She didn’t have to worry about her own kids, thousands of miles away and out of reach—okay, that was a lie. Of course she worried about them. All day, every day. That was her job as their mother. At least they were safe with Regina, had plenty of food and water, and would never know any of the horrors she’d witnessed over the last few days.
“Leah?”
She looked up in surprise from the pile of blankets she’d offered to fold. Marcus stood a few feet away, fidgeting like he was unsure what to do with his arms. He’d done such a good job of avoiding her for the last few hours that hearing his voice now came as a mild shock.
He sounded tentative, so unlike his usual suave self.
She opened her mouth to tell him off. To tell him how much he hurt her earlier. To rail at him for lying to her about the reason behind Danny’s death. To take out all her frustration and anger and grief on him.
Except none of that came out. She simply sat there silently, studying him.
If I hadn’t left when I did, I would’ve tried again with a clean gun.
God, the look in his eyes when he’d made that admission. Defeat. Horror. Fear. He’d tried to kill himself. He was only still here by a fluke. Or maybe Danny had intervened, making sure the gun jammed. That sounded like something Danny would do.
Yes, he’d left out details surrounding Danny’s death, but they were details she now wished she didn’t know. He’d only been protecting her by not telling her.
And like that, all the anger she’d been harboring for Marcus sputtered out like a doused flame, leaving her exhausted.
She wasn’t the only one suffering here.
“Hi,” she said softly. She pushed aside the stack of folded blankets, making room on the bench for him. He hesitated for a second, then moved forward and sat down beside her. Their legs touched from hip to knee.
“I’m sorry for…” He trailed off, took a breath, and continued. “Everything.”
“I don’t blame you.” She thought she had. After Mercedes dropped the bomb about what really happened the morning Danny died, she thought she hated him. She thought it was all his fault.
It wasn’t his fault any more than their current situation was hers. They’d both been dragged into this endless horror show.
God. The horrible things she’d said to him… She wanted to rewind the moment and take it all back. But there was no rewinding in real life. They just had to find a way to move forward.
She was so tired of looking back, of agonizing over things nobody could change.
Marcus squeezed his eyes shut and tilted his head back. “You should.”
“No.” She grabbed his hand and waited until he opened his eyes and looked at her. “If the situation were reversed, and you had died because someone tried to kill Danny, I’d tell him the same thing. It’s. Not. Your. Fault. Dammit, even as much as I want to blame Mercedes for not stopping her boyfriend, it’s not her fault either. The only person who bears any responsibility is the man who hired Sebastian Haly.”
“I wanted to find him for you. I wanted to take him off this planet before I told you the whole truth. I thought that was the only way you’d be able to forgive me.”
“Marcus, there’s nothing to forgive.”
“Not true. I shouldn’t have…” He seemed to struggle with the right words. “What happened between us in the shower… I shouldn’t have treated you like that. You deserve better than that.”
Heat rushed into her cheeks. “I wasn’t complaining.”
“It felt wrong.”
Her heart sank. He was right, of course. It should’ve felt wrong. Should’ve felt like a betrayal of Danny. But Danny was gone, and he’d told her one time that if anything were to ever happen to him, he didn’t expect her to spend the rest of her life alone. He’d wanted her to find love again, to be happy. He probably hadn’t expected Marcus to be the guy, but she could no longer deny her growing feelings for him. Somehow, in the last few days, he’d moved out of the friend zone and firmly into the more-than-friend zone.
But he didn’t feel the same. And that hurt.
She managed a wobbly smile. “I understand.”
“No.” He groaned and scrubbed at his face with both hands. “Shit, that came out bad. Sex with you should’ve felt wrong, but…” Again, he trailed off.
“It didn’t,” she finished for him.
He exhaled hard like he’d been holding his breath. “Yeah.”
“So what will we do about it?”
