Hard to Forget

by Incy Black

  She turned her head to the side and snuck a look at him beneath her lashes. He had his eyes shut, his arms folded across his chest, his long fingers entwined. His shirt had ridden up, again revealing several inches of tanned skin, the hard muscles beneath creating an intriguing range of curves and dips.

  Naughty palpitations throbbed her body. She jerked her eyes away. She was an idiot. A man like Jack wouldn’t want her. Once, maybe, but not anymore. She was too damaged, and Jack couldn’t abide weakness. She tried telling herself it was relief she felt, which failed to explain away the extraordinary pain slicing her in half.

  She snuck another look at the man stretched out beside her, needing to burn the image of his untamed physical perfection into her mind for the lonely life of nights ahead of her. Only she didn’t see beauty, she saw death. Jack would lie like that, laid out in his casket. Because of her. Because of the danger she’d brought to his door. Patient Peter would never tolerate the risk that she might have confided in Jack.

  Her heart skipping beats, sweat chilling on her skin, she jabbed him with her elbow.

  “What now, Jack? I can’t do this forever. Run. Hide. Nor can you.”

  “I’m not hiding, not in the way you mean. And I don’t know yet, but I’ll figure something out.”

  “Better make it fast. It’s not much fun being on the most-wanted list, let alone having that psycho after me. When do you have to get back?”

  By now, she should have been use to his sudden silences, but this one had her pulse skidding to an abrupt halt.

  “Not for a while, I’m on indefinite leave. And, before you jump to the wrong conclusion, it has nothing to do with you.”

  She jack-in-the-boxed, flapped at the irritating restriction of canvas, and twisted onto her knees. “Oh, God, who’d you hit?”

  He dipped his head in salute of how accurately she’d read the situation. “That bastard, John Smith.”

  For a moment, she could only stare at him in horror. “My father’s personal attaché? His right-hand man? For God’s sake, Jack, haven’t you ever heard the expression ‘keep your friends close but your enemies closer’?”

  “You weren’t there to hear what he called you when I reported your escape. And I didn’t much like his tone when he questioned how you and I must have passed those long, boring hours together at the factory. The man’s got a dirty imagination and an even dirtier mouth. Besides, he had it coming. He’s had a hard-on for me for years.”

  He wasn’t wrong. The enmity between the two men had provided fodder for gossip when she’d worked for the Service.

  “True, but we’re talking about your career here, not who’ll win some ridiculous dick-swinging contest.”

  The groundsheet of the tent rustled under the friction of him shrugging his shoulders. “Don’t worry about it. This enforced leave is just a rap on the knuckles to keep me in line. The Service needs me, and they know it.”

  It took just about everything she had not to hit him. “That arrogance will get you killed one of these days. Trust me, the Service will burn you, Ballentyne, if it suits them.”

  “They’re welcome to try, but it’s a bit late for that. I didn’t appreciate the reprimand. I resigned my commission. With immediate effect.”

  She wasn’t sure what her face showed—appall, shock, concern, because she felt all of that—and judging by his scowl, he resented her reaction.

  “I have no regrets, Lowry. Besides, your father stuck his foot in the door to stop it slamming closed completely. He’s asked that I take some time out to reconsider my position…and you can take that look off your face. I’ve already told you, none of this is your fault.”

  “Actually, Jack, I rather think you’ll find it is. Does my father know you’re with me?”

  He gave her one of his looks, the one that suggested she’d parted company with her brain.

  “You can’t just walk off into the sunset, Jack. Though an asset, you’re also a threat. You only get to go on their terms.”

  Oh God, they’d probably tracked him here. The minute that sickening realization hit, she spun on her knees and scrambled wildly toward the tent flap.

  A tight grip fixed around her ankle and yanked her back. She kicked out in panic. She was still flailing when a heavy weight fell upon her. She instinctively opened her mouth to scream. A hand clamped across the lower half of her face.

  “For God’s sake, Lowry, I took precautions,” Jack hissed in her ear.

