Secret Agent Sam. Kathleen Creighton

and they told me you were married. I had to hear it from Mom and Dad.” And her whole body vibrated with the tension, the sheer willpower it took to keep him from seeing how much that had hurt.

      “Sam,” Cory said, gentle still, “we’d cut each other loose. We’d agreed…”

      Yes, but I never thought…I didn’t believe…I didn’t know you meant it! I thought…I thought you’d always be there. I thought you’d always love me, and wait for me….

      Childish of me, probably, to think so.

      “Yeah, right,” she said abruptly, then caught a breath. “I know. It was…just a shock, I guess.” She gave her head a toss and pasted on a smile. “You should have told me. I’da sent you guys a toaster, or something.”

      “Sam…” He shook his head, and she caught a glimpse of sadness in his eyes before he veiled them from her with a downward sweep of his lashes and rose to his feet. “Come on—let’s get out of here.”

      Hollow and shaken, Sam didn’t wait for him to settle with the waiter. She made her way to the lobby, where she fidgeted restlessly, surreptitiously checking herself out in the mirror above the check-in desk. Satisfied with what she saw, reassured that none of her inner turmoil showed on the outside, she was able to flash Cory a confident smile when he joined her there a few minutes later.

      He gave her a nod and they walked outside together. Together, but not touching. As they strolled unhurried along the bamboo breezeway that led to their rooms she thought how odd it was to be doing that, while a memory tumbled out of the past and threatened to inundate her with sadness…a memory of walking like this, the two of them side by side but not touching, down the lane at Grandma’s house in Georgia, she with her insides all aquiver with the strange joyous awareness that she was falling in love. How scary that had been, and how beautiful and sweet at the same time. Remembering made her ache with yearning, and she wasn’t even sure what for.

      It’s the air, she thought. That’s what brings it all back. Reminds me of those early-summer Georgia evenings—soft and humid, still warm even this late at night. Except here, instead of cicadas and frogs backing up a giddy whippoorwill, I hear surf sounds and the chirp of night birds I don’t recognize making a different kind of harmony with the music from the bar.

      They walked in silence until Sam, feeling easier, maybe, with the cloak of semidarkness around her—not having to see his face—spoke softly…carefully.

      “Look—I’m sorry, okay? Divorce is sad and awful. I have friends who’ve gone through it. So I’m sorry you had to.” She paused, waiting for his reply. When none came she ventured on, still focusing on the path ahead. “So…what happened? I mean, it only…you were married for such a short time. Did something…” Her voice trailed miserably off.

      Please, she thought, say the words. Say it, even if it doesn’t fix anything: My marriage failed because…she wasn’t you.

      After a long suspenseful moment he said in the same slow and careful way, “I think…let’s just say we both had expectations the other wasn’t able to meet. Leave it at that.”

      Leave it at that? Why did I dare to hope for more?

      “At least,” she said lightly, with a soft breath to hide how disappointed she was, “you didn’t have kids. That’s a good thing. I guess.”

      “Yes.”

      She waited, but again there was nothing more. Never known for her patience at the best of times, she felt her frustration level rising with every pulse beat. Inevitably, in spite of every promise she’d made to herself, it boiled over.

      “Is that all you have to say? That’s what drives me crazy about you. You know what, Pearse? You never let anybody know what’s going on inside you. What you’re feeling. I know you’ve got feelings. Nobody could write the way you do and not have feelings. Huge, deep feelings. But you never let anybody see them, me included. In all the years we were together—”

      “Don’t try to tell me I never told you how I felt about you,” Cory said on a surprising note of anger. “Because I did. You know I did. You knew how I felt about you.”

      She considered that, head tilted to one side, ignoring the little thrill she felt at his unexpected display of emotion, however brief. “Did I? See, the thing is, I thought I knew, but then it turned out I was wrong. So either you didn’t tell me, or I missed something, or maybe you lied—”

      “Come on, Samantha. I’ve never lied to you and you know it.”

      “No—that’s right. You don’t lie. You just leave blank spaces.”

      “Blank spaces? What are you talking about?”

      “You, dammit. You’re one big blank space.”

      “Sam, you’re being ridiculous.”

      “Don’t you dare go all tight and reasonable on me,” she fumed. “Do you realize I don’t know anything about your past? Your childhood? How long were we together, and yet, I don’t know what kind of child you were—what kind of books you read, what games you played, what songs you sang. Nothing. I’ve told you every little thing about mine—I even taught you the Wishing Star poem, remember? Almost the first time I met you. But you’ve never told me…anything.”

      “You’re talking about facts, not feelings. I told you I grew up in foster care,” he said quietly. “Okay, you want feelings? It wasn’t fun. What else is there to say?”

      “You see?” She gazed at him for a long moment, then shook her head and said in a voice tight with frustration, “Maybe it’s because I don’t know the right questions to ask. That’s your talent, not mine. You have that gift, you know? You can get inside people’s heads. Before they even know it, they’re telling you their life history. I wish I could do that, but I don’t know how. Which probably explains why, even after all the years we were together, I don’t really know you at all, Pearse. What does that tell you?”

      He’d never seen her look at him that way before. The bewildered anger in her face tugged at his heart, but it was the bleakness he saw there that shocked him. She looked…defeated. Sammi June, his Sam, who he’d never known to be any way but upbeat, determined, confident…who went gung ho after what she wanted with chin held high and never even considered the possibility of failure. How he’d loved her arrogance, her self-confidence, and at times, drawn strength himself from her courage. Now, the sadness and defeat in her eyes was more than he could bear. He reached for her, then remembered his promise….

      But almost at the same moment, she jerked away from him with a small cry that pierced him like a dart. “No. I’m not going through this again, Pearse. I’m not.”

      He snatched his hands back, held them up and away from her, then folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the breezeway’s rattan railing. The door to his room was only a few feet away, with Tony’s next to it and Sam’s a little farther on. He glanced at his door, then away, while words, thoughts and emotions pounded like thunder in his head. Knowing any attempt to voice them would be futile, he simply shook his head.

      “Why did you do it? Why did you call me…after the divorce?” Her voice sounded so small, but still it managed to hold all the anger and bewilderment, the sadness and defeat he’d just seen in her face. She didn’t wait for him to answer, but plunged on in the tiny, wounded voice that was so not Sam. “I mean, what did you think was going to happen? What did you expect me to do? Or say?” He looked at her then, opened his mouth to reply, but again she rushed on.

      “Like—you getting divorced just…erased everything? Hey—maybe getting a divorce erased your marriage, but it didn’t erase anything else, you understand?”

      She was gazing fiercely at him but tapping her own chest with an angry finger; that, and the stark anguish in her eyes told him what he knew she’d never say: You hurt me, Pearce. Nothing can fix that or take it away.

      “No, you’re right,”