Stranger Mine: a Base Branch novel

by Megan Mitcham

  “You’re soaked through,” Sloan said with a nod at him. “And Piper’s not far from it. Let’s get you guys into the HELO, then we’ll talk.”

  Everyone took a step toward the aircraft except Piper. Ryan stopped and turned to face her full on. She pulled the ruck from her back and offered it to him. He stared at it as though it were a live mine.

  “Thank you,” Piper whispered. “Thank you for everything.”

  “Thank me on the chopper.” He shifted Alma to his other side and grabbed her uninjured wrist.

  “I’m not going.” She tugged against his hold.

  Ryan’s entire body tightened. The cold and wet threatening to freeze his bones for the last three hours turned to steam.

  “Why,” he began, but stopped. His voice was sharp and too loud for tiny ears.

  “Alma, why don’t you come with me, Baine, and Alisa? We’ll get some blankets and food, and have a picnic on the plane.”

  “But it’s a helicopter,” she corrected.

  “You’re right,” Sloan conceded. She raised her arms and Alma leaped to her.

  “Thanks,” Ryan said.

  Baine and Sloan huddled the girls close and hurried through the gusting wind. When they disappeared into the back of the Chinook, Ryan snapped his head around. He grabbed Piper’s other arm above the wrist and loomed over her.

  “Why won’t you trust me, Piper?”

  “Trust you? I don’t even know you.” Her sharp jaw canted in defiance.

  “You knew me enough to give your body. But, so help me Piper, I want it all.”

  She blushed and shook her head. “All of what?”

  “I want you. Your body. Your mind. Your trust.”

  “You have to earn trust,” she countered.

  “And haven’t I? I mean, what more does a man have to do? Lay his body over a mine to prove his…” Ryan faltered. To prove his what? Love? Lust? Infatuation? Hell, he didn’t know, yet. But he wanted the time to find out. “…to prove himself worthy.”

  “I didn’t ask you to do any of this. All I wanted was for you to let me go.”

  “So, what? You could get yourself killed? You’re one woman, Piper. Damn capable. But, still, one person without the necessary equipment and resources to do whatever the hell it is you’re trying to do.” He pinned her forearms to his vest with one arm, locked her nape in his other, and brought her face inches from his. “Tell me what you’re trying to do.”

  “I’m trying to save an American citizen the Sinaloa took six months ago. His name is Matthew Reece.”

  Wow, a knife to the heart hurt like a bitch. He should have known—really, he’d had one to the hand and another in the side. Yet, the sting of this one threatened to grind his teeth to nubs. She risked her life to save another man. He’d known she was up to something and he’d run the gamut of hypotheses. In search of a sister. Her mother. Revenge for a fallen partner. But a man? The way she’d given herself to him so completely, he’d never allowed the possibility to enter his mind.

  “And you thought they held him at that facility?” He gestured in the direction of the compound.

  Her eyes widened. Not the question she’d been expecting, he guessed. She probably expected him to ask about the guy. He wanted to. Truth was, it didn’t matter. If it was her dentist or her lover, he’d help because it—check that—he, some other man, mattered to Piper.

  “No.” She recovered with a couple of blinks.

  “Then why, for fuck’s sake, would you allow them to capture you?”

  “Émile Gabrone is the book keeper. He has a laptop with lists of cargo, abduction locations, final destinations, payouts. Everything.”

  “That’s why you locked yourself in the office.”

  “But the master list wasn’t on the desktop. It only has current manifests.”

  “Say I let you go. In the middle of the damned desert with a minefield as your playground. What the hell is your next move?”

  “I have to go back.”

  “To the compound?”

  “Yes. I pulled the detonators from all the explosives at the front of the house. I couldn’t chance Gabrone getting killed.”

  Ryan straightened and dropped her arms.

  “I couldn’t risk you not listening to me,” she pled.

  “I listen to you, Piper. Even when you don’t speak. I listen to the cues your body gives me. I can tell you’re scared by the squint of your brow. Anxious to get back by the shuffle of your feet. Cold by the gooseflesh on your neck. And despite it all, horny by the catch of your breath and the flush of your lips when I held you close.

