A Christmas Together

by Tara Quan

  A bomb had gone off in the garage directly under his kid’s bedroom.

  For once, Karl was relieved to be quite alone in the world. Both his parents were dead. He’d never been in touch with his mother’s distant relatives in Lebanon, and if his delinquent father had family in North Carolina, Karl didn’t know who they were. Without children and separated from his wife, he didn’t need to worry about anyone but himself.

  His Blackberry vibrated in the breast pocket of his leather jacket. His eyebrows knitted as he took out the phone, glanced at the Caller ID, and recognized an international call.

  “Major Reed, my friend. This is Sami Al Dehri.”

  Walking away from the crowd in the waiting room, Karl replied in a lowered voice, “Hello Sam. How many times have I asked you to call me Karl?” The Emirati on the phone was a sheikh’s son who’d chosen to become part of the UAE’s nascent Air Force. They’d met at Al Dharfra airbase during a joint training mission, the U.S. government’s version of giving Karl an R&R. Because of the country’s minuscule population and the military’s lack of popularity as a career path, thirty-one year-old Sam held the rank of colonel.

  Laughter crackled over the speaker. “Too many. Are you at liberty to talk?”

  Karl’s instincts went on alert. Though he hated to admit it, he’d kept tabs on Brennan since she’d walked out on their marriage two years ago. She lived in the Emirates, making the timing of this call suspect. “Hold on a minute.” Once he’d ensured no one was in earshot, he confirmed, “Go ahead.”

  “I heard about your government’s latest embarrassment. Your name, it seems, has drawn some attention.” As a general rule, Arabs had a habit of beating around the bush. Though he held a degree from Cambridge, the young colonel wasn’t immune.

  “It has. I take it this isn’t a social call.”

  With the gentle nudge, his friend got straight to the point. “This may be a case of an overactive imagination, but I thought I should bring something to your attention. An attempt was made to rob Brennan Caruthers earlier this morning. If you remember, she and my sister are close friends. I requested the security footage to calm Zahra’s nerves, but once I looked into the matter, I felt…uneasy”

  A chill went down his spine. This couldn’t be happening—not to her. “We’re separated. I haven’t talked to her in years.”

  “As I said, it might be nothing.” Then the other shoe dropped. “The Dubai police traced the cars used in the attack to a Syrian businessman, who claims they’d been stolen. The video shows several armed men of Arab descent, and the operation was impeccably orchestrated. Facial recognition software indicates a high likelihood one of the men involved is Riad al Hussein.”

  “It wasn’t a robbery.” His hands shook. “Put her on the next flight out of there.”

  A long moment of silence followed. “Dubai is one of the safest cities in the world. Even if I can convince her to leave, which is doubtful, where do you suggest she go and for how long?”

  He struggled to fill his lungs as his brain registered the man’s point. The group’s first attack had been in Washington, D.C. If they could execute an attack in America’s capital, nowhere in the world could be considered safe.

  * * * *

  Karl shifted on the low-seated chair. The interior designer who’d decorated Brennan’s impressive security consultancy firm must be short and colorblind. There was no other explanation for the ridiculous furnishings in Safe Harbor’s waiting area. He sat on a piece of orange leather pinned to a flimsy mental frame. If he leaned back, the shaky structure would collapse. His butt hovered so close to the floor he had to fold his legs in an awkward position, tempting him to rest his booted feet on the bright green coffee table. How bad could it be? The thing was a pile of bamboo tied together with pieces of twine.

  As if the furniture weren’t psychedelic enough, the ceiling was covered in gold leaf and sported multiple arrays of halogen lights. Framed photographs of sand dunes, falcons, white-robed men, and women draped head-to-toe in black adorned the surrounding slate walls. Their reflected doubles were visible on the polished white marble below, and the kaleidoscope of portraits made him feel as if he were the target of countless accusing avian and human gazes.