  He eased back slightly, lifted his palm from her mouth, but kept her wrists fixed with his other hand.

  “I caught a flight to Rome, came back a different route under a different identity. Why the bloody hell do you think it took me so long to get to you? A friend of mine is currently denting a few of my credit cards across Italy, so no one is likely to make the connection I’m back in the UK.”

  It took an eternity for her mind to compute what he was saying. She searched his face for any hint of a lie. “Get off me, Jack.”

  He didn’t, not immediately. Not until his eyes drifted to the rapid rise and fall of her breasts, then he couldn’t extricate himself fast enough.

  He shifted his weight, propped himself on his side beside her, but continued to hold her wrists. His hand tightened as she tried to tug them free.

  “Let me go; you’re hurting me.”

  He relaxed his grip, but didn’t release her. His eyes drifted, slowly skimming her body as if he had no choice. Blue-blue darkened, odd glints flashed, his eyelids closed, his expression suggesting he was shutting out pain. “That hair trigger, more flight-than-fight reflex of yours, is going to get you killed one of these days, Lowry. What the hell gets into you?”

  She had to wonder what the hell had got into him. Why did he feel it necessary to talk through clenched teeth?

  She tugged and squirmed. This time he let her go. She brought her wrists down and rubbed at them to get the circulation going. And also to make the point that he should feel guilty. “I know it’s an alien concept to you, Ballentyne, but I believe it’s called fear.”

  “Huh, paranoid distrust more like. I can protect you, Lowry. I’m confident about that. But what I’ve never been able to do is save you from yourself.”

  “So why bother?”

  He gave her a long, hard look. “Because this isn’t just about you. I want answers. And, the families of the men who died unnecessarily that night at the warehouse deserve some answers too.”

  She refused to let him tickle that guilt. She’d asked enough questions and met with a brick wall. If they’d wanted, they could have checked her suspicions. And maybe, if she kept telling herself that, as she did practically every goddamn day, the nagging doubt that she’d failed in doing her best would leave her alone. “They may not appreciate what you uncover.”

  “That’s not the point. At least they’ll see that when things go wrong, we do our damnedest to put them right.”

  “Who’s we? I thought you’d resigned your commission. Turned your back on the Service. Why should you care, Jack?”

  His lips quirked into a lazy smile. “If you’re hoping for a hero’s statement, sweetheart, you’ll be a long time waiting. It’s not that I care; it’s that I don’t like being played for a fool.”

  Sweetheart? Her blood chilling in her veins, she gifted him an equally lazy smile, let her eyes warm and soften in an invitation for him to draw just a little bit closer. An invitation he accepted.

  Her timing was perfect. Her hand snaked to the small of his back, her fingers curling round the butt of his gun. She brought it around fast, the barrel coming to rest bare millimeters from his temple. “Oh, you’re a fool, Jack. For underestimating me. This is your last warning. Call me ‘sweetheart’ again, and I swear to God I’ll—”

  “I won’t. I give you my word. Not if that’s what he called you.”

  He snapped the gun from her hand and returned it to its natural resting place in a move that was faster and slicker than hers could ever have been. His fury, si
lent but palpable, slapped against the confining canvas.

  She blinked wildly, her chest once again falling into that ridiculous speed push-ups action. She couldn’t believe she’d pulled a gun on him and waved it in his face. She couldn’t believe she’d done so and survived.

  “That’s what he called you and more besides, isn’t it, Lowry? Now, because of it, every endearment, any term of affection, reminds you of him.”

  She nodded reluctantly.

  “Then why the bloody hell didn’t you just say so? Why do I have to repeat everything I say to you? The shame is that fucker’s to carry, not yours.”

  She waited breathlessly while he re-caged that part of his temper she suspected few had witnessed and lived to tell the tale.

  The brutal harshness adding a cruel edge to his features faded, but not his intensity. His eyes still burned with a raw lawlessness. His jaw remained stubbornly firm, though the corners of his mouth softened into a half smile.

  She froze when, with his forefinger, he traced an agonizingly slow line from her temple to the corner of her lips.

