Someone Like Her (A K2 Team Novel)

by Owens, Sandra

  He lowered himself over her, taking his weight on his elbows. “Hang on for the ride of your life, Chiquita,” he whispered next to her ear. Her legs immediately wrapped around his hips, and her arms circled his neck in a death grip.

  With his body, Jake tried to show her that he loved her.

  Weren’t women supposed to like talking after sex? Jake smiled as he memorized how sweet Maria looked asleep, tucked up under his arm. Her hand rested over his heart as if even in sleep she needed to know it still beat. Well, it did. For her.

  He dozed off, his mind already on the coming days and wanting them over so he could come back and tell her how much he loved her. At three, he slid down the bed and woke her with his tongue. He didn’t have another condom so he couldn’t bury himself in her slick heat like he wanted. But he pleasured her until she screamed his name. It was the sound he would take with him.

  When they got married and had kids, he’d need to build a soundproof bedroom. If they got married.

  When her turn came—or was it his?—she slid down his body and teased him with her tongue before sucking him into her mouth. He came with a force that had him reeling, and the words he’d been holding back almost escaped.

  Just in time, he stopped them.

  Exhausted and sated, he slept a few more hours while holding her in his arms. At six, he eased out of bed and groped around in the dark until he found his jeans. Slipping them on, he quietly walked outside and pulled his cell out of his front pocket, punching in Logan’s number.

  “I’ll have her at the safe house in two hours. I assume Saint’s there, waiting.” Even though Fortunada was once again in jail, he knew Kincaid wouldn’t allow her to be without a guard again until she was back home in Pensacola. Jake was damn glad she’d be in good hands. It was the only reason he’d be able to walk onto a plane that would take him almost seven thousand miles away from her.

  A long pause followed before Kincaid answered. “Yes. When you get back, we need to talk.”

  The boss wanted to know his intentions, but that was between him and Maria. “No, I don’t think we do.” He clicked off and went back inside to wake her.

  Jake studied the weapons spread out on the rickety table, every instinct screaming at him to dump all this shit in the trash and return home with his team. Har-Shaf had managed to get everything on their list, all right. Problem was, it was all just that—shit. There wasn’t a piece on the table in decent shape, not a thing had been taken care of the way weapons should be. He picked up one of the AK-47s and slid a finger over the rusted trigger. The thing was just as likely to explode and kill one of them as it was a bad guy.

  “Let’s see what we can salvage here,” he said. “Where is Har-Shaf, anyway?”

  The condition of the weapons was worrisome. Har-Shaf had never let them down before. Of course, with the way things were in Egypt these days, it might have been too dangerous for Har-Shaf to put his hands on the best toys.

  “Haven’t seen him since he dropped us here and said he’d go get some food. That was yesterday morning,” Stewart said as he and Bayne pulled up stools and went to work.

  Har-Shaf had spooked, and the blame for that belonged to him. If he’d stepped off that plane when he was supposed to, Har-Shaf would now be sitting in this room with them. Hiding his unease, he settled down next to Bayne, picked up a handgun, and began to clean it. Bayne’s nerves were showing and that concerned him.

  Jake glanced at the empty kitchen shelves. “So there’s nothing to eat in the house?”

  “Nope, not even running water. We didn’t want to get into our MREs, so I slipped out last night after dark and managed to find a little store,” Stewart said. “Got us some food for dinner and breakfast this morning, but didn’t want to load up with too much and draw attention.”

  Jake didn’t insult Stewart by asking if he’d made sure he wasn’t followed back to the house. The house wasn’t safe, though, not with Har-Shaf unaccounted for.

  “I’m thinking it’d be a good idea to move,” Jake said.

  Stewart nodded. Bayne stayed silent, keeping his eyes on the gun he was cleaning. Bad vibes. Oh, yeah, Jake was having them. He stood and squeezed Tennessee’s shoulder. “I’m gonna call the boss, get us a new safe house. You got any special request? You know, maybe a house where there’s a harem of belly dancers waiting for us?”

