On the Line

by Capri Montgomery

  Zahara approached them with a smile on her face as she waved to some of the other students working the excavation and the men who stood guard.

  “Well,” she kept her voice low. “We’re all set. Malachi assures me we will have no problem leaving here. I just need to make sure our packs have the water included.”

  “I’ve already done that,” Micah said.

  “Oh, okay. Good. Um…you three are in that tent by yourselves so you don’t have to worry about trying to get out of there without being noticed.”

  “And where will you be?” Alex nearly growled. If she said she would be in Malachi’s tent he wasn’t sure there would be much that could contain his anger. She was right there in front of him and yet still so far out of reach.

  “I’ll be over there in that little tent. The one they just set up for me.”

  “Alone?” His voice was a low rumble.

  “Of course,” she looked at him as if she were trying to figure out what his problem was. “It wouldn’t be appropriate if I were with a man. There is some consideration of religious rules you know.”

  “His?” He eyed Malachi who seemed to be eying him too.

  “No, some of the workers are Egyptian. Even the Christian Egyptians aren’t big on sex between unmarried couples and all that. Sleeping in a tent with a man wouldn’t be proper and so they all try to abide by the rules of respect for each other. Of course Malachi has told me that sometimes some of the student workers find ways to sneak into each other’s tent at night.”

  “As long as he doesn’t try to sneak into yours,” he mumbled nearly under his breath.

  “Pardon me?” She looked back to him.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Oh, okay.” She hadn’t heard him and he could tell that from the honest look of innocence on her face. He was glad she hadn’t. They were just getting back to each other he didn’t want to push her away again. He wanted her so badly, and seeing her again had reminded him of just how much, but he wouldn’t rush it without some sign that she wanted things to move faster. He had attempted to gauge her awareness of him. He had invaded her space, got closer to her than he should have or even needed to, in order to see how she would react. For a brief moment he thought maybe she was interested, but he still wasn’t sure. All those years ago he had wanted her and she had wanted only the friendship. Well, he wasn’t the same kid he was back then. He was a man now, one who was ready to go after what he wanted and he wanted her.

  Night came swiftly and by the time they all cleared the camp the guys were on full military strategy. Alex kept Zahara close enough to him to almost be on top of her. When he said she was going to be his responsibility he had meant it. She was rarely more than an arm’s distance away from him. They were all going to make it home, alive, in one piece and without any extra holes in them.

  “Keep up,” he told her.

  “I am keeping up,” she mumbled incredulously.

  “That means you stay by my side, not two steps behind me,” he stated simply because in his mind it was simple. He wanted her in a position where he could keep watch on her, not two steps behind him where he couldn’t see her. Micah and Jet were up in front and so there was nobody on her six to make sure she didn’t get lost. It was dark. They were navigating with limited visibility because traveling with the night vision eyewear they had acquired provided some room for sight for them. They had needed at least four so they would have one for Preston, but they could only get three which meant they couldn’t even loan a pair to Zahara for the trek out into the deeper areas of the desert. She had to rely on them to be her eyes when the moon dipped behind the clouds.

  Unsatisfied with her lag time he reached back, wrapped one hand around her upper arm and nearly yanked her up to walk beside him. She stifled a startled yelp before glaring up at him. His lips turned upward and he desperately tried to resist laughing. She was cute even when angry. He would have to tell her that one day when he wasn’t trying to focus on not getting killed.

  “What happens when we get to the spot that the contact told you all about?” She said softly as not to wake the nightlife. He loved that she was being cautious even without the training.

  He had asked himself and the guys what they planned to do once they reached the location Preston’s contact had finally uncovered regarding the possible holding tank. He wasn’t happy about leaving Zahara unguarded, but they were all going to need to go in and since she had no training with weapons and rescue they couldn’t risk her getting captured or killed.

  “You’re going to stay where we put you,” he said in just as low of a tone.

  “Grand,” she mumbled. “Do I get a gun while you’re away?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Do you even know how to use one?”

  “Pont then shoot; what’s so difficult about that?”

  He shook his head. “We’ll put you some place safe, but you’re not getting a weapon.”

  She had stopped talking so he looked over at her to see what she was doing. He figured she was probably stewing, but when he caught sight of her he noticed she was looking heavenward.

  “It’s beautiful; don’t you think?”

  “Uh huh,” he mumbled. She was beautiful and that was the view he was taking in.

  “This is kind of like old times…you know, when we would lie out underneath the stars in your parent’s backyard.”

  “Yeah, those were good times with the two of us until my brother would come out and ruin things.”

