Wild Honey. Veronica Sattler
succeeded in intimidating her.
Well, he thought as he swung into the entrance drive, he’d soon find out.
“TRAVIS! OH, Lord, is it really you?” Sarah McLean’s voice rose with excitement as she flew down the stairs of the old mansion that housed her sorority. Breathless, caught between laughter and tears, she reached the landing and flung herself at her brother. “Oh, Travis, I can’t believe it. You’re here!”
“In the flesh, pumpkin,” Travis managed past the lump in his throat, “in the everlovin’ flesh.” His left arm was still in a sling, yet he caught the slender brunette to him with his right, lifting her off the floor with ease.
Both laughing and crying, Sarah wound her arms around his neck, clinging as if she’d never let go. “Travis McLean,” she said, “I’d kill you if I didn’t love you so much! How come you never wrote? Never answered my letters?”
She found herself swiftly lowered to the floor, her brother’s eyes leveled intently on hers. “I never received any letters, Sarah,” he said quietly. “And I wrote over two dozen before I finally gave up.”
“But…but…”
“It’s easy to guess what happened,” he said, taking in her bewildered face. “You wrote from Sunnyfields?”
“Well, yes, since it was summer. But I always put the letters in the mailbox myself or gave them to Higgins to…”
“Yeah, well, rural mailboxes have a way of bein’ accessible to others besides the postman,” Travis said grimly. “And Higgins’s salary, of course, is paid by—”
“Daddy.” Sarah shook her head and heaved a sigh. “I s’pose I was pretty naive, but I never dreamed a servant who’s known me all my life would—”
“How ‘bout the father who’s known you all your life?” Travis asked bitterly.
Before she could respond, a pair of sorority sisters banged through the front door, calling out greetings to Sarah. She waved to them, then looked at her brother. “We can’t stay here and talk decently,” she murmured sotto voce, “so let’s find—God in heaven! What happened to your arm?”
“Nothin’ mortal, darlin’, and it hardly even hurt, I swear.” Travis put his free arm around her shoulders and ushered her toward the door. “I’ll tell you ‘bout it when we get some privacy if you want.”
“I want,” she said firmly. Just like Travis to make light of an injury. Her tone told him she wouldn’t be put off by some fairy tale.
The sorority sisters, dressed in cutoffs and T-shirts boasting Greek letters, had paused in the vestibule. They eyed Travis with interest. Not surprised—her brother definitely qualified as a hunk—Sarah took pity on them and performed introductions. Then she and Travis headed outside.
The sultry weather made it impossible to remain outdoors for long. They drove to an air-conditioned coffee shop Sarah knew would be deserted at that hour. Left alone after the waitress had served them a pair of iced coffees, brother and sister both spoke at once.
“Tell me about that…”
“Tell me all about…”
They laughed in unison, their eyes meeting with a shared humor that said the past five years might never have been. They’d always been close, despite the fourteen-year difference in their ages. Realizing how deeply he’d missed that closeness, Travis silently cursed himself for not engineering a reunion sooner. “You first, pumpkin,” he said with a hint of chagrin.
“The arm,” she replied with a gesture at his sling. “All you told me in the car was that it was just a flesh wound.”
He gave her a lopsided grin. “Not good enough, huh?”
“Better believe it,” she said as she reached for her coffee.
He sighed, then gave an edited version of the shoot-out that had resulted in the deaths of several members of an international drug cartel. For security reasons, he didn’t name names; he suggested she go to the library and view microfiches of the Miami Herald for the date in question if she really wanted to know more.
“No thanks,” said Sarah with a wave of her hand. She leaned back in her chair and studied him. A. look of awe dawned on her pretty face. It reminded him of the way she’d looked at him once when he’d scored a winning touchdown for the Harvard football team.
“So you’re truly in the thick of it.” She shook her head slowly. “Spyin’, runnin’ around the globe, chasin’ after—”
“Not all that much anymore,” he interrupted with a shrug. “The world’s changed in the past few years. Our focus has had to change with it. It’s true CIA officers have mostly operated overseas, largely as diplomats, but—”
“Diplomats?” she asked archly.
Travis smiled. “Officially, anyway. But nowadays there’s an increasin’ emphasis on NOCs.”
“Knocks?”
“N-O-C-S,” he said, spelling out the acronym; he was aware this information was public knowledge and didn’t compromise security. “Stands for ‘nonofficial covers’. What it usually means is that the agent is quietly placed in an American business that operates overseas, rather than in some war-torn country. Or, as was more often the case, in an embassy, through the diplomatic corps.”
“But why?” Sarah had done some reading on the CIA since learning her brother worked for it. She knew about the dangers for men who did “field work.” And about case officers who’d operated during the Cold War. Under embassy cover, they’d cruise foreign ministries and cocktail parties, collecting intelligence on the former Soviet Union and its satellites.
“Well,” Travis said, “more and more, we find ourselves dealin’ with individuals who aren’t fightin’ guerrilla wars and aren’t on the diplomatic circuit. Nuclear smugglers, terrorists, drug traffi—”
“Please! I don’t think I want to know that much, after all.” She shuddered. “But it’s clear you’re still brushin’ up against some dangerous characters, Trav. Seein’ you in that—” she gestured at the sling “—well, it wouldn’t be normal if I didn’t worry, would it?”
“No, I reckon it wouldn’t,” he said with a tender smile.
She took a sip of coffee, then stared pensively into the glass. “Mother worries too, Trav,” she said quietly. “She never talks much about it.” She met his gaze. “But she’s taken to readin’ the Post more than she ever did before you left. And when she’s done, I see the worry in her eyes.”
He nodded and told her about their mother’s visit to the hospital.
“Trav, that’s wonderful! She finally mustered the courage to see you.”
He stifled an obscenity and glared at her. “Come off it, Sarah! Wonderful? What’s so wonderful about a fifty-nineyear-old woman needin’ courage to see her own son?”
Sarah winced at the bitterness in his voice. With a deep sigh, she reached for his hand on the table and gave it a squeeze; the squeeze was returned, and she smiled sadly. “It’s been awful for everyone, havin’ the family ripped apart like this. Mother’s suffered the most, I think. You must know how difficult Daddy made it for—”
“What, exactly, did Daddy do, Sarah?” He’d wanted to ask their mother, but somehow hadn’t been able to; the encounter had been awkward enough as it was. “What’d the SOB threaten? To disinherit you ‘n’ Troy, maybe? That’d make sense, I s’pose. Unlike me, y’all had your schoolin’ to complete. But Mother has her own money, from her trust. Y’all would hardly’ve gone penniless if she’d stood her ground.”
Sarah heaved a sigh and shook her head. “Unfortunately Daddy