The Reunion Mission: The Reunion MissionTall Dark Defender

by Beth Cornelison

  Nicole drew a deep ragged breath and plowed shaky fingers through her hair, fighting for control, fighting to dampen the humming wire of tension that coiled inside her. It felt like that thread could snap at any moment, and everything she knew and relied on would unravel.

  As if mentally breaking free of the Colombian prison weren’t enough to contend with, the devastatingly handsome man in the hospital bed downstairs took her life in a freakishly surreal direction.

  Daniel was back. She’d thought she’d moved past the hurt and longing associated with that torrid night years ago, moved beyond the handsome and heartbreaking enigma that was Daniel LeCroix. Yet here she was, trembling and fighting back tears, her emotions in turmoil again. Over Daniel.

  Who’d braved the Colombian jungle and stormed the enemy camp to free her from her hellish captivity. Who’d accused her father of unspeakable crimes. Who, based on the ache sitting in her chest, still owned more of her heart than she’d realized.

  A whimper in Tia’s room yanked Nicole from her reflection, and she pushed through the door, quickly rolling her wheelchair to the side of the girl’s bed. Nicole shoved all the tangled feelings for Daniel and lingering trauma over her imprisonment down, determined to hold herself together for Tia’s sake. She couldn’t afford to suffer a breakdown when this precious girl depended on her.

  A nurse in pink scrubs was at Tia’s side, cooing reassurances and trying to get a temperature reading with a thermometer that fit in the ear. But the frightened child would have none of it.

  “Hi.” The nurse smiled a greeting to Nicole. “I’m Sophie, and I’ll be Tia’s nurse tonight.”

  Nicole forced a friendly smile. “Hi, Sophie. I’m Nicole.” She turned to Tia and leaned closed. “Mija, it’s okay. She won’t hurt you.”

  Tia’s dark gaze latched onto Nicole’s, and the girl lurched toward her, mewling in fright.

  “I tried to explain that it wouldn’t hurt,” Sophie said.

  Nicole nodded. “She doesn’t speak any English. At least, not that I can tell. In fact, she hasn’t spoken at all since—” Nicole hesitated. Since she was dumped in a dog pen with me in a rebel army camp in Colombia. Somehow she wasn’t sure sharing the gritty reality of their situation was wise. She didn’t need a media circus or the gossip mill interfering with her efforts to locate Tia’s real parents through the proper channels. “Since she’s been in my care.”

  “Has she been scheduled for a psych evaluation?” Sophie asked, finding Tia’s chart at the foot of her bed and flipping it open to read.

  Nicole nodded. “I was told they plan to have her meet with a trauma expert soon.”

  “What happened to her?” the nurse asked, giving Tia a sympathetic look.

  Climbing out of the wheelchair to lie on the bed with Tia, Nicole sighed and smoothed the girl’s hair. “I don’t know. She was already in shock when I...took over her care.”

  Sophie glanced at Nicole’s IV line and tipped her head to a curious angle. “I heard you all were camping somewhere and got stranded. The guys who brought you in said they found you two and the girl’s father last night while they were hunting.”

  Nicole blinked, needing a moment to catch up, reconciling the cover story in her mind. When they arrived at the hospital, Alex and the pilot, Jake, had claimed Tia was Daniel’s daughter. Now, she nodded, and tried to skirt around the lies intended to protect Tia and avoid trouble from outside influences. “I think she’s calmer now, if you want to try again to get her temperature. Maybe you could show her how it works on me first?”

  Sophie moved close again to take Nicole’s temperature. “See? Doesn’t hurt,” she said and smiled at Tia.

  Nicole hugged the little girl and rubbed her arm while the nurse checked Tia’s temperature. “It’s okay, mija. It’s okay.”

  “Ninety-nine point two,” Sophie read off the thermometer, then stashed it in her pocket. “Her fever’s way down now thanks to the antibiotic and acetaminophen.”

  Nicole said a silent prayer of thanks that Tia’s illness had apparently been nothing more than an ear infection. She’d feared something far worse, such as malaria or dengue fever from a mosquito bite.

