Free Force of Fire (The Kane Legacy) by Rosa Turner Boschen Page B

not much different from Tom and Peggy up ahead. Any
number of passersby would assume...
    He was taking her down a side
street, to a back-alley crossing of the C&O Canal. He led her to the crest
of a little bridge overlooking the water and gave some sort of signal to Tom.
She suddenly realized the two of them were being left alone. She knew she
should be afraid. And she was, but not of Albert Kane.
    'Isabel,' he said, stopping and
taking her in his arms. 'I have traveled the world over, yet never met anyone
quite like you.'
    He was looking deep into her
eyes, searching for something. Her heart was pounding in her throat. She felt
as transparent as the image of the moon gliding with the waters below them.
    He pulled her to him and
pressed the warmth of his mouth to hers.
    She pushed back. 'Albert!'
    'You’re absolutely right,' he
said. 'I should never have let my emotions run away with me. I beg your pardon...can’t
believe I’d...'
    He was adorable standing there
in the moonlight, his composure ashambles . There was
something about this American she could fall in love with.
    He was still apologizing in
spite of himself, ' ..any way to forgive me.'
    She would never forgive him, if
he did not give her another kiss. Or herself, if she didn’t
beat him to it.
    He wrapped his arms around her
and she fell into his embrace, reaching her mouth to his, falling into the
dizzying pleasure of his kiss. She’d never tasted such fire, wasn’t even aware
an American could possess it.
    He leaned back to stroke her
forehead, pushing an errant strand of hair out of her face. There was a truth
in his eyes that denied the fact they were strangers.
    'Isabel,' he said with a smile
that wrapped its way around her like the warmest Andalusian wind. 'When I heard the War was ended, I knew I’d be going home, but I really
had nowhere to go… or no one to come home to. But now, being here, seeing you,
I know in my heart my journeys will never be so undirected again.'
    She felt herself blush as she
took in the implausibility of the statement. But then he pressed his mouth to
hers and all doubt melted away in the butter of his kiss.
    He’d stayed true to his word.
And though his work came to involve substantial travel – much of it apart
from the family, he never once failed to come home. She, in turn, had always
readied a place for him. Made the meals inviting, the house his refuge. He had
rescued her from the mundane responsibility of returning to Spain to marry a
wealthy yet much older financier. Albert had freed her from her own
insecurities and taught her that love can transcend continents,
that two distinct heritages could meld together in the fiercest alloyed
bond. They were stronger, the two of them, for having each other. Both of them
knew it and had sensed it from that very first night in Georgetown.
    Tom and Peggy's marriage was
unexpectedly sudden. Tom was accepted into the Foreign Service and assigned
immediately to Haiti. He proposed the afternoon of his posting and Peggy,
always game for adventure, had accepted. Albert and Isabel witnessed the small,
private ceremony at the Gothic cathedral in Northwest Washington. Isabel always
believed it was their participation in this romantic coupling that had inspired
Albert's desire for commitment. He’d asked her to be his wife just four weeks
later...
    Isabel turned to face his
paper-strewn desk. She had never gathered the courage to go finally through his
things. Packing up Albert's office would lend some kind of finality to his
death that she was not yet ready to face. She thought of the intruders, those
bestial men who had invaded her home and upended the files in his private room.
It didn't make any sense, and it pained her to think what her husband's reaction
might have been to seeing his 'perfectly ordered disorder,' as he called it,
destroyed.
    Isabel reflected for a moment
on Tom. Steady, reliable Tom, now widowed, now in service in Costa Negra . Tom had been so good to her when