“Fortunately for you, our focus is on Cantara right now.” Raoul scowled at Pool.
“Flight’s on final, Colonel,” a female adjacent said, poking her head around the door.
Raoul and Zeke jumped to their feet and shared a strained, anxious look. This was it. The time had come to welcome their baby home and Raoul couldn’t remember the last time he had felt more nervous.
Cantara felt as though she was floating. Or flying. There was a constant thrum that had nothing to do with the pains inside her head that she had learned to live with. Something was different. She didn’t feel hungry, or thirsty. Nor was she too hot. Too cold. Too frightened to think. But everything inside her head was a haze. There was something she had to do. Something that was vitally important. But she was so damned tired, so comfortable for the first time for what felt like forever, that it took too much effort to try and think what it was. Whenever she had an inkling, it slipped away again like an elusive wraith.
There was a man on the periphery of her vision. Two men. One had intelligent gray eyes and dark hair that framed a rugged face. Those eyes softened when they looked at her, making her feel important, cherished. She liked it when that man stayed in her sketchy thoughts. She liked it even better when he was joined by another man with a swarthy complexion and piercing blue eyes.
Raoul. Why did that name spin through her vacant mind as though on a continuous loop? Why did she find it so comforting? And who or what was Ze?
“Shush, honey, keep still. You’re awake, I see.”
A cool hand touched her brow. A calm voice…well, calmed her. “Where am I?”
“In an airplane, sweetheart,” the voice replied. “You will soon be home. Don’t thrash about now. You’ll dislodge the drip.”
She glanced at her hand and saw a needle taped to the back of it, dripping liquid into a vein. She didn’t want anything foreign pumped into her, but was too weak to object. It felt as though she was lying between crisp cotton sheets. She must be dreaming, imagining the calm voice and cool touch. And yet it all seemed so real. She felt clean, too.
“Sit up, honey, and we’ll brush your hair.” A button was pushed and the bed she was lying on slowly rose up so she was in a sitting position. “You need to look your best for your husband.” Husband? “He’s gonna be that glad to see you after all this time.”
She felt a brush being gently pulled through her hair and ran a few strands of it through her own fingers. It was soft to the touch, untangled and smelled clean. When did she last have clean hair? Why was everyone being nice to her all of a sudden? And why was she in a plane? Cantara felt frightened and bewildered, but oddly reassured. She allowed whoever it was to brush her hair, wondering where home was and how she could have a husband and not know it.
“Here we go.”
Someone removed the needle from her hand and fixed a seatbelt around her. The next thing she knew, the wheels of the plane she had been told she was in touched the tarmac with barely a bump. Nervousness gripped her as the plane taxied for a long time before coming to a stop.
The door was opened, but before anyone could help her to unfasten her belt, she was conscious of two men bounding onto the plane. She instinctively flinched. Men rushing up to her meant trouble. Pain. Always so much pain, such deprivation.
“Hey, baby.”
She glanced to one side and gasped. The man from inside her head, the one with the penetrating gray eyes and devastating smile, crouched beside her and gently took her hand. He ran long fingers down the length of hers, soothing, reassuring, as he choked on a sob. She tried to snatch her fingers away, knowing better than to be taken in by him, but couldn’t seem to find the energy. His eyes were moist as he leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers. Her head screamed at her to take evasive action. He was trying to lull her into a false sense of security by invading her dream. Her dreams were all she had left. Now they had gotten into those, too, and she had nothing left to fight back with. Tired. She was so damned tired.
The fear that threatened her brain didn’t make it as far as her heart and she remained stock still, no longer caring what they did to her. Cantara mumbled, thinking she recognized the spicy tang of the lips that played over hers. It was memories of that taste that had seen her through her ordeal.
What ordeal?
She turned her head in the other direction, overwhelmed by a torrent of feelings that were as alien as they were confusing. Her imaginary male friend with blue eyes was on her opposite side, playing with her other hand, leaning in to kiss her as well. His hair, long, black, and shiny, seemed too real to be a figment of her imagination, dislodging a fragmented memory somewhere in the recesses of her addled brain. She closed her eyes, expecting the vision to dissipate and to find herself back in her dank, dark cellar—cold, hungry, and afraid of every small noise.
She opened her eyes again and focused, first to one side and then the other. They were both still there. Could they be real? Was one of them the husband she was supposed to have? Why wasn’t she fighting them, like she had fought another man over a period that stretched into infinity? They were both speaking at once, quietly, their voices soothing, reassuring. She wasn’t frightened of them, which was reason enough to be afraid. They had found a clever way to try and trick her. Let them do their worst, she thought wearily. She had reached the end of her tether and had no fight left in her.
“Baby,” the first man said, his voice a soothing caress. “Don’t you know us?”
She had never heard his voice so clearly in her dreams before. He had to be real. The large hand still holding hers was warm flesh and blood, confirming the fact. Without knowing where it had come from, a name sprang to her lips.
“Raoul?” she asked dazedly, blinking to clear the fog that imprisoned her memories. “Ze?”
Chapter Seven