by Liz Johnson
He let out a loud laugh, and his white teeth flashed in the grim room.
A battle raged within her—one side wanting to enjoy his laugh, which had always put her at ease and warmed her heart, and the other wanting to slug him for laughing at her. The latter won, and she pushed his shoulder with her fist.
Will’s body swayed, which just brought on another chuckle. “What did I do?” His eyes twinkled as he bit his bottom lip—most likely to keep from laughing again.
“Oh, you know what you did, William Gumble.”
“Now it’s getting serious.” The crinkled lines below his eyes implied just the opposite. “No one has double-named me since I turned twenty-five.”
“Not even your grandmother? I seem to recall she was pretty fond of calling you by all three of your names once upon a time.”
“Nope.” Will took a little step forward, crowding Jess’s personal space. “Abuelita passed away three years ago.”
“Oh. Will.” Jess’s words were more sigh than anything else, and suddenly she was too far away from him. Close enough to feel the air around him stir as he sucked in a quick breath was still too far. She needed contact. She pressed a flat hand against his side.
He didn’t jump or even acknowledge her touch until he turned slowly. Her hand stayed in place and by the time they were face-to-face, she was halfway hugging him. His brown eyes were clear, but sadness loomed in them and she could almost see him fight off the pain of his loss as he ground his teeth.
It was that visible battle to stay in control that made her throw her other arm around his waist and hold on for all she was worth. Pressing her ear against his chest, she counted three heavy heartbeats before he slipped his hands around her back, resting his chin on top of her head. His arms were solidly muscled, but their embrace was gentle. As she sank into his hug, her stomach twisted at the memories. How many times had they stood just like this, holding on to each other because everything else was flying apart?
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there. I didn’t know.” She squeezed him just a little bit harder. “I would have been there for you and Sal. Even though…you know. I just— I would have been there.”
“Thank you. I know you would have.” His hand rested on the side of her head and callused fingers followed her ponytail from the rubber band to its tip, tugging gently on the end. Not wanting to move away from his warmth and the comfort of his arms, she snuggled in closer.
“I was deployed. Only three weeks shy of my R & R. I knew she’d been sick, but I thought I’d get a chance to say goodbye.”
Jess tried to speak, only to be silenced by the sorrow choking her. Abuelita, his grandmother, who had welcomed Jess to every Gumble family dinner and always told her to eat more—to put some meat on her skinny, fifteen-year-old bones. Jess couldn’t believe she was actually gone. Or how well Will was handling it.
Of course, he’d had three years of ebb and flow to smooth the pain, like waves over a seashell.
But the news cut Jess like a dagger, acute and angry. And all too familiar. Moms and grandmothers left. It was just the way of the world.
The simmering agony just below her sternum reminded her that she’d dared to hope that Abuelita would be different. Jess had wished that if anyone could break the mold, it would have been the little woman—barely four foot eleven—with the shock of white hair and skin that glowed like burnished bronze. Surely that strong, stubborn woman had loved her family too much to ever leave them.
Will swiped his hand in a large circle over Jess’s back, helping her return to the present. “She’d been fighting it for more than a year, and my mom said she’d been doing pretty well. But after the last round of chemo, I think she was just too tired to fight anymore.” He swallowed thickly. “Last time I talked with her, she said she missed my granddad. I think she was ready to see him again.”
That must have nearly killed Will. A man who didn’t know how to quit had had to grieve for a woman who just couldn’t keep fighting. A sob caught Jess off guard at the awful thought, and she hiccuped, essentially shattering the solemn moment.
Will jerked away, putting his hands on her biceps and looking right into her eyes, frowning at the tears he saw there. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“No. No. I’m glad you told me. I just… I’m just sorry I wasn’t there.” For you.
And for Sal, too.
The two brothers had been so much more than good friends. They’d been her stable family after her mother had decided she didn’t want to be a mom any longer. After Jess had wound up with a deployed father and a forgetful great-aunt.
Sal had made Jess feel important and beautiful, as if her mixed-up family didn’t define her. She’d adored him for that.
But Will had been special. Confident and so sure of himself. While Jess had been gangly and awkward, Will had always been precisely Will. And for six years he treated her as if she was the missing part of his family. He had too many cousins to name, and somehow his smile when she entered a room made her think he’d been lonely until she’d arrived.
Jess was lonely without Will, too.
It wasn’t a teenage crush or hero worship. It was simply knowing that he understood her. Knew her.
But now she knew almost nothing about Will.
The corner of his mouth lifted into a crooked smile that didn’t even begin to reach his eyes. “She loved you, you know. And she would have loved hearing this story.”
“This story?” Jess said.
“Yep. About how you were kidnapped and I got myself kidnapped to find you.” His smile began to swoop into a dimple in his right cheek, turning back the clock ten years. “And how we escaped. Together.”
Knuckling away a tear that refused to be blinked into submission, Jess bit the corner of her mouth. “You really think we will?”
He shot a glance toward the window beside her. “If you quit crying and start looking for something useful.”
