by J. L. Saint
Jack nodded. He could remember just how huge promises were to him at six years old and it also made him remember who the most important man in his life was at the time. His father.
Matt and Mitch's father would never walk through the door and speak to them again because Jack had killed him. An iron fist closed around Jack's heart and squeezed hard. He hurt for them and for the part he'd played in Bill's death.
Maybe he didn't have the right to be here. Maybe it was wrong, and maybe it would only intensify the collateral damage of reveling the truth to Lauren later, but he was incapable of walking away from their emotional needs any more than he could have left them under gunfire in a battlefield-an apt description of life at times.
"I'll say good night now." Jack quickly left the room, shutting the adjoining door. All reasons aside, he shouldn't be playing with Bill's sons. Protect them yes, but build their hopes into thinking Jack was something more than the glorified killer he was? No. Nor should he be lusting after Bill's widow.
With his insides all twisted in knots, he showered and mulled over his conversation with Lauren, getting his ducks in a row. He had to call Commander Weston before he hit the sack and he was not looking forward to the event.
Turning on his phone, he was surprised to see he had only one text from Weston.
Jack opened the message and stared at it a moment, stunned, simply because he expected to read an ass-chewing. Call me. Mari is in trouble. He hit the speed dial.
"About time you surfaced," Weston said, his voice almost a whisper.
"What's wrong with Mari?"
"Hold on. Let me step outside so I don't wake her. She's finally resting."
"Outside where?" Jack demanded. "Damn it. What's happened?"
Jack heard Weston's description of the attack on Mari, about Neil's car being stolen and his house shot to hell. "Please tell me they've nailed the bastard to a tree by his yellow balls."
"Not yet."
"Is she going to be all right? The baby?"
Weston's tension-filled exhale grabbed Jack by the throat.
"Damn it, Roger. What are you not saying?"
"Physically, once she starts eating and gets into a prenatal care program, she should be fine. They're going to keep her for a day or two in the hospital then she can go home. What happened today has traumatized her, but I think more than that has her jumping out of her skin every time the breeze moves. I know something traumatic happened to her in Afghanistan. Did Neil ever mention what to you?"
"I was there when he brought her in" Jack said. "It was the night our team had gone into find Ackbajeen?"
"Yeah."
"Neil found her imprisoned in a windowless cell in the bowels of a fairly well-to-do compound-like house. Someone had left her to starve to death and she was literally at death's door. I don't know much more than that. Why?"
"I think she's been-"
"What?"
"Never mind. What we do need to talk about is you getting your ass back here before I can't cover it any more. What the hell do you think you are doing, DT?"
"The right thing. Do you know Bill Collins left Atlanta suddenly the very same day that the daughters of Ambassador James and Israel's Prime Minister Shalev were kidnapped? Do you know that his body has gone missing from the Brazilian authorities today? Do you know that Lauren Collins and her six-year-old twin sons have a trained assassin after them? AWOL me if you have to, but I'm not abandoning her and her kids until this is over."
Weston exhaled hard. "There's no doubt then? Bill Collins is the man who hid in the armoire?"
"Facts are stacking up in my favor."
"What does his wife know?"
"Make that his almost ex. Not much, but she can help me get into his life and piece together what in the hell Bill was up to and who's was behind it. Bill worked for a tree-hugging company called BioLogics. Started two years ago and immediately went shady on his whereabouts and doings. So that company is a great starting point. I have to tell you that I just don't buy it that that tiny radical group we took out in Lebanon pulled off the high profile kidnappings. Not without major connections and funding."
"I'll check on things from this end. Keep me posted then and would you keep in mind that Posse Comitatus is not dead. The lines have been a bit blurred lately but it's still considered law, which means no military action on American soil is sanctioned. In other words this isn't your egg to fry."
"Too late," Jack said. "But I'll be careful. That reminds me. Whoever we are up against has resources out the whazoo and they've either stolen a cop car or have a cop moonlighting on the wrong side of the law." He gave Weston the license plate numbers to check out as well as the names of Bill's friends. "There has to be a connection to Lebanon somewhere."
