Wings of Gold Series

by Tappan, Tracy

  He pulled out a water bottle, and when he twisted to set it on the other side of him, she caught sight of liquid drizzled down the back of his shirt.

  “Why are you wet?”

  He glanced at where she indicated. “That’s not water.” He continued to search his pack. “It’s blood. Not mine,” he added hastily.

  She thought back. How? “Didn’t Shane do all the shooting in the cave?”

  “It’s your laundryman’s,” he clarified. “From when I carried his body to the washroom hamper.”

  “Oh, yes…” She swiped the heel of her palm over her eyes. “Today has sucked very much.”

  His mouth tucked into a sympathetic line. “Let’s hope tomorrow is better. By the way, I’m going to head out later and hunt down some clothes to steal in this Podunk town. We can’t travel unnoticed across Pakistan with you and Shane in scrubs, and me in a bloody shirt.” He produced a ready-meal from his pack and peeled it open.

  It was the Beef Stew he’d offered to Shane earlier.

  She glanced over at Shane, who was sleeping soundly on a pile of hay across the barn. He’d ripped out four stitches in his rear end today from all the activity. She’d tacked those down, changed the dressings on all three of his wounds, then hooked him up to an IV for fluids and pain relief. “How long have you and Shane been friends?”

  Jason pushed a spork out of its cellophane wrapper, then began to eat, the utensil scraping rhythmically against the entrée container.

  A cricket chirped, another answered, a horse’s hoof softly stamped the earth. She frowned. “Aren’t you two friends?” She’d definitely been given the impression they were. Do you need me to get in the shower with you to help, Mad Dog?

  Jason took a packet of Skittles from his meal and stored it in his backpack. “We had a falling out about ten years ago.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject.” No surprise she had, though. She didn’t excel at talking to men. Probably because she never did—other than to take down medical information. It took practice to be able to chat fluently with the opposite sex, and while other women her age had been out dating, refining their male-female flirtation and conversational skills, Farrin had concentrated on her career. Or. Truthfully? She’d hidden from men or actively repelled them to avoid the muss and fuss part.

  “The situation is complicated, is all.” Jason scooped up the last of his dinner. “So where are you from?”

  The question caught her off guard. Her stomach jerked in instinctive, autonomic response to danger. “Michigan,” she answered shortly.

  He drank from his water bottle. “No, I mean originally.”

  “I’m an American,” she snapped.

  “Okay.” He stuffed the water bottle in his backpack. “I was just curious.” He crushed his ready-meal tray, twisting it like he was wringing out a washcloth, then jammed it in his pack too. “An accent sneaks into your speech every now and then.”

  Scowling, she picked up a stray stalk of hay and tore it in half. She did not speak with an accent.

  He grabbed his rifle and stood.

  She raised her chin in an abrupt motion, peering up at him.

  “Why don’t you get some sleep,” he said. “I’m going to keep watch over by the barn door.”

  She set down the two pieces of hay, overly careful with them. He was leaving her…? Of course he was. What did she expect? She’d been rudely defensive to him. And so? Wasn’t it always her goal to drive men off?

  She heaved herself to her feet, feeling strangely old all of a sudden. “I’ll do it.”

  “No, that’s okay.”

  She dusted off her pants. “I saw how tired you were when you arrived at my aid station this afternoon, Jason. I’m guessing it’s been a long time since you’ve slept.”

  “I still don’t think—”

  “I can be a lookout only. If I see anything suspicious, I won’t handle it myself. I’ll wake you immediately.”

  His mouth turned down. He was still deliberating.

  “You need to stay strong for this mess we’re in.”

  “Okay,” he finally conceded. “Thank you.” He tramped over to the barn door.

  She followed.

  He collapsed onto a pile of hay next to Shane and laid his rifle beside him.

  She took up a position across from him, sitting down and leaning back against a multi-tiered railing jutting out from where the barn door hinged to the wall. It provided her with a good view of both outside and inside.

  “Just give me a few hours of shuteye, then I’ll relieve you.” He stretched out his legs.

