by Cindy Gerard
Sounds from the street faded to muffled background noise as the repetitive rasp of steel against stubble, and the sound of their breathing enhanced the unavoidable sense of intimacy. The tension resurrected a sensual memory of another time there’d been shaving involved.
She’d been naked in her tub, water lapping around her shoulders, bubbles playing peek-a-boo with her buoyant breasts. He’d been on his knees beside the tub, fully clothed, enjoying the hell out of the experience. He’d held her razor in one hand and her left calf in his other; soapy water trickled down her leg as he raised it and ran the blade in a slow, sensual glide along her silken, fragrant skin.
Soft sighs. Sexy smiles. The gentle splash of water against flesh.
He hadn’t stayed dressed or dry for long.
Do not go there now. Not when she was this close. Not when her breasts were directly in front of his mouth, and the warmth radiating from her body rivaled the heat of the West African day.
“You doing okay?” she asked as she tended to his upper lip.
He grunted something that he hoped passed for a yes and closed his eyes. For all the good it did. He could still see her in his mind. Still knew that if he moved even a fraction of an inch, his mouth would be pressed against that warm woman flesh. His face would be nestled in the softest, most amazing place in the world.
Lust coiled in his groin, his abs clenched.
“Did I hurt you?”
Jesus. He must have groaned. He opened his eyes. Met hers. And saw that she’d figured out that he was having as much trouble with this as he’d had with the pants debacle.
He saw something else before she averted her gaze. She wasn’t as immune as she’d like him to think. She was as affected as he was by the sexual undercurrents simmering between them. And she didn’t like her reaction.
He could kiss her now. Even though she’d resist, he could grip her waist in his hands, guide her onto his lap, and kiss her. She wouldn’t want to give in, but she would let him kiss her slow and deep, and mother of God, he wanted to.
But no matter how badly he wanted to, he would not take advantage. She was vulnerable now. She was conflicted and confused and in way over her head. He had no idea how she felt about him at this point, but as far as she was concerned, he didn’t love her. He needed her to keep believing that, because until he nailed the bastard who’d killed Bryan and messed with him, this was far from over.
“Let’s call it good,” he said, fracturing the intimacy with his abrupt announcement. “Thanks. Appreciate it.”
“What about your hair? We might as well take care of it while we have the chance.”
He let out a heavy breath. “Fine. Just shave it all off.”
So she did. He sat there, his hands clenched into fists on his thighs, his eyes closed, his mind occupied with multiplication tables, mental images of a street map of the city, a front and back run-through of how to assemble and disassemble the AK . . . anything to keep himself from thinking about her. About wanting her. About keeping himself from asking if he’d fucked things up between them forever.
“That should do it.”
He snapped out of his self-induced trance, opened his eyes, and realized she’d finished. She handed him a towel, which he promptly dropped, then couldn’t reach down and pick up because of his ribs and the IV line still attached to his arm.
“Damn, I’m tired of being an invalid,” he muttered when she picked up the towel for him.
“The doctor said you’d need several days to start feeling human again.”
He dragged the towel over his head. “Did he say the bad guys were going to wait for that to happen?” he snapped, and immediately regretted it.
“Damn. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that as a criticism. How you managed that escape, and this . . .” He lifted a hand to encompass the room. “I don’t know how you did it. And I don’t like you being here in the thick of this.”
She lifted her chin. “Like I said, you don’t always get to be the hero. And I know it’s driving you insane that you weren’t cast in the role this time.”
“Yeah,” he said apologetically. “It’s driving me nuts. And making me stupid. I’m sorry. Again.”
Things were going to change, starting now.
Conquer your mind and the body will follow. His axiom since day one of his service.
As Luke Colter always said of his SEAL experience, “The only easy day was yesterday.”
When he looked up, she’d crossed her arms beneath her breasts and leaned back against the wall. “Maybe it’s time for you to tell me everything.”
