“You didn’t need me for that. It would’ve happened in its own time,” he said.
“Maybe. But I didn’t want it to happen with anyone else.”
“You keep saying that—”
“I’ll be like your old CO and say it until you believe it. You deserve to be happy. We deserve to be happy.”
He shook his head as he pulled on jeans. She spoke again before he could get out the door.
“I never want to be the one who upsets you this much. Don’t you get it, everything I thought I knew, it just shifted out from under me … I lost everything and you came in and gave it all back to me.”
When he answered, his own voice sounded calm—cold. “I’ll kill him. Do you understand, Isabelle? I’ll fucking kill that bastard for laying a hand on you.”
“I know,” she said quietly. God, she hated seeing the pain in his eyes, the way his fists clenched and his breathing was heavy, the same way it had been during his nightmare she’d witnessed. “I don’t want that burden on you.”
“It’s too late for it to be anywhere else.”
“He’s really here,” she said, more to herself than to him.
His phone rang insistently. He answered, listened intently, and snapped the cell closed.
“What’s wrong?”
He didn’t mince words. “Cal’s missing. Not answering his beeper or his phone. Nick went to his house—no sign of him or his car. No signs of a break-in.”
“What are you saying, that he just disappeared? He wouldn’t do that unless Rafe forced him.”
“If he’s with Rafe, all signs point to him going willingly.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I think it’s time to ask your mom some tough questions,” he said finally.
She reached for her phone and he got up to leave. “I want you to stay for this.” She dialed, put the phone on speaker and laid it on the bed. He sat down so the phone was between them.
Jeannie picked up on the second ring.
“Mom, it’s me.”
“I know—Izzy, are you all right?”
“I’m all right. I’m still with Jake. But Uncle Cal’s missing,” she said, heard the sharp intake of breath come across the line. “Mom, you’ve got to tell me what happened the night Dad died.”
Jeannie wasn’t going to tell her—not without a major push. There was a thick pause and then Isabelle realized why. “I’ve already asked Uncle Cal why you and he aren’t together. Dad’s been gone a long time—there’s something keeping you two apart. Something beyond guilt at having had an affair.”
“Sometimes, for the people you love, you do things that you think you should be incapable of doing—things that seem impossible. You do what’s best.”
“And what was best at the time, Mom? What are the secrets that are going to get all of us killed?” Isabelle asked, and wondered how much she’d regret getting the answer.
Cal was strung up by his wrists, feet barely able to keep their grip on the earth. His shoes had been stripped off and he was forced to balance on his toes or find himself hanging painfully by his arms.
He’d thought his days of physical torture were behind him, but his mind had never been free. And that day in the barracks loomed in front of him as the beginning of the end.
“I’m in big trouble, Cal.” James, shorter and stockier than Cal, paced the small area for a few seconds before stopping to face his friend. James’s hair was so blond it was almost white, and today his bright blue eyes looked washed out, his skin pale from worry. “I don’t know what the hell to do.”
“It’s the gambling, isn’t it?” Cal asked, unable to keep the anger from his tone. He’d bailed James out of gambling debts twice over the past six months, nearly wiped out his own savings account paying the bookie and helping James with his rent.
The friendship that had seen them from childhood straight through Cal enlisting in the Navy and James following soon after was straining to the breaking point. Between Cal’s guilt over the affair and James’s growing gambling addiction, Cal wondered if the friendship would—could—survive. And whether he wanted it to, after all of this.
“I needed the money.” James punched the side of his fist lightly against the closed door. It was lunchtime—the rest of their platoon was at the mess and Cal had no appetite now anyway. “I’ve got rent. Jeannie’s school …”
“Does she know?
“No.”
“She’s not stupid. She’s got to know that you’re bringing in more money than you should be at times and running short on others.”
“I told her they’re stipends. Overtimes. She believes me. But with the baby …”
Cal stared straight ahead—he knew that Jeannie knew. “How much do you need?”
“It’s a lot this time, Cal. They let me in on a high-stakes game—I told them I was good for it. And now they’re going to send men after me if I don’t pay in full by the end of this month.”
“How much?” Cal repeated, blanched when James told him the amount—more than the two men’s yearly salaries combined.
“James, there’s no way in hell.”
“You have to help me, Cal. If you don’t, I’m a dead man.”
How could Cal refuse him? His betrayal of James weighed heavily on his chest. Beyond that, he’d be helping to take away Jeannie’s husband, the baby’s father … “I’ll help. I don’t know how, but I will.”
James had come up with his own way two days later. Cal and Kevin were sent on an overseas mission with the UDT, which pre-dated Cal’s SEAL days—James was offshore, on ship, their intel guide. And James had gotten a contact that allowed him to buy surplus weapons from Russia on the military’s dime; all Cal had to do was make the actual trade.
He’d done so, kept Kevin distracted with a little false intel from James’s side. A week later, James sold them to an African warlord in what had been Zaire at the time.
