Stunned, Dinah stared at him speechlessly. Finally she managed, “No, he can’t be. Sara and I were forced to watch. And when the dogs finished … and Valdivia’s men dragged him away … it was terrible. Valdivia said he was dead.”
“He wasn’t, and Valdivia knew it. He sent Kyle to one of his other plantations and held him prisoner. The rebels just brought word that he escaped about a week ago. He’s with them in the mountains. We’ve sent for him.”
Dinah turned excitedly toward Rucker and grasped his hands. “Kyle knows the truth. He knows everything that Valdivia did to make Sara and Anna and me work for him. He can testily for us.”
“Thank God,” Rucker said gruffly. “But I still don’t know how any of this happened.” His hands tightened around hers. Their eyes held, and Valdivia’s revelation hung in the air as if he had just spoken it. “Kidnapped,” Rucker repeated, his gaze dark.
Dinah rested her head against his shoulder. “Yes. Sara, too.”
Sara and Teodora came out of a small tent and ran up to them, squinting in the light of camp fires and lanterns. They grabbed Dinah and hugged her.
Sara turned toward Rucker. “Stubborn man,” she muttered. Then she threw her arms around him. One second after she let go, Teodora took her place.
“Bless you, Señor. Bless you.”
Dinah touched Sara’s arm anxiously. “Katie?”
“Asleep in the tent. She’s fine.”
A pained, bitter look came over Sara’s face. “What happened to Valdivia?”
Dinah told her about him and Jeopard. “All we can do is wait.”
The biologist nodded, her gaze distracted as if she were seeing the hell of the past months. “Valdivia isn’t human. He can’t be killed. Poor Jeopard.”
“Sara? Rucker knows that we were kidnapped.”
Sara nodded, her thoughts still dazed. In a low, vague tone she said, “I can’t believe it’s over. It’s not real.” Teodora patted her arm sympathetically, then guided her toward the fire.
The young Suradoran woman spoke over her shoulder to Rucker and Dinah. “Come. We’ll get you food and something to drink.”
Dinah looked up at Rucker and found that his gaze was already on her. They shared a tender look that shut out the rest of the world.
“Let’s go see Katie first,” he said gruffly.
Dinah slipped her hand through his and they walked to the small, dome-shaped tent. Inside it was dark and cool. A screened opening overhead outlined a patch of stars and the first traces of dawn.
Katie lay on her stomach atop a folded blanket. She was asleep, but when Dinah knelt and stroked her hair with a finger, she yawned.
Rucker curved one arm out in a beckoning gesture to Dinah. She nestled into the crook of it and they sat down. He was filthy and sweat stained. When he rested his jaw against her forehead his beard stubble scrubbed her skin. She didn’t mind a bit.
Dinah smiled joyfully and pressed so close to him that she felt the rhythm of his heart against her own rib cage. They sat in silence for several minutes, just watching Katie sleep.
“I agree with Sara. None of this seems real,” Dinah whispered. “What made you decide to come back for me?”
“Teodora broke down and told me that you planned everybody’s escape, and that Valdivia would kill you because of it.”
“But you still thought I was working for him?”
Rucker’s voice was a low rumble. “Didn’t matter anymore. You are the woman I love.” He paused, and she felt his chest move harshly. “Why wouldn’t you tell me the real story to begin with?”
Dinah slid a hand across the soft material of his khaki T-shirt and stroked the area over his heart. “Because you’d have stopped at nothing to help me and Katie. Even when you thought the worst, you were willing to take risks for me. I can imagine what you’d have done if you’d known the truth.”
Dinah cleared her throat roughly. “Valdivia knew that the real story would create an international incident if it ever got out. A Russian agent sneaks into a U.S. resort town and kidnaps two innocent American civilians. Not exactly a plus for glasnost, hmmm? Valdivia’s superiors would have had to sacrifice him if his activities were discovered.”