  “We’ll do what you need to do. We’ll even do it your way. You and me. I’m coming with you. And you will tell me everything.”

  “I can’t let you—”

  “You don’t have a choice,” he barked.

  “Okay,” her voice quivered.

  “You’ve lied to me once, Piper. Don’t do it again. No matter how much it hurts. We both deserve the truth and are tough enough to handle it.”

  “I am sorry.” She swatted at a tear, and then shrugged. “I’ve never been a team player. Five partners in as many years on the force should tell you something.”

  “We all have shit to work on.” Ryan held out his hand.

  “Even you?”

  “Especially me, but that’s a story for another time. Let’s get some dry clothes, food, and fresh packs. Then we’ll see how Gabrone fared in the blast.”

  19

  The girls planted wet kisses on either side of her cheeks, and then trotted down the aisle dodging feet and legs.

  “It’s amazing, a child’s resilience.” Sloan sank into the last seat in the row to her left and whispered the words as though she’d thought them and accidentally said them aloud.

  “You can’t let them go into the system,” Piper countered.

  “You’re right. I can’t. I just hope my husband can get on board.” Sloan sighed.

  Having snuck in on their tête-à-tête from the ground, Baine tugged Sloan’s face to his as he knelt. “He already is, love.”

  Piper left the couple to their intimate moment and subsequent face sucking and watched the girls. They neared the cockpit where Ryan stood talking to Khani Slaughter. The woman scared the shit out of Piper. A task not easily accomplished. But a manner as gruff as her own combined with fire-orange lips, a full face of make-up, and rumbling gray eyes all did the trick. The twins ignored her, cutting off their heated conversation. They tackled Ryan full force, causing him to stumble back in order to catch them.

  Damn the man, his smile, and his caring and protective nature. He made her heart do stupid things. Her loins getting twitchy was one thing. Her heart was an altogether different thing.

  After garnering his kisses from Alma and Alisa and shaking hands with Khani, Ryan’s gaze found hers down the length of the crowded space. He canted his head toward the open front door, and then bound out. Piper stood, skirted the lip-locked couple, and headed for the dirt.

  “Take care of him. He’ll take care of you,” Sloan called after her.

  “What if I don’t need taking care of?” Piper asked, walking backward and facing the woman and her hunky husband.

  “Look,” Sloan said, “I don’t need it, but I sure as hell like it. You will too, if you give it a chance.”

  Piper shrugged her answer. Yet, she hurried her footsteps to be nearer to Ryan. To see his All-American face and the graceful authority he possessed over his body. To see his wide smiles and discontent grimaces. To breathe his scent. Feel his touch.

  “So, did you enjoy having your ass chewed?” she asked.

  They set a steady pace, one behind the other down the narrow dirt path.

  “Ah, Khani’s just worried I’m thinking with my dick.” He shrugged.

  “And are you?”

  “I’d be in lot better shape, if I were.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning you fuck with my head and the area between my cock and my
head that no one has ever messed with before.”

  Piper swallowed. Her throat was suddenly as dry and scratchy as the ground under her feet. “You’re all in on this honesty policy, aren’t you?”

  “I am.”

  “Honestly,” she countered, “all this talk of dick and head is making me wet.”

  “Avoiding the topic?”

  “Maybe, but I speak the truth.”

  “I’d oblige you—and me—just about anywhere else in the world, but I’d like to keep our body parts attached for future use.”

  They ran in silence for a while, their long strides in rhythm, if not sync. The front of the man was a sight, but the back wasn’t a presentation to be missed either. His broad shoulders carried their supplies with ease. And that high, tight ass was what her younger sister called an onion booty. Looks so good, makes you want to cry.

  “You asked about my family, before. Well, I skimmed at best,” Piper stated. “This whole drama started before I was born. While I had no interest in a father, my older sister, Sparrow, lived to know her father. She wanted a man in our lives, in our house. I don’t know the details, but my mom was hurt long ago, and refused to entrust herself to a man ever again.