She shoved at his shoulder, but chuckled as she rested her nose on the sill, four fingers clinging to it on either side of her head. Will jumped from the counter and moved silently across the room. In fact, she realized that he’d taken up a spot near the door only when the weight of his gaze on her back made her glance around the room.
Outside, nothing was out of the ordinary. Men in pseudomilitary uniforms marched through the courtyard, which the monsoons had turned into two parts swimming pool, one part tar pit. Most of the buildings were abandoned at this time of day, while workers harvested or planted crops.
A man in khaki pants and a white cotton button-up carried a briefcase straight through the middle of the mire. The hems of his pant legs grew black as mud covered his shoes and then clung to the fabric. He ignored it all, just marching toward the big house and pushing up his sleeves with every third step.
Jess let her gaze sweep over the rest of the yard, watching for anything else of note.
If the guards at the front gate made a midday switch, they’d already done so, because they stood as still as the gargoyles carved on ancient cathedrals that she’d seen on her pregrad school trip to Europe.
But this place didn’t remind her of any church she’d ever entered. And she was probably the only one calling out to God here. Even if she sometimes wondered if He was still listening.
An annoying voice in the back of her mind reminded her that Will had been an answer to her prayers, whether she accepted that fact or not.
She frowned at the guard tower at the corner beyond the big house, forcing her mind off Will and his presence. Except she could still feel his gaze on the back of her neck, as warm as his arms had been. Which had been kind of nice. And he’d smelled really good.
“Erg.” Why couldn’t she stop thinking about him?
“Did you say something?” Will sounded mildly amused, and she could picture the smirk on his face, complete with the return of that too-cute-for-a-SEAL dimple.
“No.” She made another visual sweep, past the big house and the smaller bu
ilding sitting just to the left, before something out of place yanked her gaze back.
The man in the white shirt and mud-caked khakis walked right past the front door of the main residence and opened the door of the neighboring building. Strange. Briefcases and suits usually came and went through the front entrance of the big house, but this man moved with assurance and opened the door, certain of his reception within.
For a fraction of a second, she could just make out the form of someone behind a desk sitting in the entryway. Another man pushed white papers in front of him before the new arrival slammed his briefcase down on top of the documents.
“Do you know what that building is?” she asked.
Will’s hand pressed against her shoulder before she even realized that he’d moved. “Which one?”
She pointed. “Next to the main house. Just to the left.”
As they stared at it, the door opened wider than it had been before. Mr. Pushy Sleeves stopped to look over his shoulder. His reflection twisted in the glass of a mounted picture on the wall behind him. Jess tried to catch a glimpse of the artwork hanging in the frame, but it was too far away.
Will’s shoulders tensed as the man headed toward the front gate. “That was a map hanging there.”
“Are you sure?”
“Not at all.” He shook his head, never taking his gaze off the building in question.
Shrugging a shoulder, Jess went back to watching the yard. “So it means nothing.”
“Not quite. If there’s a map in there, then there might be other maps and useful intel, too. If it’s an administration building, we might be able to find something that tells us what we’ll be facing when we escape and exactly where we are.”
She blinked hard. How had he gotten all that from one tiny glance into a building so far away?
Before she could spend more than a nanosecond on the question, the handle on the lab door jiggled. Her eyes flew wide, matching Will’s.
Her heart hammered as she scrambled to crawl from their perch, knowing she would be too late.
The door creaked.
And suddenly Will grabbed her around the waist, hoisted her off the counter and set her on the floor without a sound except for her “eep” of surprise.
Her gaze jumped from the shockingly stable floor beneath her feet to Manuel’s odd expression. His eyes narrowed, his features turning hard. His mouth formed some words that she couldn’t hear through the roaring in her ears.
Will tapped her shoulder and her stomach lurched to her throat. She’d forgotten he was even there for a second, consumed as she was by the distrust written across Manuel’s features.
Shoving her hands into the pockets of her apron, her fingers wrapped around the handle of a scoopula. She jerked it free and waved it in front of her face. Spinning halfway around, but never letting Manuel out of her sight, she said, “Here it is!” Her voice was too high and too sugary, so she gulped a shaking breath and tried again. “Let’s get started.”
To his credit Will didn’t even raise his eyebrows. “Good. After you.” Holding out a hand, he let her lead him toward the pile of supplies they’d unpacked so far.
Manuel’s suspicious gaze following their every move made it clear he didn’t believe that they’d really been looking for a simple tool, but he made no move to stop them. Jess pressed her shaking hands together before picking up two cans of tear gas.
“Time to try out the hood.”
Will joined her, following her silent lead as she placed the metal cans inside the fume hood and sealed it up.
“Will you turn that on?”
Will pointed at a button, and she nodded. When he flipped the switch, the old vacuum coughed to life. She’d checked the filter on it when she’d first arrived, and hoped it was as clean as it looked.
After pushing her arms into the appropriate holes, she squeezed her eyes closed, held her breath and twisted off the lids.
Nothing happened.
Releasing her breath, she tipped one can over. It was empty. So was the other.
