*DISCLAIMER** Scarecrow & Mrs. King is copyrighted to Warner Brothers and Shoot The Moon Production Company. The original portions of this story, however, are copyrighted to the author. This story is for entertainment purposes only and cannot be redistributed without the permission of the author. Situations and some dialogue have been used from the episodes “Stemwinder, Part One” written by Robert W. Gilmer and George Geiger; “Nightcrawler” written by George Geiger; “Do You Take This Spy?” written by Robert W. Gilmer, Tom Chehak and George Geiger;  “Mission of Gold” written by Lynne Kelsey; “One Flew East” written by David Brown; and “The Kruschev List” written by Lee Maddux. And of course, the song "True Companion" by Marc Cohn, which just happened to be playing on the radio when I was thinking about this story.  No infringement of copyright is intended.

 

 

Title:    True Companions

 

By:       Mary

 

Rating:  "R" for situations in parts one and four…

 

Summary: An inside glimpse at "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" through four very different sets of eyes… 

 

 

TRUE COMPANIONS

 

PART ONE:

LEE STETSON

“FATE”

 

 

Three years and four months after meeting Amanda King at a train station in Virginia, I married her.  If any of my associates had asked me back then if that day would ever come, I would have laughed out loud - right after suggesting a quick trip to Dr. Pfaff, our agency’s resident shrink.  After all, I’d spent the better part of my life avoiding emotional entanglements of any kind.  Somehow it just seemed safer to live that way.

 

Of course, ‘safe’ is something I only applied to my personal life.  Professionally, I’d never shied away from taking chances, risking life, limb and other parts I won’t mention on more than one occasion. The greater the danger, the better I liked it.  It was probably the main reason I’d become an intelligence operative in the first place.

 

“You’re a spy?” Amanda asked incredulously as I tried to charm her into helping me. Although it’s a term I’d never cared for, it summed my life up pretty accurately.  My days were spent gliding effortlessly from one dangerous scenario into another, while my nights. . . well, let’s just say those encounters held even more intrigue and excitement.  A dangerous profession like mine deserved some fringe benefits.

 

Unfortunately, not everyone shared that opinion.

 

“If you want to waste your life chasing shadows, go right ahead,” my uncle told me when I announced I’d just been recruited by the Agency, an elite organization with a top-secret profile.  I tried to bite back the caustic remark that immediately sprang to mind, having learned long ago that disagreeing with my paternal half-uncle was a lost cause. The man had begrudgingly taken me in at age four and never lost an opportunity to remind me that raising an orphan was an obligation no righteous man could shirk.  Yes, Colonel Robert Clayton always did his duty. And he made no secret that mine was to follow him into the military.

 

“I thought you’d be happy I finally decided to do something serious,” I responded sarcastically, despite my good intentions. He had made it crystal clear after I’d been asked to leave that last university that I’d better clean up my act or he’d do it for me. Granted I had, as the Colonel so succinctly put it, changed colleges as often as I changed socks, but I did finally manage to graduate. I’d even secured a job for which there had been a slew of qualified applicants.  Most parents would have been proud.

 

“Well, Skip,” he rejoined, invoking the old nickname I hated, “when you wash out of this, too, don’t come running back here. You’re on your own this time.”

 

“I always have been, Sir,” I replied, turning on my heel and walking away.  For the first time in the course of our tenuous relationship, I’d rendered him speechless. 

 

We saw each other only sporadically after that incident, a few stray lunches and dinners spread thinly across the years.  That is, until Amanda.  She somehow managed to change patterns and responses that had been drilled into both of us for as long as I could remember.  Believe me, where the Colonel and I were concerned, that was no small miracle.

 

Of course, in those days, I wouldn’t have recognized a miracle if it had jumped up and bit me on the ass. I was pretty cocky back then, determined to be the best of the best in my new profession.  I think at first I was so driven to succeed merely to prove my uncle wrong. However, I soon discovered that after what seemed like years of searching, I had finally found my niche. Fresh from my training, I was prepared to defend my country from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

 

I was immediately shipped to London.

 

It was the last place on earth I wanted to be. A token tribute to inter-agency cooperation was hardly the way I’d intended to begin my illustrious career, and veteran MI-5 operative Emily Farnsworth was definitely not the person I’d anticipated working with. I just didn’t see her as a sp. . . operative.  Conservative in word and dress, she appeared more suited to infiltrate a formal tea than a counterfeiting ring. I decided she would soon find me more than competent for our simple little assignment and I would be off to bigger and better things.

 

Instead, Emily merely seemed to find me amusing.  “A gun won’t get you out of every situation, my boy,” she stated in staid British tones.  “You have to learn to use your brain, not your brawn. ” I would later discover that Lady Farnsworth was really an American from Santa Barbara who’d married into her British heritage, but she seemed to instinctively understand that it worked to her advantage in my case. While I was reluctant to offend a Brit on my freshmen mission, I was just brash enough back then to have told a fellow American exactly where she could put her unsolicited advice.

 

Of course, Emily was right.  What working in Intelligence requires more than anything else is. . . intelligence. Patience, control and, above all, looking before you leap. Emily Farnsworth taught me all that, along with what it means to have a true friend in a business where that can often be a distinct liability. By the time I headed back to the States, I knew exactly how lucky I’d been on my first venture into the twilight world of espionage.