"Let's hope. I've got an inside at the Agency I'll try and tap before I bother my cousin Paul with this. Though if there is a connection everyone will be PO'd that I sat on it. Watch your back, DT."
"Will do. Keep an eye on Mari and let me know when they nail the bastard who hurt her. I want to be there when he goes down for his crimes."
"If he makes it that far. I'm hoping the cops shoot to kill," Weston said. "I'm not letting Mari out of my sight."
Jack disconnected. Over the years he'd heard Weston under pressure, in battle and going balls to the wall under gunfire, and never had he heard such deadly intent in his voice before. Jack set up the computer and hit the internet, putting BioLogics and Bill Collins under a microscope. From all articles and links, BioLogics was exactly what Lauren had said, a company dedicated to promoting green technology. Its ownership was obscured in a conglomeration of companies that he could find no head honcho on. Also, it was completely funded by charitable donations and listed as a non-profit. That sent his blood pressure steaming. How in the hell did crap like that go on and on?
After a frustrating hour, he went to bed, but took forever to fall asleep, visions of Lauren danced through his head. With her as a wife, a man had to be a total imbecile to have gone after anything else. The look of her, the feel of her, the total package from her vulnerable bottom lip to the fierce fire in her eyes when it came to protecting Matt and Mitch was more than amazing. He closed his eyes and saw her back in the shower with the water sluicing down her creamy neck and the way her shirt clung to the contours of her almost visible breasts. He hated to admit it, but more than his hand had itched to take a wet ride then, and the feeling had only grown. He so would have backed her to the wall in her almost-ex's condo and wiped the SOB from her mind. There was something not quite sane about his need for her and it scared the hell out of him. She was in the other room and had never been in his room, yet he could smell her scent, a combination of lavender and warm honey. This time the gripping knot in his gut sent pulsing sensations southward, tightening his already aching groin. It was going to be a long, hard night.
He tried to knock himself back into line. Tried to put what she stirred in him on ice. His purpose here was to keep them safe and that package didn't include his dick. Besides, any avenue he could take with Lauren once this was over was a dead end street that had Bill Collins's gravestone carved all over it.
Chapter Twenty
0130 hours, August 6th
Unable to sleep, Lauren lay in the dark as the day ran through her mind over and over again. Weaving through it all was the puzzle of Jack. One minute he was the most relaxed man she'd ever met, then the next she'd catch a hint of ghosts and pain in his eyes and knew he had to be the most tortured man. The two didn't mesh, but that was the truth of it and it made him more than just a sexy man, made him more than just a soldier. The puzzle somehow made him more real and more a part of her.
She heard a groan and sat up, her heart pounding as she listened carefully. Angie and the boys were still asleep. Hearing the groan again, she placed it as coming from Jack's room. It sounded as if he were dreaming, and not pleasantly either. She got up and went to the adjoining door to listen. Hearing nothing more, she cracked the door open. Lig
ht from his computer screen showed him twisting and turning in bed as if he were wrestling an invisible enemy. His body was covered in sweat and his muscles were strained so taut that they silently screamed pain. Her heart twisted with the need to help him. Letting the door close behind her, she flipped on the light switch which triggered a lamp in the far corner, barely lighting the room. She crossed to the bed and tapped Jack on the shoulder.
"Jack-"
He exploded from the bed. She stumbled back and fell on her butt to stare up at him and the vibrant power electrifying his every move. She could likely just watch him…forever it seemed. He was so different from Bill, so roughly honed, a battle-experienced soldier, hardened by life, but yet so much more approachable. Or was it an element of tenderness she sensed in Jack that her husband never possessed.
"What is it?" He scanned the room and then held out a hand to help her up.
