“Sam Ryder was his platoon leader. We were in the central highlands at the same time-those two, Weasel, a pilot named Jake MacIntyre, a crew chief named Chuck Fisher, and me.”

“When you were flying a Huey?”

“Yeah.”

“As a slick?”

“That’s right. Ryder’s was one of the platoons we transported. Bloch was in for his third tour; Ryder was as green as they come, but indecisive as well as incompetent. The army has a nice way of weeding out the dumbasses: if you’re no good, you get killed in combat. Sometimes you had to hope they got killed before they killed you just by being dumb. Sometimes you had an experienced platoon sergeant who could keep things from getting out of hand, keep guys alive where the lieutenant, the platoon leader, couldn’t.”

“What did Bloch do?”

“He had the experience and the knowledge to get around Ryder, and sometimes he used them, when it suited his purposes. Mostly it didn’t. I knew platoon sergeants who died saving their men, who rubbed green lieutenants’ noses in it to make them learn fast or find a way out. Bloch looked after himself, period. He wanted Ryder to survive, and he wanted him to come out of Vietnam a hero, so he covered for Ryder and cushioned him and his commanders from the results of his incompetence. Because of that, guys who should have made it out didn’t.”

“And now Bloch is using what he knows about Ryder’s true role in Vietnam against him-as collateral for blackmail,” Juliana said, understanding. “Matthew, what about Jake MacIntyre and Chuck Fisher?”

He looked away from her, but their bodies still touched. “Their names are on the wall.”

The Vietnam Memorial. “Was Bloch responsible for their deaths?”

“They were in my ship. I was responsible.”

“You’re hard on yourself, Matthew.”

“Not hard,” he said. “Honest. At least I try to be.”

“I like that.”

“Do you?”

He seemed to want an answer, and she nodded, not taking her eyes from his, wanting to know everything about him-and him to know everything about her, the bad as well as the good.

“Yes,” she said finally, with certainty. “Integrity, compassion, intelligence, courage, sensitivity-they’re not easy to find in ourselves, much less anyone else. But they mean more to me than money, power, success, any of that stuff. On paper, I guess people don’t come any more different than the two of us, but I don’t think we’re all that different, not where it counts.” She smiled, a little taken aback with herself. “Anyway, I should get back downstairs.”

With his fingertips, he brushed a few stray hairs from her forehead. “Do you want to?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“You’re tired.”

“I know, and I hurt. No one’s ever hit me, Matthew, until today. I’ve never felt so-small. I-I wanted to be big and strong enough to scare those men off. I’ve never even thought about my limitations in that way. Do you know what I went after them with when they had my mother? A wooden shoe. A goddamn wooden shoe.”

“Darling, you’re tough in all the ways that count.”

She laughed bitterly. “So put that on my mother’s tombstone.”

“Darling-”

“I want to forget for now, Matthew-I just want you to hold me…” She caught his fingers in hers. “I’m so glad you’re here, Matthew. I don’t think I could have stood being alone, not tonight.”

She lifted her face to his, and his mouth was there, warm and soft and everything she needed. His arms went around her, his lips opening, and she closed her eyes as his tongue slid between her teeth. It was a different kind of burning she felt now, not the burning of tired eyes and sore muscles and unanswered questions. She wrapped her arms around him, pressing herself into him, and they fell down onto the pillows together, a tangle of quilts, sheet, and nightgown.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Matthew whispered.

“Don’t worry, please.”

“I’ve never met anyone like you. Never.”

She smiled, wishing she could laugh. “Don’t think I stumble on Matthew Starks every day.”

He kissed her again, a deeper, harder kiss, and when it was over, he’d pulled the nightgown over her head and tossed it onto the floor. They climbed under the quilts, pulling them all on top of them, their cool, naked bodies intertwined. They didn’t speak. Juliana didn’t want to break the spell with reminders of death and betrayal and diamonds and all they would have to face. The now, the present, the moment, was filled with need and passion. She ignored the pain of her bruises and her terror and focused on the stirrings that had been thee inside her ever since Matthew Stark had darkened her dressing room door at Lincoln Center.

He smoothed his hands over her breasts and stomach and followed with his mouth, arousing her with nipping, wet kisses. Soon they both got so hot they had to throw off a couple of the quilts. She touched his hard muscles, rubbed her fingers through the dark hairs on his chest, let them examine the scars he had yet to explain. But what she still had to learn about him no longer mattered. She felt a part of him, felt him a part of her.

“Are you sure?” he asked again, sliding her on top of him, so it wouldn’t hurt so much. He kissed her bruised wrist, gently.

“Yes. More than anything, you’re what I need right now. Don’t stop.”

Even in the dark, his smile was gentle. “No problem, darling.”

Whatever else she felt took second place to the mounting, insatiable longing that welled up inside her as she lay on top of him, his hands moving over her hips and bottom and legs. He lifted her up slightly, and when she came down, he was in her. She cried out when he came into her, but so did he, and they made love explosively, tenderly, and she hoped, knew, this wouldn’t be the last time.

“Matthew!”

She groaned, feeling the spasms, and his arms tightened around her as he shook and moaned with her, until there was silence and stillness, the snow falling lightly outside and no place warmer than beneath their tattered quilts.

Twenty-One

D uring the past few days, Wilhelmina had discovered she hated to fly. In her mind, it was unnatural. God meant for birds to fly, not people-and, besides, the motion, the unnatural motion, upset her stomach. The plane she’d taken across the Atlantic Ocean had been her first, and she’d considered the entire experience oppressive. It had been one of those monstrous things with an upstairs and innumerable comforts to make the passengers forget they were in the air when they weren’t supposed to be. Think of yourself as an eagle, the man sitting next to her had advised, seeing her look of distaste and mistaking it for fear. She’d felt more like one of the fat pigeons in the park who never looked as if they’d get very far when they tried to fly.

As unpleasant as that trip had been, it was more like a stroll to her neighborhood grocery compared to the flight to which she and Catharina were now being subjected. They bumped along in the air like a bad driver on a rocky road, and there were many strange noises and creakings that Wilhelmina refused to tell herself were normal. Catharina had told her the plane was small and that was why the flight was so much rougher. Wilhelmina had responded yes, that was exactly her point.

Bloch had separated them in the passenger compartment, putting a man with a gun on each of them and telling the one on her to “watch the fat ass, she’s a sneaky bitch.”

Wilhelmina held her tongue, but only because she thought her pretended ignorance of English might still be useful. Had it not been for the danger Catharina was in, Wilhelmina would have slit the coward’s throat when she’d had the opportunity and damned the consequences. If he shot her with his filthy gun, so be it. She was too old to take him as a hostage, not that that would have produced an acceptable outcome. Given the looks of this man, Wilhelmina had suspected his men wouldn’t be terribly loyal and would likely enough have simply let her have him and cut their losses, which could have proved disastrous for Catharina.