 

That luck didn’t hold too long, though, and on my next endeavor I thought my uncle might at long last get his wish to see me in uniform.  Along with a select group of seasoned agents, I found myself loaned out to Army intelligence for a brief stint in Vietnam.  It may have been a plum assignment for a rookie like me, but it didn’t seem that way trudging through the steamy jungles near Da Nang. When I was recalled stateside six months later I was thankful to be returning to D. C. with all my parts still in good working order.

 

I expected to be assigned to one of the outlying bureaus for a few years, but it seemed I was slated for bigger things when shortly after my return, I was chosen for the prestigious Oz Network by Paul Barnes.

 

It was a real coup to be working for him. The Wizard, as his codename so aptly dubbed him, was already an Agency legend at the tender age of thirty-two.

 

If Emily Farnsworth and the Southeast Asian jungle had started to teach me restraint, Paul Barnes seemed determined to finish the job. “You’ll be a good agent when you finally develop a brain,” he chided after I’d demonstrated my penchant for foolhardy stunts one time too often.  Grinning from ear to ear, he promptly gave me my official codename. “Stick with the Wizard, Scarecrow,” he told me, “and we’ll see about replacing that head full of straw with something a little more functional.”

 

I never repeated that to anyone, neatly sidestepping Amanda’s incessant questioning on the subject during the first year of our partnership.  Of course, in those days, sharing personal confidences was a habit I’d lost long ago. But even when those early feelings of annoyance had been replaced with a strong friendship that was well on its way to something more, I still managed to dodge the issue.  I told myself I was too embarrassed to admit that ‘Scarecrow’ had once upon a time stood for something else entirely, but deep down I knew there was more to it than that.  While my still evolving brain insisted that Amanda cared enough to accept me flaws and all, I was reluctant to acknowledge that most of my macho reputation was really nothing more than bravado.   She had a way of looking at me that made me feel ten feet tall, and a part of me still foolishly clung to my Superman image.  If I confessed how far it was from the truth, she might realize that deep inside lay a frightened four year old still crying for his parents.

 

It was while I was under the Wizard’s care that I experienced my first really serious relationship. Appropriately enough, her codename was ‘Dorothy’. When she joined the team, our connection was instantaneous. We just had so much in common. We were almost exactly the same age, our birthdays less than a week apart.  She’d lost her parents in an accident when she was ten and had been shuttled back and forth between indifferent relatives. We both felt we’d finally found the sense of family we’d been searching for in Paul’s elite team.

 

“Oz never had it so good,” she liked to joke, her eyes crinkling up when she laughed in the way I grew to love.

 

We had six months together. Then one day our world exploded in a barrage of gunfire on a routine mission that went sour. The Russians had a nice little export business operating out of the Silver Spring Airport, running weapons out of the country hidden in boxes of flowers. Long stemmed roses, to be exact. We arrived at the field that morning to shut them down, but suddenly the tables turned. When the gunfire finally subsided, my hero Paul Barnes had been temporarily neutralized and two team members lay dying on the hard ground.

 

I found Dorothy’s body on the middle of the deserted airstrip, riddled with more bullets than I cared to count. Everywhere I looked, I saw those damned roses - red ones, the same color as her blood. I cradled her in my arms, trying to breath life back into her, but the hands that had held mine just that morning remained deathly still. And our shiny future was suddenly reduced to three words on a piece of paper.

 

Agent killed – betrayed.

 

* * *

Oz recovered from the blow, but I had a harder time of it. While my affection for Paul Barnes was still as strong as ever, the memories were too fresh, and I left the network shortly after Dorothy’s death.  I spent a brief stint with European Operations before finally settling into the D.C. office under the scrutiny of brand new Section Chief Billy Melrose. By that time, I had honed my reputation for pushing things to the limit, taking impossible missions and succeeding where more cautious agents failed.  Truth be told, I enjoyed living on the edge. Taking chances appealed somehow to my twisted sense of order.  As if I was daring fate to fix the mistake she’d made when she’d taken everyone I loved and left me still standing.

 

A lone wolf.

 

And at the time that was just the way I wanted it.  I didn’t even like to work with a partner. I’d made that mistake only once, relaxed my guard long enough to let Eric Jarvis into my life. Why Billy thought we would work well together, I have no idea. We were a pretty unlikely team. Eric had grown up in a big family; I was the consummate loner. And for some unfathomable reason, my new partner seemed determined to change all that.

 

Not too long after Billy put us together, Eric dragged my reluctant butt to Christmas dinner at his parents’ house. “Sitting around stuffing your face with guacamole and feeling sorry for yourself is no way to spend the holiday,” he bullied, refusing to accept my usual excuses. “We watch football at our house, too.  I’m not taking no for an answer.”

 

It was the first real family Christmas I could remember. Hanging around the mess hall on countless Air Force bases when I was growing up didn’t count. As I told Amanda once, fighting over the dark meat with four hundred other guys didn’t make for a very festive holiday.

 

After that, Eric and I developed a pretty close friendship, working together by day and carousing together by night.  I allowed myself to depend on him, trust him, like him.  It lasted for almost two years.  Until fate reared her ugly head once again and delivered him the bullet that was slated for me.

 

I reverted to type after that, tackling difficult assignments solo once again. Which is what led me to that particular train station one cloudy October morning.