  “Spirited, quietly fierce, you’re a beautiful woman, Lowry Fisk. Don’t let what happened diminish you. He’ll have won if you do.”

  Had she not heard it for herself, she would never have believed Jack capable of speaking with compassion, of allowing the hard shell that encased him to open wide enough to reveal that some things did matter to him.

  “Get some sleep,” he ordered tersely. “We’re leaving tonight. I want you fully rested. We’ve a long ride ahead, given the number of detours I have in mind, and the last thing I need is you falling off my bike in exhaustion.”

  She was too intimidated by his inexplicable snarl to ask where, and she didn’t want to know the answer to why. If Jack sensed any type of danger, she was happy to follow his lead. She might not trust him fully, but she’d never doubted his instincts when it came to a fight.

  …

  Sitting at a sticky table in a less-than-salubrious truckers’ café, Lowry made little effort to hide her foul mood. Jack dumped a cup of muddy coffee and what she thought might be a bacon sandwich—though she wasn’t certain and poked it with suspicion—in front of her.

  “Wait here. I need to make a call. And for Christ’s sake, stop glaring. You’re attracting attention and putting us both in jeopardy.”

  She let her eyes tell him precisely what she thought of his reprimand. And “for Christ’s sake” right back at him. She just spent five hours “riding bitch” on the back of his motorcycle. Her arms wrapped around him, pressed so tight to his back that he’d likely carry her imprint for life, unable to relax, ever conscious of each muscle he’d flexed controlling the damn monster machine in a too-fast, too-cold ride through the dark of the night.

  He arched his eyebrows, tried to look innocent, failed abysmally, and grinned. Yup, he knew full well how she felt about that hellish ride and clearly found it hilarious.

  He was a lot less devil-may-care casual when he returned from making his call.

  He’d turned up the collar of his jacket, the winged tips disguising the outline of his jaw, and now wore a scruffy beanie hat, tugged well down on his head to hide the outer contours of his face.

  He thumped into the seat opposite her, the blue of his eyes violent with fury.

  Fear curled her spine, the fine hairs on her body lifted to high alert. She hooked her ankles around the legs of her chair and anchored her fingers to the edge of the table against the irrepressible impulse to flee.

  He snapped his hand around her wrist as if he knew exactly the compulsion she was under.

  “What the hell is it, Ballentyne? What’s wrong?”

  Instead of answering, he hunkered forward, his shoulders forming a barricade. He slapped down a newspaper, flicked the fold so the front page fell fully open, and swiveled it so that for her, it was the right way up. Then he stabbed his forefinger down on a photo.

  “Oh my God, Jack. Oh my God!” She dragged her eyes away from the image. Words failed her. What could she say? What could ever give him back what he’d just lost? It was bad enough the paper had profiled Jack, detailing his history, his background, his military exploits, and every damned commendation he’d ever received, labeling him “number one bachelor worth the chase.” But to publish his picture? He’d never be allowed to work undercover again. Not for the Service.

  She edged her hand across the surface of the table, her fingers climbing the bone-white knuckles of his fist. He snatched his hand away as if bitten by a snake.

  Her vision narrowed, her skin couldn’t breathe. The smell of burned coffee beans churned her stomach. She should have stayed disappeared. First Adrian, then Will, now Jack. Around her, people got hurt.

  This cruelty bore the hallmark of Patient Peter. A man gifted when it came to identifying what would give maximum pain.

  “Get the hell away from me just as fast as you can, Jack, because Patient Peter is not going to stop. He wants me, and God help anyone who gets in his way. I can run. I’ve done it before. This time I won’t stop. That way no one else will get hurt.”

  “And how, exactly, will that fix this?”

  She had to cool him down, another savage jab on the photo like that, and he’d likely crack the table. “I’m sorry. Really, really sorry. Maybe you could—”

  “What, Lowry? Find a woman, fuck off back to the family estate, and grow crops? I don’t think so.”