He breathed a sigh of relief; the grim look on her face told him that she was ready to listen to him now. Her brown eyes were hyper-alert. Her nerves were clearly frayed. There was no way on God’s earth to whitewash this, but he was determined to see it through.
“It’s complex,” he said.
She made a sound of derision and handed him a bottle of water. “Isn’t it always? Just . . . just start from the beginning. The night Bryan died.”
He tipped up the water bottle, winced when he bumped his split lip, then bit the bullet. “You know that it never rang true with me that the RUF just happened to be in the same area as our patrol. That it was dumb luck that they ran across us. Not when our intel—all filtered down from Command Central—hadn’t placed any enemy combatants within ten miles of our position.
“After the official after-action report came down and they explained it as a monumental intel screwup, I still couldn’t buy it.”
“Even though the prevailing opinion was that it was the only plausible explanation?”
“Even though,” he echoed flatly. “I get that everyone needed an outlet for the blame. It wasn’t easy to accept that our own leadership fucked up, but at least it gave us an answer. Answers are important. Answers give closure. They help us move on.”
“But you never did.”
He focused on the plastic tubing still stuck in his arm that was attached to the IV drip. “It was just too pat. And it reeked of fabrication.”
So he’d become obsessed. He was so screwed up over losing Bry that he’d done some fabricating of his own, looking for bad guys where none existed. That’s what everyone had thought.
Sometimes he’d wondered himself why he just couldn’t let it go. But day after day, year after year, it had consumed him. And, yeah, Bryan’s death had gotten all muddied up with his confusion over his little brother’s death. He should have been able to do something to save Bobby—just like he should have been able to save Bry.
“I tried to let it go, Steph. I swear to you,” he said, meeting her eyes. “I’d finally stopped looking. I had moved on.”
Because he’d met her. Because he’d fallen in love with her. Because he’d known that he needed to let the past go so he could have a future, and be with her the way she deserved.
“But then . . . last year something happened,” she prompted. “When you came back here to Sierra Leone.”
“It had to do with the mission, yes.” He leaned back heavily in the chair, cursing his draining strength. “But it started before we even flew here. It started in D.C. with Marcus Chamberlin.”
Her brows pinched together. “Chamberlin?”
She wasn’t asking who he was, everyone knew the sensational story of senator Marcus Chamberlin’s fall from grace. The senator had died last year in Sierra Leone during the same BOI operation that had taken out Sesay’s camp.
“I was in D.C. watch-dogging Chamberlin for the team, while they were at HQ in Buenos Aires trying to put the puzzle pieces together.”
He’d been tasked with extracting the truth from Chamberlin, who had been deeply embroiled in Ryang’s illegal international gun-running operation. Ryang had been blackmailing Chamberlin into facilitating the arms shipments, using Chamberlin’s ex-wife as a pawn and humanitarian aids shipments to Sierra Leone as a cover.
“We didn’t even know that Sierra Leone was the endgame at that point. I was in C
hamberlin’s office, putting a little heat on him to give me something to help us tie things together, when I spotted this framed photograph on his wall. He told me it was a group shot of the volunteer team on the ground in Sierra Leone where the aid shipments were sent.”
“The shipments that were a front?”
“Yes. I recognized one of the men in the photo. And every siren that I’d silenced in my head regarding Bry’s death went off like an air raid drill. Right then I knew that I was looking at the man who had as good as fired the shot that killed Bryan.”
She looked skeptical and confused. “You knew this because you saw a man in a group photo?”
“Not just any man. A colonel who had been on the ground in Sierra Leone when Task Force Mercy was running ops there. The same colonel who had sent us on our last mission.”
That had her looking at him differently. Bry had died on TFM’s last mission.
“When I saw him in that picture it was like a bomb went off, a bomb full of images and memories. Like how he’d sometimes show up in the field. And how he always seemed to feel like he was ‘slumming’ it with the grunts. I always got bad vibes from him. There was something about him . . . I don’t know. I couldn’t pinpoint it. But it didn’t matter. In the military you followed orders, did as you were told, no matter who called the shots.” He paused, the memories vivid even now.
