by Bianca D’Arc
They got to the rock where the unit usually turned around well ahead of everybody else. Carter signaled a halt and was glad to see that Hannah was breathing hard but not completely winded. She really was in amazing shape, which he would have realized if he’d been looking closely. As it was, he’d been trying not to notice every little thing about her because he knew she’d be gone soon, and he didn’t want to get any more attached than he already was. Plus, her foot had been the big distraction to this point. Now that she could move freely again, and her foot wasn’t such a big deal, he was able to see the rest of her more clearly.
She was beautiful. Not just in a surface way, but down deep, where it counted. On the surface, she was trim and muscular. Lithe and able to keep up with him, which was different. Most women he’d known had been soft and pampered, and they cried if they broke a nail. Hannah had short, well-kept fingernails that wouldn’t interfere with her ability to do things. No polish. No nonsense. He liked that.
He sure was going to miss her when she left. Damn.
“They’re almost here.” Her voice broke into his thoughts. “Do we go back, now?”
“Sure. Why not?” He started off in an easy jog, and she fell into step beside him. They soon passed the rest of the group, still heading in the other direction, and teasing remarks were passed back and forth until they were out of earshot. “We usually do this run then calisthenics on the beach by the barracks before heading in for quick showers, then chow,” he told her.
“Good routine,” she replied. He looked down at her, and she was watching the beach for footing but also looking off toward the ocean when she had a chance. “Sure is a pretty place to work out. The sand is packed nicely for running, down here near the water line. I’ve lived on Long Island my whole life, but I’ve never run on the beach before. I’m going to have to change that, now that I can.”
“Not too soon, but yeah, it’s great running down here at dawn,” he agreed. “I get up before the rest of the guys and just do a loop around the circumference of the island on my own sometimes.”
“Nice.” She didn’t say anything else as they continued running, the peace stretching between them.
It was easy for him to imagine doing this for the rest of his life. Having her at his side, a partner in every sense of the word. But that could never be. Not with the change he had undergone in the desert and the subsequent target that had been painted squarely on his back. He couldn’t subject sweet Hannah to the danger in his life. No more than he already had.
They sprinted the last few yards to the beach behind the barracks then stopped, walking it off for a few moments. Carter could see the rest of the guys loping along, heading toward them, but they still had a few minutes alone. He felt like he should say something, but for once, words failed him. He had to try anyway.
“Hannah, I feel I should thank you for last night. I would have, if you’d been there when I woke up. I’m just sorry—”
“Don’t be sorry.” She cut off his words. “Don’t ever be sorry. I’m not. I wanted my magical day to extend, and you gave that to me,” she said, blowing him away. “The only possible regret is that it can’t continue.”
Did she mean what he thought she meant? Probably not. She was talking about magic, not a relationship. She wanted more miracles and rainbows. He wasn’t that sort of guy. He couldn’t do fairytales, even if he felt, sometimes, like he was living in the middle of one. Only, his brand of fairytale was darker. More Brothers Grimm than Hans Christian Andersen or Little Bo Peep.
“It can’t.” He opted for truth, agreeing with her. “I’m glad you see that. Though, you’re right. I do regret that.”
He couldn’t make a move on her with the guys getting closer with each passing moment. Carter wanted to reach out and touch her cheek, draw her close and kiss her like there was no tomorrow, but he couldn’t. Just like he couldn’t let their relationship—such as it was—go on any longer.
“I’ll never regret our time together,” she told him. “Just that it had to end.”
And then, there was no more time. The rest of the unit intruded on their stolen moments alone, and their private conversation was at an end.
It was that way for the rest of the morning calisthenics and right through breakfast. Other people were around them at every moment, and Carter and Hannah didn’t have any further opportunities for private discussion. Carter was glad he’d spoken when he had, but he wished he’d been able to fully express what he was thinking. For a linguist who could speak and understand any language, he was woefully without words when it came time to say the important things to Hannah.
Then, she was leaving, with no more time to say the things he might want to say, if only he’d found a way to do so. Jeff and Rose took her back to her home, the clairvoyant pair insisting they had to be the ones to drive Hannah. After all, Jeff was the best offensive driver in the group. If they ran into trouble, there was no one better suited to driving them out of it than him.
Plus, he could see the future. He and his lady both had that gift and could take care of themselves. If they said they had to be the ones to drive Hannah home, nobody in the unit was likely to argue with them. Even if Carter had been craving those few extra minutes with Hannah, which he was now to be denied.
Hannah left the island with mixed feelings. She was surprised when Rose and Jeff declared they would be the ones to see her safely home. She’d hoped for more time with Carter, but it looked like that wasn’t meant to be. They didn’t even have a chance to say a private goodbye.
Maybe it was better this way. She’d said what she’d wanted to say to him on the beach that morning. A long goodbye would have only made it harder to leave.
Rose was chirpy and talkative the entire ride back to Hannah’s place. Jeff was quiet, watching the road and just letting Rose do all the talking. They made a nice couple, and Hannah almost envied them how easy they were in each other’s company. She wasn’t sure she’d ever find a relationship like theirs. Or, maybe, she had, but she’d left it behind on an island she would never be allowed to visit again.