  “No offense, Alex, but your brother is a total douche.

  He chuckled, keeping his voice low. “I know that already. But he is still my brother.”

  “I know. Your sense of honor and duty and love won’t let you abandon family. If he were being held hostage somewhere I know you would drop everything to find him.”

  “That I would,” he admitted. Despite the crap his family put him through he wouldn’t abandon them if they needed him.

  “I guess I just always wished your family would appreciate you. You’re a genius in hiding,” she said. “I could always see how smart you were and I thought your parents, much like mine, would be proud of you.”

  “Your parents were proud of you. I’m sure they still are.”

  “No…well, yes. But I meant that they were very proud of you. My dad really liked you. He was sad that you went to the military. He thought you should do like I did and go get your PhD in astronomy. He always said you would have gone far in the field if only you had gone that route.”

  “So he was disappointed then.”

  “No. He was still proud of you for joining the military. He was worried about you almost as much as I was…I mean you know we were all worried about you. I think he just thought of you like a son and he wanted you to be safe. Joining the military was in no way going to keep you safe, Alex.”

  “I made it back,” he said.

  “A lot of men and women didn’t. Sad isn’t it? So sad that people can kill without thought; that war has to happen at all.”

  “It is, but it does. I know you probably looked down on me for going…”

  “No, I didn’t. I was proud of you before you joined the military. I was proud of you while you were there. I was proud of you when you returned home, and I’m proud of you now, Alex. I just meant that I wish war didn’t have to happen. I wish everybody on both sides would just think before leaping into things. I wish they would care enough about each other to respect and show love. We’re not all going to agree. We’re not all going to have the same religion or the same ideas, but that doesn’t mean we have to go around murdering each other. If it weren’t for you and men and women like you and your friends who go off to battle to keep us safe here at home then I think we would be in worse shape. All I meant to say was that I wish it didn’t have to be that way—that you all didn’t have to risk your lives…I just wish things were different that’s all.”

  He sighed. He hadn’t meant to rush to ju
dgment, but he was thinking about why her mother had told him she didn’t want him to contact her anymore. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have thought you meant anything otherwise. It’s just…well when you said the reason you didn’t want to see me had nothing to do with Kelly I started wondering what might have driven you away.”

  “I never said I didn’t want to see you. My mother told you that apparently and I am sure it had nothing to do with you being in the military. I think she just tries to look out for me and sometimes she oversteps the boundary line. She didn’t speak for me, Alex. I thought your not calling me, not emailing me or coming to see me had to do with the fact that you didn’t want to see me. I guess we both…” Her voice trailed off the second he held up his hand to stop her from talking. He saw Micah’s closed fist go up and he knew that meant potential trouble was ahead of them. He was glad Zahara knew to be quiet too because right now he had to be vigilant. He could talk to her about their misunderstanding later. Now was not the time.

  “Stay low,” he said as they all dropped to one knee and surveyed their surroundings. Several minutes passed before Micah gave the all clear signal and they carried onward. This time they walked in silence. He could tell Zahara was afraid, yet she tried to put on a brave face for all of them. If he had been able to have his way he would have left her at home, but he couldn’t because she was right—they needed her to help get them this far. This wasn’t the place for her though—for any of them, but they both had somebody they cared about stuck out in this hell and they had no plans of leaving them there.

  It would be light soon. They had gotten a little rest before pulling out which meant it was just after midnight when they set out on foot. Soon it would be light enough to pull off the scopes and keep moving without them. They were pressed for time. They needed to get to Preston sooner rather than later, but they also would have to stop to sleep, and Zahara, she was going to need rest too. He and the guys were used to covert missions with insane sleeping and moving schedules, but she wasn’t.

  “Will you be okay?” He asked her in a very low tone. “Are you tired? Do you need to rest?”

  “Yes, no and no,” she said. “In that order. Alex, I do all of my work at night. I watch the stars constantly so sleep, for me, comes during the early morning hours to the late morning hours. You don’t have to worry about me right now, but I will forewarn you that I’ll be sleepy by about seven until at least ten or eleven. Usually that’s my sleep time. But I’ll be fine. I won’t slow you down. I promise.”

  He mumbled under his breath. He felt the need to take care of her when he should have realized she could take care of herself just fine in certain situations. Still, that didn’t mean he was going to drop the protection detail.

  “All right,” he said. “If you need to stop you let me know and I’ll arrange time with the guys.”

  “I’ll be fine, Alex. Don’t worry about me.”

