She wanted to go—home. A funny word that didn’t describe her current habitation with Clint, her on-again, off-again brother, the guy who’d lied to her for years, apparently. Like Mohammed. Another liar. Her mind wandered to the only man who hadn’t lied—the man who could’ve died rescuing her. The man she loved with every last beat of her foolish heart. “Lee,” she said out loud, needing one word of hope that Lee Hart still lived in her universe.
“There, there,” Alex offered. Like any man with a foolish woman on his hands, he sounded unapologetically firm. “It’ll be all right.”
“But how could he leave me?”
Alex grunted. “Because that’s what guys do when they’re hurt.”
She thought she detected another hint. Because you broke his heart. “I did this to him,” she admitted quickly. “I hurt him, and he’s gone, and I’ll never get to sail on his boat with him, and he’s going to the Med, and... and...”
Right on cue, Alex offered a drink from her water bottle, most likely to silence the tragic ramblings of a woman at the edge of an emotional breakdown. “Here. You must be thirsty.” He probably meant to say, “Shut up. You talk too much.”
She took a long sip, then quickly agreed, “I talk too much.” All she got was a grunt while Alex returned the bottle to her nightstand and shifted his position. She hadn’t noticed until then. His right leg extended forward in a cast with shiny stainless-steel hardware breaching the plaster at his ankle. “You’re in a wheelchair?”
He shrugged. “It’s nothing. I’m good.”
Wasn’t that what all tough guys like him said?
Tess eased up slowly. Thanks to her pain meds, the stinging lashes on her back were quiet for the moment, but she had a mission. She couldn’t let Lee leave the country without one final word. She snagged the sheet to her chin and straightened.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“To find Lee. This is my fault,” she declared, wrapping the sheet toga-style around her, intending to slide out of bed, to get dressed and find that man before he did something stupid.
“You’re damned right it’s your fault, but you’re not leaving. You’ve got guards outside your door.”
Her brows narrowed. “I do?”
Tess stared Alex down. He didn’t look so savvy sitting there in a rumpled button-up shirt, his elbow to the wheelchair armrest and his chin on his fist. The laugh lines she’d detected the morning he’d fixed breakfast were gone. No sparkle lit those tired blue eyes. He looked ragged. Weaker. She could take him.
“Don’t you ever learn?” Alex scowled as if he’d read her mind.
“Did he... did he really leave me?” She hated the little girl tremor in her voice.
“He’ll be back. Just wait. You’ll see.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’m not blind, Miss Culver. That agent of mine has been studying you for months now. He’s the one who collected every surveillance video, every wiretap, and every aerial reconnaissance on you and your brother. This was supposed to be his farewell tour, until he saw you. That was the first spark I’d seen in him since he came to work for me, but now I’m not sure he’s smart enough to leave you the hell alone.”
That revelation both enlightened and stung. “I made a mistake.” Sheesh.
Alex huffed. “A mistake? You call this latest game of yours a mistake?”
If looks could kill. Her lashes dropped at his deadly parry and thrust. “It wasn’t a game. Mohammed was my friend,” she insisted. “We’ve known each other since—”
“Let me tell you something about your friend.” Sarcasm laced his words like barbed wire on a whip. “Mohammed Turik has intentionally killed everyone you know, but you don’t seem to get the hint. Monsieur Jacque Favreau. Two assistant curators from the National Museum. Two Catholic nuns. And last but not least, he took a shot at you. He only missed because my men were hot on his ass. What will it take, Miss Culver? How many more have to die before you wake up and get the hell out of his country?”
Tess blinked at the death toll Alex spat at her. He was right. She’d caused nothing but pain and death for everyone who’d befriended her or believed in her cause. Her hands wrung in a tight tangle. She hadn’t pulled the trigger, but she was the fool in the motive behind every murder. Five innocents... all dead because of her recklessness.
The truth hit her hard. How do you repent when you finally understand the depth of your sin? Mohammed was a killer, not a friend. But like the fool she was, she’d gone straight to him when she should’ve gone to Lee. She’d put her trust in her enemy instead of relying on the man she loved. Yes, loved. Her heart swelled with the terrible knowledge of all she’d lost, and all she’d thrown away. God, what have I done?