Across the room, Jesse and Ian lifted Mercedes onto a stretcher. Marcus watched them until they disappeared out the door, then he shifted to face her. “We’ll talk about it. I promise we will, but right now you need to go with Jesse. He’s taking Mercedes to a hospital out of this country.”
The idea of leaving sent a thrill coursing through her. She could go home. See her babies, hold them in her arms and know they were safe, know that she was safe. Her gaze caught on a woman she’d met earlier while helping Josue with dinner. If it could be called dinner. It was mostly tubes of a thick, nutritional peanut butter Josue received from relief organizations, and a little bit of rice. The woman ignored her plate of rice and coaxed her gaunt, listless toddler to eat. She kept trying to squeeze a bit of the peanut butter onto his lips, but he wasn’t responding.
Leah had asked Jesse to help him a little bit ago. The medic had taken a look at the malnourished child, started an IV, and gave him an injection.
Then Jesse had pulled Leah aside and told her very softly, “I’m sorry. He’s not goin’ to make it. Even if he was in a hospital with a feeding tube, he’s too far gone. I made sure he’s not hurtin’ but there’s nothin’ more I can do.”
The news had broken her heart. So did the image of the woman, clinging to the hope that her child wasn’t dying. She knew she’d see that woman spreading peanut butter on her child’s lips for the rest of her life.
Marcus touched her hand, drawing her back to the present. She laced her fingers through his and swallowed back the lump rising in her throat. “I can’t leave. These people need help.”
“We’re trying to help them,” Marcus said. “Many of them have family members who disappeared. That woman.” He nodded toward the woman she’d been watching. “Josue said her husband was taken. He was the breadwinner for the family and now she has no way to feed her children. We might be able to bring him back.”
“Do you think he’s still alive?”
“If he is, we’ll bring him back. But I can’t do that unless I know you’re safe. I can’t have my attention split while I’m out there.”
She studied him for a moment, saw the truth of it in his eyes. At last, she nodded. “But I’m not going back to L.A. until you can come with me.”
He cracked a small smile. “Afraid I’ll disappear to Indonesia?”
“Maybe,” she admitted. “A little.”
He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “I don’t plan on going back. I got what I needed from there.”
“And what do you need now?”
When his dark gaze met hers, his eyes said, You.
But he didn’t give that thought voice yet. As much as she wanted to hear it, he wasn’t ready to admit it and she could respect that. It was a huge step. More than a little scary.
He stood and pulled her to her feet. “I’m not sure, but I know what I want.” His gaze dipped to her lips and her heart gave an excited leap. She wanted him to kiss her, but she knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t. Not here, in front of his teammates.
Marcus let go of her hand and, after an awkward, uncertain beat, turned away.
What if he was hurt or, worse, killed? The thought came out of nowhere, like a lightning strike on a sunny day, and sent terror sizzling through her. This could be the last time she ever saw him. She certainly hadn’t expected that day she dropped Danny off at the airpo
rt would be the last time. They’d both been in a hurry—his car’s battery had died that morning and she’d swung by between house showings to pick him up so he didn’t have to wait for a cab because he was already running late. He’d hopped out of the car with a quick, distracted, “Love ya.” She’d called it back to him as she pulled away from the curb.
No kiss. Not even a hug.
The next time she saw him, he was cold in a coffin.
No. She wouldn’t go through that regret again, and it was a very real possibility given the mission Marcus and his teammates were about to undertake.
She lurched after him and caught his hand. When he spun back with worry creasing his brow and a question on his lips, she didn’t think about it. She just pushed up onto her toes and pressed her mouth to his. She saw his eyes go wide in the instant before she closed her own and sank into the kiss. Slowly, he relaxed and his arms came up to circle her. She could feel his heart pounding against her chest, and small tremors shook through him. When he finally returned her kiss, it wasn’t demanding like in the shower. It was unsure. A soft, quiet kind of kiss that felt strangely like an apology.
Would he ever realize he didn’t have to keep apologizing to her?
She broke the kiss and stared up into his eyes, saw a battle of emotions raging there. He didn’t know what to think. How to react.