  His bare feet came into view, and by the moonlight streaming through the half-open barn door she saw that the tops of his toes and his heels were red and blistered. “Goodness, your feet!”

  “Yeah.” His lips angled off-center. “It’s what comes from running around all day in flight boots with no socks.”

  “Let me bandage them.”

  “Nah. They’ll be fine till morning.”

  She nodded. Actually, the open air would do them some good. “How’s your back feeling?”

  “Manageable.”

  She’d guess it was worse than manageable, but what else could he do in their current circumstances except manage it?

  “Thanks for asking.” He lay back and bent an elbow over his eyes, and Farrin doubted she could have counted to ten before he was asleep.

  As the quiet of the night settled around her, it seemed for a surreal moment like she was at Ossineke State Forest Park, camping on Lake Huron with her adoptive parents.

  It had been the strangest part of transitioning to her new life in the US, being put under the roof and care of guardians again. She’d already been a married woman with her own home, after all. But in many ways being a kid once more had been a relief—no messy duty to perform, no demure role to play, no male insecurities to pamper. Instead it was a time to be carefree…although she’d never been able to let go all the way. Completely dropping her guard was impossible while being found by Raham remained a constant threat.

  I’m an American! Yes, she’d all but bitten Jason’s head off earlier out of fear that any information leaked about her true identity could somehow lead her former husband back to her. The consequences of him finding her would be devastating, no matter how much he’d doted on her at one time. She’d run away from him, and a man of Raham Reza Behzadi’s stature and dignity could never allow such disobedience to go unpunished. Even now, she could see him at the Tehran International Airport as if their confrontation had happened yesterday instead of eighteen years ago, so much rage on his face… He would definitely make her pay for offending his pride.

  To protect her secret identity, she’d had to become a ghost. She’d never contacted anyone in Iran for eighteen years. The only thing she knew about her family was that Raham had been too busy with his own troubles to destroy her father’s job and reputation. So…there was that, at least. Farrin didn’t have to feel guilty about her parents’ ruination, just…about being a terrible daughter.

  Sighing, she scanned outside. Everything peaceful. Like Ossineke State Forest Park—skin-slicking heat, the reedy drone of crickets, rustling sounds, deep, rhythmic breathing…this time not from her sleeping parents.

  She turned her head to gaze at Jason. His long, dark brown lashes cast feathery shadows on his cheekbones, and in the reflection of the moonlight a few of the whiskers on his chin shone bright. The masculine planes of his face had softened in sleep, lending him a more scholarly air. He looked like a poet now, not a soldier. Not at all like the man she knew he could be, a man able to kill when called upon to do so, and do it quite well—Kaleem had been shot dead center in his forehead.

  She kneaded her brow. Don’t think about it.

  She went back to studying Jason, observing the tensile forearm he had draped over his brow. The fingers of that hand were curled slightly inward in their relaxed state. His thenar eminence—the fleshy area at the base o
f the thumb—was thick and manly; his pisiform and triquetral—the knobby bones in his wrist—were prominent and durable. She remembered the feel of his hand on her shoulder, strong and sure, when he gave her a comforting hug.

  Darts of warmth sparked up her spine. Warmth?

  She bit her bottom lip. You know… She could examine any part of Jason’s body right now, and he wouldn’t realize it. Blushing a little, she looked straight at his lap. His crossed-legged position had pushed his sex up against his scrubs, providing her with a very candid picture of him. Such thin fabric hid nothing, and he also obviously wasn’t wearing any underwear. She could clearly see where the long stretch of his phallus thrust up from his sizeable testicles, the length of it curled slightly to one side in its flaccid state. At the head there was a ridge, showing him to be circumcised.

  She glanced away. Why was she inspecting him so closely, anyway? The male sex organ had never been a body part she found much interest in or purpose for. But then, the only penis she’d ever known sexually hadn’t been used to show love or to give pleasure, but…to do what? To make an old codger feel like a virile man? To possess her?