  The chuckle Tennessee gave was forced, and Jake exchanged a glance with Stewart over Bayne’s head. It was too late in coming, but they both realized their teammate had no business being on this mission. Jake grabbed the bag with the satellite phone and went into one of the bedrooms, closing the door behind him.

  When the boss answered, Jake got right to the point. “Har-Shaf’s MIA. You hear anything from him?”

  “We sent him a message telling him when to pick you up at the airport. No response. You’re telling me he wasn’t there?”

  “He didn’t meet me. Had to find my own way to the house. Our man’s not been seen since he dropped Ste . . . Elaine and Tennessee off at the safe house and said he was going for food. We need a new hidey-hole.” He’d almost broken the cardinal rule by saying Stewart’s name over a phone, even an encrypted one.

  There was a long pause and then, “I’m on it.”

  There was much unsaid in that pause and Jake knew it. The boss wouldn’t have missed his near slip. Did Kincaid blame the disappearance of Har-Shaf on him for not getting on that plane when he was supposed to?

  “We might have one other problem,” Jake said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Tennessee’s on the verge of shutting down.”

  “Not what I want to hear. We put him through the psych tests and he aced them.”

  Jake walked to the window, lifted a dusty curtain, and peered out. “Yeah, well, I guess it’s one thing sitting in a room answering questions and something entirely different when faced with the real thing. We need to revisit our policy on a situation like Tennessee’s, but that’s a discussion for another time.”

  “You want to scratch the mission? It’s your call.”

  It was tempting. But they were in Egypt, and their plan was a good one. “No, at least not yet. I’ll keep an eye on our boy. The toys we have to play with aren’t what we’d hoped for, but we’ll make do. Call when you got a place for us to go.”

  Disconnecting, Jake set the phone on a nearby table and studied the traffic going by on the street and looking for anyone standing around who seemed out of place. It was almost impossible to know if someone didn’t belong. Unemployment was high in Egypt these days, and too many men spent their time loitering on the streets, alone and in groups. He dropped the curtain, picked up the phone, and rejoined his team.

  By the time they finished inspecting and cleaning the firearms, Jake figured a little more than half were usable, better than he’d expected. Most of the weapons were Russian, but the three helmets were American military and he tried not to wonder who they’d once belonged to. While they worked, he and Stewart attempted to raise Bayne’s spirits with jokes, then the talk turned to bragging about the women they’d dated.

  “Best tits in the world, hands down, Brenda Johnson,” Stewart said, waggling his fingers as if reaching for said breasts.

  Bayne nodded in agreement. “Hell, yeah. Best ass, Cheryl Rollins.”

  Uncomfortable with the conversation, Jake pointed one of the guns at the far wall and sighted down the barrel, tuning them out. There’d been a time when he’d enjoyed this kind of talk with his teammates, but now it seemed kind of stupid . . . even disrespectful to the women in question.

  More so, it seemed wrong to think of any woman but Maria, and he certainly wasn’t going to share intimate details of her with his men.

  When he’d settled onto his seat on the plane, he’d taken out the picture Maria had given him, memorized it, and then tucked it away i
n his wallet—storing her away in the back of his mind. While waiting to board, he’d almost called her one last time but forced himself not to. It was critical that he keep his attention on the operation and not allow thoughts of her to distract him. Listening to Bayne describe his date with a woman named Erica, it hit Jake hard how much he missed Maria.

  Disquiet crept into his mind. This operation seemed to be falling apart by the minute, and his brain wasn’t one hundred percent focused on the mission. There had never been a woman before now he’d been anxious to return home to. That should please him. Instead it seemed ominous—something that would be denied him because he wanted it too much.

  Maria chewed on her thumbnail and fidgeted in her chair. She’d once thought the hardest thing she would ever do was pass her law exams, but she’d been wrong. As she sat in the situation room at K2 with her brother and K2 staff, waiting to hear Jake’s voice come through the speakers topped the list. She slid a quick glance at the man sitting next to Logan. Although he hadn’t been introduced, he had CIA written all over him. He briefly met her gaze, but didn’t give even the hint of a smile. Logan would’ve briefed the guy on who she was, but he’d given no sign of wanting her to acknowledge him, so she tried to ignore him.