"You were having a nightmare." She grabbed his hand. He pulled her up and something happened. There was a shift in the inches of air separating them. Every nerve she had stood up and said, "Hello, baby," to the obvious flare of desire in his eyes when he looked at her. His need seemed to equal the desperation of her own. She opened her mouth, imagining his kiss, imagining his firm lips claiming hers. The fire in his green gaze blazed white hot. She blinked and then saw the scars on his chest, on his hip, on his leg. The badges of honor marred the perfection of his maleness and made her want to touch him even more.
What he had to have suffered hit her deep inside and tugged her closer to him, emotionally and physically, making him so much less than the stranger he should be. She wanted him, wanted to go back to that moment in the condo when he'd said, I'd back you to that wall right there, or any place you wanted to go, and do everything in my power to wipe him from your mind.
She shivered as she stared at him. It was so easy for her to imagine his rock hard body driving her every want to completion, fulfilling her every fantasy. She pressed her hand to the warmth of his chest, reveling in his fresh spice and mint scent and leaned closer to him. Jack was so different from Bill; in look, in action, in beliefs, even in the way he interacted with Matt and Mitch. Jack had thrown all of himself into the race he'd set up for the boys. Whenever Bill had played with them, it seemed that he'd only given half-assed efforts to it minutes before bedtime after he'd checked his mail and read the paper.
Jack inhaled hard and reared his head back; his flaring nostrils gave testament to the hot desire radiating from him. He stood in front of Lauren and thought he would surely die on the spot. Color rode high on her cheeks and her eyes, that could be the softest blue, flashed with hot emotion. From the contour of her breasts and defined shape of her nipples beneath her cotton T, he could tell she was aroused.
Talk about waving a red flag in front of a bull.
She touched a scar along his collar bone. "How could you ever think you aren't a better man than Bill?"
He fought for control. "Because it's true. I ki-"
"Did you get these scars by being a traitor like Bill?" she demanded, cutting off his confession.
"No." He couldn't seem to start his sentence over again. It was just three words. I killed Bill.
"Did you do to your wife and child what Bill has done to us?"
"No."
"So what happened between you and her?"
He clenched his fist. Talking about Bill and Jill-Ha, the names rhymed!-was the last thing he wanted to be doing at the moment. "When I go on assignment, I never know how long I will be gone and I'm not at liberty to say where I am. Though Jill thought she could handle it, she couldn't. She grew very bitter, and in the end found comfort other places. As for Livy, that gets more complicated."
"Kids have a way of doing that to life and situations," she murmured. But he caught on that she wasn't focused on wanting answers anymore. Her gaze was on his chest, and hunger was in her eyes. She slid her palm down from his shoulder to touch the bruising by his left nipple.
The purplish injuries had faded to a yellowish-green, but the extent of the trauma he'd suffered was still visible. He gritted his teeth and tried to suck air into lungs that had forgotten how to breathe. He grabbed her wrist, intending to pull her hand from his chest. Instead, he groaned and pressed her palm deeper into his skin. For just a moment, he told himself. It had been so long since he'd been touched, so long since he'd accepted physical comfort from someone else that he literally did not have the strength to pull away. That's all his attraction was to her. He was a starved man and she was an appetizing woman.
Yeah right. He was old enough to have been both starved and in the intimate company of an attractive woman and never before experienced the strength and urgency fueling his desire now.
God help him. It was wrong, but he shut his eyes and absorbed her offering, wanting the impossible. Wanting to kiss her lush mouth and fulfill every promise throbbing in the air between them on the soft bed behind him.
He opened his eyes, meeting her gaze head on as he lowered his mouth to hers. The control that had governed his entire life lay in pieces at her feet.
"You're a hero, Jack Hunter." She tip-toed up and kissed the scar on his temple.
Jack shuddered hard at Lauren's kiss, too far gone to correct her. Her scent was up his nose, her breasts were inches from his chest, her lush mouth was ripe, and he had to taste her or die. Before he could think twice, he groaned and planted his mouth on hers.