His friend had kept Cal out of the process as much as he could, but Cal was still complicit, had known exactly what James had done. He’d justified it by telling himself that there were so many worse things done in the name of war … so many worse things done in the name of love.
When they were caught six months later, all the evidence pointed squarely at Kevin. Which was exactly the way James had set it up, unbeknownst to Cal.
“It wasn’t me,” Cal said slowly. “I didn’t sell the guns. It was James. And when Kevin discovered what had happened and threatened me, James jumped in front of me—confessed.”
“I don’t understand. If James confessed, what happened?” Rafe’s voice shook and Cal wondered for just a second if he could turn the boy around, like he’d done so many times before for the young men who’d passed before him, the ones who’d lost everything and found themselves through the military. And then the rational part of his brain told him that Rafe had already taken a path where there was no road back.
“It happened so fast.”
“You blamed my father. You killed him, let him die disgraced.”
“I owed James. I didn’t think about the consequences to your family.” Cal swallowed hard.
“And if you had, what would that have changed?” Rafe’s voice hardened. “You’ve known about your daughter all these years and you did nothing.”
“I’ll take all the blame, the way I should’ve years ago. The way I wanted to take care of it when it first happened. Nothing good ever comes from lying. From betrayal.”
“You’ll take all the blame? You’ll take what I’ll tell you to take.” Rafe’s voice was low and menacing against the cold Virginia night.
Cal had already started to shiver slightly, his arms stretched to their breaking point overhead, his toes barely touching the ground. “Kevin was a good man—he wouldn’t want you to do this.”
“He didn’t want to die by his friend’s hand either.” Rafe shoved the gun up under his ribs. “And I’m not one of those boys you mentor, Admiral. I don’t fall for that bullshit so easily.”
&nb
sp; No, Rafe wouldn’t fall for any of it—none of them should have. Cal had never had a right to dish out advice to any of his men, hadn’t deserved to have the last twenty-three years of freedom he’d managed. “I should have found a way to make this up to you.”
“But you didn’t. And when one of my father’s teammates shipped his things to my first foster home, I was so ashamed of what the military told me he’d done that I couldn’t look through any of it. I dragged it from place to place, kept it until the week before I was due to go through my final phase of Delta training. And then I opened it, prepared to put the past behind me. And you know what I discovered, Admiral? That the past really could have set me free.”
Now that he knew the reason behind Rafe’s rage, Jake just had to figure out where the hell the guy had taken Cal.
Using the passwords Max had given him that morning, he got into Cal’s records. The mission where James and Kevin had been killed happened in Africa—outside the Horn of Africa.
Was Rafe going to try to drag Isabelle back there? Or was Isabelle just an unexpected complication in Rafe’s plan for vengeance?
The FBI was searching for Cal, but he knew Isabelle would be worried sick.
He looked up from the screen. “She told you about going into protection.”
“I didn’t think you heard me come in.”
He shifted, turned the chair around. “I hear everything. Even things that are unsaid.”
Isabelle walked over to him even as he stood and closed the laptop so she couldn’t see what he’d been searching for.
“I’m not angry that you didn’t tell me.” She squeezed his hand tightly. “I’m going to go.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I’m not helping any of you by staying here—I’m in the way.”
You’re no match for that man. “Then we should get you packed. They’ll be here soon.”
“I’m not giving up on you by going with the FBI.”
“I know that.”
“No, you don’t.” She took his chin in her hand; any other person who’d ever done that had not found themselves in a good position. For her, all he did was tighten his fists and stare at her. “If I stay with you, you might be forced to do something you shouldn’t.”
“Do you really think I’m going to sit back and not do anything to catch this guy?”
“I don’t want you to do anything. I don’t want that on my conscience. Or yours.”
He didn’t bother to tell her that no way was that happening. If she needed to believe it, so be it. And so he took her hand and led her back up the stairs and to the third floor, where he’d helped her move in just a few short days earlier.
And now she was leaving him, on her own steam.
Still, he had to let her know that he understood, and while she carried clothes from the dresser to her suitcase, he stood in the doorway and spoke. “You know, I get it now.”
“What’s that?”
“That move, on the bus … that wasn’t you spinning out of control. That was just—you.”
She flushed as if he’d caught her, discovered something about her that no one else ever had. And in that second, he knew he always wanted it to be like that.
“You got pissed at me because I didn’t get it. I should have gotten it,” he continued.
“You did … eventually.” She paused before dropping the clothing in her hands and pressing herself against him easily, as if she’d never been scared of doing so. Like they’d been doing this dance forever, and his body responded instantly. “I was scared. Getting onto the bus, that was the start of me taking something back. You kissing me that night forced me to get back in the game, but not in a bad way. Not at all.”
“This isn’t the bus, Isabelle. There isn’t time—”
“There’s still time. Even though I’m worried about Cal, I know, more than ever, that there’s always time,” she said. “If my mother hadn’t lied to me, Rafe still wouldn’t have been caught. And maybe, who knows—maybe I would’ve stayed close to my old job, maybe I would’ve even found myself in a marriage I didn’t want. I wouldn’t have had the courage to leave everything behind the way I did and start over.”