  “Sparrow resented my mother and acted out, to put it kindly. The first time she got arrested, I was seven. Blue lights filled our living room. Police banged on our door. I was sure they’d take us all away and shove us into an orphanage. My mom was at work. My grandmother was there, sleeping as usual. She left Sparrow in charge of me and Ivy. We’re each five years apart. So, I was seven and Ivy, two.”

  “It’s a wonder they didn’t take you,” Ryan said.

  “Yep. We spent the night in child protective services. To this day I don’t think I’ve ever been that scared. But over the years, I grew to like the cops. They could at least keep Sparrow in check for a little while.”

  “What kind of stuff did she get hauled in for?” he asked, and then sputtered and promptly spit to the side of their small path. “Damn bugs!”

  They entered the sandy patch of the trail and the stuff suction-cupped her boots with each step. Piper’s calves screamed in protest. Her lungs worked overtime. “Petty theft. Drugs. Underage drinking,” she panted. “Solicitation. Disorderly conduct. The list could literally go on and on. But it was nothing big enough for them to hold her too long. A minor and all…

  “Sparrow met Matthew Reece senior year in high school and everything changed,” she gasped.

  “Quit staring at the trail and my ass. You’ll get more air in your lungs. Aim here.” He tapped the back of his head. “It’ll open up your chest.”

  “In my defense, it is a fine behind and running in place on a smooth concrete floor isn’t the same cardio as—”

  The unmistakable whiz of a bullet whispered in Piper’s ear. She tried to scream for Ryan to get down, but her lungs seized. His snarling voice echoed the sentiment first, “Get down.” He reached back with his left hand, clamped onto her vest, and went down hard, pulling her along for the ride.

  The impact of the fall hardly registered, though it forced what little air she clung to out of her chest. Ryan pulled something from a Velcro pocket on his pack. They were sitting ducks. The realization pounded over and over inside her mind. No cover. No place to hide.

  “Cover your ears and close your eyes,” Ryan growled.

  Instinct ordered she remain alert, but his demand overrode centuries of evolution. Or maybe, it just called to a deeper animal inside. One who recognized the master of its body from the first scent, the first look.

  He pitched something into the air. Piper buried her face against the back of his leg, hunkering for what, she didn’t know. The boom rumbled and rang in her ears, despite her flattened hands. The whoosh of the blast warmed her entire body and blew the wisps of baby hairs from her face. Brilliant light made night day behind her lids.

  Ryan shifted under her. One. Two. Three. Four. Shots rang out. Piper braced for the rounds of retaliation. But none came. Minus the high-pitched whine in her ear, silence settled around them.

  “Are you hurt?”

  Piper shifted.

  “Stay down,” Ryan barked.

  She rested her head on the back of his thigh and blinked, trying to regain what little sight she had in the desert darkness.

  “The fuckers hid behind the Jeep.”

  “Oh God. What if Gabrone’s gone? What about the laptop?”

  “Put the monocular on. Gun up and get ready. There’s bound to be more of them and they know we’re here. Let’s move.”

  She’d forgone the thermal imagery sight earlier, not caring to see the number of mines and creepy-crawlies they walked among. Now, things had changed. They sprinted the last mile and a half. Adrenaline and dread spurred her. Between the rubble of the jail, garage, and half of a house, a non-bullet-peppered Escalade sat. Its doors hung open like the others, but no bodies littered the ground around it.

  Piper tensed, ready to hit the ground at any moment. Other than the curls of smoke reaching the sky, nothing moved. The quiet grew way too loud in her ringing ears.

  “Quiet your feet,” Ryan whispered back. His fast pace never slowed, yet stirred hardly a trace of sound—that she could hear, anyway.

  She tried absorbing the shock in her knees. She succeeded only in looking like the offspring of a strutting chicken and a jackass.

  “Strike with the balls of your feet too.”

  Pride might have won out, had the trick not worked. But with a shift of her weight, she sprang behind him with stealth, if not grace. He motioned her to the side of the house she’d used as cover. They slunk against the frayed brick. The first section only protected their lower halves from an oncoming bullet. Thankfully, the front half of the house remained intact, at least from the outside, and shielded their bodies.