  Sophie headed for the door. “Well, I’ll be on duty all night. Call if you need anything.”

  Nicole smiled her thanks, and as the door swung closed, she snuggled down on the bed with Tia curled against her in the night-darkened room. They’d spent innumerable hours in just such a position in the rebel camp. Nicole had done all she could to protect and shelter the traumatized child and had grown to love her as if she were her own daughter.

  But she’s not yours, her conscience prodded. Nicole closed her eyes, resigned to the task that lay ahead—locating Tia’s real family and returning the girl to them.

  The scuff of feet and crack of light from the hall woke Nicole about an hour later. She squinted groggily at the tall man silhouetted at the door.

  “Nicole? Is that you?” The familiar voice broke with emotion.

  “Daddy!” She untangled herself from Tia quickly and clambered from the bed.

  Her father met her, pulling her into a tight embrace, before she’d made it more than a couple steps. “Nicole, darling...oh, thank God!”

  They held each other and cried for several minutes, both too emotional to speak. Finally her father pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face while Nicole swiped her cheeks with her fingers.

  Her father cleared his throat. “I’ve been so worried about you, darling. Having you back is the answer to so many prayers.” He tucked the handkerchief back in his pocket and cast a searching gaze over her. “You’ve lost weight, but otherwise you look healthy. Did they hurt you, darling? Are you really okay?”

  An image of her captors flashed in her mind’s eye, and the thread of panic inside her tugged tighter, a garrote threatening to choke her. Gritting her teeth, she swallowed the sour taste of bile, then inhaled deeply, slowly through her nose. Hold it together. You can’t fall apart. “It was no picnic, but physically, I’m fine.”

  Her father narrowed a hard look on her that demanded her honesty. “And mentally?”

  Her heartbeat stumbled. What could he see in her eyes? She shoved the tremor of doubt down deeper and refused to shy away from her father’s scrutiny.

  “Let’s just say...some of my memories will take some time to get over. But I’m a White, and we’re fighters. Right?” She forced a smile to reassure him.

  His graying eyebrows knitted in a frown, and he drew her back into his arms. “Oh, Nicole, I tried everything I knew to get you released.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, hearing Daniel’s dark accusations in her head. He betrayed two American operatives….

  “But even with all my connections, I couldn’t—” He stiffened and levered back to meet her gaze again. “So what happened? How did you get away?”

  Nicole’s mouth dried. She’d only just gotten her father back. She wasn’t ready to light the powder keg that topic would ignite. “I...was rescued.” She turned and motioned to the bed where Tia slept. “We were rescued.”

  Her father leaned to peer around her at the bed, and a frown pocked his brow. “Who is that?”

  “I don’t know her real name. I call her Tia. She was kidnapped by the men who were holding me and put in my pen a few months ago.”

  His face darkened, and he stepped closer to the bed for a better look. “She’s just a child!”

  Her father’s volume woke Tia, who sat up on the bed and whimpered in fear before she spotted Nicole and reached for her.

  Nicole’s heart twisted in pain for Tia’s suffering, and she sat on the edge of the bed to stroke the girl’s back. “I’m guessing she’s about eight, but I haven’t been able to get much information from her. She’s been so traumatized that she hasn’t spoken at all since her kidnapping.”

  “Not at all?”

  Nicole shook her head.

  Studying Tia with concern darkening his expression, her father dr
agged a hand along his jaw and sighed. “Am I right in assuming she’s in this country without the proper paperwork?”

  Nicole winced. “Well...yeah.”

  His shoulders slumped. “Nicole, I know you want to help her, but it’s not as if she’s one of the kittens you like to rescue. You can’t bring her home with you like a pet and—”

  “Shh!” She held up a hand to quiet him when he raised his voice and Tia cowered closer to her. “I know that.”

  “There are laws,” her father argued in a quieter tone, “both American and international that supercede—”

  “I know! But I couldn’t leave her alone in the jungle with those thugs that kidnapped her!”