  His fury lashed at her, the whip marks burning hot enough to give her third-degree burns.

  “I was going to suggest you return to London,” she said softly. “You can still be effective. The Service is in trouble, Jack. Maybe you can help clean it up from the inside.”

  He glared at her from beneath the ridge of his brow, his eyes rapid-firing death shards. “The hell I will. The Service was complicit in this betrayal, if only through negligence. Every fact, most of it classified, came from my personnel file, the photo, too. They could have stopped this. They should have stopped this. If it’s a war they want, they’ve bloody well got one.”

  Chapter Eleven

  She wished to God she’d never pointed out that the Service would not just let him go. She should have left him to believe. Believe they’d act with honor. With integrity. That the leak had been caused by someone unconnected.

  “You start a war, Jack, and people will die. You included. Because, trust me, you’ll lose. You can’t fight what other people can’t, or don’t want to see. And no one wants to see Patient Peter Forsythe for the man he really is.”

  He leaned in close. “Well, thanks for the show of confidence,” he said bitter-sweetly, ever the master of causticity. “So what do you suggest? I give up? Sorry, not a chance. I am not about to turn my back, ignore this,”—another savage jab at the newspaper, and the table groaned alarmingly—“and just walk away.”

  She swallowed, or tried to. “The way I did, you mean?”

  He nodded, though the tight little lines at the outer edges of his eyes appeared to soften.

  Her head went down.

  “I know things must have looked pretty bloody bleak, Lowry, but could you not have hung on a little longer? Fought a little harder? You could have challenged the court marshal. I half expected you to.”

  She couldn’t imagine why he should sound pained. As if her giving up had hurt him more than it had her. “I was tired, Jack, and everything just seemed so damned…pointless.”

  She hadn’t just been tired. The fight for someone, anyone to listen to her warnings had exhausted her. The laughter and ridicule to which she’d been subjected for being “that crazy conspiracy theorist” had rocked the corridors of the Cube. Every. Single. Day.

  Did Jack not realize how much courage it had taken for her to stand up to the mockery and scorn? “Bet you didn’t know that I used to vomit every morning before turning in for work, Jack. So, yes, you could say things had gotten pretty damn bad.”

  His face gave nothing away, but his fingers did seem to g
rip his mug of coffee just that little bit tighter, and the rise and fall of his chest not only deepened, but also quickened.

  Freeing the breath cramping her own chest, she lowered her gaze and started tracing the smoky scorch mark left by a mug on the sad wooden table with her forefinger.

  “Jesus, Lowry. I should have realized the initial good-natured teasing had crossed the line into bullying and put a stop to it. For that I’m sorry.”

  Her head jerked up. Jack Ballentyne never apologized. She hated the strain on his face. The regret paling the blue of his eyes. Without thought, she held out her hand. “Truce?”

  Now she really had shocked him. If he continued staring at her hand in that way, it would drop off. Then his gorgeous mouth slipped into a half-cocked grin. “You going to cringe if I shake that, Fisk?”

  She shook her head.

  His grip was firm, his hand engulfing hers. A strange sensation travelled her arm. Hot and sudden, like a mild electric shock. The heat spread to other parts of her body. Private parts of her body. “Okay, you can let go now, Ballentyne.”

  He snorted what sounded suspiciously like a laugh beneath a cough, and released her. “You’re getting there, Fisk. You’re getting there.”

  Damn, but his approval felt embarrassingly good. Was she glowing? Sure felt like she was. “You sorry for getting me kicked out of the Service, too, Jack?”

  His expression hardened to stone. “No.”

  She waited, her body temperature cooling.

  She waited some more. He’d elaborate. He was just organizing his thoughts.

  Silence.

  What? That was it? No explanation? What the hell was he hiding from her? “I think we may have to put that truce on hold,” she told him, her tone tight, the words hard to get out.

  “Too late. We’ve already shaken, and right now we have bigger things to worry about than your hurt feelings. Like how we retaliate for a start.”

  “I’m not hurting, I’m annoyed,” she corrected acidly.