“Joe?”
He hadn’t realized that he’d fallen silent until her soft voice prompted him to pick up the conversation again.
“Something about an encounter I’d had with him hung around the edge of my mind but wouldn’t gel. As I stared at the photograph, it finally came to me.
“One night, I was passing by the operations tent and overheard a heated discussion between the colonel and the general in charge of the entire offensive on the ground. At that point, we’d pulled mission after mission. All combat. All close quarters. Everyone on the team was running on empty. But this guy had insisted that we needed to infiltrate that particular area that night, arguing that even though it was dangerous, men died in battle all the time and the big picture needed to be considered.”
He took a long pull of water.
“I kept staring at that picture on Chamberlin’s wall and I kept hearing his words all those years ago, and . . . I knew something was off. I knew he had a hand in the gun shipments. And if he had his finger in one pie, most likely he had it in another. He had a hand in setting up the ambush. I just didn’t know why he wanted us dead, or how to prove it.”
She’d grown very quiet.
“So I did some digging into his service record. And I found out something interesting. Turns out he was the one who lobbied to get Task Force Mercy disbanded. That bit of info clinched it for me.”
Now she looked confused. “I don’t understand. What does disbanding TFM and Bryan’s death have to do with each other?”
“Everything.” He lifted a hand, imploring her to understand. “Like I told you earlier, he wanted us gone, Steph. One way or the other, he wanted TFM out of Sierra Leone. He didn’t care who died to make it happen. He didn’t kill us all, but he accomplished his mission anyway: We got pulled the next day. The team was disbanded shortly after that. All the work we’d done here just ended. The RUF took back all the ground we’d gained.”
She processed that, sighed heavily, then opened up a bottle of water for herself. After a deep drink, she carefully measured her words. “You’re working on an awful lot of speculation here. And a lot of gut feelings.”
“I learned to trust my gut a long time ago. But you’re right. At that point it was all speculation. I needed proof, so I decided to find it. And the only way to do that was to come back to Sierra Leone and start digging.”
For the first time since they’d started talking, fire flared in her eyes. “You couldn’t have told me that was your plan? You couldn’t have leveled with me about what you planned to do? Or told the guys?”
“And have you tell me I was crazy? That I needed to let it go?”
Her silence was answer enough. That’s exactly what she would have done.
“Steph, this guy is a big player in Washington now. And he’s ruthless. I had to play it close to the vest until I figured out what was so important to him here that he ordered that attack on our unit. If he got wind that I was after him, I was as good as dead before I’d have a chance to expose him.
“Case in point,” he said, lifting a hand in a gesture that encompassed his body and his sad physical condition. “I was going to die in the prison. He was going to make certain of it. That’s why I needed hard proof. Without it, my credibility is nada. It’s my word against his, right? He’s connected. He could easily convince the powers that be that the word of a former CIA operative is suspect. Hell, everyone knows that those guys are psychos, right? I’d be just another agent gone rogue.”
He stopped to gauge her reaction. She remained silent, still listening. He decided to lay the rest of it out for her.
“And the fact is, going rogue wouldn’t be far from the truth. If I couldn’t pin anything on him, not only would I be cast as a loose cannon driven to delusions by the ‘dark side’ of my profession, but by association with me, BOI would take a hit. Their contracts would dry up. Nate would be out of business.”
The furrow between her brows deepened.
“I know this is a lot to swallow, Steph. But I know how that game is played. Which is why I knew that if I went after him, I had to distance myself from everyone who meant anything to me. I didn’t want anyone to get caught in the fallout.”
“And what if you’d died in that prison? What did any of this do but get you killed? No one would ever know why.”
“Nate would know,” he said soberly. “If I show up dead, my attorney has instructions to deliver a letter that spells every thing out.”