  After answering a call, the well-endowed receptionist rose and escorted him along a wide hallway. Though in the Middle East, she showed off her tanned legs in a pencil skirt that reached no more than a few inches past her bountiful hips. He passed a bank of cubicles and several heavy wooden doors before reaching the end.

  Stepping around the brunette, he entered a spacious office. Floor-to-ceiling windows formed the exterior corner, showing off a stunning view of a sandy coastline and the Arabian Sea. Mahogany panels lined the interior walls. A massive Persian carpet framed a seating area containing a sleek leather sofa, two arm chairs, and a glass coffee table. On the opposite end sat an oversized teak desk sandwiched between two rolling ergonomic mesh chairs. The combination of modern and traditional should clash, but they combined to make a stunning backdrop for the woman who’d always taken his breath away.

  Brennan continued to stare at the horizon as he entered. Unable to peel his gaze from her profile, he tried to tease apart the bag of mixed feelings that sucker-punched him when he saw her. She wasn’t the girl he remembered.

  Instead of a messy ponytail, she’d tamed her sleek blonde locks into an intricate bun. Gold tinted her once porcelain complexion. He knew she abhorred makeup, but her emerald eyes were accentuated by layered colors and framed with gray liner. Mascara turned her already thick lashes into dark fans. Coral gloss coated her full lips, matching the swath of color brushed over her high cheekbones

  Tall black pumps with bright red soles encased her small feet. A sleeveless red dress molded over her body and ended several inches above her knees. Toned muscle and a slight tan gave her slender arms and legs a healthy appearance. Black pearls circled her neck and drew attention to her pert breasts.

  “Major Reed, I presume. My name is Dan Khan.”

  Karl had been so distracted he only now noticed the suited man seated behind the desk. A flash of temper flared as he matched the masculine decor with the room’s other occupant. His wife never acted without reason. Not inviting him to her office had been a conscious snub.

  Being in Delta had trained him to make snap assessments from a single glance. Though of predominantly Anglo-Indian descent, the man’s features contained a smorgasbord of other ethnicities. While he sported a dandified suit jacket and expensive shoes, his alert gaze and agile build suggested a military or paramilitary background. His neutral accent had a touch of British, with hints of American.

  Striding forward, he shook hands with the room’s owner. His own skin was darker by half a shade, and they were about the same height. Their palms were rough and covered in near identical calluses. Whoever this man was, he knew how to hold a weapon and fired it often.

  Karl turned to his wife. “I need to speak with you in private.”

  She continued to peer through the glass.

  He stepped toward her. “Now.”

  Her cheeks dimpled. “I forgot how bossy you are.”

  “Bree, two minutes alone—”

  “No.” She swiveled around, an over-bright smile on her face. “Hello to you too, Karl. What have you been up to these past two years? How was your flight?”

  He drew in a frustrated breath. “Do you really care?”

  “Nope, but I learned how to make polite conversation since we last met.”

  A chortling cough came from Dan’s direction. Karl ignored it. “Your life’s in—“

  “You look like crap,” she observed, her neutral tone belied by the wrinkles on her forehead and the furrow between her brows. “Did you come straight from the airport?”

  “I’m fine.” He reached for her shoulder in a gesture of reassurance. A rush of comfort followed the contact, unknotting his muscles and allowing him to breathe easy for the first time in months. Memory shifted, reorder
ed itself into a jumble of confusion. He’d thought she hated him. He’d prepared for her anger, for a hundred warranted accusations. She’d left him, leaving behind divorce papers. Why would she do any of that if she weren’t pissed off? But here she stood, fixing him with a worried smile. She still cared about him, more than he’d thought possible.

  The sound of a clearing throat broke the almost magical silence. She shifted her shoulder back as her friend stepped out from behind his desk to stand between them. “As her partner, I’d love some elaboration over who you are, and why you think she’s in danger.”

  His vision flashed crimson. “Partner?”

  “Business partner.” The man lifted his hands palms up. “But stay tuned for further developments.”

