Ryan chuckled but the sound sailed away in the whir of propelled wind. “You’ve been my center point for a long time. I got scared, and figured why not go for broke.”
For some reason she wanted to cry. The fear of the unknown. The changes she hoped were on the horizon. Sloan hugged Ryan’s face in her hands, ignoring the well of moisture in her eyes.
“You’re not broke or broken. You just need to kick your mommy’s handpicked harem of socialites, along with her ass, to the curb, and find your own center. Not hers. Not theirs. Not mine.” His brow quirked. “You always worry about doing the right thing. Being the Boy Scout. Screw the right thing,” she laughed, “or maybe the wrong thing for once, and find something worth fighting for.”
His index finger tapped her nose. “Is that an order?” His tone downplayed the emotions and seriousness of the subject matter, but the corners of his mouth turned down and his lips pursed like they always did when he was trying to figure a complex tactical problem.
“No, just something to think about,” she said, throwing her arms around his neck. She squeezed him as hard as she could without rupturing an intestine and he hugged her back. His strong arms gave her the courage to let him go.
He held her shoulders at arm’s length. “If you come back in one pretty piece, I’ll think about it.”
“Done. Anything to get your mother out of your ear. She spews slow-acting neurotoxins. I fear for your health.”
Ryan’s hand dropped to his side as his shoulders shook with laughter. His genuine smile lightened Sloan’s sadness. Everything will be okay.
Ryan’s hand went to the Sig at his waist. “Since you aren’t going to let me whisk you off your feet and out of this place or let me go with you, at least take my side arm.”
Sloan slid to the ground. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Twenty hundred hours.”
She turned to Ryan and waved. He just stood there, feet spread wide, one hand on his hip and the other on his gun, shaking his head at her.
From the tree line she watched the lights of the HELO rise into predawn ink and set out south to Liberia. When they became a distant twinkle, Sloan, with her civvies and overnight pack, set out north toward the Moa River, or Makona as she’d called it in her youth. The boarders of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone converged about six clicks ahead. She set an easy pace, partly due to the dark, the nearness to a rebel stronghold even ten years after the war, and her physical limitations. Mostly though, she strolled along taking in the smells and sounds of her homeland for the first time since she’d left in a small crate on the back of a supply truck nearly twenty two years ago.
As planned, she made it to the river’s edge just south of the village at dawn, without incident. Too early to roam the main dirt path through the heart of the small town before its resident’s daily routines beat the town to life, Sloan eased from the thick foliage down the steep embankment to the flat bar below. The rich tan sediment jutted about five feet into the river then curved back to the shore. Shucking her pack, Sloan’s shoulders relaxed from the release of pressure and sank an inch more as the view eased the small rattle of nerves she’d carried with her since she decided to return.
The golden sunlight rose from behind the trees, bathing the water and brilliant green leaves in unadulterated hues of yellow. Up the river the forms of a carved out canoe and petite man showed black against the splendor. He cast a net into the dark water. The scene warmed Sloan from deep inside and had her unlacing her calf-high hiking boots with rapid flicks of her fingers. She rolled both pant legs before toeing off the ten-pound boots and pulling off her plush socks.
A smile stretched her face as she burrowed her feet against the cool sand. Bits of rock pricked her skin, but she only wiggled her toes and sank deeper into the earth. She filled her lungs so full of the clean air her ribs would give no more. At the point of bursting she held her breath and turned her face up to the sun. Now heated from the inside and out, with her eyes closed, Sloan stepped into the water. A swarm of prickles enveloped her feet and the chilly water set off a wave of gooseflesh through her body, but she had never felt such peace.
In a rush of air, she released into the wind every haunting thought, every heartache Devereaux Kendrick had ever given her. The next breath came more easily and the next easier still. Sloan opened her eyes to the beauty of her home, forgetting the one day of horror she’d endured, and remembering the love this place cultivated for the first five years of her life.
After her feet were properly pruned Sloan replaced her shoes and backpack and set out for town. The fisherman, a young man of maybe fourteen or fifteen, traced her movement up the bank. He waved as she passed. His eyes were bright and smile wide. When she returned the wave he hid his smile with the back of his hand. The shy gesture tickled her belly and had her giggling all the way to a broad dirt road at the main corridor of the town.
Sloan stopped dead at the expanse of red clay. It had only been a donkey trail when she was little. From the columns of varied tire tracks she could tell it was well used. She didn’t know why the sight of it surprised her so. Things changed on a daily basis. Worlds progressed. She’d been gone for a long time. She shouldn’t have expected things to remain the same. The road was a great thing. A sign of growth and good fortune.
She slipped back into the brush and changed her pants for a patterned wrap and swapped boots for sandals then added her tracks to the carrot-colored dirt. As she walked, the roadside changed from rambling greenery to sporadically-placed one-room clay homes with thatched roofs and some tin. Closer to the center they multiplied, filling the space at the street edges. A scooter putted past carrying a man with a toddler wrapped to his front in a mei tai cloth. After a minute a large truck rumbled in his path, carrying what looked to be jugs and barrels of water.