  Jake had been gone for three days, and today was The Day. Any minute, the feed from the team would stream over the speakers as they prepared to sneak into the house and rescue Chad Sinclair. A part of her wanted to leave, or at least cover her ears. If she went back to her office, Logan would come tell her when it was over. He would tell her that Jake was safe.

  Who was she kidding? There was no way she could leave. The situation room was the closest to Jake she could get. She would will him to stay safe. Logan had ordered her not to say a word, that if she even muttered something under her breath he would physically pick her up and deposit her outside the conference room door, locking it behind him.

  Saint winked at her, a silent reassurance that all would be well. She smiled back and felt her lips trembling. Jake would be okay. He would. This kind of operation was a piece of cake for him.

  Yet, so many things had already gone wrong. The weapons the team got belonged at the city dump, they’d lost their in-country contact, and had been forced to move to a different safe house. Maybe it was true that bad luck came in threes and now the operation would get back on track. Maria said a little prayer it was so.

  “You in place, Elaine?”

  It was starting. Maria’s heart went into overdrive at the sound of Jake’s voice coming through the speakers.

  “Eyes on the back door,” Stewart said. “All’s quiet back here. No Tangos in sight. Headed your way now.”

  “Good. Tennessee, ready to rock and roll?”

  God, she loved how Jake’s voice sounded so sure and confident.

  The silence stretched as everyone in the room waited for Rick Bayne to answer Jake. They were supposed to have a video feed but for some reason, it wasn’t coming through. She had mixed feelings about that, half wanting to see Jake, half fearing what she might see if things went wrong.

  Finally. “Ah . . . yes, sir. I’m right behind you, Buchanan . . . Tiger.”

  They weren’t supposed to use real names—a slipup Bayne should never have made—and Logan’s lips thinned. Was he concerned about Bayne? Rick was supposed to have Jake’s back. Maria tried to catch her brother’s eye, but he wouldn’t look at her, which worried her all the more. Logan knew something she didn’t, something he didn’t like.

  Her pulse pounding a kazillion beats a minute, she moved to the edge of her chair. It was three in the morning in Egypt, and hopefully all the bad guys guarding Sinclair were asleep. As planned, Jake and his team were going for the kid two days earlier than he expected.

  “Show time,” Jake said.

  Maria closed her eyes and imagined him creeping up to the front window. They would go in through the lower floor’s window instead of trying to get through a locked door. Once inside, Jake, with Rick and Brad covering his back, would find Chad Sinclair and get him out of the house without anyone ever knowing they were there. That was the plan anyway, and she crossed the fingers on both hands.

  The radio went silent, the only sound in the room the tick, tick, tick of the clock on the wall. She glanced at it and watched the second hand bump its way past the numbers—a minute, two, and on to three. Unable to take her eyes from it, by the time it hit five minutes, her stomach churned and she feared she might throw up.

  “We’re in.”

  Jake’s whispered voice startled her so badly she squeaked, getting a glare from Logan. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for all this cloak-and-dagger stuff and should wait outside. Although, in the past, she’d sat in and watched or listened to live operations, and it had never unnerved her like this.

  God, she was so worried about Jake and wanted this to be over and done with. Quiet descended again, but then she realized this time there was the sound of heavy breathing. Logan tilted his head as if listening closely and frowned, which didn’t help Maria’s nerves.

  Because they had a diagram of the house, she was able to close her eyes and imagine Jake and the guys searching the ground floor, night-vision goggles turning the scene a watery green. All was still quiet, so that meant there were no bad guys waiting to ambush them. Now, they would be creeping up the stairs, cautiously placing their feet to avoid making creaking noises.