Suddenly there wasn’t enough air in the room. Despair clamped down hard on her chest. Her over-the-top cat burglar persona deflated in the face of the betrayal she’d offered Lee when all he had ever done was protect her from herself.
She sucked in a choking sob before it got away from her. Nothing else mattered but that damaged man she’d fallen in love with. The gentle warrior who’d relied on a simple gospel song to get him through the worst time of his life, and there she was, his worst nemesis, a dreamer like Don Quixote, tilting at stupid windmills, running after a legend while Lee fought the real demons. She led with the only ace she had left. “But Lee loves me.” I know he does.
“Well, I don’t,” Alex shot another mean volley, his lips thin and his temper up, “but I happen to love this country. I’ve got friends here I’ve known for years. Good friends who saved my life, not bastards who shot at me when my back was against the wall!”
Every word was a red-hot nail in her coffin of self-recrimination. There were no clever words to fire back at Alex, and Tess couldn’t have used them if there were. The man had every right to hate her. All along, she’d been the loose cannon, reckless and throwing caution to the wind, endangering him and the others on his team. Maybe she’d taken worse risks these last two days because she’d known Alex and Lee had her back. That they were capable of holding off the devil if she needed them to. Not anymore. They didn’t need the trouble of a headstrong woman and her impossible dreams. Eric, Seth, Hunter, or Jordan either.
God, what have I been thinking? I could’ve gotten everyone of these men killed.
“What do you want me to say?” she finally asked, her nerves shot and her meds getting the best of her. “You’re right—is that what you want to hear? Because you are, Alex. I’ve been a fool, and I admit it. I took you and Lee for granted, but honestly, you knew what I was when you signed up for this. It’s not like I was a nun who needed help crossing the border.”
He glared at her. She glared right back. She was in the wrong, but she would only apologize so much.
Alex raked his fingers over his scalp, flipping his dark hair on end only to smooth it down again. The man was one hundred percent pegged, yet there he sat, trying his damnedest to reason with her. “Let me tell you something about Lee Hart,” he ground out. “You’re not the only one with dreams. The man joined the Corps because he believed in America, and what she stood for. He’s the real deal, one of the damned few proud men left in my country. After what that bastard Nizari put him through, I’m not sure America deserves him any more than you do.”
Tess held her breath. Alex had no trouble hitting below the belt, a testament to the depth of his feelings for his junior agent. She understood loyalty, but Tess had never had a friend like Alex, someone who’d take on all comers and defend her behind your back. She wanted one now. “I’m not Suzy Homemaker, Alex. You have to believe that I do love Lee, and yes, what I did to him this morning was beyond stupid, but what do you want me to say?”
“Goddamn it, Tess, say yes! That’s what I want you to say! The second he asks, you jump up out of that bed, and you say yes, damn it. Don’t you dare break his heart.”
So not what she’d expected. “Excuse me?”
Alex had to b
e on some pretty stout meds too. He made no sense, but he did chuckle. “Trust me. I know my men. Lee’s strung as tight as I’ve ever seen him, and it’s all because of you. You’re the one holding the bow, playing him like a goddamned fiddle. Don’t toy with him if you’re not serious.”
She flexed her sore fingers and faced her sad reality. “It’s not like he’s going to ask me to go home with him now. Not anymore.”
The door burst open and there stood one angry Lee Hart, breathing hard, his palm spread wide to the open door, his chin stuck out in sheer male dominance and a ferocious sneer. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were a virgin, woman?” he bellowed at Tess right before he lashed out at his boss. “And you! Turik’s behind this contract, isn’t he, Boss? You’ve had us chasing our tails when you—you!—were the man he was paying? God damn you, Alex. We need to talk, but not now. Get out!”
Alex about choked. Lee hadn’t meant to lead with that line straight out of Caveman Etiquette, but damn it, this woman drove him ten ways of crazy! Alex wasn’t much help either, not accepting a contract with a Taliban assassin no less. What was the world coming to?