Mostly, he just looked sad.
Whatever this was growing between them had no chance if kissing her always made him so damn sad.
“Please stay safe,” she whispered, then walked away before he could tell her that kiss had been a mistake.
Chapter Twenty-One
The plan was for Leah and Sami to go with Jesse and Mercedes in the Nest to Italy, where Tucker Quentin had a trauma team on standby. The rest of them were taking a helicopter to the Chad border, and who knew what they would find there. After his and Leah’s escape, Volkov Group and Dr. Denisova had to expect they were coming.
The helo arrived with two of Tucker Quentin’s men on board just as Jesse and Ian finished loading Mercedes onto the Nest. Rex, a medic from one of Tuc’s other teams who Marcus knew to be a smartass, and a pilot, both wearing hats emblazoned with the Quentin Enterprises logo.
“All right. Let’s do this,” Lanie said and everyone piled into the helicopter.
“I saw that.” Jean-Luc grinned as he slid into the seat next to Marcus. “Back at the church? You and Leah?”
“We all saw that,” Harvard added, adjusting the mic on his headset so he could be heard over the thrum of the helicopter’s rotor powering up.
Well, that had to be a new record. They actually waited longer to mention it than he thought they would.
Marcus muttered a curse under his breath and stared out over the airfield as the helo lifted off the ground. That kiss had shocked the hell out of him, and he was still trying to process it. Not only that she had kissed him after everything but that she had done it in front of his team. What did it mean? What did he want it to mean? And why the fuck did it simultaneously turn him on and twist him up with guilt?
“So you and Leah…” Jean-Luc prompted, nudging his shoulder.
“Guys, leave him alone,” Sami’s voice chimed in over their headsets. Although she was on the Nest, she was still on their open comm link. “He obviously doesn’t want to talk about it.”
“Why not?” Jean-Luc asked. “He should be shouting it from the rooftops.”
She sighed. “Eric, honey, smack him for me.”
Harvard shrugged and whapped Jean-Luc upside the head.
“Thank you,” Sami said. “For an intelligent man, you’re really dense.”
Jean-Luc pressed a hand to his heart as if she could see him. “Aw, cher, you wound me.”
She released an exasperated huff of a sigh. “Marcus, don’t pay him any attention.”
“I usually don’t,” Marcus said.
“Good. And for the record, I think you and Leah together is a fabulous thing. I didn’t know Danny very well, but I’m pretty sure he’d approve.”
“Oh, wholeheartedly,” Jean-Luc agreed.
“Eric?” Sami said.
Again Harvard smacked Jean-Luc.
“Ow. Stop that! She has you whipped, kid.”
Harvard smirked. “You’re one to talk.”
“I’m gonna tell Claire you’re misbehaving,” Sami said over the headset.
“Oui, please do.” He waggled his brows comically. “She loves it when I misbehave. But we weren’t talking about me and my gorgeous, brilliant wife.”
“Still don’t know how you managed to get a woman like Claire,” Marcus said, hoping to change the subject.
“Ha! Me either. So…” Jean-Luc propped his elbow on his knee and leaned on it, cradling his chin in his hand. “You and Leah, huh? Did you tell her you see his ghost?”
“You what?” Harvard gave them both a hard side-eye.
“Yeah, in Nigeria,” Jean-Luc explained not-so-helpfully. “Danny’s ghost led him to safety when we were separated by a militant attack.”
Marcus twisted in the seat to scowl at the Cajun. “Dude. Really?”
“What? He did! Claire told me you saw him and he led you to a road when you were lost in the jungle.”
Now Seth, intrigued, leaned forward and joined the convo. “You saw a ghost?”
“No! Jesus.” And he had missed these guys? His shack in Indonesia was suddenly very appealing again. “I didn’t see a ghost. I had head trauma and saw…” He still didn’t know what he saw.
“Danny,” Jean-Luc finished simply.