  Her father scrubbed both hands over his face and jerked a nod of acquiescence. “Do you have any clue whose she is?”

  Again Nicole frowned and shook her head. She met the little girl’s wide brown eyes and felt a tug at her heart. “My guess would be she’s the daughter of someone important or powerful—a chief of police, a drug lord, a military leader or government official, maybe?” She paused and glanced to her father. “I was hoping you would use some of your connections to help me cut through red tape and find out where her family is.”

  He grunted and lowered himself in a chair at the side of the bed. “I don’t know if my connections are worth much anymore. I, um...” He ducked his head and glared at the floor. “I resigned from office a couple months ago.”

  Nicole’s chest tightened. Did she confront her father now or pretend not to have heard Daniel’s side of recent events and wait for her father’s explanation? Five years ago, she would have played along with whatever charade her father presented. But she’d grown up in Colombia. She’d endured too much and come too far to let herself fall back into her old role as the pliant and obedient daughter. She swallowed hard, forcing down the seesawing nausea that gripped her. “I heard you were forced out of office. That you were censured.”

  Her father’s head snapped up, his expression startled. “Who told you that?”

  For a moment, she clung to the belief that his surprise meant she had the story wrong, that he was poised to deny all of the horrid charges against him. She pulled in a cleansing breath and squared her shoulders. “The man who risked his life to save me—Daniel LeCroix.”

  But her father’s face paled, and that hope drained from her, leaving her cold and shaking. Her father’s bleak and stunned expression told her every ugly accusation Daniel had made in the jungle had been true.

  Chapter 5

  “What did LeCroix tell you?” her father asked darkly, his eyebrows dipping low over his eyes.

  “Just the highlights. Running through a jungle while under fire was hardly the best time for an in-depth conversation.”

  Her father blanched even whiter. “Under fire?”

  “I did say he risked his life to get me out. They all did—Daniel, Alec and Jake.” She paused, her chest squeezing when she thought of the devastating injury to Daniel’s knee. “Daniel was shot in the knee. His career is over.”

  Because he’d rescued her.

  Her father stared at her, his shock still evident. “Why...wasn’t I informed about this rescue mission before now?”

  Nicole laughed without humor. “You’re hardly on speaking terms with them. I don’t think they rescued me as a favor to you as much as an in-your-face thing.” She sobered. “Daniel said you betrayed him. You betrayed the United States by trading top secret national security intel for information about where I was being held.”

  Her father’s back stiffened, and his face grew stony and defiant. “I did what I thought I had to in order to get you back.”

  “By giving up a team of undercover operatives to the enemy? They could have been killed! And what about the work they were doing? The breach to our operations down there to stop the flow of drugs and root out terrorist cells and—”

  “You’re my daughter!” her father shouted. “I couldn’t leave you down there to die!”

  His raised voice frightened Tia, who snuggled closer with a whimper and buried her face in Nicole’s chest. Nicole stroked Tia’s black hair and crooned soothing words, even though her father’s admission churned inside her.

  She hated to think she’d been the reason for her father’s vile act, his fall from grace. More than that, she hated the idea that Daniel and Alec could have died because of what her father had done. For her.

  And then Daniel had turned around and planned a high-risk mission to rescue her.

  Nicole sighed and rubbed her temple. Daniel’s actions were illogical, confusing...and humbling. She could almost believe he’d saved her life because he still cared about her. Except his snarling, icy attitude toward her would indicate otherwise.

  So what about his kiss at the prison camp? He’d been tender and sweet. Like the lover he’d been five years ago….

  Nicole shook her head to clear it. Deciphering Daniel’s confounding behavior was not her priority at the moment.

  “So what have your lawyers said? What have you been charged with?”

  “Nothing related to...my deal with Ramirez. At this point, I don’t think either LeCroix or Kincaid has reported what I did.”

  Nicole gaped. “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t ask me why.” He sighed heavily. “There was a nasty mess one night this past January that I was involved in. And while General Ramirez, a known rebel leader and drug smuggler, was apprehended, my lawyers are working on a defense as to why I was there. I don’t know what LeCroix and Kincaid told the authorities about that night but—”

  “Daniel and Alec were there?”