  It was no surprise that she’d learned to recoil from the male sex organ. Although not with Jason. His penis didn’t put her off. When she’d been under the desk with him and he was erect, she hadn’t been repulsed then, either. She couldn’t say she was aroused by it, when it pressed intimately against her, but she certainly hadn’t recoiled.

  She glanced at Jason again, and suddenly felt a great hollowness overcome her, a vast, windblown emptiness. Sitting here inspecting Jason so intimately highlighted how utterly foreign the concept of intimacy truly was to her…and how thoroughly she’d constructed her life to be solitary and childless.

  Because of Raham.

  Because he’d wrecked her.

  The echo of a shiver raced along her spine. She checked outside again. The moon sat high in the sky, bathing the desert in a ghostly silver. So forlorn-looking…so desolate.

  She scraped her fingers through some hay on the barn floor and came up with a handful of about a dozen stalks. She spread her fingers wide and watched the hay scatter onto the floor.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jason knelt down in front of Shane and freed a thick breath. He hated to wake the man when he was sawing such serious logs. He was obviously out cold because he felt like total hell—even in sleep, lines of pain etched his face, and the scar on his left cheek was a paler shade of white. Amazing how prominent it still was after more than twenty years…

  Jason is at his desk doing homework when he hears his bedroom door open behind him. He glances over his shoulder to see who—

  “Holy shit, Shane!” He shoots to his feet. “What happened?”

  Shane is covered with blood! It has gushed down from a gnarly slash on his left cheek, drenching his neck and the side of his shirt.

  Shane tries to speak. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Not a single sound. He just stares at Jason with wounded animal eyes, breathing heavily. He must’ve run all the way here!

  Jason leaps into action. “Sit down.” He takes his friend by the arm and leads him to the desk, pushing him into the chair. “There’s a first aid kit in the bathroom. Wait here.” He rushes out. God, this is really bad! Shane needs stitches, not just a bandage. Okay…he’ll patch up Shane as best he can, then drive him to a hospital. If Spencer won’t lend the car, he’ll take it, anyway. Whatever Shane needs. They back each other up. Always.

  Bowing his head, Jason rubbed a hand over his rough stubble. “Yeah,” he whispered, “but it got to be too much, Mad Dog.” They just ended up relying on each other too damned much…

  Rustling noises brought Jason back to the present. He glanced across the barn. Farrin was picking up her blanket and folding it.

  She was also currently sitting somewhere on his shit list for letting him sleep the whole night through. Not too high up, because he was also grateful for the much-needed sleep, but still… Now she had zip.

  She’d roused him a few hours before daybreak, keeping to the schedule he wanted to set today of leaving before dawn woke the town. She’d also allowed enough time for him to saddle up three of the horses they’d found in the outer corral.

  To judge by their funny, turned-in ears, the beasts were the Baluchi breed of horse native to Pakistan—if such sorry sacks of flesh could even be termed horses. Doubtful their hides had ever seen the working end of a curry comb, or their stomachs anything more substantial than hay.

  Out of the dismal lot, he chose for Shane a bay swaybacked mare so lacking in spirit that she wouldn’t give the wounded man an ounce of trouble, even if Shane passed out in the saddle, which was probably a decent possibility. Jason selected another bay mare for Farrin, this one more surefooted than Shane’s, but still pretty lackadaisical. Only one horse had any hutzpah, a shaggy, cantankerous gray gelding who tried to take a bite out of Jason’s shoulder while he was gearing up the little shit to ride himself. A less experienced horseman would be missing a sizable chunk of flesh right now.

  The three animals were tethered to a hitching post outside the corral, waiting to go.

  Jason set a hand on Shane’s leg and shook him. “Hey. Shane.” He shook harder. “It’s time to get up.”

  Shane’s eyes opened heavily, his lids making a slow, inching progression upwards.

  “We’ve got to go,” Jason said. “But first I need to help you change. I stole some clothes off a laundry line in town earlier. We need to play like locals for our ride across Pakistan.” He himself was now in a different pair of pajama-like bottoms and a tunic, both in shades of brown. If a sandstorm blew up, probably no one would be able to find him.