“You’re here,” Tess choked, her violet blues shimmering and her lips pinched tight. Damned if she didn’t look like a little girl, her eyes too big for her pale face.
Lee glared at his boss. “The next time you sign me up for one of your goddamned mission, I want to be front and center of every last contract negotiation, do you hear me? Now get out. Tess and I need to talk.”
Alex had the nerve to smirk on his way out the door. “She’s all yours.”
In two long-legged strides, Lee was at Tess’s side, one knee to the floor and not sure if he meant to kiss her or kill her. “Why didn’t you tell me that was your first time making love?” he asked through gritted teeth. “It was, wasn’t it? Why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?”
She ran a warm palm over his sweaty cheek. “You’re really here.”
He clutched her fingers to end the sensual distraction before he caved in and fell for her tender touch. “Why, why—why!—didn’t you tell me? God, Tess. I could’ve hurt you. I could’ve been gentler. Why don’t you open up and tell me who you really are? Why all the secrets all the time?” He ached to kiss those pouting lips, but the poor woman had dark circles under her eyes. She wasn’t up for this stormy confrontation, well too damned bad. Some things couldn’t wait.
“You love me,” she stated, those damned tears still threatening, changing the violet in her stormy blues to glimmering amethyst fire.
The woman wouldn’t answer a direct question, but what could he say? “Yes,” he hissed the truth that failed all understanding. “I’ve loved you since the first time I video-taped you running on the desert. You looked like the wind, Tess. You’re wild and free and full of life. You’re everything I’m not. When Alex offered this last mission to me, I couldn’t get here fast enough, damn you.”
“Damn me?” she asked meekly, a chuckle caught in her throat.
“Damn me, too,” he muttered, lifting her knuckles to his lips. “I saw you and Turik together.”
“I didn’t kiss Mohammed,” she offered meekly. “Not like that. It was friendship only.”
Lee grunted. “Yeah, I know. Where do you think I’ve been?”
“At the airport?”
He shook his head. “Try Nizari’s place.”
The color, what there was of it, drained from her face. “Why?”
A scowl pinched his lips. “I had business with the bastard.”
“You...” She lowered her chin, looking at him through her thick lashes. “You killed him?”
Lee ran a hand over his face. “Burned his son-of-a-bitchin’ house to the ground, too. All of it. I talked with your buddy, Turik. He helped me torch the place. For a Taliban assassin, he’s not so bad.”
Now Tess’s brows really furrowed. “Not so bad? Mohammed’s a cold-blooded murderer. Don’t ever meet with him again.”
“You’re telling me what to do?” The nerve of this woman. “So tell me. Why didn’t you let me know that was your first time?”
Tess gulped, her neck muscles contracting with the effort. “You’ll think I’m foolish.”
“I already know that,” Lee muttered, “but Tess, we have to be honest with each other. No more secrets. No more half-truths or subterfuge. I fell in love with you, only I’m not exactly sure who you are. Start now. Were you a virgin before I touched you or not?”
Her lashes fell as she nodded. “Yes, but…” Another gulp. “I was waiting until I found my Alexander.”
Lee had to cock his head at that one. “Why? Were you planning on, what? Marrying the guy once you found him? Living a life of dirt and drudgery in the mountains of Afghanistan for the rest of your life?”
Her shoulders lifted. “I told you it was foolish, but honestly, yes. I knew deep in my soul that I wanted to give myself to one man in my life, and he had to be braver than most. Fearless. Reckless. He had to be like Alexander, someone strong enough to throw stars back into the sky.”
Now it was Lee’s turn to gulp.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Lee,” she whispered, her eyes shining. “You’re my Alexander. My hero. And I’m sorry. I’ve been talking with your boss and…” she nearly whimpered. “He’s so mad at me, but he’s right. I’ve done nothing but put you and everyone else at risk.”
Lee had to blink to get his eyes to see straight. Tess apologized? For being her? What else did Alex say? Never mind. Lee got down to business. He’d been thinking how to resolve this prickly situation with Tess on the ride back to town with the Taliban’s best sniper. The night had gotten pretty bizarre with Turik chatting away while Nizari’s dead body bumped around in the back of his Land Rover, but there Lee was, on one knee and not about to let this opportunity get away from him again. “Marry me, damn it.”