Up ahead the street was congested with pedestrians. The market. Her mother had traded schooling for food and other necessities in this narrow strip. On one side of the road the old cement building stood proud, still the cerulean blue of her childhood on its doors and roof, but the exterior hosted a fresh, as in the last five years, coat of orange. Across the street, vendors set up their goods, while others, older children mostly, walked about the bazaar, carrying baskets of merchandise on their heads or propped in their arms.
She garnered only mild curiosity from the merchants as she mingled in the crowd. The children didn’t gather around her in interest. The men and women offered easy smiles, but no one questioned her presence. She’d planned it that way, wearing well-used clothing with vibrant colors and patterns to mimic the women of the town. In a weird way she felt as though she belonged. As though she were one with the strong woman who had given her life.
Past another clump of homes Sloan reached her destination. The place that changed the course of her life forever. No longer a clay shack and tin roof, the cement building sat where the old school house had burned to the ground with her parents’ bodies inside. Its clean cream lines stood proud against the green forest. A tear fell. Then another.
The school was more beautiful than the pictures had shown. It was more worthwhile than a D.C. home or pricey car. More precious than a twenty-carat diamond from the pitted earth of Sierra Leone.
Sloan swatted the tears away and hurried toward the building. When she rounded the final home she saw another building across the street from the school. It mirrored the structure in shape, material, and color. And like the first it held children. Sloan heard the joyous voices of young people singing.
“We pray that no harm on thy children may fall, that blessings and peace may descend on us all…”
Her throat tightened in recognition and at their sweet pitch. Quietly she sang along. “So may we serve thee ever alone, land that we love, our Sierra Leone.”
Without instruction, her feet carried her to the corner of the schoolhouse. She hung back from the door, unwilling to interrupt the beginning of class, but realizing she might very well draw attention in her current position. Still, th
ere was nothing she could do to stop herself.
Sloan placed her forehead on the rough exterior. Thank you Momma and Papa for peace. Thank God. She actually stretched her arms out wide and held the structure in her embrace. Life again.
Smooth metal caught her right hand and she stepped back in surprise. A placard embedded in the cement read: Cabanos Pre-School Built January 2010 In Loving Memory of Elizabeth McCord by The BKM Foundation.
The air whooshed from Sloan’s lungs. Baine.
She turned toward the other building and zeroed in on its relieved metal plate, but didn’t go to it. From the pictures Head Mistress Sienna had sent Sloan knew it read: Cabanos Primary School Built January 2010 In Loving Memory of Sylva Kolat Johnson and Daniel Johnson by The SKH Foundation.
Sloan loved Baine, was in love with him, but had never yearned to throw her arms around him more than she did in this moment. She didn’t need a night here to expel her demons. Her eyes were open and staring straight ahead. No looking back. It was time she looked toward the future.
40
Though Baine couldn’t see the mug in his hand for the sloe of his home, he had no problem guiding it to his mouth and finishing the cold beer in one gulp. Now, if only Easton were here. He didn’t like being served. He did, however, like cold beer. And in order for him to get more he’d either need to turn on a light or trip over himself trying to find it in the buttoned down cave of his home.
He set the empty glass on the side table and slumped back in the chair. The squeak of leather sang through the hollow room, hitting the high ceiling before carrying up the grand mahogany staircase and batting around the wall of stained glass at the landing.
On second thought, thank goodness the butler wasn’t here. The man would worry him to death with lights and drink. He’d insist on feeding him like he weren’t a man capable of taking care of himself. Then he’d most assuredly insist on talking. As the closest thing Baine had to a father, he knew enough not to ask many questions about what Baine did or where he did it. But it sure didn’t slow the rattle of his old mouth. Thank goodness he had a lady friend to keep his mouth busy these days.
Before Ruth, Baine’s off-duty days had been brutal. With Magdalena gone away to school, it had just been he and Easton rattling about the old estate. And it didn’t matter how many times he dismissed the man to go about his life as he chose. His reply was always the same, “Ah-ah, your grandfather commissioned me to this house and to you, you ungrateful brute. So, until you burn the place to the ground, I’ll be about my duties.”
Now, if only Baine could be about his duties. He wouldn’t be sitting here in the dark, pissed at the world.
No, not the world. Only at himself.
After years of his father beating the same message into his skin, it had apparently only taken the man’s death for the directive to commence. You’re such a failure. Whack. Nice doesn’t get you anywhere in this world son. Whack. Get mean. Whack. Don’t be a cunt. Whack. Take what you want. Whack. Fuck everyone else. Whack. You’re the son of Devereaux Kendrick. Whack.
The beer sloshed in his belly despite the fact that he hadn’t moved an inch. He scrubbed both hands over his face. How dare you make him proud?
God he wanted to go back three or four months. To put his finger on the point where everything inside him went berserk and erase it from the pages of history. He didn’t want to be a monster. Never wanted to be anything like his father. But bloody tosh if he knew how to make things right.
Which was why he sat here with the drapes shut tight, instead of finishing the last barmy slime tied to his father. He’d never quit before completing a mission. But he’d pulled himself off the job after the shit with Rosanna. If he’d hurt that little girl he’d have been staring down a BritRail. At a hundred plus miles per hour he’d be a human pancake spread out on the front of the red train in no time at all.