She gasped, hesitated a bare second, then leaned into him, meeting his tongue with hers. Her breasts brushed his chest, her hard nipples a ready invitation he couldn't refuse. He let loose the full force of his desire. Cupping her ass with one hand, he lifted her and backed her to the wall, pinning her against it with a thrust of his erection to the heart of her crotch. He braced his fisted hand against the wall and pressed his chest into her soft breasts and groaned deep.
She moaned and arched into him, pressing impossibly closer as she wrapped her legs around his hips. She tasted and felt like pure lavender-scented heaven and he would have gladly died that very minute just to enter her pearly gates. The thought of sliding into her wetness, the feel of her body branding-hot against his, the taste of her sweet tongue, silky and seductive, had him trembling from head to toe. Her hands were everywhere, touching him, feeling him. He grew light-headed and had to fight off a wave of dizziness as his blood rushed south and filled his so-hard-he-hurt dick. Going for gold, he cupped her breasts, brushing her glorious nipples with his thumbs until she writhed against him. She was breathing and shaking just as hard as he. But it wasn't enough. He wanted more. He wanted her flesh against his flesh. He wanted to taste her everywhere.
He snatched up her T-shirt, more than ready to fill his mouth with her fullness. He pressed a kiss to the center of her chest and slid his tongue to her nipple, feeling her heart pound hard against his face.
A heart he'd yet to be honest with.
Had yet to tell that he'd killed Bill.
The father of her children.
Some hero…
He jerked back, releasing her shirt as he fought for air. She just gazed at him, stunned, mouth open, a mouth made plumper by his lust.
"Damn, I'm sorry," he gasped, shell-shocked by what he had done. Keeping her steady with a bracing arm, he eased himself back, releasing her from the wall. She lowered her legs and leaned back heavily. He stepped away and fisted his hands, thoroughly disgusted with himself.
"You're wrong, Lauren. I'm no hero. I kil-" he couldn't force the words "killed Bill" from his mouth, but he did latch onto painting a real picture of who he was and what he did.
"You want to know what my job is? I kill people. I go into a situation and I take out targets. Sometimes the only thing separating me from the bad guys is whose point of view you happen to be in. Freedom, our freedom, comes with a price and sometimes that price is really ugly to face. We take out targets, and it's my job to make sure each combatant is dead before I leave the room. As my ex says, in my line of work, hero is
just another word for killer."
She flinched, and he turned away. He didn't want to watch her revulsion. He'd chosen which side he was going to fight on and he carried through with that resolve. Sometimes, there was a distinct line of good and evil, sometimes the line was blurred, and sometimes his side was in the wrong. But he'd given his oath and he stuck things out through the thick and the thin. Life wasn't perfect and neither was any issue or situation. Killing came with a heavy price. He would always carry the burden of the deaths in his life, both of the teammates he had lost and of the men he'd killed in the line of duty. He never forgot for a moment that the target had to be someone's son, husband, or brother. That the target believed just as strongly in the side he fought on as Jack did on his own side.
"Go to bed," he told her. "And next time, leave me to my nightmares."
They were so much easier to take than impossible dreams. She was an impossible dream.
His answer was to hear the door close. She'd left and only then did he let himself draw a painful breath.
Fayetteville, North Carolina
Though unable to sleep, Mari Dalton kept her eyes shut. Roger Weston was with her, his reassuring presence had eased her choking fear. In her mind, she could still hear the man promising to make her pay, promising to kill her, and every time she drifted asleep, his face, his hate resurrected and joined the jeering faces of the men who had violently taken her innocence. She had thought she would die then, had wanted to die then, for surely death was preferable to living with such shame, but her spirit wouldn't let her die. She'd survived and she'd faced the shame and she'd learned to live even though her family had reviled her.
When Neil had found her and loved her despite her shame she thought Allah had forgiven and blessed her. Now she questioned if all the blessings she'd been given over the past few years were no more than just a greater punishment. To have found safety and freedom. To have found loving and friendship. To be given the miracle of a child, only to have them all taken away was a cruel knife to her heart. Though her stomach had stopped cramping, she just knew she would lose her child, no matter what the doctor said. She had tried to be so good. She had tried to be pure.