 

I was busy doing what I do, on my way to a drop with a package that was the key to plugging our departmental leak. Unfortunately, I’d brought two Russian goons along with me. You can always tell the KGB by the way they dress. . . their suits never quite fit. Anyway, Ivan and his ‘brother’ were hot on my tail and I knew I had to think of something – and quickly.

 

That’s when I spotted her – a special delivery from Fate, carefully disguised beneath a tan coat and scarf.

 

At the time, I didn’t think the meeting had any great significance beyond expediency.  Amanda King was an emergency, nothing more.  I intended only to alter my game plan, not my whole life. After all, I’d employed the same tactic in Munich with great success. There was no reason it shouldn’t work again. She was supposed to simply pass on the package, then pass right on out of my life.  Lucky for me she never did anything she was supposed to do.

 

Of course, it took me a while to recognize just how fortunate I’d been that day. I’m sorry to say that in the beginning I saw her as more of a curse than a blessing, laughing along with my good friend and fellow agent Francine Desmond over Amanda King’s total lack of everything. 

 

Although I probably should admit that my slightly bruised ego might have been the one doing the talking. The only things she really lacked were the pretense and artificiality of the empty-headed girls who usually attracted me.

 

She was a divorced mother of two living in Arlington with her mother and her sons. She valued her home and her family. She was a real person with real emotions, the kind of woman who genuinely saw the good in everybody, even me.  She had everything I’d secretly longed for all my life.  No wonder I ran like hell in the opposite direction.

 

I hadn’t had much experience with women.

 

Well, okay, let me qualify that – I hadn’t had much experience with the caring, nurturing types like Amanda. I’d grown up in a totally male environment and the closest thing to a mother I’d known was old Barney Dorsey, the mess hall Sergeant on my uncle’s air base. 

 

Amanda was a good mother. You only had to see her with her two sons, Phillip and Jamie, to know that.  Despite the lack of a permanent male influence in their lives, Amanda made them feel happy, secure and loved.

 

Yet I suspected even then that she had a lot more than motherhood inside her.  And I didn’t think she should be wasting it on that bozo she was dating when I met her.

 

Dan, Don, Dean. . . hell, whatever his name was, he didn’t belong with Amanda. It only took one look at his plaid jacket to know the guy gave ‘boring’ a new definition.  I just couldn’t picture the two of them together.

 

I told Amanda that very thing, and it was shortly afterwards that she stopped seeing him.  I kind of expected her to turn her attention to me when they broke up.  I knew she had a crush on me.  I recognized all the signs – the flustered talk, the furtive glances when she thought I wasn’t looking. So I got ready to offer her the usual brand of Stetson charm, all the while preparing my standard speech, office version – ‘Amanda, we are business associates, nothing more.’

 

I never got to use it. To my chagrin, I discovered that my conceited little fantasy couldn’t be farther from the truth.  Evidently, Amanda King found my usually irresistible charms totally resistible.

 

I was intrigued. The only thing she was prepared to offer me was the last thing I sought from the opposite sex – friendship. At the time, my only female friend of consenting age was Francine.

 

And even that had started in the bedroom.  A few years ago we’d played a thoroughly enjoyable little game of ‘backgammon,’ as Francine jokingly referred to our brief physical liaison.  I knew at the time I wasn’t the only guy Francine had played that particular game with, so I was kind of shocked to discover she’d taken our interlude much more seriously than I had.  When I realized what was happening, I quickly pulled out the speech, trying to let her down easy.  That any kind of friendship survived the experience was, I suppose, a testimony to both of us.  Though maybe that’s why at times we seemed more like friendly rivals than actual friends.

 

After Francine, I swore that I would never again blur the lines between personal and professional. And I have to say, while I managed to date my way through most of the Agency at one time or another, I never extended anyone else true friendship.

 

Until Amanda.  I don’t know what it was about her that made me break my hard and fast rule. I didn’t even want to work with her at first. It was Billy Melrose who insisted on throwing us together. She was a nuisance and, at the same time, a necessity. A hindrance to my job and the greatest asset I’d ever found.  She was an aggravating pain in the ass yet had an uncanny knack for making me laugh.  She was hopelessly average and at the same time, uncommonly beautiful. In other words, I’d never felt so confused in my entire life.

 

Since it was my fault that she’d ended up in this crazy business in the first place, the very least I could do was make certain she stayed safe. I told myself that every time I reached for her hand while we were on a case; every time I swung by her house late at night on my way home; every time I pulled her against me in the name of our cover. The funny thing is, for the longest time I actually believed that was true.

 

Then one day, I finally pushed things past the breaking point. The trouble with undercover work is that sometimes the lines between what’s real and what’s not aren’t so clear anymore. Playing my part with a little too much gusto, I accidentally slapped her.

 

“It’s okay,” she whispered, unable to meet my eye, but I knew it wasn’t. The look on her face said it all. I’d hurt her – maybe not physically, but in a way that was much more painful. I wanted to take her in my arms and kiss the ache away, but my stupidity had just rendered that impossible. I settled for a stumbling apology that did little to convey what I was really feeling.

 

Naturally, she forgave me; she was just that kind of person. She forgave her ex-husband for deserting her and their two small children, so what was a little slap compared to that? We fell back into our friendship when the case was finished, but it wasn’t as comfortable anymore, at least not for me. Something had changed.

