The Protector

by Cristin Harber

  Which was a problem. They were in as safe a location as he could find, but now that day was breaking, he should’ve scanning the perimeter. Instead, he was staring at Sleeping Beauty.

  He liked that better than Mary Poppins.

  Actually, he liked Jane.

  No matter the name, he couldn’t allow attraction to distract him from his duty. Jane shivered and burrowed against him and showed signs of waking. A pang of jealousy lumped in his chest. Those sleepy sighs and quiet, almost awake murmurs weren’t for him. Who did she normally wake up with?

  Maybe, no one.

  He wondered what would happen if they’d found each other at another place, in another time—And that thought was all it took to realize he was losing his touch with reality.

  Regretfully, he moved her head from his arm, separating their bodies. Jane sleepily grumbled, fighting for her heat source, leaving Chance now surer than ever that she would wake up, notice how they had clung together and think he was a perverted asshat.

  At that moment, her eyes flickered open. Big, blue, and bottomless, they landed on his. Held his. The moment stretched on for an eternity. “Good morning, Chance.”

  As if he needed any confirmation on how dangerous Jane was, he now had it. They were on their own in war-torn Syria. Enemies could arrive from any direction. But here he was, immobilized by the woman at his side.

  ***

  Jane had been having a nightmare. Teddy was ripped from her hands over and over again. Everywhere she ran, chasing after him, she ran into roadblocks and had to watch his anguished expression as he was pulled farther and farther away. And then, at the very end, right before she had awoken to face Chance, was a man with dark, sea-blue eyes who promised everything would be okay.

  Now that she was awake, staring into those same blue eyes she’d dream about, she felt safe. Even as the terror of her time in Syria flooded back, she didn’t worry. Not when this guy was by her side.

  “Morning.” His voice was thick with sleep, but he pulled abruptly away.

  Her chest twanged, and self-conscious, she sat up, finger-combing her unruly hair. “Not a morning person?”

  Big surprise. He didn’t answer.

  Then again, she’d been very close to him. When was the last time she’d taken a shower? How awful did she smell? Jane ran her tongue along her teeth, grossing herself out. No wonder Chance jumped from next to her. There was a strong chance she resembled Medusa.

  Heat crawled up the back of her neck. Somehow, she hadn’t noticed that Chance Evans was hotter than the Saharan sun. And, oh boy, did she know it now.

  Attractive people were fairly constant in her life. The Thanes tried to associate with only beautiful people. Most of the beautiful people had egos to match the depths of their amazing looks.

  But this guy? He was worlds apart, and if left to her own devices, she could’ve laid next to him and stared all day. How was it possible that he seemed better looking today—with his stubble-covered face and his piercing blue eyes, dark and troubled, like an icy sea during a winter storm. Apparently, there was nothing better looking in the entire world than a smoking-hot mercenary.

  Actually, there was nothing better than staring at the man who rescued her from the shittiest armpit one could find in Syria. She owed him her life. That would make anyone weak in the knees.

  She pushed up and looked away from Chance. There wasn’t much to see. The sun blazed low in the morning sky, harshly changing the air from frigid to burning. There was nothing but desert, dead brush, and rocks and a million variations of the color beige. “Where is everything? The refugee camp? The burning fence?”

  “Long gone. I hauled ass for a while,” he offered.

  Jane snapped and pretended to pout. “I was asleep and missed everything.”

  He laughed. “You passed out and missed a lot.” He handed her the canteen of water. It felt woefully close to empty. “Take a sip,” he said.

  “You don’t have more, do you?”

  He shook his head. “Don’t take too much right now, and we’ll be okay.”

  She pursed her chapped lips. “That’s not the ‘yup, more water right here’ that I was hoping for.”

  He chuckled then turned to his bag. “Soon as I get my comm device linked up, we’ll get airborne and you can have all the water you could possibly desire.”

