Free Captain's Paradise by Kay Hooper

show.”
    “It shows on me like a red flag,” she told him, stubborn insistence in her voice. “And every time, every time I have to go into a bad situation, every time I have to at least pretend to be strong, the fear eats me up inside. And I know I’ll freeze. I’ll freeze up, and I’ll get someone killed. That’s why I couldn’t be—” She broke off, horrified.
    But it was too late. Michael finished the sentence quietly, a dawning understanding in his expression. “That’s why you couldn’t be a cop, like your father.”
    Robin tried to draw away from him, but she was hemmed in by the side of the boat and by the long legs stretched out beside the bench. She couldn’t move away without touching him, and suddenly she was more afraid of touching him than of anything else.
    “That’s it, isn’t it, Robin?”
    Her arms tightened around her upraised knees, and she couldn’t look away from those clear, perceptive eyes. “I went through the academy,” she said almost inaudibly. “Everyone said I was born to be a cop. But I knew the truth. I knew I was always afraid. I knew someone would depend on me someday, a partner, and I’d freeze up. I’d be paralyzed with fear, and I’d get that partner, or someone else, killed.”
    “Did you ever freeze up?” he asked quietly.
    “That doesn’t matter, don’t you see? I knew I would. And I couldn’t be a cop when I knew that.”
    “What happened? Did you drop out of the academy?”
    She swallowed hard. “No. I failed the written exam. Twice. I failed it twice.”
    Michael looked at her for a long moment, then said, “So you stuck that label on yourself as well.”
    “What label?”
    “Failure. Is that what your father called you?”
    “No.” She avoided his eyes. “I didn’t give him the chance. I haven’t seen him in three years. A coward to the end.”
    “Stop it.” He reached out, grasping both her shoulders and holding them hard. “Robin, fear is natural; in a dangerous situation you’d be an idiot if you weren’t afraid. And that failure of yours wasn’t an honest one.”
    “I know what I am,” she whispered, trying to ignore the hard strength of his chest pressed against her arms.
    He seemed about to shake her, but then drew a breath and spoke roughly. “Do you? Well, let me tell you what others know about you, Robin. What
I
know about you, even though we’ve known each other less than twenty-four hours. I know that you went through an experience that would have destroyed most women. You were kidnapped, drugged, treated like a piece of merchandise. But you still managed to save yourself by getting away and jumping overboard. And then, when any other woman would have run toescape those painful memories, you teamed up with a stranger to try to save those other women.
    “You went into a place that half the cops I’ve ever met would have avoided like the plague, filled with men very like the ones who kidnapped you. And you
did
it, Robin. You instinctively assumed the one role that provided a slight chance of success. And it worked. You went in for information—and you came out with it. You got the job done.”
    “I was afraid!” she cried.
    “So what? You think courage is measured by the lack of fear? No, Robin, it’s the opposite. Courage is doing what you have to
despite
fear.”
    “I don’t believe you,” she said, thinking of her father, always smiling, confident, unafraid.
    Michael did shake her then, but gently. His gray eyes went steely suddenly, with the inward-turned look of self-appraisal. “I’ve been in this business for ten years,” he told her flatly, “and I’m very good at what I do. I’ve worked in the Middle East, South America, every part of Europe and Asia. Dirty jobs, most of them, andhellishly tangled. I’ve been betrayed by people I thought were friends, captured, held prisoner. And, Robin … I’ve been
afraid
.”
    She stared at him, seeing the naked truth. “But it didn’t paralyze you,” she