 

I had changed.

 

* * *

We began to work together more frequently. I’d just been handed the Q-Bureau and Amanda, for all intents and purposes, became my partner. ‘Unofficially official’, as Billy liked to say, she was suspended in the gray area between civilian and agent.  Our personal life seemed to have that same status, too. We certainly weren’t dating, but we were spending more and more of our off-duty time in each other’s company.  I told myself it didn’t mean anything; after all, she was my best friend.  It was only a concert here, a simple dinner there, a night shivering together in a swamp. We were just two cold people, right?

 

“Not exactly,” she answered enigmatically, and for the first time, I started to believe that might be true.

 

Until her ex-husband suddenly hit town a few months later. Accused of murder and on the run, Joe King had never appeared more vulnerable, and I watched as the past tugged at my Amanda with invisible emotional strings. Of course, she didn’t know I thought of her as ‘mine’ - I’d foolishly believed we could continue our little dance until I felt ready.

 

Unbelievably, when the smoke cleared, she was still there. I didn’t think she would be, especially when I saw her in Dooley’s Bar with her ex. But when she looked across the room and caught my eye, her face told it all. Joe King might have hold of her arms on that small dance floor, but I had hold of her heart.  In that moment I knew that I was undeniably in love with her.

 

After that night, we moved ahead, seemingly more certain that the convoluted path we traveled would ultimately bring us together. It was full of twists and turns, moving us forward in leaps and bounds, then driving us back. Admitting to myself that I loved her didn’t automatically change either one of us. We were still the same two people who could disagree over something as simple as the weather.

 

I got a taste of that first hand when Billy ‘assigned’ her to nurse me back to health in the aftermath of the Brody case.  Five days of enforced bed rest may have been good for my concussion, but it turned out to be a bit more than either of us could handle.  Of course at that point, the last thing I wanted to do with Amanda in bed was rest; even so, I instinctively knew that it wasn’t the right time to embark on a physical relationship. However, knowing it and feeling it were two entirely different things, and by the time I got back to the office, my mood had gone from bad to worse.

 

I don’t know whether Amanda was taking my nitpicking in her usual stride, or if maybe she just understood my misplaced frustration better than I did. She always had an uncanny way of knowing what I was feeling, even when I couldn’t express it. But I couldn’t stay aggravated at her for very long, as she once again proved her talent for seeing those obscure little clues I sometimes overlooked.

 

That’s when I realized the unthinkable had finally happened.  Not only did I love her, I was fast approaching a point where I couldn’t get by without her.

 

I was no longer a loner.

 

* * *

The realization rocked me for a moment, but I quickly recovered my equilibrium and, making the best of my new situation, decided it was time to get to the source of my frustration.

 

Amanda King.

 

While I knew we couldn’t just jump into bed, I thought it was time to at least move in that general direction.  After what seemed like a run of absurdly bad timing, I took matters into my very capable hands one morning. Telling fate in no uncertain terms that I was the one in control, I locked our office door and proceeded to kiss her.

 

I was totally unprepared for my reaction.

 

Touching my lips to hers this time was unlike anything I’d ever imagined. Oh, we’d kissed a few times in the line of duty and even shared a wonderfully flirtatiously little peck a few weeks ago on her patio. I thought I knew what to expect, but this was entirely different. When she ran her hands over the lapel of my coat, I could have sworn I felt my spine tingle.

 

“Yeah,” she breathed, shaking her head, so I knew that whatever it was, she’d felt it too. As my mouth closed over hers, I could feel the emotion welling up inside both of us, demanding to be released. I pulled back for a minute, looking into her eyes.  I saw total acceptance there, and a love that had ever so patiently granted me the time I needed to complete this three-year journey home.  Burning all my bridges, I leaned forward again. This time, she opened her mouth, and I felt her tongue against mine. I shivered. Then, like a starving man at an all-you-can-eat dinner, I practically devoured her.

 

We continued that way for what seemed like hours, but was in reality only a few minutes. “Maybe we’d better, ah, finish that report,” I stammered, still overwhelmed by the unexpected intensity of our encounter.

 

“Yeah,” she whispered again, her fingers moving to gently wipe her lipstick off my face.  I kissed them tenderly as they moved over my lips, my eyes still on hers.

 

“That report,” she reminded me with a smile, seeing that I was in no shape to remember.

 

I sat at my desk, trying in vain to concentrate, but it wasn’t any use. Having Amanda right across from me was too distracting, and after a few more minutes I abandoned even the pretense of work.

 

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” I said, grabbing her hand and practically dragging her to the door. “Billy’s report can wait until tomorrow.”

 

For once, she didn’t seem inclined to argue. We spent the rest of the day together, sharing a quiet lunch, walking along the Potomac hand in hand and doing the silly things people in love usually do. At sunset, I reluctantly relinquished her to her family, but not before indulging in another series of spectacular kisses as we said goodbye in my car.  If I’d had a better day, I couldn’t remember it.