She giggled.
“Marry me, Tess Culver,” he demanded, so damned serious his teeth hurt. “Damn it, you’re mine and you always have been. Admit it. Say yes and marry me and brush the dust of this crazy country off your backside and—”
“Kiss me,” she ordered in that sultry, sexy way she had that ensured she got what she wanted. “Kiss me, Lee.”
The girl had the nerve to tug him close to her mouth—without answering the damned question. What could he do but close the distance and plant a wet one on her? He was a red-blooded male after all. “Is this a yes?” he mumbled around her lips, his stupid heart on fire all over again.
She chewed on his bottom lip, breathing life back into him with a heated, “Yes, Lee Hart. I’ll marry you, and I’ll leave this country on the next flight with you, and I’ll have all of your children, and—”
“And you’ll leave the reliquary with your friend, Iskandar.”
She never hesitated, never asked how he knew Iskandar, or how she knew about him throwing stars back into the sky, just moaned while her silky tongue breached his thin hold on restraint. “Whatever you say, my love.”
Epilogue
Turik lay low, his belly flat to the polished wooden parquet floor of one Ashley Fellows’ Washington D.C. penthouse apartment, the business end of his high-powered rifle pointed out the open patio window, not exposed, just aimed where no one could detect it. He’d leveled his M14 on its tripod and kept his right index finger light on the trigger guard, his keffiyeh stuffed in his pocket for the time being. He hadn’t acquired his target yet, but he would.
Today was a day for patience. He’d chosen a suitable location for the day’s business as his line of work often took an inordinate amount of time. He’d also chosen comfort while he waited. The wealthy in America were not so different from the wealthy in Afghanistan. They all aspired to the finer things in life, the comfortable things. Fine silk tapestries from the Orient adorned Ashley Fellows’ walls. Fine antique furniture throughout the place, possibly early American. The Federal period, if Turik wasn’t mistaken. A cut-crystal glass of purified water at his elbow for
when he got thirsty. All of it fine. Just fine.
Omar let out a deep sigh from where he sat cross-legged beside him. It must’ve been the breeze from the open patio door toying with the Irish crystal chandelier overhead that had finally soothed his frazzled nerves. Yes, that Omar. The boy Tess thought Nizari had ordered tortured and killed, never to be seen again. Not so. Turik made sure Omar escaped the evil Nizari had in store for him. The boy was now an American citizen, attending one of the finer universities in the D.C. area, and thrilled to assist with this one, last mission.
There was that word again. Fine. It rankled in the deepest pocket of Turik’s gut like a stone he’d accidently chewed and swallowed. Maybe the rancid pit of a sour plum. He’d come to America for one purpose only—to ensure Tess Culver, now the deliriously happy Mrs. Lee Hart, lived a fine life. But somehow, that equated with him living a less-than-fine life. He would no longer have her in it, would he? Not if he succeeded tonight, and to be perfectly truthful, a future without Tess could only be less than—fine.
“Have you seen him yet?” Omar asked quietly. This young man must never go into covert work. He simply wasn’t cut out to be an assassin. He hadn’t the patience, but he was devoted to Turik. That was what truly mattered.
“Not yet,” Turik breathed, his attention riveted to the spectacle in the distance, still quartering the happy crowd a good mile away on the steps of the very open Jefferson Monument. What a lovely, awful location for the small reception taking place. It wasn’t boisterous or rowdy, just unprotected. Foolish decision, Lady Tess, he admonished silently, to dance like a free spirit in the open where any mad man could take a potshot at you or send an RPG into the middle of those impressive, marble columns behind you.
But then...
This was America, the land of the brave and the home of the free. Not perfectly safe, but safe enough that terrorist attacks didn’t happen often. Children cried here, but generally not for the same reasons they cried in Afghanistan. How strange that capricious fate would consign one child to a fine life in the land of liberty while another suffered a lesser life in a war zone.
Lee (In the Company of Snipers Book 12) Page 35