  “I do worry about you,” he said because he couldn’t stop worrying about her. If only she knew how many times he looked up at the stars and thought of her; if only she knew how much he wished she were there beside him, then maybe she would understand just why he couldn’t stop worrying about her. Maybe part of the reason things didn’t work out with Carissa wasn’t just that she seemed to want to change him, but that many of the nights he spent looking up at the stars with her he had wished she were Zahara.

  Carissa didn’t care about the sky above. She sat through some of his ramblings about galaxies and space exploration, but he wasn’t dumb; he knew exactly when she had blocked his words out and started thinking about something else. He had wanted to share his passion with somebody who would appreciate it, and while taking on a relationship with a woman who loved to talk about space wasn’t a requirement for him he wouldn’t deny that he had been silently longing for it—he had silently been longing for her.

  Chapter Ten

  “Time to wake up,” Preston mumbled as he placed his hand on Ariana’s shoulder. She awakened quickly as she always had before. He liked that about her. He never had to wait for her to get up and get going and that was something they both had in common. He was glad to see the years hadn’t changed her habits.

  “Good morning,” she rolled over onto her back and looked up at him. There were so many things he wanted to do to her right now, but he shouldn’t want to. Seeing her again just reminded him of the woman who broke his heart.

  “’Morning,” he mumbled. “We need to move.”

  “Did I do something wrong?” She pushed up to a seated position and looked into his eyes.

  “No. We just need to get moving.” He would not let her sweet appearance lure him in. He had every intention of going to her when he got back home, but maybe that would have been a mistake. Right now he was nearly fuming that she had left him in the first place. Eighteen years! It had been eighteen years and had they stayed married they could have had eighteen beautiful years together, but she ruined that. She ruined him. Instead of being in love for eighteen years he had spent eighteen years trying to recreate what he had with her and that surely hadn’t worked out well for him.

  “Fine,” she mumbled as she got to her feet. “Let’s keep moving.”

  He exhaled slowly. He knew he wasn’t making this any easier on her. He wanted to assure her everything would be fine, but they didn’t have water or food and of the two the most important thing was water. They were going to drop dead of dehydration if they didn’t find water soon. Beyond that he was angry with her—or maybe more so with himself. Looking at her now reminded him of what he hadn’t fought for before. He should have gone to her when he received those papers. He should have refused to sign them. He should have made the divorce hard to get while he found a way to make her stay, but back then he only saw that she sent him papers. He only saw that she wanted out and his pride wouldn’t let him beg her to stay. He was angry with himself for not resisting the divorce and angry with her for requesting it.

  They started moving before the sun even crested the sky. They needed to make headway not just because they surely had people in pursuit at this point, but because the higher the sun got the harder the journey would be for them. The first problem was of concern, but he wasn’t shaking in his boots because he figured they would have to take a guess on which way he went. On the other end of that, there could be more than one group coming after them so they may have searched all directions. The fact that a jeep hadn’t caught up with them yet told him they either weren’t following behind him, or they just weren’t doing it on wheels. If they were on foot then at least that gave him and Ariana a chance to get ahead.

  He needed to get a message to at least one of the guys. He was going to need that jet, and he would need it fast. If he could get the call out then he could tell them to have Julian fly in to the same spot he did four years ago when he had to do a night rescue. If, was his operative word because he would have to get to a phone first.

  They had been walking for nearly seven hours when Ariana collapsed beside him. He dropped to his knees. “Ariana,” panic laced his tone as he checked for a pulse. She had one. He felt the knot in his stomach ease at least a little. He patted her cheek as he tried to help her regain consciousness.

  She stirred. “Come on, my beauty; wake up.” He always called her his beauty and that’s because she was beautiful and at the time she was his. She wasn’t his now, but he wouldn’t squabble with himself over words. He needed her to get up so they could keep moving. He couldn’t carry her. He was barely carrying himself.

  “Preston,” she said breathlessly. “Leave me.”

  “No,” he nearly barked.

  “I can’t…I can’t continue. Leave me. Save yourself.”

  “The hell I will,” he yanked on her arm, pulling her up to a sitting position. “You can shake your behind on stage for hours but you can’t walk across some sand,” he said trying to bring out her inner fighter. If he could piss her off enough to make her get on her feet then she could, and would, press
onward. He knew her; she was a fighter to the core and she hated for anybody to think she was weak. The woman danced on a sprained ankle for four weeks before her doctor mandated her off it, and even then she kept trying to do the local shows. She was a fighter and he needed her to fight now.

  “On your feet,” he ordered harshly.

  She looked at him as if she was ready to pull out a blade and carve him up some respect, but she still pulled herself to her feet. That’s what he needed her to do.