  Still, the only sound was one of the men’s heavy breathing. She guessed it was Rick Bayne. The thought that one of them might be on the edge sent her worry up another notch.

  The speakers crackled to life. “Tennessee, stay here and watch our backs.”

  Jake’s whisper was so soft she had to strain to hear him. Maria thought they were at the top of the stairs and wondered if he was positioning Rick there to keep him from bungling the room search. Suddenly, the video sputtered on, and everyone in the conference room focused on the screen. It was too dark to see much, but Maria was still comforted that they were getting the feed. As long as that camera on Jake’s helmet stayed upright, he was safe.

  A door was opened—she assumed by Jake—and because of the moonlight coming in a window, they could see that there were three beds occupied by sleeping men. Jake eased the door closed.

  The screen went blank. Damn, they lost the feed. Maria went back to watching the clock, the ominous ticking hand sounding like something out of a Stephen King novel. Three long minutes passed before she heard Jake’s whispered voice again.

  “We’re here to take you home. Don’t talk, okay?”

  She imagined Jake’s hand over Chad Sinclair’s mouth followed by the kid’s nod. The man Maria took to be CIA let out a puff of air. Good to know she hadn’t been the only one about to come out of her skin. Although her brother appeared to be sleeping, she wasn’t fooled and knew just where to look to know how tense he was. A quick glance at his index finger tapping hard against his knee said it all.

  The rustling of covers and the faint sound of bare feet hitting the floor sounded in the room. Realizing she was holding her breath, she exhaled. They had the kid and it should take them only a few minutes to get out of the house. As soon as Logan’s finger stilled, she’d rest easy.

  “Mother fucking bastards!”

  Oh, God, that sounded like Rick Bayne. The expletive was followed by the sounds of chaos as a voice yelled in a foreign language. Gunfire erupted, and Jake’s voice could be heard calmly issuing orders to his team. Her eyes glued to the clock, for three minutes—what felt like hours—a battle raged. Bodies could be heard hitting the floor and slowly the gunfire tapered off.

  They were going to be okay. They were going to be okay. Please let them be okay.

  And then she heard Jake’s voice. “Tennessee’s down! Get the kid out of here, Elaine.”

  Silence, heavy and ominous, descended. Maria dragged in a ragged breath. Say something, Jake. Ple
ase say something so I know you’re okay. A gun shot exploded in the silence and, startled, Maria reared up from her chair.

  “Easy,” Logan said and grabbed her hand, pulling her back down. He didn’t let go of her, and she held on to him for dear life.

  Another shot sounded, followed by an oomph, from Jake. “I’m hit,” he said.

  Oh, God. Maria swallowed bile and closed her eyes, praying harder than she ever had in her life.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  They’d gotten the kid home safe along with a handful of thumb drives the CIA man had just about drooled over. Somehow, they’d managed to get Rick Bayne’s body out of Egypt and home without causing an international incident. Maria figured the new Egyptian government probably wouldn’t have appreciated a clandestine operation by Americans carried out under their noses.

  Today was Rick’s funeral and the first time she would see Jake since he’d returned three days ago. If he bothered to show up.

  Logan hadn’t told her when the team was landing, and had taken Jamie with him to the airport to meet the midnight flight. They’d apparently gone back to K2 for a debriefing. All her brother would tell her was that Jake had been shot in his leg—a clean shot in and back out—and even so, he had carried Rick’s body out of the house. After giving his report, Jake had requested and been granted a leave of absence.

  He’d not once tried to contact her.

  “Give him time, Maria,” Logan had advised when Jake ignored her calls and text messages.

  “I don’t understand what his problem is. Good God, he’s a hero.”

  “Sometimes being a hero comes with a price. He lost a man on his watch and, believe me, he blames himself. The last thing he considers himself is a hero.”

  She supposed Logan understood better than most, as Dani’s first husband had been killed on a mission to rescue a captured Air Force pilot. It had taken her brother years to come to terms with Evan’s death. Still, Jake didn’t have to be alone. She could help him if he’d only let her.