  Karl narrowly resisted the urge to bury his fist into that too handsome face. He turned to face his wife. “I left a voicemail—”

  “Telling me to lock myself in my apartment with a pistol, pack my bags, and have my passport ready.”

  “None of which you did.”

  She shrugged. “Since I didn’t get an explanation as to why I should follow your instructions, I assumed you’d had some sort of break with reality. I love you, darling, but we’re separated. If you’d signed the papers my father sent you, we’d be divorced. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  His focus narrowed on perhaps the least important part of her statement. “Your dad sent the papers?”

  “I came to agree with the decision after the fact, so it’s really all the same.” She waved a dainty unadorned left hand in the air, reminding him of the chain circling his neck. He’d found her wedding band on the kitchen counter of their empty home. For reasons he’d never thought through, he’d kept the darn thing on him for the past two years.

  And no, it wasn’t all the same. He’d make her clarify matters later. At the moment, they had bigger problems. “I gave an explanation. What part of ‘There are bad guys trying to kidnap you’ didn’t register? We need to leave the country.”

  She covered her mouth with the back of her hand as her cheeks reddened. His jaw dropped. The damn woman was trying to stifle a laugh.

  “What the fuck is so funny?”

  After several coughs, she managed, “It’s important to find the humor in these situations. Otherwise, I’d have gone mad before I hit fifteen. Bad guys have been trying to kidnap or kill me since I was born. It comes with the last name. You should have been more specific.”

  Realizing she was serious, he frowned. Though they’d been married—were still married—he was beginning to realize he knew next to nothing about her background. She’d never brought up her family, never talked about her past. And right this instant, she seemed completely unconcerned by what he deemed a clear and present danger.

  She patted his arm. “I’m glad you’re concerned, but I’ve got this. You can go.”

  A vein throbbed at his temple. Of all the possible snags he’d planned for, he hadn’t expected the biggest problem to be her. “This isn’t a game. Someone’s trying to kidnap you.”

  She nodded and smiled in the exact same manner she once did when he’d told her not to buy groceries at farmer’s markets. “Okay. I heard you the first time. I’ll take the necessary precautions.”

  Drawing a deep breath, he counted backward in his head from ten. He failed to make it past eight. “For the love of all that’s holy,” he bellowed, “This is not the time to be a ditz. I screwed up. Someone wants to make me pay for it. They came after you because you’re my wife. We need to leave.”

  She massaged the side of her ear with one hand. “How does running away solve anything?”

  His voice grew louder by a few too many decibels. “A group of Syrian criminals are in this city. Stop arguing with me and haul ass.”

  When she crossed her arms and lifted her chin in a mien he’d long since learned to fear, he contemplated slinging the stubborn woman over his shoulder and marching out.

  Dan, who’d been watching the tableau with an annoying grin until a few seconds before, tapped her shoulder. “Brennan, sweetheart, since you put me in charge of your security as of yesterday, would you mind if I asked Captain America some questions?”

  The man ran serious risk of getting his teeth knocked out. The risk increased when she responded with a sheepish smile. “I apologize for the ruckus. Karl can be a bit melodramatic. I’ll go make myself a drink while you boys talk.”

  As she sashayed off, Karl growled, “Stay out of this. It’s way out of your league.”

  Dan’s toothpaste-commercial-worthy grin worsened his mood. “You have no idea what my league is. Either way, you can’t drag her kicking and screaming from the building. Safe Harbor happens to have a large number of trained security personnel in the vicinity, due in large part to yesterday’s attack and my conversation with our mutual friend Sam. Why don’t you drop the tough guy attitude and work with me.”

  “If you talked to Sam, then you realize what she’s up against. Tell Bree—Brennan, to take me seriously. She needs to move her pretty little butt—”

  “I’m right here, you know.”

  His conversation partner rolled his eyes. “Really, dude, you’re not helping our case. I’m having a hard enough time getting her to cooperate as it is.”

  “Umm…Guys…Not deaf.”