  He fiddled with his earpiece, and she stood up, stretching. The muscle aches had lessened, and after a couple of stretches, she focused on her real pain. The blisters and sunburn. There wasn’t much she could do for them out here, so she eased back onto the sleeping mat that he’d arranged for her. Chance continued to fuss with his equipment. She guessed things weren’t going well. “No one’s picking up on the other side?”

  “It’s not like a phone call,” he muttered, distracted.

  Well, no kidding. She thought about picking up a stone and pelting him. Maybe he’d realize his tone was a touch too condescending, but she decided against it since he had let her sleep on him.

  She opened her mouth to ask him whether he was okay, but he must have anticipated it, because he cut her off with a “shhh.”

  Okay. Jane reconsidered a quick stone pelting, again deciding it wouldn’t do any good.

  Chance repeated the same action several times and then paced, stony look on his face.

  Ruh-roh. Something wasn’t going well for fearless Hercules. “What’s the problem?” She readied to retaliate if he shushed her again. But how? Give him a little kick? She wasn’t sure. But the shushing and clipped talk could ease up.

  She didn’t have to kick him, because he stopped by their motorbike and kicked it. “We have a broken-down bike.” He shook the comm device. “And a broken-down mic.”

  “Wait. What?” The motorbike worked before she’d passed out.

  “We ran out of gas.”

  Her lips rounded. “That seems like an important thing you failed to mention.”

  Chance shrugged. “It happens.”

  She blinked. “No one knows where we are?”

  “For the time being.” His lips thinned.

  Her heart sank. “That throws a kink in the works, huh?”

  “It’s a complication,” he agreed.

  “A complication is more like when you miss a connecting flight at the airport.”

  His lips quirked. “That could be one too.”

  How the man could lump a missed flight with sitting alone in the desert, she didn’t know. “Chance, do you ever panic?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean.” She rubbed her temples and tried to think of wording a Herculean-Midas-person might understand. “Do you ever freak out?” She put her hands in the air and pretended to scream, then added, “Ya know, panic?”

  His chest trembled as though he were holding back a belly laugh. “Why?”

  “Because!” She threw her hands into the air—not panicking yet but definitely feeling the possibility loomed. “If you’re not the kind of guy who can give me a heads up when the end is near—”

  Chance tipped his head back and released a belly laughed he’d been wrestling with. He laughed so hard the man gasped.

  “Chance, I’m serious!”

  He buckled over. “When the end is near.”

  She clamped her hands on her hips. “Pardon me, but this is my first abduction-escape-desert-debacle.”

  He didn’t stop laughing, and for good measure, threw in an “oh, shit” and slapped his thigh.

  Jane crossed her arms. “I’m so thrilled I can make you laugh.”

  “Oh, Mary Poppins.” He staggered over as though he could barely walk and draped his arm over her shoulders. “I needed to laugh.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Then, jeez, you’re welcome.”

  Just when she thought everything would work out, her hero rescuer was cracking up before her very eyes. She tried to stop her despair from getting too low. After all, how many times in recent days had she thought she was at the e
nd of the line? More than she could remember. If she’d given up, it would’ve been the end. But she didn’t. Something always worked out. Even in the midst of an insane good-looking hero who was losing his mind.

  Eventually, he stopped laughing and released her from under his arm.

  “Did that slip from reality help you come up with a plan?” she asked.

  He chuckled again. “We walk.”

  “Walk?” Jane flinched when said the words that her blistered feet were hoping to avoid. “Are you sure?”

  Instead of answering, shielding his eyes, he studied the uninhabitable terrain before them as if he might be able to pinpoint the promised land.

  “Where to?” she asked and mimicked his stance. Jane shielded her gaze from the sun, turning to face the same direction and scanned the desert. There didn’t seem like much to see, though she supposed he had some kind of superhero training that left him well-prepared for life’s little hiccups. What military mission guy didn’t prepare for a communication failure in the devil’s backyard? Right…?

