by Rachel Grant
She nodded. What was one life versus thousands? The microchip would give a terrorist group access to enough money to finance a major strike.
Was this the sort of choice Ian had to make often? Was this where his harder edges came from? Was this why his face had said one thing after they made love, but his mouth said another? Because he needed to be prepared to choose the microchip over her? If this was the sort of thing he faced on a regular basis, then his life must suck. So he’d hurt her feelings. Boo-fucking-hoo.
She kept her face forward and back stiff as she cleared her throat. “Is that what you’re afraid of? Because if so, you needn’t be. I understand. I get the stakes. I know how important I am versus the data on the microchip—which is to say, not at all.”
She studied the landscape ahead, refusing to look at the man to her right. “I know how volatile the Middle East is, and I know ISIS and al-Qaeda and probably a dozen other groups would like to bring that volatility to US soil. I would never expect you to put my safety first, not when there’s so much at stake.”
Next to her, Ian made a soft sound low in his throat.
His hand found hers; he intertwined their fingers. She came to a dead stop, forcing him to halt or let her go. He turned, and finally she met his gaze.
His jaw tightened. There was an inferno of banked emotion in his gray eyes.
All at once, he dropped her hand and resumed walking. “Don’t start getting ideas. You know the rules.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
It was well past midnight when they stopped for the night after crossing the Tigris River, which had been easy, just as Ian had promised. Dams built in the last century meant the Tigris was no longer the raging river of the ancient world, making it easy to find a shallow, wide stretch to wade across.
They continued for another mile south of the river before finding a spot that was remote yet sheltered. “We’ll camp in the lee of the hill,” Ian said, “and refill our water bottles from the oxbow lake.”
Cressida stared at the hard ground without enthusiasm. After walking for over eight hours, she just might be tired enough to sleep on the wafer-thin camping mat with only an emergency blanket for warmth and her backpack as pillow, but she doubted it.
Ian stepped away to empty his bladder, leaving her to prepare dinner—which would be beef jerky, with trail mix for dessert. He had tablets in his pack to purify the lake water. She had to marvel at the supplies to be found in his backpack, the ten essentials, plus weaponry. She pulled out the sleeping mat and set it aside—wishing he’d thought to pack two—then rifled through the bag to find the purification tablets and thin Mylar blanket. Instead, her fingers landed on something smooth and rectangular.
The deep thudding of her heart pulsed down her arm, extending to the hand that clutched the object. She slowly pulled it out of the pack, trying to get a grip on her emotions, unsure what she was feeling. Hope? Fear? Anger?
Her breath caught when the dim moonlight glinted off the flat screen.
Ian has a cell phone.
Anger. Definitely anger.
Anger at him, but also at herself, because really, of course he had a phone. Stupid of her not to realize that days ago. One may have blown up, and he may have tossed another out the window, but a Boy Scout who had cash, food, the ten essentials, and a stockpile of weapons would certainly have another phone.
She could have called Trina days ago, when they were holed up in Siirt. Trina would have gotten Keith to send a Raptor team in to extract them. Raptor operatives wouldn’t shoot to kill, not with Cressida standing in front of Ian, blocking the shot.
She would be back in the US by now. Safe. Not on the run in a country where she didn’t speak the language. Not stuck with a heartless spy who’d helped get her into this situation but hadn’t once let her make a decision about how to get out of it.
She hit the power button, and the screen lit. They were probably out of range now, but still, she could hope. Her heart pounded as she waited for the antenna bars to appear. But none came.
She turned off the phone. Tomorrow, when they neared the aqueduct, they’d pass within a mile of a decent-size village. Odds were there’d be an antenna.
“We’ve been out of antenna range since we left Rajab’s house.”
Cressida startled, causing the phone to pop out of her hands. It bobbled in the air, but she caught it. She shuddered, imagining missing and watching their salvation hit a rock and shattering. She turned to glare at Ian. “You complete and utter bastard!” Her eyes burned with the intensity of her outrage. “I could have gotten us out of Turkey before we even went to Rajab’s if you’d let me use the phone.”