  Her father frowned. “He didn’t tell you?”

  Nicole rolled her gaze to the ceiling. “Apparently there’s a lot I haven’t been told.”

  She heard her father shift in the chair and exhale heavily. “I’ll make a few calls and see what I can find out about the little girl. Are you sure she’s Colombian? Not from Ecuador or Peru—”

  Nicole lowered her gaze to meet her father’s and shook her head. “Daddy, I’m not sure of anything anymore.”

  His expression softened, and he leaned toward the bed. “I love you, Nicole. You can be sure of that.”

  Tears prickled in her eyes, and she blinked them away. “I would appreciate any help you can offer. I know the authorities will try to take custody of Tia from me, and I can’t let that happen. She’s alone and scared, and she needs me. Until we find her family, I have to protect her.”

  * * *

  The next morning, Daniel sat on the side of his hospital bed and rubbed his injured leg. Even with major painkillers in his system, he hurt like hell. He’d snatched only erratic moments of sleep last night while his conversation with Nicole replayed in his head.

  It might have been pain talking, but not pain from your knee.

  Maybe so, but the physical pain had lowered his guard, allowed emotions he’d kept securely locked away for years to resurface. In light of the current throbbing in his knee and the promise of continued pain for several weeks as he healed, he’d better find a way to jam all those dangerous feelings for Nicole somewhere safe and out of reach. Better yet, he should avoid any further contact with Nicole. His mission was complete. He’d saved her from the Colombian prison camp. The end.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” said the nurse who stood beside his bed, waiting. She handed him a pair of crutches, then reached for his arm to help him to his feet.

  His doctor had left orders that Daniel put some weight on the bad knee and practice walking on the injured leg so that the joint didn’t get stiff and inflexible. Daniel clenched his back teeth and hoisted himself from the bed onto his good leg. The nurse moved in close to steady him, and he waved her away. “I can do it.”

  “Now put some weight on the other leg, and use the crutches to take a step.”

  Daniel did as directed and bit back a scorching curse word when a nearly blinding pain shot from his knee up his leg. His bad leg buckled, and he wobble
d on the crutches. Fils de putain! His leg hadn’t hurt this much when he’d been dragging it behind him in the jungle. Of course, he’d had an ample supply of adrenaline coursing through him, blocking his pain at the time.

  He squeezed the hand grips on the crutches harder and sent his nurse a warning scowl when she tried again to steady him. A cold sweat popped out on his brow and upper lip, but he took a cleansing breath and planted the crutches another foot in front of him. Braced. Shifted his weight.

  He let another string of Cajun French curses fly, but he didn’t sway this time. While his nurse gave him trite words of encouragement, he took a couple more steps. A bead of moisture rolled down his temple despite the chill air-conditioning, and he clenched his teeth until his jaw ached. But he was walking.

  Big ef-ing deal. He used to run a five-minute mile with a forty-pound pack on his back. Now he had a nurse praising him for each step as if he were a baby learning to walk. He glared his discontent and frustration at the woman. “Look, when I run a marathon again, compliment me all you want. For now, I could do without the false cheer.”

  The woman’s face reflected a moment of hurt and surprise, and regret for his curtness kicked him in the gut. Before he could apologize, a voice from the door stopped him.

  “Still in a grumpy mood, I see.”

  Daniel mustered all his strength not to falter as he jerked his gaze toward Nicole. Thirstily, he drank in the sight of her, taking note of her street clothes and the return of color to her cheeks. She looked damn good, in fact, if still a bit thin. “Been discharged, I take it?”

  “Yeah. Something like that.”

  He pivoted on his good leg and hobbled back to his bed.

  Nicole hesitated a few seconds, as if uncertain she should enter the lion’s den, then she moved closer. The nurse propped his crutches near the head of his bed and stepped out of the room, giving them privacy to talk.

  He scrubbed a hand over his face, hoping she didn’t see him surreptitiously wipe the sweat from his brow. “And the girl?”