“No. I mean, yes, but he was a figment of my rattled brain.” One he’d seen more than once, but he’d keep that to himself or he’d never hear the end of it. They’d start calling him “Ghost Whisperer” or some shit like that. And did he look like Jennifer Love Hewitt? “Can we focus on the mission?”
“The mission is still a helicopter ride away,” Jean-Luc said, but he did settle back into his seat just as the helo banked hard left.
Marcus braced himself with a tight grip on the overhead handle. “Ghosts don’t exist.”
“Yeah, they do.”
Lanie finally took pity on him. “Leave him alone, Cajun. We just got him back and you want to scare him away?”
“Nah,” Jean-Luc said, all confidence. “He’s not going anywhere. He loves us. And now he has Leah.”
“I don’t have Leah.”
“Sure looked like it from where I was standing.”
“Cajun, do you have a death wish?”
“Mm, no. Not at the moment.”
“Then shut up.”
“Cranky, cranky.”
…
Unlike the lush vegetation of the more tropical south, the ground in the north was a dry, dusty red. The trees were squat and sparse, and the high grass was more yellow than green. It looked as if they hadn’t received a good rain in a while, while in the south all it seemed to do was rain.
Marcus choked on the dust kicked up by the helo as he fast-roped to the ground. As soon as he was down, he pulled a handkerchief up over the lower half of his face then scanned the immediate area for hostiles. There wasn’t a lot of cover here, and the last thing they needed was for some militia-type dude to take out their bird with an RPG.
Once everyone was on the ground and the helo prop wash was no longer drowning them in sand, they huddled up. Even Tank with his goofy dog goggles and happy, tongue-lolling grin. He loved fast-roping almost as much as he loved skydiving. Crazy animal.
As for Marcus, he preferred to keep both feet on the ground whenever possible. He could step out of a helo holding only a rope or jump out of a plane at high altitudes when he needed to, but they weren’t his favorite things to do.
Lanie spread a map out on the ground. “The clinic is five miles north of here, but satellite images s
how militia checkpoints all up and down this road. There’s also a large refugee camp just to the east that’s patrolled by government forces.”
“Which means more Russian mercs,” Harvard said. “I’ll get the drone in the air.” He tapped his earpiece as he pulled his rucksack off his back and opened it. “Geek Girl, you still read us?”
“Loud and clear,” Sami’s voice crackled over the link.
“I’m unpacking the drone now. We have enemy forces on all sides and need eyes in the sky.”
“Copy that.”
“The refugee camp explains why Denisova set up her operations there,” Marcus said. “Displaced people have no recourse when one of their family members go missing.”
Jean-Luc swore in French and rubbed his arms like he was cold even though the temp hovered close to ninety. “This is going to be a horror show. I feel it in my bones.”
Lanie traced a line on the map with her finger, which was already coated with a layer of the red dust that swirled in the air. “We have to hoof it along this arroyo. It’s our best chance of avoiding hostiles, but it adds nearly three miles to our journey.”
“At least it’s all flat,” the medic, Rex, said cheerfully.
“And open.” Seth winced. “We have no cover out here.”
“Then we should get moving,” Lanie folded the map and shoved it into a side pocket in her pack. “The longer we stand still, the easier target we become. Body cams on?”
“Copy,” every man said in succession.
“Let’s move.”
The walk was hot, dry, and dusty hell. Marcus was sure there were probably worse places on Earth, but in those hours, he couldn’t think of a damn one. Several times they had to drop and lie flat in the bottom of the arroyo to avoid a militia patrol. And once the hostiles spotted Harvard’s drone. They fired at it, but Sami, controlling the thing from the Nest, was a master at evasion. She sent it soaring too high into the sky for them to hit, but it had the militiamen spooked. They stopped just feet away from the arroyo, chattering away in Arabic. Everyone tensed, ready to strike if one of them men happened to glance over and down at them. After a long ten minutes, the militiamen moved on.
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