“I couldn’t let you call your friend before I was burned, because I wasn’t certain Keith Hatcher would confirm my Raptor credentials. And after… I couldn’t trust you wouldn’t turn me in.”
“So you dragged me to your ‘friend’s’ house—trusting someone who did turn you in, who was ready to kill us both. Because of you, I had to kill a man.” Her voice shook on the last sentence. She’d tried to push Sabal out of her mind as they fled. What had the sex been about if not escaping the horror by taking a moment of pleasure?
But now all she could see was Sabal’s glassy eyes.
Ian reached for the phone, but she snatched it to her chest. “Mine!” The word echoed when it hit the rocky hillside.
“I was just going to turn it off—to conserve the battery. Searching for antennas is a quick way to drain a phone, and we don’t have a solar charger.”
She hated how calm he sounded. Reasonable, when her whole body shook with emotion. “I already turned it off.” She crammed the phone into her sports bra.
He laughed. “Honey, I’m not exactly afraid to go there.”
Their first argument in the nomad camp came back to her. “Yeah, nice to know trust isn’t a prerequisite for sex with you. You screwed me, then had the gall to feign outrage over my lack of trust, when you still hadn’t told me you had a goddamned phone!”
“We were out of range. The phone was nothing but a fragile paperweight.”
“You still could have told me. Maybe if you’d shown me one ounce of trust, I could have trusted you.” She spun on her heel. She couldn’t look at him as anger and hurt burned from the inside. She wanted to take the damn phone and walk all night until she caught a cell signal, but she wasn’t that stupid.
If she wanted to survive, she was stuck with the rotten, jealous, untrusting bastard. She struck out anyway, needing distance to cool her temper. She hadn’t gone ten steps when his fingers snaked around her bicep. “You can’t go off alone.”
She yanked her arm from his grip. “Give me some credit—for once. I’m not stupid. I just need to get away from you so I don’t do something I might regret.”
He stepped back, perhaps realizing she meant it. Honestly, she was afraid of the violence she felt charging through her. Bad enough she’d decked Todd. She hardly knew who she was anymore.
Ian cleared his throat. “Don’t go far.”
She nodded stiffly and marched toward the oxbow below the hill. When she reached the thicker grass that lined the bank, she dropped to her bottom and pulled her knees to her chest, just like she’d done when she was younger and desperately needed a hug.
Back then, when all hell broke loose at home, her mother was the one who needed comfort and aid. Even when the violence had been directed at Cressida, she’d been the one to coach her mother through the lies they had to tell in the emergency room to avoid another stint in foster care.
She couldn’t let her mother see her tears, because that inevitably sent Sarah into a guilt spiral that triggered depression. But all Cressida had wanted was for her mother to hold her, to love her, to let her express her hurt and anger without it being eclipsed by Sarah’s drama.
Eventually, Cressida had stopped crying, because the price was too high. But now she thought of Hejan, who was dead—murdered—and Sabal, whom she’d shot in the neck. She’d killed a
man. Her eyes burned with tears, and for the first time in over a decade, she didn’t fight them. She tightened her arms around her legs as her body shook with the sobs.
Somewhere out on the dark steppe was Todd, a man she had lived with and loved, but who’d betrayed her and had set in motion the sequence of events that had led her to this moment. And tomorrow, a terrorist or a spy may well find and kill her. Kill Ian.
When she was a teenager, she couldn’t call for help because telling the world what she faced at home meant foster care and leaving her mother vulnerable. She felt now the same helplessness she’d felt then. The same outrage. When she’d faced down Three, she’d promised herself she was done being helpless.
She cried for the person she used to be, who was surely gone now, and the person she’d become, who might not live to see the mother she loved and resented.