“Fuck!”
A sound caught his ear. Not the echo of his own roar, but a tiny drawl of breath.
Baine was up with his Reeder in hand in a blink. He turned and swept left then right, sure the sound had come from behind him. Only black greeted his eyes. He pricked his ears for any whisper, but only the hum of household appliances filled the air. His shoulders should’ve relaxed. He should’ve returned to wallow in his self-loathing, but his feet carried him forward.
He moved through the living room and into the kitchen, clearing the space as he went. Well, the little bit he could see. At the back door he peered out the clear glass panes at the vacant gravel drive and the guest house which remained devoid of life with Mags at school and Easton at Ruth’s. Law occupied the east half of the main house’s upper floor, but wouldn’t come home tonight. He currently avoided Baine like the monstrosity he’d become was the latest flu epidemic.
Maybe the shit was catching.
Good thing he was alone. Alone. He’d never cared much about being alone. Usually liked it better. There were only a handful of people he could tolerate and he lived with all of them, except one. The one that made his solitary status lonely for the first time.
Sloan.
As if conjured by his thought, the scent of verbena wafted across his face, knotting his gut in desperate need. He should have gone to her straight away. Screw revenge. Screw justice. But wishes wasted effort on things that would never be. With a huff, Baine tucked his sidearm and headed for the fridge. Since he was already up…why not have another?
Jeez. The light from the appliance was bright enough to call all the battle ships to shore. He squinted against the headache the illumination triggered and grabbed a bottle of…son of a bitch. All his Newk Browns were gone, leaving only Law’s Old Tom. He hated the stuff on principle. It had a cat on the label and he hated cats. Screw it. Baine grabbed a puss beer, twisted the top, and took a long pull.
“Wouldn’t have pegged you for a pussy beer drinker.”
41
Baine’s beer spewed from his mouth. Most of it. The rest he coughed and sputtered on for a few seconds. It gave her more time to look at him in the light. His blue eyes hollowed into his sockets and were punctuated with shadowed circles. The center of his cheeks sank in shallow pools of despair. The demons she’d released had flown with the fury of hell on the African wind and settled in the soul of her beloved.
After pulling a steady breath, he abandoned the beer to the counter and stepped toward her around the refrigerator door. When the door closed they were plunged again into total darkness. Though she knew Baine hadn’t left the dark in many weeks, if not months.
“Sloan.”
Pain. The word, her name, on his lips sounded like a plea for help, a broken wail. Oh God. She hurt for him.
She also cursed her feeble body for taking so long to heal. So long to get to him.
“I’m here.” She reached out her hand and her fingers met his wrist. They walked to his palm and curled around his immense hand. He squeezed hers in return and the longing to be encased in his arms and wrap him in return jumped eagerly in her chest. When Baine didn’t pull her close a sense of dread crept into her psyche.
“I…how are you?” He stumbled over the words.
“I’ll be cleared for duty in two more weeks.”
Their words sounded so cold and distant. She needed to see him. To gauge his reactions, so she knew how to advance. “You do have lights in London, don’t you?” She tried for lighthearted and failed miserably, if the silence across from her was any indication.
The dread turned into a bold bitch, forgoing the gentle creep for an all out attack on her nerves. It hacked and trampled over her zen in a matter of seconds. So much for subtlety. Sloan squared her shoulders and kicked her fear square in the ass.
“Turn on a light.”
“I can’t.” He inhaled like he was going to say more, but didn’t.
Sloan yanked her hand away and moved to the wall, feeling around for a switch. She hit metal and a pan clattered to the floor, shattering the silence.
“Unless both
your hands fell off in the last two seconds, I suggest you turn on a light now, or I’ll rip this place apart looking for the damn switch.”
His shoes scuffed the hard ground and before she could tell which way he was going, he was on top of her. The sun may as well have risen in the kitchen because its overhead light had the same blinding effect. Sloan blinked Baine into focus and wanted to weep at the haunted features that stared back at her.
“What happened, Baine?”
When he met her gaze a tiny bit of the horror in his eyes faded. He clamped his arms around her shoulders and buried his face in her hair. She wrapped her arms around his middle and held on for dear life. One hand fisted in his shirt while the other latched onto the muscles of his back. His warmth seeped into her bones and she molded to his body.
But all too soon he pulled away. She fought to hold him, but he took her arms in his hands and disentangled her. Her gaze zeroed in on his massive hands cradling her wrists. The size difference seemed comical, but she couldn’t laugh. She couldn’t bring her gaze to meet Baine’s for fear of what she’d see. Detachment. Rejection.
Well, screw fear.
If she’d learned anything in her life, it was that fear only controlled you as far as you let it. Sloan raised her gaze to Baine’s in challenge.
He dropped her hands and straightened. “I think you need to leave.”
Sloan laughed. “Not a fucking chance.”
That earned her a double brow raise before they knit together in an expression of pure determination. “I’m no good for you. You deserve better than me. Better than what I am.”
“I know you, and I know I deserve you.”
His head shook, and his hair, longer now, bobbed about his forehead. “No.”
Enemy Mine (The Base Branch Series Book 1) Page 20