  Shane stared blearily at him, then dragged a dried-out slab of a tongue over his lips. “Why do you look like…?” He blinked, in slow motion again. “What’s a large bird? An ostrich. Yeah. Why do you look like an ostrich took a dump on your head?”

  Jason exhaled. “I’m wearing a turban. To cover my military haircut.” He’d left a long piece of material dangling down from the headpiece to fling across the lower half of his face, too. His beard wasn’t much more than scruff at this point.

  “It’s fucked,” Shane commented.

  “Thank you. I’m going to assume you know Jack and shit about it.”

  “It is a bit lopsided,” Farrin said, coming up behind him.

  He pivoted on his knees just as she crouched down in front of him.

  “May I?” She reached up to fix it.

  He stilled. His breath started to come more slowly as her fingers grazed over his hair here and there while she worked, and in about three seconds, pleasure dissolved his spine. His eyelids tried to droop shut.

  It’d been years since he enjoyed a woman’s touch, longer if he counted simple, nonsexual tenderness, like what Farrin’s fingertips were offering, although… Even as nonsexual as her touch was, he wouldn’t put it past his insubordinate dick to pop another equally insubordinate boner. So he made sure to keep his eyes firmly open and pinned on the collar of her shirt.

  Thanks to his pilfering, she was now wearing a long-sleeved, dark purple blouse that covered her from chin to wrists, a long, dark blue skirt, and a dark blue head scarf, which he’d watched her put on with an unthinking expertise that spoke of long familiarity with the garment.

  I’m an American.

  Nuh-uh, honey. Not US-born.

  He let his focus drift up to her face—anything above the neck was safe territory. For a full-figured gal, she had surprisingly delicate features, her nose narrow, the line of her jaw sleek, and—now that only the enchanting oval of her face was visible within the confines of her headscarf—her dark eyes looked enormous. Anime enormous.

  He’d bet she saw everything with those eyes.

  Yeah…She glanced askance at him, probably reading his thoughts right now. He wouldn’t mind a chance to look inside her head, too, find out some of her secrets. It would be a magic skill he’d nev
er had to use in the past to probe out information. The majority of women he’d dated seemed to enjoy the bizarre habit of confessing the most personal details of their lives on the very first date—I’ve had breast augmentation surgery, my mother’s an alcoholic, I just got out of rehab.

  Farrin, on the other hand, hadn’t spilled much. Something happened to me in the dark a while ago… Hell, she hadn’t spilled anything.

  But rather than make him distrust her, the idea that she had a hidden self, like he did, strung a thread of connection from him to her. It was a wispy, barely-there thread, but there nonetheless, and ironically, the link made him want Farrin to spill her guts.

  Also, guessing what had happened to her in the dark, instead of knowing for sure, was sinking his imagination into some coyote ugly places. Had Farrin been raped? Extremely unlikely. No woman in her right mind would define sexual assault as not “all that bad.” Had she played Spin the Bottle as a teen and ended up being groped in a closet by the wrong guy? Had she lost her virginity in an embarrassing manner?

  And why did he assume the bad thing was sexual in nature?

  Probably because she showed so little romantic interest in him, and that never happened. Women found him irresistible—not an arrogant thing, just the peculiar result of him not wanting them to get all hung up on him. His indifference apparently stamped SUPREME CHALLENGE across his forehead in block letters, and women were constantly moving in for the kill—which was how he’d earned the unwelcome call sign of “Casanova.”

  Dr. Farrin Barr, on the other hand, had barely acknowledged his existence as a man from the moment they met. Her response to him inched forward to mild interest when she saw his body in no more than a towel, and then his boner under the desk inspired curiosity in her—extreme curiosity, true, but still not the usually expected reaction of hot diggity dog, I got him! So her notice of him was increasing, but slowly, and…

  Kind of like the same process he was going through with her.

  Interesting.

  Another similarity between them. Was this why he had a marginally open mind to thinking of her as okay?