Dinah shuddered. “So he made it very clear to me what kind of revenge he’d take if I ever told. When he found out that I was pregnant, he knew he had all the leverage he needed to make me do whatever he wanted. I saw how he hurt Kyle Surprise. Valdivia was capable of doing inhuman things to Katie and you. I couldn’t take that chance, no matter how much I wanted to tell you the truth.”
Rucker held her tighter. His voice ragged, he whispered. “There isn’t a word good enough to describe your kind of courage. Dear lord, I was so bad to you. I nearly died when you disappeared, and when I thought that you’d run off with Valdivia, I wanted to hate you. I was so bad to you,” he repeated.
“Sssh. You were reacting reasonably, under the circumstances. I knew that. It only hurt me because you were suffering and I desperately wanted to make things right again.” He shivered with emotion. She caressed his face tenderly. “My darling, everything you’ve done over the past week and a half has only made me love you more.”
She tilted her head back. Silent understanding brought him to her for a lingering kiss. His breath was soft against her mouth. “I’m gonna be overprotective of you and Katie. You’d better get used to the idea, ’cause I’ll probably be a pain in the butt.”
“I’m going to have trouble letting you out of my sight. You’d better get used to that, sir.”
“Ain’t no place I wanna go without you, ma’am.”
She put her head back on his shoulder and they held each other possessively.
“Dee?”
“Hmmm?”
“There’s still one thing I don’t understand.”
She could practically read his mind. “How I became involved with Sara and Anna’s work.”
“Yeah.”
“They were trying to create a herbicide, but not the kind Valdivia wanted. Sara has done research in Surador for years. She discovered a plant-killing virus carried by certain species of butterflies, and she decided that it had potential as a mild, natural weed killer for agricultural use.
“I told you that I met Valdivia at the Conference of the Americas, two years ago. That’s true. We talked casually and he said that he knew of Sara Scarborough’s work. He was charming—and he didn’t hide the fact that he was interested in me. I politely refused an invitation to spend the night with him and that was the end of it.”
“Or so you thought,” Rucker interjected. “That aggressive s.o.b.”
Dinah nodded. “Anna started telling me about this Suradoran businessman named Valdivia who wanted to sponsor Sara’s research. Sara was pleased until she learned that he was using his government connections to intercept mail from her mother. That made her mad and scared her. She told him to bug off—pardon the pun.”
“But what did that have to do with you?”
“Anna wanted to send Sara some important notes and some butterfly cocoons, but she was afraid Valdivia would interfere again. When she heard that you and I were going to Florida on vacation, she arranged for Sara to meet me there.”
Dinah raised her hands in supplication. “I was just supposed to give Sara the package. Butterfly cocoons. How simple.” Her voice became sheepish. “I didn’t tell you because the intrigue seemed so silly that I was embarrassed.”
Rucker exhaled slowly, letting months of questions and anxiety evaporate into the night air. “So Valdivia ambushed you and Sara in Key West?”
“Yes. I was driving Sara back to her hotel. A half-dozen men in two vans forced me off the road. Valdivia was waiting in a separate car. When he saw me, he smiled and said, ‘An unexpected treasure.’ He was convinced that Sara and Anna’s herbicide could be altered for military use. He took Sara hostage to force Anna’s cooperation with the research.”
Rucker’s voice was pensive. “He put the two of you on a boat
that night.”
Dinah looked at him askance. “To Cuba. Yes. How did you know?”
“After the police called and told me that they’d found the car deserted on a back road, I sort of sleepwalked out of the beach house. I really didn’t know what I was doin’, but all of a sudden I was lookin’ at the ocean. I felt that you were out there.”
She cupped his face between her hands. “Did you know that all I was thinking about was you? I knew that you were going through hell.”
He turned his head and kissed her palm. “It’s nothin’ compared to what you survived.”
Dinah kissed him again. “The important thing is that we both survived. We love each other more than ever. We can go home. Oh, dear God, I want to go home so badly. And we have Katie.”
Rucker chuckled hoarsely. “And Jethro. We still have our possum.”
She laughed with delight. “We do?”