It was like something out of a fairytale. Or a nightmare.
Jeff slowed the car as they approached her house. For the first time since leaving the other island, he spoke.
“We’ll still be keeping an eye on you, Hannah. I want you to know that. We won’t just throw you to the wolves and forget you, but so far, it looks like you’ve escaped detection. Just go about your life as usual and gradually ease off the crutches over the next few weeks, as if your injury were healing naturally. You should be all right.” He sounded so sure, she could almost believe it would be that easy. “I’m sorry we can’t do anything about the extra surveillance in your house without alerting the wrong people that we’ve taken an interest. If you just go about your business as usual, the interest should ease off in a couple of weeks. We can alert you when the surveillance is gone, if you like.”
“I’d like that very much,” she told him. “I have no idea how you know what you know, but I trust you guys more than anybody else right now. You haven’t steered me wrong, yet.”
“See, Jeff? I told you she’s smart enough to realize who the good guys are,” Rose put in, making a funny face at her fiancé, as if her reaction was something they had already discussed.
“I didn’t say she wasn’t,” Jeff said, in his own defense, turning the corner onto Hannah’s block. “I’m just more cautious than you are, sweetheart.”
“Caution is good in a soldier,” Hannah said, belaying anything Rose might’ve said to argue. “I respect that.”
“Rosie isn’t quite used to the military mindset yet, I’m afraid,” Jeff told Hannah in his clipped British tones.
He really was a handsome man, but Hannah could only really see Carter. The heartbreaker. At least...her heart might break. She didn’t think his would, though he’d said he’d regretted that their time together had to end. That was something.
“Now, we won’t walk you in. We’re
just dropping you off. Just two friends, giving you a lift home,” Rose said. “Your house is safe, except for the extra bugs. Just do your thing and know that, even though you might be under surveillance from the bad guys, the good guys will be watching over you, too. Don’t do anything too conspicuous, and all will be well.”
“Is that a prediction from Madam Pythia?” Hannah said, teasing her new friend a bit.
“As a matter of fact, it is,” Rose agreed, laughing along with Hannah. “And I’m usually right about these things.”
Hannah let herself into her home a short while later, sorry to see Rose and Jeff pull away. Her last connection to the unit was gone, and she was on her own again. They said they’d be watching over her, but she had no idea what that really meant. Probably some sort of covert surveillance she would never even realize was there.
What good was that? She was grateful and all, to know that someone was looking out for her, but really, she wanted to see Carter again. She somehow doubted that was going to happen. Not the way he’d been talking. She recognized finality in a man’s tone when she heard it.
Hannah made her way into her home, relying on the crutches that were just a prop, at this point, and headed for the couch. She would put her foot up, as she usually did after coming in, and watch the news. Back to her old routine.
While the weather report was on, her phone rang. It was Lulu, asking her to fill in at the mall again, the next day. Hannah agreed. Her dance card was currently empty, so she might as well help out her friend.
The next day, Hannah made a show of hobbling out her door and going to the mall, as she had any number of times since she’d come back from being overseas. She took up her position at the kiosk in the center of the mall and spoke with Lulu for a bit about various topics before she took off to run her errands.
It was a weekday. Slow time at the mall. Hannah had a few customers just after she got there around lunchtime, but after that, she just sat and had time to think over everything that had happened in the past few days. Her foot was encased in the boot she’d been given at the hospital weeks ago, but she didn’t need it anymore, which was the only real proof she had that everything that had happened with Carter had been real.
She could move her ankle inside the ginormous boot with no pain. Every time she did so, she had to hide a happy grin. Her foot was better. Not just better, but healed completely. As her run on the beach the morning before had proven to her beyond the shadow of a doubt. That had been a magical hour—running with Carter on the beach just after the sun rose. What she wouldn’t give for a life like that on a full-time basis.
But it was not meant to be. Danger dogged Carter’s tracks, and she understood his reasons—the few he’d been able to explain and the few she’d extrapolated from his unspoken words. She respected his unwillingness to take her out of her normal life and into a world of danger and subterfuge, where they had to hide in plain sight and deal with enemies who wanted them so badly they were willing to follow them halfway around the world.
She didn’t envy him that existence, but by the same token, he had a good thing on that island, with his unit. At least two of the other men had their women with them. Rose was with Jeff, and Casey was Hal’s wife. They lived on the island with the guys, which was definitely not the normal way a military unit existed, but she suspected allowances had been made for them, since they had such an unusual situation with Rick and his abilities. Though why they’d been able to give Rose a job, when she was a self-proclaimed fortune teller, was still confusing to Hannah. Maybe they’d just devised something for bookkeeping purposes, so she could live on the island. Hannah would probably never know now.
She regretted that. She’d liked Rose. Casey, too, had been a very nice person, though a bit harder to get to know than Rose with her open manner. Hannah found she missed them, even after such a short acquaintance. Of course, she missed Carter the most.