 

We spent the summer officially ‘dating’, stealing whatever time we could to be together.  I was more certain than ever that I loved her, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to say the words anywhere except in my head.  Who knows how long I would have been struck dumb if Alexi Makarov hadn’t intervened. Using the Stemwinder War Games as a springboard, the crafty Russian sorcerer wove a complex web of lies, turning my own Agency against me and forcing me underground. I didn’t know when I’d be able to see Amanda again. Even though I had a strong suspicion that she knew exactly how much I cared, I couldn’t disappear without giving voice to my feelings at least once.

 

When I finally spoke the words to her face, she looked almost embarrassed. She told me later it was because she was scared. Not of Alexi or the mess we were in at the Agency, but of the power of our feelings for each other. Scared or not, she insisted on coming with me. I made a feeble attempt to keep her out of the line of fire, but she pushed my arguments aside.

 

“I’m all mixed up in this, too,” she told me, and I knew she was talking about more than Stemwinder.  “It might be dangerous for my family if I stay here and I can’t do anything to help them from an Agency holding cell,” she finished, her rationale logical and precise.

 

“And I love you, too.”

 

That was one justification I couldn’t refute. Besides, I told myself, searching for a way to validate my selfish need to have her beside me, she did have a point. I’d come to rely on her in the field. I might not be as effective alone.

 

Those days we spent together on the run were both heaven and hell. Even though Dr. Smyth, the Agency’s Director of Covert Operations, had forced through a shoot to kill order, we still had each other. The joy of waking up beside her every morning might have been tempered by circumstance, but it was joy nonetheless.  Part of me wanted it to last forever.

 

But as all things do, it came to an end. Alexi was caught, his frame-up exposed and we returned to our lives. Amanda went home to her family, and I returned to an apartment that seemed even emptier after the time we’d spent together. 

 

I knew then that I wanted to marry her.

 

I didn’t act on that revelation, though. Amanda had been accepted into the Agent Candidate Program, and she was suddenly inundated in freshman class work.  I decided it would be more prudent to wait until the newness of her status wore off before making her an official part of my personal life, too. 

 

So I bided my time, mulling the idea over as I tried out different scenarios in my head. I saw myself in a tux, with roses and champagne, solemnly asking her to be my wife. Sometimes we were at the train station, me in a red hat, casually handing her a package that contained a suitably romantic proposal. 

 

Of course, when I did ask her, it wasn’t the way I had planned it at all. Fate stepped in once again and laid waste to all my careful plotting. The setting was far from ideal, her hostage cell in a house that was a front for a ruthless terrorist group. I wasn’t entirely sure either one of us would live to see the light of another day.  Despite our precarious situation, she answered me in typical Amanda fashion.

 

“We’re the luckiest two people on the face of the earth,” she gasped, sitting on a rumpled cot in a room guarded by a madman. Only my Amanda could see things that way.

 

I did manage to do a little better when I gave her the engagement ring, though. I’d given the matter a lot of careful thought while she’d been recovering from the aftermath of her kidnapping and finally decided on a plan.

 

I’d missed her while she’d been on leave after our rescue. We hadn’t seen much of each other since she’d agreed to marry me. After the ordeal she’d been through at the hands of that lunatic Addi Birol, she deserved some quiet time with her family, and I didn’t feel comfortable with them just yet. While I had managed to introduce myself to her mother in her absence, things hadn’t progressed much farther. My sudden appearance at her dinner table would open a can of worms we’d both prefer to keep closed at the moment.

 

Truthfully, her family made me more than a little nervous. I wasn’t sure exactly where I fit in.  Children were foreign territory to me, and I didn’t have the foggiest idea how to relate to two young teenagers. I was beginning to understand how clueless my uncle must have felt when I’d been deposited on his doorstep. I didn’t know what kind of a stepfather I’d make, but I wanted things to be different for me with Phillip and Jamie.  Personal experience had taught me that the Colonel’s boots were not the ones I wanted to walk in.

 

So I bided my time, alone again in the office I’d come to regard as ours.  Her empty desk seemed to be waiting for her return, just as I was.   Looking around, I noticed all those little Amanda touches, marveling that in the few short months her desk had officially occupied that spot, she’d managed to almost remake my workspace. The same way she’d remade my life.  I knew then that her desk was the perfect place to make our private life official as well.

 

She seemed to appreciate the sentiment. After I slipped the ring on her finger and leaned in for a kiss, she flashed me a cryptic little smile that I didn’t know how to interpret. Her voice barely more than a whisper, she told me that she’d thought only life and death situations brought out the romantic in me.  My confusion must have shown in my face because she brushed her hand gently across my cheek and kissed me again.  Her laughing brown eyes reflected the sparkle of the diamond on her hand and I knew that, despite the trauma of the last few weeks, she was happy.

 

We both were.

 

* * *

Unfortunately, the rose-colored glasses were soon ripped from both our eyes.

 

It started out as another routine case. A Vietnamese delegation bent on destroying accord with the U.S. decided to use my friend Kai’s son as a bargaining chip. We managed to rescue little Kim and defuse the situation with the Vietnamese, but the damage had been done. As I put Kai and his family on a plane for California, it wasn’t his children I saw, it was Phillip and Jamie.

 

I knew then that I’d been kidding myself.  A marriage, children, a sprawling house in the suburbs. . . it was a beautiful dream, but one built on shifting sands.  Fate was too stern a mistress to allow me even the facade of a normal life. As much as I longed to be part of Amanda’s family, I’d have to settle for being a secret part.