  “Um…” She cut her fruitless search short and glanced at him. “What are we looking for?”

  His lips pursed, and he didn’t offer an immediate answer.

  “Can you hear me? Or—”

  He grinned. “Sometimes no answer is an answer.”

  “Not really.”

  Chance sobered and pulled a handheld device from his pack. “Sometimes I’m just thinking.”

  Her nerves skittered, because while she was not a superhero-rescuer, she considered herself a master of reading faces. At least when it came to little kids. But, it wouldn’t be the first time Jane had lumped grown men and little kids into the same category. Chance’s expression didn’t bode well.

  That look mixed with her limited knowledge of the Syrian landscape—yes, she had only glanced over that section in the brochure when Dax announced their final location. Who would fault her? There was a level-four travel ban in effect. She hadn’t planned to go merrily skipping along what was called one of the most unforgiving places on Earth—Jane didn’t blame her nerves for somersaulting like delirious, dehydrated little anxiety explosions. “Do you know where we are?”

  “We’re right here, Mary Poppins.” He checked his device.

  Her eyebrows snapped together, and a growl that surprised both of them rumbled from her throat.

  The corner of his mouth quirked and then he extended the device. “Our GPS coordinates.”

  The screen meant a whole bunch of nothing to her, and she lifted her shoulders. “That’s good? Right?”

  “Yeah.” He pocketed the GPS tracker. “But it’d be better for headquarters to have them also.”

  “Ah, yes.”

  “We’ll continue toward the last evac zone.” Chance checked his compass. “But there may be a small problem we deal with on the way.”

  Jane chewed on the inside of her mouth, wondering what he considered a small problem. She could name a half dozen concerns without having to think. “The suspense is intense. You know that?”

  He rolled back on the heels of his boots and smirked. “We broke from the camp on the far side and judging by the typography map—”

  “What? Typography?” Jane extended her arms. “Everything is flat, slightly flat, sandy, dead, or dying.”

  “With the occasional promontory.”

  She groaned. “I don’t suppose a promontory is a fancy word for a dance hall or something that serves ice water.”

  He grinned. “Not quite.”

  “More like a club? A disco?”

  “It’s good that you’ve kept your sense of humor, MP.”

  Jane sighed dramatically. “If it’s not a place to grab a drink and shake my booty, then what?”

  His eyebrows arched.

  “Oh, it’s something horrible.”

  He quietly snorted. “Not horrible.”

  “A canyon? Cliffs? A mountain?”

  “I think a large land mass would be a good description.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “All joking aside, every part of me hurts. Especially my feet.”

  “We’ll be out of here soon.”

  She sighed and tried to cling to his optimism.

  Chance scanned the horizon for the millionth time. “Have you ever been hiking?”

  “Not in the desert while taunting death with dehydration.”

  “That’s the spirit.” He smiled like Jane announced hiking was her favorite weekend activity. Perhaps the man was certifiable.

  She marched up to him and grabbed his biceps. “It worries me a lot that you only hear what you want to hear.”

  He winked and adjusted his pack onto his shoulder. “Ready?”

  She gave a longing glance to the motorbike, bade it farewell, and gave him a thumbs up.

  With that, he strutted off with a cool, easy gait.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Jane regathered the loose hairs that stuck to the back of her neck, tied her hair into a ponytail once more, and then caught up to him again. She wasn’t sure how far they’d gone before the ache in her feet numbed or why he never needed to stop. “Are you worried that we’re going to die?”

  He paused, waiting for her to fall in-line with his side, then urged her to keep his pace. “Nah.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because this is what I do,” he explained.

  “And you never fail?”

  “Of course, but it doesn’t stop me.” He gave her a sideways glance. “I don’t think it stops you either.”

  “Ha,” she muttered.

  “How many times could you have died?”

  Sweat trickled down her back. “In the last twenty-four hours? Or, since, I don’t know, I got into a rickety puddle jumper to come here?”