She wasn’t sure now, whether spending the night with him had been a good idea, or a really bad one. After making love with him, she feared she was now ruined for any other man. Maybe that would wear off in time, but right now, she yearned for Carter—and Carter, alone.
Chapter Eight
Carter disguised himself with a mustache and a bit of silver in his hair when it was his turn to watch over Hannah at the mall. They’d been taking it in turns to keep an eye on her, and Carter had personally thanked every member of the unit, and the captain, for taking the potential threat to Hannah’s safety seriously.
Most of the guys in the unit had become really good at disguises over the past few months and were able to come and go from the island by taking reasonable precautions. Carter stationed himself as close as he dared to Hannah’s position, using a convenient grouping of chairs in the center of the pedestrian area that were probably meant for men who accompanied eager wives on their shopping sprees. Just another older guy sitting, waiting, didn’t draw any attention, and Carter had brought along a newspaper and a cup of coffee—a sure sign of a guy settling in for a long wait. Nobody took any notice of him. Not even Hannah.
Which was the way it was supposed to be, though it irked him to be so close to her and unable to speak with her. He knew it was for the best, but it didn’t seem fair. He tried not to be too obvious in watching her. He didn’t want to draw needless attention to himself, or to her, for that matter. He was here to blend in, not stick out, and looking at her too closely would not be blending. Not at all.
He’d been sitting in the same spot for almost an hour when his vigilance finally paid off. He’d pretended to read the paper, but in reality, he’d been listening closely to any conversation near enough that he could make out the words. The language didn’t matter. When Carter heard languages he didn’t know, they all made sense to him. That had been his gift from the turbaned man in the tower, in ancient Babylon. The gift of language.
All he had to do was hear the words, and he knew what they meant. Like the man pacing near his position, talking on the phone.
“She’s here,” he said, then sent through a photo he snapped of Hannah across the way. The language was familiar, but not. A dialect of a Middle Eastern tongue that Carter knew he had never heard before. But his gift made it perfectly understandable to him. “What do you want me to do?” the man went on, oblivious to the fact that Carter heard—and understood—every word.
The man listened for a few minutes then disconnected the call. He made a gesture to his friend, who was returning with two coffee cups in his hands. The friend gave one to the first man—Phone Boy, Carter designated the first man in his mind. Coffee Guy sipped his coffee while Phone Boy cursed.
“He wants us to wait until she finishes her shift, then follow her out and take her in the van back to his base.” Phone Boy shook his head. “As if we don’t have better things to do with our time than help that ass steal a playmate. This woman is nothing. She’s not even pretty enough to make this worth our while.” Phone Boy turned away, clearly angry, while Carter’s anger rose.
He had to be cool, though. They couldn’t know he understood them or the vile way they talked about Hannah. To him, Hannah was more than beautiful. She was regal. A shining example of what a woman should be. Tough, tender, strong, supportive. Beautiful in a way that was so much more than skin deep. To hear her disrespected in such a way by this evil little prick set Carter’s teeth on edge. His fingers twitched, wanting to make a fist and punch Phone Boy’s lights out.
But he couldn’t. Not yet. Things were unfolding and had to take their course, but Carter promised himself he’d give Phone Boy something to remember him by, if at all possible, when the shit hit the fan. Satisfying himself with that, Carter calmed himself and listened. He had to get every scrap of intel he could before he reported in to the guys. This sounded bigger than just a few goons abducting Hannah—bad enough as that was. This sounded like there was at least two separate groups involved. Phone Boy and Coffee Guy didn’t sound like they were part of the same unit as whoever had be
en issuing orders on the phone.
Phone Boy suddenly spun back around to Coffee Guy. “You take first watch. Call me if she makes a move, but I doubt she will. This is going to take hours, and I’ve got better things to do. You watch. I’ll be back later. Call if you need me.”
And with that, Phone Boy stormed off. Carter wished he could follow the first man, but he dared not let Hannah—or her watcher—out of his sight. He settled in for surveillance and took out his own cell phone. He needed some backup, and he knew just who to call.
*
When the time came, Carter stayed behind Hannah, ready to assist while others from his unit acted as the take-down team. They waited until they were all out in the parking lot of the mall and the enemy made their move.
Hannah made her way slowly out the door of the mall on her crutches, Carter following behind. When she got through the first set of doors, he caught up and was right behind her as she made it through the small vestibule and out the second set of doors to the outside. If those two men were going to act, it would be within moments of her being outside.
Sure enough, a white van pulled up, and Phone Boy got out, heading straight for Hannah. Dan, another of Carter’s colleagues, materialized right behind him. Carter saw Jeeves pull the driver of the van out onto the pavement and cuff him with zip ties before throwing him back into the vehicle—this time in the cargo area. Dan quickly immobilized Phone Boy and zip tied his hands behind his back.
A large black SUV pulled up behind the white van, and more of the unit piled out to support Dan and Jeeves. Hannah just stood there, motionless, probably in shock, and Carter came up behind her.
“Sorry, Hannah. They were plotting to abduct you, so we took them instead,” Carter explained in a calm voice. Hannah whirled around to look at him.
“Carter!” There was joy, as well as relief, in her tone, which warmed his soul.