 

“We’ll make the best of it,” she stated stoically when I told her, and her tone said that she’d recognized the problem long before I did. A nagging voice in the back of my head told me to let her go, to allow her have a normal life with someone else, maybe even someone like Joe King.

 

But I couldn’t do it.

 

Maybe it was selfish, but I’d crossed the point of no return long ago and now it was too late.

 

And so we married in secret, traveling all the way to Marion so we wouldn’t be discovered. It was a small ceremony without any of the usual wedding fanfare. Just the Justice of the Peace, the two of us, and His Honor’s nosy clerk for a witness.

 

It didn’t matter to me. In a cathedral or a cabin, all I wanted was to make Amanda King my wife.  She looked so beautiful in her simple classic suit, her eyes bright with happy tears. Her voice almost broke when she repeated the vows, and I could feel her hand tremble when I slipped the ring on her finger. 

 

“You kiss now,” the clerk said unnecessarily as we were pronounced man and wife.

 

I didn’t need a second invitation. Smiling, I leaned down, and for the first time, my lips touched the lips of Amanda Stetson. It produced a euphoria that was almost indescribable.

 

The feeling lingered as we finished up the paperwork, grew stronger as we thanked the judge and his clerk and showed no sign of abating as we headed into the brisk February night.  Maybe this is what happened when you made a lasting commitment to another person, I mused; maybe this was ‘normal’.  If that was the case, then normal was something I could definitely live with.

 

We paused by the car, and I felt the gentle pressure of her hand in mine. It was already dark and in the foggy light from the streetlamp, she had never looked more beautiful.

 

“Are you hungry?” I asked, reaching out to brush a stray hair from her face.

 

“Not for dinner,” she whispered, her hand caressing mine where it rested on her cheek.  Looking down, I saw the desire in her eyes rivaled my own.

 

“Why don’t we just head over to the inn?” I suggested, leaning in to press a kiss on her lips. They were wonderfully pliant, warm and inviting. I traced them lightly with my tongue.

 

“Step on it,” she murmured, reaching into her coat pocket and handing me the keys. 

 

As I slid behind the wheel, I wondered again how we’d ever been lucky enough to find each other.  Amanda and I were finally married; and we had an entire week together to enjoy it.

 

* * *

I smiled at my new wife as we pulled up in front of the Crystal Springs Inn.  It was a picturesque little place, off the beaten track, and Amanda had fallen in love with it at first sight. When I saw that special light in her eyes, I knew it would be the perfect place for our first night together as man and wife.

 

Actually, it was our first night together, period.  Oh, we’d shared a bed last fall during the Stemwinder mess and on our one weekend ski trip to Pinetop, but our activities had been confined to sleeping and little else.  A few years ago if someone had told me I would have been with a woman for this long and still not had sex with her, I wouldn’t have believed it.

 

But Amanda was different.  At first, I’d hesitated because I didn’t know quite how to deal with my feelings for her. Then later, I had waited out of respect for hers. And at the end, simply because I loved her so completely that I wanted our wedding night to be special. When she smiled up at me in the lobby of that quaint little inn, I knew that the wait had been worth it. And when her hand closed possessively around mine, I was equally glad that it was finally over.

 

Of course, as it turned out, we were damned to wait just a little longer.  Due to some sort of snafu I couldn’t quite decipher, housekeeping was still working on the second floor. The management was suitably apologetic, but it did little to alleviate the frustration we were both feeling.  The next thirty minutes seemed more like thirty hours as we were forced to watch the maid finish her cleaning checklist. Where they found their help, I have no idea, but it was little wonder the rooms weren’t ready on time. The woman moved like a snail. I was beginning to think it might take her the rest of the night just to finish this one.

 

I could feel Amanda’s impatience as she stood next to me in front of the fireplace, beating her head against my shoulder in sheer exasperation.  “I know, I know, I know,” I mouthed, wondering whether it would be bad form to bodily eject the offending housekeeper from the room. Who needs satin sheets, anyway? I was pretty sure everything I needed was standing right next to me.

 

The maid finally finished her routine and giving her handiwork an approving nod, left us alone.  Turning to Amanda, I immediately kissed her, releasing the pent up passion I’d been suppressing for months.

 

“Wow,” she whispered when our lips finally parted. I felt exactly the same way. Smiling, I kissed her again, pulling her closer.

 

“Oh,” she said in surprise, evidently feeling the full extent of my need as I pressed up against her. My hands slid down over her hips and she made a small groaning sound, returning my kiss with equal desire.  I walked her slowly towards the bed, my lips never leaving hers.

 

“Lee,” she gasped as we broke apart, her hands caressing my chest lightly. “Wait…”

 

“Wait?” I replied, not quite comprehending. “Amanda, we’ve been waiting for three and a half years. I’m not sure I have much more ‘wait’ in me.” I kissed her again to emphasize my point.

 

“Just give me three and half minutes,” she whispered breathlessly, kissing her way down my neck.  “I want to change out of these clothes.”

 

“I could help you,” I grinned, slipping my hands underneath her jacket.

 

“I’m sure you could. But I think I need to do it myself. . . this time.” She looked up at me, the expression in her brown eyes an odd mixture of promised passion and nervous anticipation.  I ached with love for her.

 

“Take all the time you need,” I whispered, trying to curb my enthusiasm as my lips brushed though her hair. “I’ll be right here.”