  His laughter rang clear and crisp despite the shimmering heat and dusty sand. “Think you proved my point.”

  She licked her dry lips. “Normally, I think of myself in a protective role. Like you, but without the desert and grenade launchers.”

  He glanced over. “How so?”

  “Taking care of Teddy.” Her heart tugged. “I’m not sure how many people out there have his well-being in mind. Everything’s royally screwed up.”

  Sand crunched under his boots for several steps before he grumbled. “Huh.”

  Emotion panged in her already parched throat. “I worry about him.”

  “I bet. That kid…”

  She waited but he didn’t continue, trudging ahead. “What?”

  Chance tilted his head to look at her. “You don’t want to know what I think.”

  “About Teddy?” Her stomach clenched. “He’s great.”

  “No. About everything that surrounds the kid.”

  The idea that Chance disliked her work with Teddy bothered Jane. “Tell me anyway.”

  He wiped a hand over his forehead. “I think the ‘royally screwed up’ part was just coming out here in the first place.”

  “Tell me something I don’t already know.”

  They didn’t talk as the sandy ground rose into a small dune. Climbing wasn’t easy. The gentle angle still made her muscles burn as much as her sunburn, but she didn’t want to complain.

  “Do the Thanes mess with everyone’s life like this?” he asked.

  They crested the top of the dune, and panting, Jane stopped. She struggled to take a deep breath. Chance handed her the canteen. The top of the canteen bottle burned her lips. The hot sip of water didn’t quench her thirst.

  Jane capped the canteen, still catching her breath, and nodded. “That depends on what you mean. But, they—Dax especially—have a knack for drama and chaos.”

  Chance snorted, gesturing his hand toward the expansive landscape. “I hope he pays good overtime. You deserve one hell of a Christmas bonus for this shit show.”

  “Dax is… a very eccentric man.” Jane struggled to defend Dax and explain herself. “Working for him, more importantly the family, has its good and bad points.”

  “I
think Dax Thane sounds like a grade-A asshole.”

  Jane didn’t bother hiding her laughter. “Tell me what you really think.”

  “That none of you should have been over here. Whether he’s an asshole or not.”

  She sighed, glad she wasn’t the only one to see the absolute folly in her employer’s antics. “I know. His sister warned him from the get-go that we shouldn’t go. That Teddy shouldn’t. I should’ve tried harder to stop the trip, and before I fully grasped what was happening—” She cut herself off, dangerously coming close to saying too much.

  “What?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “I shouldn’t say.”

  “Why?”

  “Everyone who works for the Thanes signs a nondisclosure agreement. It’s pretty far reaching.” She bit her lip. “Actually, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say that I’ve signed one.”

  “Once again, what an asshole,” Chance quipped.

  “They have an image to protect,” she explained, somewhat defensive. At least of Teddy and maybe even Gigi. “Reporters and paparazzi try to bribe me for insider stuff. Some photographers offer huge amounts of money for exclusive knowledge of their schedules.”

  “Have you ever taken them up on an offer?”

  Her jaw dropped. “Absolutely not!”

  Chance’s mega-watt grin defied their circumstances. “I didn’t think you would.”

  Jane dialed back her reaction. She wanted his respect, and for that pinprick of a second, she worried that he’d lumped her with the Thanes as though they were a tidy, attention-seeking group. “Can we change the subject?”

  “Sure, tell me something that has nothing to do with the Thanes.”

  Her mind blanked. Suddenly, she was struck with the awkwardness of a twelve-year-old who had a crush. Was she developing a crush on Chance? Jane had been too tired to think straight, much less flirt and fall for a guy. And yet… she was drawn to him.

  Jane listened to their steps and watched him walk a stride ahead of her. He was so strong, large, and masculine. And to think, she’d slept in his arms like a baby last night. She’d probably drooled. Her cheeks heated. That would be just her luck.