  Ignoring her, Dan continued. “Under these circumstances, I’m more qualified to protect her than you. I’ve read your file jacket, the WikiLeaks version anyway. You’re trained to kill. Keeping people alive is not one of your skill sets. To make matters worse, the target is Brennan. You lack emotional distance.”

  “From what I see, you’re not detached from her either.”

  “But she’s not my wife. She trusts me, and the same can’t be said of you.”

  He didn’t like it, but the man had a point. He’d broken too many promises, and she no longer believed anything he had to say. In her shoes, he wouldn’t either. During the four years they technically cohabited, he’d never spent more than a week with her in a single stretch. Hell, he’d somehow managed to miss every Christmas, anniversary, and birthday. They’d never fought, not once did she rage or raise her voice at him. But each time he came back, she asked less, expected less. And then she was gone.

  “The threat is real,” he murmured to his wife’s back. “Ignoring me won’t make it go away.”

  With slow, measured movements, she added a slice of lime to her glass and topped it off with sparkling water. Spinning around, she stared at him and sipped. “I talked to Sam too. I think both of you are reaching with this theory, but, whether or not your leaked mission painted a bulls-eye on my head, I won’t drop everything to traipse around the world while you figure things out. It’s a dumb plan.”

  He drew in a deep breath and tried to reason with her. “DOD intelligence indicates Riad al-Hussein is in Dubai.”

  She blinked. “The man who wants to kill your entire unit? You think he’s in the city, and you flew across the world so he could finish the job? Really, Karl—”

  “You’re the target. We killed his brother. He doesn’t want us dead—he wants us to watch our families die.”

  “I’m not really your family anymore.”

  He met her gaze. “You are to me. You always will be.”

  *

  Concern clawed at her. Brennan tried to resist the pathetic impulse, given their estrangement, but Karl’s safety rocketed to the top of her priorities list. “All you’ve accomplished by showing up is endangering yourself. If some jackass wants to kill me, I’ll handle it—I have handled it.”

  For the first time since his arrival, she stared at him straight in the face. Their marriage over in all but name, she shouldn’t give a whit about how exhausted he appeared. The past two years had aged him in countless ways. Gray hairs dotted his temples. Creases bracketed the corners of his eyes and mouth. The indomitable man she remembered had energy to burn in spades. Now his shoulders slumped, palpable weariness clouded his dark eyes, and she’d bet
a well-executed punch could knock him off his feet. “In these situations, the best response isn’t to run, it’s to make sure I’m no longer a soft target. With the droves of security personnel Dan’s sicced on me, I’m practically bulletproof. You, on the other hand, might as well be waving a big American flag and yelling ‘catch me if you can.’ To top that off, right now you don’t look like you could fight them off. Go hide out on some tropical island and get some sleep.”

  “I’m not leaving this office without you.”

  She should have expected him to turn mulish. “You’re acting overprotective, stupid, and out of character.”

  “So are you. You want to stay? Fine. I hope you have a guest room.”

  As she considered calling security and having her husband carried out of the building, Dan interjected, “It might not be such bad idea for him to hang around for a few days.”

  She scowled at the traitor in their midst. “Excuse me?”

  “You get a free bodyguard, he gets to ease his conscience. It’s a win-win” He gestured toward Karl with his head. “You know this one will go stalker on us if we try to chase him off, and he has enough skills to be a nuisance. No offense.”

  Her husband snorted.

  Unable to refute his logic, she searched for a compromise. The last thing she wanted was to be stuck in the same house with Karl. She’d figured out how to be happy again, and one wrong move could bring her back to square one. “He can’t stay with me. How about your place?” Addressing her husband, she added, “Dan lives in the same building, a floor down.”

  “Any distance increases reaction time. I don’t want you home alone.”

  “But—”

  “How about until after Christmas? It’ll be the first holiday we’ve spent together.”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry. But—”

  Reaching her in a single stride, he cupped her cheek. “Please, Bree. God knows you don’t owe me any favors, but I’m begging you. I couldn’t live with myself if you got hurt because of something I did.”