“But starting over was a lie.”
“No, not really,” she said. “Not on my part. I wanted a change and I got a change. All my options are still open. The only thing that’s different is that I realize I’m in danger. And that I’m still angry as hell for what I let Rafe take from me. I’m not going to let him do it again. There’s no point. Not when I’ve found what makes me happy. I’m never letting go of that. So you can try—keep pushing me away, but my heart’s not going anywhere.”
She leaned in, dragged her mouth lightly along his jaw-line. He’d tried to brace himself against her touch, was completely unsuccessful as she ran her hands up under his shirt and tugged at it until he helped her take it off.
He sighed her name while she ran her tongue over a smooth strip of skin, along the back of his ear, while her hand traced his pec, rounded his nipple and pressed it between her finger and thumb.
“I want you,” she repeated in a husky voice against his ear. “Don’t deny me this.”
His upper body rocked slightly as she tweaked the other nipple. He regained control briefly, but she didn’t want that.
“I want you, Jake. More than I’ve ever wanted anyone,” she whispered. “I want you to lie back on this bed and let me make love to you. To show you that I’ve made my decision—that it’s the right one. That it’s not based on fear or ignorance.”
Her surgeon’s fingers traced the contours of his face with a light precision, as if she was searching for something.
One finger over his lips. Another down the bridge of his nose. One along each cheek.
He’d never been more turned on by a touch in his life. He willed himself to calm down, the way he’d been taught, but it didn’t help much. The urge to buck up into her was too strong.
“Jesus.” He gave a short laugh, ran his hands through his hair before he stared at her again. “You don’t treat me like I’m made of steel. You know I’m not and still you treat me like …”
“Like what?”
“Like you could really love me.”
“I do love you.”
He swallowed hard. “That scares me more than anything. But fuck, Isabelle, I do love you.”
She smiled, the first real smile he’d seen all day, since the insanity began. “‘But fuck, Isabelle, I do love you’?” she repeated. “You know, only coming from you could that actually sound romantic.”
And he laughed and she laughed and that felt good. Real.
He took the gun out of his pants and laid it on the table. “The safety’s not on,” he said, and then he let her push him so he was flat on his back on the bed.
And she kissed him, everywhere, trailed down his neck, his nipples, and let her tongue run lower still as she roughly undid his zipper and yanked hard on his jeans, pulling them to his hips and lower.
He tensed, then his hips rose off the mattress toward her as she took him inside her mouth, sucking and swirling with a maddening rhythm. His hands twined in her hair and he couldn’t stop the long, low moan that escaped his throat. Her hands gripped his hips, like she was trying to hold him in place.
“Isabelle, please—not like this.” He was so close, but he wanted inside of her. He shifted and she kissed her way back up his abs, his chest, until she was straddling him.
She’d wiggled out of her pants at some point when he’d been incoherent and now she positioned herself over him, sank slowly onto his cock, balanced against his chest with her palms down on his pecs, her hair tumbling down over her shoulders, her eyes heavy-lidded with lust, and she didn’t regret a thing about what was happening between them. He could tell by the way her thighs clenched around his body, the way her sex contracted around his cock, prepared to milk him until he cried out her name.
She moved to the rhythm she’d set, long and slow
at first and then she moved harder and faster until he gripped her hips because his balls tightened and he didn’t care about control anymore.
He shifted, drove up into her, a long, slow thrust that pushed her over the edge to an orgasm that rocked her body first, and then finally, finally, he lost himself in her.
CHAPTER
23
Sarah woke with her cheek pressed to the pillow and stretched contentedly with her eyes closed. It was the first time since she’d left Clutch’s house six months ago that she’d slept so soundly surprisingly so, considering everything they’d discussed the night before. But after his nightmare, he’d urged her to sleep, told her that after today they’d both be sleeping with one eye open.
She’d assured him she was ready for that, as long as they could stay together.
“You could handle life without me, Sarah. You already have,” he said, his eyes looking even more translucent in the lamplight from the night table.
“I could, yes. But I don’t want to.”
He’d seemed strangely content by that, had pulled her into his arms and taken her slowly on the bed, over and over until her limbs were weak from pleasure, whispered what she needed to hear. That he loved her, that he’d do anything to keep her safe. That she would be safe.
“We’ll be safe together,” she said.
She’d fallen asleep wrapped around him, but he wasn’t in bed with her now. Instead, the bathroom door was slightly ajar and the sound of water from the shower echoed through the small room.
She pulled back the dark shower curtain and found herself staring into an empty tub of running water.
“No, no, no …” she heard herself say out loud as she turned, near frantic, and prepared to throw on clothes and run out the door. And then she turned again and put her hand under the water spray—freezing cold. When she went to turn the water off, she realized only the hot tap was turned on.
He had a lead on her—maybe not much, but she’d have no idea where to even begin to look for him now. When she sank down to sit on the edge of the tub, she spotted the paper on the edge of the sink.
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