She heard footsteps behind her. Damn him. He couldn’t even let her have a shred of dignity. She swiped at her eyes but didn’t turn to face him. “Go away.”
He said nothing, but the sound of his steps came closer. Finally, he was at her back, and he dropped down. His thighs slid alongside hers as his arms wrapped around her. He pulled her back snug against his chest, cradling her.
“I’m not crying about the damn phone. Or you, for that matter.” She sniffled and wanted to push away from him, but couldn’t find it in her to reject the hug she’d needed since she was thirteen years old.
His lips brushed her temple. “I know.”
“This isn’t about you at all.”
“Shhh,” he said.
“I’m not weak, you know.”
“Honey, you’re the strongest person I know. And if anyone has earned the right to cry, it’s you. So cry. I’m not here to stop you. I’m here to hold you. We can sit here as long as you need.” And then, Boy Scout that he was, he handed her a bandana, which he must have had tucked away in some pocket of his backpack full of wonders.
Cressida fell asleep in Ian’s arms. His back and shoulders cramped as he sat next to the small, quiet lake holding a beautiful woman while looking up at a magnificent starry sky. For another man, this might be a romantic moment, but not for Ian Boyd. No, his first and only moonlit lakeside snuggle with a woman he wanted with every beat of his sorry heart happened deep in Kurdish territory when they were on the run for their lives, and the woman had just spent an hour crying because she’d reached her limit. Or maybe she’d cried because Ian was an ass.
He frowned at a pinprick of light that slowly moved across the night sky. A satellite. A conduit for communication. A connection to the outside world.
Yeah, she’d probably cried because Ian was a jealous, judgmental, pigheaded ass.
He lost the satellite in the mass of stars that defined the Milky Way. With no light on the ground and the moon but a silvery crescent, the night sky was as magnificent as he’d ever seen it. As magnificent as Cressida pushing past her fear to escape Rajab’s house. As magnificent as when she stood up to him in Siirt when she had every reason to believe he was a traitor.
As magnificent as when she made love with him in a nomad tent.
Easy to feel insignificant when staring up at the vast, unfolding universe, but really, he felt more insignificant facing Cressida. He should have told her about the phone in Siirt, the moment his cover was blown. He’d been reeling, and it never crossed his mind to put his life in her hands. Yet, without her knowledge or consent, her life had been in his since she boarded the plane in Antalya.
By the time they reached his apartment in Siirt, she’d been assaulted, robbed, kidnapped—by him, no less—and had witnessed a bombing that killed one man and could have killed her. It was no wonder she’d freaked out when she learned he worked for the CIA and everything he’d told her was a lie.
And he’d never even attempted to make it easy on her. He’d pushed her, determined to find out if she was part of Hejan’s cell or not. Maybe, if he’d just tried trusting her, they could have had a romantic lakeside tryst in the US. There was a cabin in West Virginia he’d visited once when he’d been on leave right before heading south for training at the Farm. The cabin had been situated on a private lake surrounded by acres of woods, and the thought of taking Cressida there and making love to her in the sunlight on the low bank made him hard.
But to be fair, all thoughts of making love to Cressida—anytime, anywhere—made him hard. And someday, if they made it out of Turkey alive, he intended to do everything he could to convince her to give him…what? A few days? A week? A month?
He’d told her the truth when he said he didn’t do relationships. Temporary was all he could offer.
He’d never considered a future that didn’t include the CIA. He’d never really imagined living in the US and using his talents in a less dangerous pursuit. And he sure as hell had never allowed himself to imagine sharing his life with a woman he loved.
He’d always figured love wasn’t in his genes. Hell, a boy who couldn’t even muster love for his own mother certainly couldn’t love someone else. But here he was, holding a woman who’d admitted she was falling in love with him and her words had triggered a scary, elated thrill.