 

“I just need a few minutes,” she reiterated, “and my overnight case. I have a little something in here I think you might appreciate.”

 

“I don’t think I could appreciate you much more,” I teased, folding her in my arms again.

 

“Yeah, I can tell,” she laughed, trying to hide the catch in her voice by moving her hands across my back in maddening little circles.  “But let me try anyway. It will be worth it. . . I promise.”

 

What man could argue with that? I let her go, watching as she disappeared into the bathroom. As the door clicked closed, I let out the breath I’d been holding, exhaling loudly as I deposited my jacket and tie in a nearby chair. The collar on my shirt suddenly seemed uncomfortably tight and I paused to undo it, my fingers fumbling over the small buttons.  Evidently the nerves Amanda had felt a few minutes ago were contagious. I circled the room a few times, absently smoothing my hair, contemplating the enormity of the step we were about to take.  This wasn’t just a casual acquaintance behind that bathroom door; it was Amanda, my partner, my best friend, my. . . wife. 

 

That realization was almost overwhelming. I’d waited for her for so long. Faced with the prospect of actually having her, I suddenly had no idea what to do next. Although far from being a novice in these matters, the moves that had served me so well in the past now seemed horribly inadequate.  Sighing, I switched off the bright lamplight, praying that the friendlier glow from the fireplace would cover my uncharacteristic confusion. From day one, Amanda King had complicated my life; it should come as no surprise that she would complicate my sex life as well. 

 

The door opened abruptly, and Amanda walked through it.  She stood across from me in a silky negligee that left very little to the imagination, brushing the hair from her face as if she didn’t quite know what to do with her hands. 

 

“Hi,” she murmured shyly, her eyes darting from the fireplace to the bed before finally fixing me in their gaze. 

 

“Hi,” I echoed, watching her in quiet fascination.  In spite of her uncertainty, she still seemed to possess such effortless grace while I, the great ladies’ man, was reduced to a mountain of jelly.

 

I stood there like an idiot, wanting to go to her but incapable of telling my feet to take me there.  I might have stayed in the same spot all night, making love to her with my eyes, if she hadn’t suddenly made everything all right. Her lips parting in a smile, she sighed sweetly. What had appeared so complicated was suddenly reduced to its simplest form.

 

She loved me.

 

And, letting the feeling flow through me, I discovered I knew exactly how to show her that I loved her, too.

 

“You look beautiful,” I whispered, automatically closing the distance between us.

 

Her delight in the compliment spread across her face. “Thank you,” she answered, absently smoothing the front of her nightgown.

 

“And you were right. . .” I traced the curve of her cheek with my finger. “The wait was. . .” Leaning down slightly, I kissed her forehead. . . “Most definitely. . .” Following the path my finger had taken with my lips, I paused briefly by her mouth… “Worth it,” I finished, my mouth covering hers in a long, deep kiss.

 

“Oh, Lee,” she whispered when I finally let her catch her breath. “I’ve wanted this for so long. I can’t even tell you. . .”

 

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” I murmured, my face buried in her neck. “I already know. . . I feel the same way.”

 

Her hands moved up and down my back, straining against me, forcing me to hold her closer. Then suddenly, she pulled away, her eyes sparkling as they rested on mine. “If I don’t have to tell you,” she began, her fingers playing along my chest, “then let me show you. The way I’ve wanted to. . .” 

 

She smiled up at me then, her tongue lightly moistening her lips as she reached for my shirt. Her fingers moved quickly, adeptly releasing the remaining buttons. Tugging on the bottom, she pulled my shirttail from my trousers, her hands slowly massaging my chest as she worked her way up to my shoulders.  Every so often she paused, burying her face in my skin, her lips kissing, teasing, caressing.

 

It felt wonderful. She pushed my shirt off, letting it fall to the floor, then made quick work of my belt, undoing the buckle and pulling it from the loops.  Dropping it, she turned her attention elsewhere, and I felt my stomach muscles clench involuntarily as she pushed against them. She nimbly worked the button on my trousers and tugged the zipper down, and I sucked in a breath as her fingers trailed over me.

 

“Wow,” she whispered again with the hint of a smile, this time giving the word a whole new dimension.

 

“Is that a wow of approval?” I joked, shooting her an inquiring look. Even the most self-confident types can use a little reassurance in a moment like this.

 

“Oh, definitely.”  She laughed then, the mellow sound rippling over me seductively as she moved closer. “Although at this point, I’d say it’s still in the preliminary stages.” She flashed me a sultry grin. “I’m reserving the final ‘wow’ for later.”

 

Her overt sexuality caught me entirely by surprise. It seemed totally at odds with the picture she presented to the world. Amanda really was an amazing mixture of contradictions, an alluring seductress disguised beneath flowing skirts and matching sweaters. She never ceased to amaze me.

 

“Yeah,” she muttered as I reacted to her touch, her teasing tone belying the seriousness of her face. “Most definitely later.”

 

“Oh, Amanda,” I sighed, anticipating what was about to happen between us. The thought alone was taking me places I didn’t want to go yet, and I vainly tried to recall the rushing yardage from the recent Super-Bowl.  It would be kind of embarrassing to have this end before it even started.