“These look like they’ve been used,” Will said.
“Only one way to find out for sure.”
After another fifteen minutes of them testing more equipment, Manuel finally relaxed against the wall. He let his gun dangle from the strap across his chest and then folded his arms over his stomach. His eyes drooped, and his breathing deepened until it wasn’t possible to tell if he was actually awake or asleep standing up.
The hum of the hood and the scraping of metal against metal as they cleaned out the detonation pieces carried on through the afternoon, until Will brushed her hair away from her ear and whispered directly into it.
“I’m going to find out what’s in that building. Tonight.”
When she opened her mouth, she knew that the sound about to emerge would draw Manuel’s attention, which they couldn’t afford. So she clamped her teeth together, biting the tip of her tongue and wincing at the searing pain.
Will seemed to take her pain as concern, quickly adding, “I’ll be fine, and I’ll let you know what I find.”
She shook her head with so much force that her ponytail hit him in the side of the head. “Oh, you’re not going in alone.”
SIX
Will pulled on Jess’s arm just enough to angle her to face him. When he was sure he had her undivided attention, he shook his head very slowly and mouthed a single word. No.
There was no way on God’s green earth that he was going to risk taking her on a reconnaissance mission. Two people meant double the chance of being seen, double the chance of losing his cover and double the chance of injury or even death.
Escape would work only if he flew under the radar until then. If either of them drew additional suspicion, they would draw extra guards. Getting out of this place was going to be hard enough as it was.
He wasn’t going to back down on this.
Jess held his eye contact, shrugged and nodded. Her pink lips pursed into a determined circle that he’d seen on more than one occasion when her dad had told her she couldn’t do something. She’d squint her eyes, make that face and promptly talk her dad into whatever it was she wanted to do. Usually that scenario involved some ill-advised road trip or midnight body surfing with Will and Sal. And always her argument had started with those pursed lips.
With a quick check on Manuel, who was still resting against the cinder blocks, she knocked over a tub of what looked like salt. A flick of her hand smoothed it out across the black surface, and she quickly spelled out her argument with her index finger.
I’m going.
Will jerked his chin from side to side. After swiping his hand to clear away her message, he wrote his own.
Not safe.
Her eyebrows pulled together as she wiped out his words. Her gaze fell to the salt chalkboard, her finger making even, sharp grooves in the crystals.
I can help.
What if you get caught?
She crossed her arms for a moment, staring at his question, and he let a little smile escape. He had her now.
Her hand cleared the board again, and as she slowly spelled out the words, he glanced up to make sure that Manuel hadn’t woken up from his siesta. The guard snorted, his shoulders jumping, before his snoring settled back into an easy rhythm.
When Will looked back down, he nearly let out a snort of his own.
I won’t if you’re with me.
Jess’s eyes shone as if she’d solved a complex scientific equation or figured out the world’s oldest riddle. She thought she had him beat.
But that wasn’t his biggest concern.
More than anything, he wanted to know why she was fighting him so hard in the first place. Why couldn’t she just go along with his plan? Rescues. Escapes. Midnight missions. These were his job. And he was a pro.
But she just couldn’t back down and let him take care of her.
He shook his head hard and gave up the silence of the salt. Maybe if she could hear the conviction in
his voice, she wouldn’t fight him so hard. Putting his hands on her elbows, he bent his knees until they were eye level. “It’s dangerous.”
Her head wagged back and forth and she opened her mouth, clearly ready to argue with him. After checking the volume of his voice, he cut her off. “Listen to me. If I’m caught where I shouldn’t be, they’ll try to kill me. But I can take care of myself.”
“I’m not scared—”
He interrupted her without a pause. “I won’t risk your safety.”
She tapped the table with a frustrated staccato beat. It hadn’t been particularly loud, but it must have caught Manuel’s ears, as he popped up and swung his weapon around. Big brown eyes blinked fast in the fluorescent lights, and he rubbed a meaty hand down his cheek as his head lolled to the side.
Will dropped his hands and bit his tongue, his pulse in overdrive. Against his right arm, Jess’s muscles tensed, too, her breathing shallow and her hazel eyes unblinking.
Manuel eyed them with distain. Apparently the cushy guard job wasn’t any more fun for him than it was for them. He snorted again, making a sound in the back of his throat that would have gotten him kicked from Will’s mother’s dinner table. Swearing bitterly, he flung open the lab door and disappeared with a clang of metal.
Jess must have felt the same urgency to end their discussion that Will did. As soon as the handle clicked closed, she turned on him. “Do you actually think I’m safe here?”
“Of course not. That’s why I’m here.” He scrubbed his hand over his face, scratching at the whiskers on his chin. He was never this shaggy when he was stateside, and the beginnings of his usual deployment beard somehow only served to remind him that this op was anything but typical.
“Who knows what kind of information could be in that building?” She waved a hand in the general direction of his target. “You might need my help. And what if there’s something in there that would let us escape immediately? Wouldn’t you want to have me right there, so we can get out of here?”