For the first time in his life, he believed he could love someone. And from the blow to the nuts he’d felt just glimpsing the hostility in her eyes, he had a feeling that person was Cressida Porter. He’d been a fool to think creating a rift between them would somehow stop him from actually caring. He hadn’t gouged out his heart; he’d just made a bigger hole for her to slip through.
He’d lived by one simple rule as a covert operative: the mission above all else. He couldn’t change the rule, so it was time to change the mission.
The sun was high and bright when Cressida woke with a start. She’d fallen asleep in Ian’s arms, and sometime later, he’d woken her and they’d moved to sleep against the protected hillside. She sat up and searched for her spy, spotting his dark hair in the sea of green grass by the lake. He sat, staring at the water, where he’d held her as she cried a dozen years’ worth of tears.
The lake glistened in the morning light, and Ian glowed in its reflection. Shit. Judging from the way her heart went all pitter-pattery, last night’s crying jag hadn’t cured her infatuation. If anything, the way he’d held her had made it worse.
She wiped her eyes—crusty from crying, naturally—and could only imagine what a horror she presented. She’d braided her hair before leaving the nomad camp, but the tie had loosened, and snarled strands poked out all along the pathetic plait.
She stood and brushed off her clothes, then stepped around a rocky outcrop to take care of business in private. Hard to be sexy when camping while on the run from terrorists and double agents. At least she’d done enough terrestrial fieldwork to be comfortable roughing it. She smiled, thinking of how Trina would be horrified. The historian wasn’t a fan of camping and would never have cut it as an archaeologist.
Cressida returned to where she’d slept and frowned to see Ian approaching. The sun was at his back, leaving his face in shadow, but from the set of his shoulders, she had a feeling he wasn’t in a cheery mood.
Yeah, well, that made two of them.
She wanted a shower, a cup of coffee, and eggs Benedict for breakfast, but she’d be willing to trade the first two for the third. At this point, might even trade Ian for eggs Benedict. That way, she could keep the coffee.
He approached like a Terminator, his gaze never shifting left or right until he stood before her.
“I’m—”
Before she could say another word, he cradled her face between his large, rough hands, and his mouth covered hers. His tongue stroked hers in a deep, wild kiss that woke far more than her libido.
His hands slid into her loosely bound hair, pressing her tightly against him as he plundered her mouth. Need pulsed from her center, and she gripped his shirt, as much to keep herself upright as to prevent him from retreating after decimating her protective walls and stealing her breathless response.
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br /> This was Ian. The man who’d brought her flowers before making love to her. He was different, all semblance of control and holding back gone. He kissed like a starving man at an all-you-can-eat buffet. He nibbled. He teased her tongue into his mouth and sucked on it in a way that could make her believe she was the only thing in the world he’d ever wanted.
He groaned and ended the kiss, taking in a sharp breath, then he leaned his forehead against hers. “Change in plans. Forget the tunnel. I’m taking you to the nearest cell tower. I want you to call your friend with Raptor connections. We’re getting you the hell out of Turkey.”
She tightened her grip on his shirt. “What about you? Will you come with me?”
He frowned, and she knew exactly what he was about to say.
Behind her, a man cleared his throat and said, “Wow, Ian. I never guessed you had it in you to play an asset so well. But don’t worry, you needn’t keep up the pretense with Ms. Porter any longer.”
Ian grabbed her hips and shoved her behind him, shielding her from the man who stood ten feet away, sporting a nasty smirk. But even more disturbing than the smirk was the gun he pointed directly at Ian’s chest.
Chapter Thirty
Cold calm settled in Ian’s gut as he stared down the bore of Zack’s gun. He couldn’t think about Cressida being in danger. He focused instead on the fact that Zack hadn’t shot them at the first opportunity.
Zack needs us alive.
Ian had game here, and Zack was a rookie player.
“Did she tell you the location of the tunnel yet?” Zack asked.
Typical cheap ploy: divide and conquer. After everything they’d been through, Cressida would never believe Ian had been playing her. Or, rather, she already knew when he’d been playing her.