Angry tears filled her eyes. “But it didn’t have to come to this. We could have helped.”
He shook his head. “No. You couldn’t have. He’s too smart. Here’s the bottom line: Whether I can prove it or not, he’s going to pay. And I will not take anyone—especially you—down with me.”
She was quiet for a long moment. “So. The disappearing act. It was all about protection.”
Aw, hell. He knew where she was going now before she even asked. He knew how much it cost her.
“And that night . . . did you lie about everything that night? About not loving me?” Her eyes were glassy with tears she was determined not to shed.
It was going to kill him to lie again, but until this was over—
A phone rang, breaking the thick tension.
“What the hell?” He glared at her. “I thought you said you weren’t using your cell phone.”
“I’m not. This isn’t my phone. It’s a burn phone.” She reached into her pocket.
“Wait.” He grabbed her wrist, stopping her from answering. “Who has this number?”
“Only one person,” she said, looking as though a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “The man who’s going to get us out of here.”
She quickly answered the call. “Mr. Dalmage,” she said on a rush. “Oh, thank God. Thank you so much for calling.”
“Jesus!” Joe sprang to his feet, grabbed the cell phone from her hand, and disconnected.
Stephanie’s eyes widened, and even through his panic he felt her fear. “What are you doing? I’ve been trying to reach him since I got here!”
“Dalmage?”
“Yes. Greer Dalmage. He’s the U.S. liaison to the UWAN.”
“I know who he is.”
“Well, he’s here. In Freetown,” she said, her voice rising with her confusion. “He can help get us out of here. Please, give me back the phone.”
“Dalmage is here? Fuck. Dalmage doesn’t want to help us—he wants to kill us.”
He threw the phone on the floor, picked up the chair, and with a strength borne of a full-on adrenaline rush, slammed the chair leg repeatedly on the phone until i
t was broken in pieces and hopefully any tracking capability destroyed.
Breathing hard from the exertion, he looked up. Horror filled her eyes. “Do you not get it? Dalmage is responsible for Bryan’s death.”
He jerked the IV out of his arm as she stared, shell-shocked, at his face and the blood dripping onto the floor. She thought he’d lost his mind.
“Grab what you can’t live without. We’re leaving.” He shouldered painfully past her and jerked open the door. “Suah!” he yelled, knowing that he would be standing guard in the hallway. “We’ve got a problem.”
The boy rushed into the room, his eyes wide with questions.
“Time for Plan B.” Joe reached for the T-shirt hanging on the wall hook. He wrenched it over his head, the adrenaline blocking some of the pain as he toed on the sandals. “Grab all the extra ammo you can carry.”
Suah scrambled while Joe limped back to the mattress and retrieved the Glock and KA-Bar along with several ammo clips that he dropped into his pockets. Then he shouldered the rifle, grabbed Stephanie’s arm, and headed back to the door.
She stood frozen, her eyes round with fear and confusion.
“Look,” he said, rounding on her so fast the room tilted. “We don’t have time for you to process this or decide if I’m psycho. We’re leaving. Now. Before Dalmage can pin down our location from that cell call.”
12
Sweat ran down between her shoulder blades, and stung her eyes. Her hair clung to her neck in heavy, wet curls. The insufferable heat, the exhaustion, the fear all combined to make her light-headed. But what weighed on her the most was the look she saw in Joe’s eyes as she flattened herself beside him against a decaying two-story building.
He couldn’t take much more of this running. He wasn’t strong enough yet. The heat beat down like a battering ram; even in the shade it felt like they were standing at the mouth of a furnace.
“What’s taking Suah so long?” she muttered. Joe might be upright, but he was barely conscious.
Suah had left them here several minutes ago while he and the boys went ahead, scouting the streets, making certain they didn’t run into any city police patrols. Or, as they’d discovered the hard way several blocks ago when they’d almost burst recklessly around a corner, any military units. Apparently, the manhunt for the escaped American prisoner had expanded to a provincial if not national scale.