Rucker stroked her hair tenderly and nodded. “Nureyev got sick and died, babe. I did everything I could for him, but it was hopeless. Jethro’s fat and happy, though. He’s on loan to a petting zoo.”
“The first thing we have to do when we get back is retrieve our possum.”
Rucker smiled. “I like your priorities.”
Drake’s calm voice came to them from outside the tent. “Sorry to interrupt, but Jeopard’s here.”
Rucker and Dinah hurried to meet him. He stood by a camp fire with Sara and Teodora, his hands in the pockets of his khaki trousers, his face tired but relaxed.
He gazed somberly at Dinah, then at Sara, then back at the fire. “We talked a long time. He knew that his operation was blown. The Russians would disown him as soon as we put some pressure on them. They couldn’t afford not to. He’d be an embarrassment to international relations. He told me how he kidnapped and coerced you two. He admitted that Kyle was alive. He said he only regretted one thing.”
Jeopard glanced at Rucker, then Dinah. His eyes held hers, and it was clear that he thought Valdivia’s last words were best left unsaid.
“I think we know,” Rucker told him.
Dinah grasped her husband’s hand and looked at Jeopard grimly. “What else happened?”
Jeopard’s pause was intense. “He shot himself.”
Dinah gasped and Rucker’s arm slid around her. But she felt no horror or sadness. When she looked at Sara, Sara’s eyes held quiet satisfaction. “Now we’re really free,” Sara said softly.
Dinah nodded in agreement.
Epilogue
She empathized with Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. There was no place like home.
Her handsome, mustached wizard was stretched out on the couch wearing only gray sweatpants and reading the weekend edition of the Mount Pleasant newspaper. His rather large, bare feet were nestled in her lap, and he made happy sounds from time to time because she was massaging them.
A piano concerto floated from the tape deck sitting on a bookcase. The wine she’d had with dinner made her body feel deliciously languid; the soft caress of her filmy white nightgown helped.
Her munchkin queen was safe, happy, and asleep in the new nursery down the hall. Toto, in the form of a fat gray possum, was perched on the hearth. He stared impassively into a crackling pine-log fire and nibbled from a bowl of dry cat food.
Getting back to Kansas had taken considerably more effort than just tapping her heels together. She and Rucker had traveled from Surador to a special government facility in Virginia, where they went through a week of debriefing and medical tests.
But that wasn’t a hardship; they had a nice suite of rooms with a crib for Katie. They had plenty of time to play with her, to sleep off the physical exhaustion from their ordeal, to make love and care for each other in tender, intimate ways.
Sara stayed at the facility too, along with Anna. And Kyle.
Dinah frowned pensively, thinking of the terrible scars on his face and body, scars that no amount of plastic surgery could completely repair. He’d never been the kind of breathtakingly handsome man that Jeopard was, but he had been so charming and cheerful that women adored him anyway.
Kyle wasn’t vain, but she could tell that the scars bothered him. She knew that he’d be all right in time, but for now he was restless and depressed. The Suradoran assignment seemed to have affected Jeopard in a similar way. She suspected that both men were brooding over their careers and lifestyles.
“Oh, no,” Rucker groaned. “She printed it.”
Dinah gazed at him curiously. The newspaper hid his face, but the quivering of his bare stomach gave away his silent laughter.
“What?” she asked warily.
“The reporter was new, but I thought she could tell that I was only joking—”
“Rucker, people are just beginning to get over the shock of having me back here. I hope you didn’t stir things up again.”
“Well,” he said in a strangled tone.
“Rucker! We worked so hard on our cover story!”
“Sssh. This article is too ridiculous to make anybody ask questions.”
Because the Suradoran incident had to remain classified, part of their debriefing time had been spent with a staff of agents who helped them concoct an explanation for the past ten months.
She’d been kidnapped by an extremist political group determined to gain a pardon for their leader, who was serving time in an Alabama prison. They’d hidden her in Canada, treated her well, and finally released her and her new daughter.
What mischief had Rucker done?
“I’m sorry, ladybug,” he said, his voice strained with controlled mirth. “I’ll call Lois Lane tomorrow and ask her to print a retraction.”
