He didn’t answer her. He was looking. Aching. The expression on his face was so tormented that she reached up a hand to touch his cheek.
He jerked her wrist down and stepped back. “Don’t touch me,” he said icily. “Ever.”
She swallowed down the hurt. “Nothing ever changes, does it?” she asked.
“You can bet your life on it,” he shot back. “Just for the record, even if half the men on earth would die to have you, I never will. I do what I can for you, for old time’s sake. But make no mistake, I find you physically repulsive. You’re not much better than a call girl, are you, Tat? The only difference is you don’t have to take money for it. You just give it away.”
She turned while he was in full spiel and walked slowly from him. She didn’t look back. She didn’t want him to see the tears.
He watched her go with an expression so full of rage that a man passing by actually walked out of his way to avoid meeting him. He turned and went to catch his own flight back to Nairobi, nursing the same old anguish that he always had to deal with when he saw her. He didn’t want to hurt her. He had to. He couldn’t let her get close, touch him, warm to him. He didn’t dare.
* * *
He flew back to Nairobi. He’d meant to go to Texas, to finalize a project he was working on. But after he had to hurt Tat, his heart wasn’t in it. His unit leader could handle things until he got himself back together.
He drove out to the game ranch with his foreman from the airport in Nairobi, drooping from jet lag, somber from dealing with Tat.
K. C. Kantor was in his living room, looking every day of his age. He got to his feet when Rourke walked in.
Not for the first time, Rourke saw himself in those odd, pale brown eyes, the frosty blond hair—streaked with gray, now—so thick on the other man’s head. They were of the same height and build, as well. But neither of them knew for sure. Rourke wasn’t certain that he really wanted to know. It wasn’t pleasant to believe that his mother cheated on his father. Or that the man he’d called his father for so many years wasn’t really his dad...
He clamped down on it. “Cheers,” Rourke said. “How’re things?”
“Rocky.” The pale brown eyes narrowed. “You’ve been traveling.”
“How gossip flies !” Rourke exclaimed.
“You’ve been to Ngawa,” he continued.
Rourke knew when the jig was up. He filled a glass with ice and poured whiskey into it. He took a sip before he turned. “Tat was in one of the refugee camps,” he said solemnly. “I went to get her out.”
K.C. looked troubled. “You knew about the offensive?”
“Ya. I couldn’t tell her. But I made her leave.” He looked at the floor. “She was rocking a baby.” His eyes closed on the pain.
“You’re crazy for her, but you won’t go near her,” K.C. remarked tersely. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Maybe it’s what the hell’s wrong with you, mate,” Rourke shot back with real venom.
“Excuse me?”
The pain was monstrous. He turned away and took a big swallow of his drink. “Sorry. My nerves are playing tricks on me. I’ve got jet lag.”
“You make these damned smart remarks and then pretend you were joking, or you didn’t think, or you’ve got damned jet lag!” the older man ground out. “If you want to say something to me, damn it, say it!”
Rourke turned around. “Why?” he asked in a hunted tone. “Why did you do it?”
K.C. was momentarily taken aback. “Why did I do what, exactly?”
“Why did you sleep with Tat’s mother?” he raged.
K.C.’s eyes flashed like brown lightning. K.C. knocked him clean over the sofa and was coming around it to add another punch to the one he’d already given him when Rourke got to his feet and backed away. The man was downright damned scary in a temper. Rourke had rarely seen him mad. There was no trace of the financial giant in the man stalking him now. This was the face of the mercenary he’d been, the cold-eyed man who’d wrested a fortune from small wars and risk.
“Okay!” Rourke said, holding up a hand. “Talk. Don’t hit!”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” K.C. demanded icily. “Tat’s mother was a little saint! Maria Carrington never put a foot wrong in her whole life. She loved her husband. Even drunk as a sailor, she’d never have let me touch her!”
Rourke’s eyes were so wide with shock and pain that K.C. stopped in his tracks.
“Let’s have it,” he said. “What’s going on?”
Rourke could barely manage words. “She told me.”
“She who? Told you what?”
Rourke had to sit down. He picked up the glass of whiskey and downed half of it. This was a nightmare. He was never going to wake up.
“Rourke?”
Rourke took another sip. “Tat was seventeen. I’d gone to Manaus on a job.” Rourke’s deep voice was husky with feeling. “It was Christmas. I stopped by to see them, against my better judgment. Tat was wearing a green silk dress, a slinky thing that showed off that perfect body. She was so beautiful that I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Her parents left the room.” His eyes closed. “I picked her up and carried her to the sofa. She didn’t protest. She just looked at me with those eyes, full of... I don’t even know what. I touched her and she moaned and lifted up to me.” He drew in a shaky breath. “We were so involved that I only just heard her mother coming in time to spare us some real embarrassment. But her mother knew what was going on.”
“That would have upset her,” K.C. said. “She was deeply religious. Having you play around with her teenage daughter wasn’t going to endear you to her, especially with the reputation you had in those days for discarding women right and left.”
“I know.” Rourke looked down at the floor. “That one taste of Tat was like finding myself in paradise. I wanted her. Not for just a night. I couldn’t think straight, but my mind was running toward a future, not relief.”
He hesitated. “But her mother didn’t realize that. I can’t really blame her. She knew I was a rake. She probably thought I’d seduce Tat and leave her in tears.”
“That could have happened,” K.C. said.
“Not a chance.” Rourke’s one eye pinned him. “A girl like that, beautiful and kind...” He turned away. He drew in a long breath. “Her mother took me to one side, later. She was crying. She said that she’d seen you one night at your house, upset and sick at heart because a woman you loved was becoming a nun. She said she had a drink with you, and another drink, and then, something happened. She said Tat was the result.”
“She actually told you that Tat was your half sister? Damn the woman!”
Rourke felt the same way, but he was too drained to say it. He stared at his drink. “She told me that. So I turned against Tat, taunted her, pushed her away. I made her into something little better than a prostitute by being cruel to her. And now I learn, eight years too late, that it was all for a lie. That I was protecting her from something that wasn’t even real.”
He fought tears. They played hell with the wounded eye, because it still had some tear ducts. He turned away from the older man, embarrassed.
K.C. bit his lip. He put a rough hand on Rourke’s shoulder and patted it. “I’m sorry.”
Rourke swallowed. He tipped the last of the whiskey into his mouth. “Ya,” he said in a choked tone. “I’m sorry, too. Because there’s no way