 

Realizing the effect she was having, her movements stilled and she took a small step backwards. Her eyes roamed over my body as if taking inventory. She moved her hand slowly and sensuously across my chest, coming to rest on the healing wound from the bullet that had grazed me earlier in the week.

 

“Does it still hurt?” she asked seriously, her fingers lightly stroking over it.

 

“Not when you do that,” I told her with a smile, covering her hand with my own. “Besides, I’ve had worse.”

 

She nodded and removed her hand, suddenly subdued. She tried to cover her reaction by turning away, but she wasn’t quick enough, and I could see her struggling to keep the concern in her eyes from turning to fear. She walked over to the fireplace, staring into the comforting flames, searching for an answer there we both knew she’d never find.

 

“Amanda,” I said, moving towards her, trying to avoid tripping over the trousers that were still around my ankles. I took a minute to kick out of my shoes, pushing the offending clothing out of the way as I peeled off my socks.  Coming up behind her, I wrapped my arms around her.

 

“You know it’s all just part of the job,” I told her, softly kissing her shoulder.

 

“I know.” She crossed her arms over mine, encouraging me to hold her closer.

 

“And I’m careful.” I squeezed her reassuringly. “Nothing’s going to happen to me if I can help it.”

 

“I don’t want to lose you,” she sighed, leaning her head back against my shoulder. “Especially after last week.”

 

“I know,” I whispered as I tightened my embrace.  I’d just had a narrow escape from PD-2, a new chemical weapon developed by the Russians, and we were both still a little shaken. I hadn’t looked my own mortality that squarely in the eye for quite some time.  I sighed deeply, resting my cheek tenderly against hers.

 

“I’ve always known it was a possibility,” she continued, giving my arms a gentle squeeze in return.  “It’s just that. . .” She fell silent as she looked into the fire again.

 

“That. . .” I prompted, wondering a little at her reticence. I was the one who usually needed a crowbar to loosen my feelings.

 

“I don’t know. . . it just hit me. As hard as it would have been before. . . after tonight, it’s going to be a thousand times worse. I don’t know if I could stand it if something. . .”

 

“It won’t,” I told her quickly. “I promise.”

 

“You can’t promise that, Lee, and you know it.”

 

“Maybe not,” I agreed soberly, “but, Amanda – there are risks in just plain living every day. Maybe in a way we’re luckier because we recognize that better than most. And we’ll make every day count.”

 

She tensed for a moment, then I felt her relax against me. “Starting tonight,” she whispered, turning in my arms.

 

“Starting tonight,” I responded, my mouth seeking hers. She parted her lips, opening herself to me, offering me both her body and her heart. The emotions she awakened seared my soul, and for the first time since I could remember, I offered myself equally in return.  “I love you, Amanda Stetson,” I whispered roughly when we parted. “I don’t think you have any idea how much.”

 

“It can’t be as much as I love you,” she murmured in reply. “It wouldn’t be possible.”

 

“Come on then,” I said, stepping away from her. “I think it’s time we showed each other.” I extended my hand, my lips turning up in an expectant smile.

 

“Way past time,” she answered, her fingers grasping mine. Hand in hand, we moved together toward the bed.

 

* * *

Stopping at the edge, we faced each other. This time, I took the initiative, resting my hands on her shoulders and gently fingering the straps of her nightgown.  Leaning in, I touched my lips lightly to hers, moving from her mouth down her neck and shoulder. Her perfume heightened all my senses, more intoxicating than the champagne that still lay untouched in the ice bucket. I moved back across her collarbone, my tongue pressing into the hollow of her throat.  I could feel her rapid heartbeat.  Pausing for a minute, I pulled away to look at her. She smiled back, and I saw the unspoken permission in her look.

 

I slid the straps of her negligee down. She really was so beautiful. My eyes drank in every detail – the emotion hiding behind her eyes as they boldly met mine; the way her dark hair framed her face, almost brushing her shoulders; the small freckles that dotted the smooth skin of her chest; the gentle swell of her breasts as she drew the ragged breath that spoke her desire.  I reached out, my palm tenderly caressing the smooth curve of her cheek.

 

She closed her eyes and sighed. The sound played like an erotic melody in my ears, and I gently cupped her face in both my hands, drawing her towards me. My lips closed over hers, the kiss building until I heard her breathing quicken. I felt her hands in my hair, her fingertips trailing tantalizingly along my scalp. I buried my face in her neck, drinking in the delicate scent that belonged to her alone.

 

“Lee…”

 

My name on her lips excited me, and I kissed my way back up towards her mouth. Pressing my body to hers, I felt her hands stroke across my back then rest for a moment on the elastic of my boxers. I helped her remove them, tossing my last piece of clothing across the room to land on the pile in the middle of the floor. She stood motionless for a fraction of a second, the edge of her tongue resting in the corner of her mouth, her expression unreadable as her eyes swept over me from head to toe. Then, taking a deep breath, she looked up and caught my eye. She grasped the folds of her nightgown and drew it up over her head ever so slowly.  I watched it drop to the floor, a silken puddle at her feet.

 

She was totally naked beneath it. I don’t know why it astonished me, but it did. My body reacted instantly to the sight, my eyes moving over the slim yet provocative form that had reduced me to such a frenzied state of desire. I had never wanted a woman more, never needed anyone on such a primordial level, flesh and spirit and soul.