Dinah twisted one of his toes. He yelped. “Read it out loud,” she said fiendishly, “or this little piggy will never go to market again.”
He cleared his throat in mock embarrassment and began. “ ‘Former Mayor Dinah McClure has returned to everyday activities after the sensational events of the past ten months, according to her husband, well-known writer Rucker McClure. McClure was interviewed last week following a speech to the Mount Pleasant Young Women’s Luncheon Club.
“ ‘He said the story of her kidnapping was actually a polite cover-up. McClure insisted that his wife wandered for months after suffering amnesia. He said that she fell and struck her head while shooting craps with a shrimp boat crew during a vacation in Florida last summer.
“ ‘She’d gone to have her hair done,’ McClure noted. ‘But the shrimp boat dock was right next door. She never could resist a good game of craps. And she loves the smell of shrimp.’ ”
Dinah sank her head in her hands and moaned dramatically. “Is there more?”
“Uh, yes. But it’s not important …”
“Read it, buster.”
“ ‘McClure said that she returned to her car after the accident and drove away aimlessly. While he spent months searching for her, she worked her way north doing odd jobs. When investigators located her last month in Canada, she had adopted the name Lurleen Studebaker and was touring with a professional wrestling organization.’ ”
“Rucker, we’re going to move to Tibet. Tomorrow. It’s the only place I won’t feel embarrassed.”
“ ‘McClure said that his wife, a former beauty queen, didn’t lose all recollection of her identity. While wrestling she billed herself as Miss Congeniality.’ ”
He put the paper down and gazed at her contritely. “That’s all, Dee.” His mouth was a tight line of restrained humor. “I’m real sorry.”
“Sir, you haven’t begun to be sorry.”
His feet lay on a small throw pillow. She jerked it from under them, shoved his feet off her lap, and pounced on him, flailing him vigorously.
He laughed so hard that he could barely protect himself. Ducking, his arms raised, he rolled off the couch. She followed, whacking him across the back. He ran, holding his stomach with one hand. She chased.
They ended up in the bedroom. He dropped to his knees, cowered dramatically, and wiped
tears of amusement from his eyes. She stood over him, the pillow drawn back with menace.
“I’ll do anything to make up for it,” he begged.
She scrutinized him for a moment, then flipped the switch on a nearby lamp and pointed to the bed. “Anything?”
He clutched his heart. “Even that.”
What started as a boisterous romp gradually became a quiet sharing of pleasure. He made good on his apology, using his hands and mouth to convey all manner of regrets until she couldn’t think clearly enough to remember what he was apologizing for.
Then he cradled her in his arms and slipped inside her, his body strong and sure, his mouth incredibly tender on her face and lips.
“Apology accepted?” he whispered when she lay smiling and limp under him.
“Hmmm.” She reached for the pillow and weakly flapped it against his shoulder one last time. “Monster.”
He lay down beside her and stroked her glistening body. She fell asleep with his mouth and mustache tickling her ear.
When Dinah awoke she was alone. But he had covered her with a quilt, and she could hear him typing at his word processor in the next room.
Dinah put a robe on and crossed the hall to the nursery. Katie stirred lazily. “Let’s go see what Daddy’s up to now,” Dinah whispered.
With Katie in her arms, she went to the office. Rucker sat there in his sweatpants, his aviator glasses perched on his nose, his brow furrowed in concentration.
“You’re writing,” she said in amazement.
He looked up and smiled. “It’s time I got back to it.” His eyes roamed over her and Katie. “What a pretty sight,” he said softly. He pulled an old ottoman beside his office chair and patted it invitingly. “Sit a while and help me think.”
She settled beside him and looked at the computer screen. “What do you have in mind?”
“A novel. Not a collection of anecdotes and stories like I’ve always done before. Serious fiction.” He caressed Katie’s cheek for a moment, then brushed his fingertips across Dinah’s lips.
His eyes glowed with affection and contentment. “What do you think of that? Me bein’ a serious writer?”