby was his. He had a daughter back home in the state of New York, and someone else was going to raise her.

After that, short of turning the gun on himself, he’d tried to die. So many times. In so many ways. It should have been simple. Everyone else around him was dying in combat, but it was as if he’d become immortal. Nothing could hurt him.

Then he’d discovered Frank’s treason, and bloodshed had followed. After that, he’d quit on everything, including himself. Just before the war was over, he was recruited by SPEAR. By then, giving up David Wilson was simple. His parents were dead. Cara had given her life and their child to another man. A man who slept with her and laughed with her and raised the baby David had put in her belly.

And David had left her alone—until now. With no way to know what the future would hold, he needed to make peace with his past. Cara was a widow these past three years. Their child was grown. Hell, he was a grandfather and had never set eyes on his own daughter. It, by God, wasn’t fair.

Daybreak was hovering on the horizon by the time he reached the edge of the cliff. His heart was still pounding from the run, his clothes dripping with sweat as he lowered himself down into a sitting position on the lip of a rock, as he had so many, many times before.

The air was beginning to stir, promising a stiff breeze before the day was out. He sat with back straight and legs folded, his hands resting lightly on his knees, staring at the crack of light appearing over the mountain. The sky was changing now, wrapping itself in pale, dusty blues intermingled with threads of hot pink and gold.

As he watched, the anger in him slowly stilled. He’d seen just such a sunrise many times since he’d come to this place, but it never failed to instill in him a feeling of awe—a gentle and vibrant reminder of Who was really in charge. The vista blurred and he told himself it was nothing but sweat in his eyes.

Moments later, the sun made itself known—the first rays catching and then holding in the silver wings of hair at his temples. With a deep, heartfelt sigh, he stood. It was time to go home. But not just to the cabin. Thanks to the chaos Frank Wilson had created, his days as Jonah had to be over. His guess was, the President was probably already in the process of choosing his successor, but would wait until his formal request for retirement. And before that came, he had the final showdown with Frank. The way he saw it, he owed it to himself to make peace with his past, and to do that, he had to become David Wilson one last time and see Cara—the girl he had left behind.

Finger Lakes Region, New York State

Cara Justice swatted at a bee that kept pilfering about her flowers as she knelt at the side of the flower bed.

“Get back, you little beggar. Just let me get these weeds out of the bed and then you can have at the blossoms.”

The bee, of course, didn’t answer, and Cara, of course, expected none. But it felt good to be talking aloud, even if there was no one to hear. She tossed aside the last handful of weeds and then stood, brushing off the knees of her slacks and straightening the collar of her shirt. The day was warm, but not unbearably so. She stood for a moment, surveying the landscape of her backyard, and smiled. She loved this time of year. Everything was new and green, flowers in varying stages of buds and blooms, birds nesting.

Renewal.

That’s what it was. Everything was new all over again. Except me, she thought, and then thought of her youth and sighed. Those had been sad times and nothing she would ever want to relive. She’d suffered, endured and prevailed. After that, she’d made herself always look forward, never dwelling on the past. Truth be told, she didn’t want to be young again. It had hurt too much the first time around. Turning fifty had been a plateau she’d welcomed. Her oldest daughter, Bethany, who lived just down the road, was grown and married, as were her two youngest children, Tyler and Valerie, although they lived out of state.

She bent to pick up her hoe, and as she did, her blond chin-length hair brushed the sides or her face. She straightened, tossing her head to get it out of her eyes, and made a mental note next time she came out to tie it all back. As she started toward the gardening shed, a stiff breeze came out of nowhere, molding her clothes to her body and momentarily outlining her slender, willowy build. From a distance, she could easily have passed for a young, thirty-something woman. It wasn’t until one looked closer that the tiny wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and the small laugh lines framing her mouth were evident. Her stomach growled as she put up the hoe and tossed her gloves in the basket. She glanced at her watch, surprised that noontime had come and gone.

As she started toward the back door, she heard the sounds of an approaching car. It couldn’t be Bethany. She and her family were on vacation and weren’t due back for several days. Maybe it was the mailman with a package, she thought, and hurried toward the front of the house, anxious to catch him before he left.

It wasn’t until she rounded the corner of the house and saw the tail end of a dark sedan that she knew it wasn’t the mailman. She paused in the shade beneath the cluster of maple trees and watched as a tall, middle-aged man emerged from the driver’s side of the car. His shoulders were broad, his belly flat beneath his white polo shirt. He walked with a military bearing—head back, chin up. His hair was short and dark, but winged with silver above his ears. In reflex, she touched her own hair, aware that the same silver threads lay there among the taffy-colored strands, only not as evident as those on the man.

He didn’t see her at first, and so she allowed herself to stare, trying to think why he seemed so familiar. She was certain she’d never seen him before. She would definitely have remembered. And then the stranger suddenly stopped and turned, as if sensing her scrutiny. She waited for him to speak.

David didn’t have to look at the map to Cara’s home that he’d downloaded from the Internet. It was burned into his memory. Even though he knew how to get to her house, he felt lost. As Jonah, he’d done something unheard of by seeking out any part of his past.

But it wasn’t as if he’d just walked off the job. There was enough equipment in the trunk of his car to connect him with everything from spy satellites to the President of the United States, should the need arise. For all intents and purposes, he was still in charge of SPEAR, but in his heart, he was already pulling away.

Frank had set the ball rolling in this direction the day he’d kidnapped Easton Kirby’s son. After the last incident with Maggie and her baby, David had mentally called it quits. There would be no more people assigned to risk their lives on his behalf. Not for an issue that was technically personal. The President knew David’s feelings on this, and although David had not said a word about looking for Cara, he made sure the President knew things were going to change.

As he came around a curve, his heart started to pound. He was almost there. He began slowing down, then turned the steering wheel, guided the car into a long, graveled drive and pulled up to the house. He killed the engine and then sat for a moment, absorbing the structure.

It was a long, rambling two-story brick home with a porch that ran half the length of the house. A chimney rose from the center of the roof, evidence of warm fires on cold winter nights. Ancient trees threw large patterns of shade upon the lawn while flowers in bloom abounded everywhere.

He sighed. It looked so beautifully ordinary. Would a woman who lived in a home like this be able to accept what he was going to say? Then he took a deep breath and got out of the car. Hesitation would gain him nothing. Centering his sunglasses comfortably on the bridge of his nose, he started toward the house.

More than halfway up the walk, he caught a movement from the corner of his eye and paused, then turned.

God in heaven, it was her—standing beneath a cluster of maples with a curious look on her face. Once he’d seen her, his feet moved of their own accord. When he was only yards away, he said her name, and as he did, he saw confusion and then panic as it registered on her face.

“Cara.”

She gasped, then in spite of the heat, shivered.

He took a step toward her, and then another. Cara started to shake.

“Cara, don’t be afraid.”

“No,” Cara moaned, and covered her face. “No ghosts. No ghosts. I don’t believe in ghosts.”

Suddenly his voice was right beside her. She opened her eyes.

“I’m not a ghost.”

“David?”

His stomach knotted. After all these years, hearing his name from her lips was more painful than he would have believed.

Before he could answer her, she shook her head in vehement denial.

“You’re not David. David is dead.”

This was harder than he’d imagined. “Cara… I’m sorry…so sorry.”

He reached for her hand. When he touched her, she shuddered once, then her eyes rolled back in her head.