  When they reached the front corner of the house Ryan raised his hand. They slowed. H&K close to his face, Ryan leaned the necessary parts around the edge of the house. He waved her on. They stayed against the house, crouching and walking silently. At a window his fist closed. They stopped in unison.

  “I can’t believe this!” Gabrone’s thick Latin accent rattled through the shards of blown-out glass. “There has to be a key somewhere! Look again!”

  “Everything is blown to shit, man,” another guy said. “I can try and shoot it off.”

  “And have a ricochet kill me in the process? No fucking way. Go check the bodies. One of them has to have a key.”

  “Don’t look at me,” a third deep voice said. “He was talking to you. While you’re at it, see what’s taking Garcia and the others so long.”

  How had they missed the explosion? It was far away, and they were inside half of an extremely large house, and they were screaming like crazy people.

  “What, everyone else is dead and now I’m the bitch?” the errand boy complained.

  “No. The Bronce is the bitch and she better keep running and hope I never catch her. If I do, I’ll—”

  Ryan launched through the low window. Piper reached for empty air, trying to pull him back from danger. Two swift shots split the air. A grunt followed, then metal hit and skidded on tile. Fear strangled her, but rage propelled her through the window.

  Her champion? Lover? Whatever he was to her, staggered up from his hands and knees. Blood dripped from his face. Ten feet away, a man the perfect size and shape for sumo wrestling clutched his nuts in one hand. With the other, he reached for Ryan’s matte-black H&K, which had apparently skidded a few feet from the guy.

  Piper’s heart pressed the pause button. She raised her barrel, ready to shoot the big bastard, but Ryan ran at him. Full bore. He jumped, cocked, and then bare-knuckled the man on the bridge of the nose. The crunch echoed in the wrecked formal living area. Sumo dropped like a truckload of salami on a hot summer sidewalk. The man lay as still as the men with blooms of red sprouting from their foreheads.

  Was he dead? She didn’t know, but she suspected he was. In that
moment, Piper realized exactly how lethal Ryan Noble was, and how careful he was with her.

  She ignored Gabrone, who lifted from his cringe but remained snug to the side of the hearth. The rectangle of brick was his only cover from fire. Silver cuffs bound his arm to the metal grate embedded in the fireplace concrete. He’d keep. What wouldn’t was her concern for the man who held her heart, for however long or short he wanted it. It beat in her chest, but no longer for her.

  Her hands shook nearly as badly as they had after killing the Sinaloa goons earlier. This love stuff was slightly painful and absolutely terrifying business. But she couldn’t stop herself from going to him.

  Ryan snatched his gun from the floor with his right hand and holstered it. When he turned to meet her his left arm was pinned stiffly to his side. Looking past his bloody lip, Piper saw the rip in his BDU’s and the slow ooze of crimson seeping from high on his shoulder. The cradle of his palm warmed her chin and he said something in a language she didn’t understand. Then something else in another language.

  “I see we’ll need to expand your languages,” he said in French. Her mouth dropped and he continued in the language. “Listen carefully, my sweet. It’s time to put on your game face and make this mother talk. No time for sentiment over silly bullet wounds. Are you up for it? Or do you want me to deal with him?”

  “He’s mine,” she said, not bothering with an alternate language. Let him hear.

  Piper crammed her gooey emotions into the recesses and set her fury free. She worked for six months to get to this point. She’d be damned if anyone would take it from her. For two months she’d been close enough to smell it. Today she’d nearly died. Three inches to the left and Gabrone’s bodyguard would have ended her life. A few inches more and one would have ended Ryan’s.

  She turned away from the man she loved. Yep, for better and most likely for worse, she was flipped head over booted-heels for this man. And she turned away from his touch. Away from the draw of him. Skirting another body, Piper crossed to the rather handsome Hispanic. If you took away his career choice, personal disposition, and cocaine habit, his espresso complexion, wide jaw, and even wider shoulders would have been appealing.