In Love and War

by Lovelace, Merline; McKenna, Lindsay; Irvin, Candace

  “Jack?”

  He raked his fingers through his hair and dug them into the base of his neck. Neither helped the knot already throbbing at the base of his skull. “It’s not enough. I can’t risk mobilizing Hamid and the rest of the team yet.” They both knew if he moved on Rurik without enough hard evidence to hang a conviction on, the man would just slip away and spawn a new terrorist cell. One that this time, Diplomatic Security might not be able to locate until it was too late. If it hadn’t been spawned already.

  “Dani, I have to go though with the meet.” Which also meant he was going to have to leave her behind. Unless he could get her to agree to a change in her own plans.

  “No.”

  “I haven’t even suggested it yet.”

  “Don’t. I am not taking off across that field. I don’t care who you have on the other side. I managed to forge a connection with Zorah. I have to see it through. I owe it to the sergeants I came in after, whether or not they’re alive, and I owe it to Lina.” She held out his damp shirt. “Don’t ask me to leave.”

  He balled up the shirt to cover his frustration—until the rest sank in. “What do you mean you forged a connection? You were out here ten minutes before Youssef cornered you.”

  “Youssef didn’t corner me. I deliberately ran into him.” She tapped her swollen lip. “That’s why I ended up with this. I heard crying and thought it was one of the girls so I headed back here. I practically caught Zorah and that bearded guard going at it on this very spot. Before any of us had a chance to recover, I heard Youssef and decided to head him off.”

  She’d risked her own neck for one of Rurik’s thugs?

  A fresh wave of fury crashed into him, this one directed at her decision. A decision beyond foolish. He clamped down on to the shirt, ignoring the water that dribbled onto his boots.

  “You weren’t there. It was a good call. They owe me.”

  “Like Lynette owed you?”

  Her eyes darkened as she glared up at him. He didn’t care. Dani might be damned good at her job, but she could be far too trusting. He’d seen it himself through the years. The first, the weekend they’d met. She’d admitted it herself in the café after she’d recovered from that cigarette and finally confessed the pack of Virginia Slims and condoms discovered under her mattress weren’t hers. She hadn’t even known her best friend had stashed them there until the headmaster had hauled her into her office. Lynette never had come forward.

  “I was sixteen, Jack. Stupid. I trusted you, didn’t I?”

  He frowned. This wasn’t the time or the place to continue this. Besides, he’d apologized for that.

  “What, the guilt not sitting well?”

  He checked the barn. She might be on the money about the guard’s sympathies because C’emal was still completely out of sight. More importantly, still out of range of their voices. Why not? In deference to her father, they’d danced around the memory of that weekend for ten years. Maybe now was the time.

  She was staring at him, her smooth brows arching when he glanced down. God help him, her arms were crossed. Rurik had better produce the woman’s bra soon—before he went insane. Jack sucked in the cool morning air, hoping to purge the unwelcome, but not unexpected, rush of desire searing through him. “Like you said, you were sixteen. Someone had to get to the bottom of what happened. You wouldn’t talk to your father.”

  “So what was your excuse the second time?”

  Second time? “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Whatever.” She shrugged sharply and stepped past him, clearly intent on returning to the main house. Oh, no. She was not dropping a cryptic comment like that and walking off on him. He had enough to occupy his brain today. He slapped his shirt over his shoulder and snagged her arm, ignoring the warm silk that replaced the damp, clammy cloth.

  “Explain.”

  She stunned him by wrenching her arm from him. The low growl and whisper she ground out next were just as fierce. “Let’s get one thing clear right now, Captain. You don’t outrank me and you sure as hell don’t own me. So unless someone’s watching, keep your goddamned hands to yourself.”

  Instinct forced him to do the opposite. This time, he locked both his hands to her arms.

  “I’m warning you—”

  “Fine, warn me. But while you’re at it, do me the courtesy of explaining. I don’t know what you’re so fired up about, but I’d like to be filled in now. Before this mission ends and you sneak right back out of my life without so much as a goodbye.”

  Jesus! What was with him today? He did not need this woman knowing he’d hung around Ft. Bragg for an entire month following that blissful night before he’d found the strength to murder his empty hope and put his plans back in motion. Not when she had accepted an assignment that sent her to the opposite end of the globe the very next day—and didn’t even bother to inform him. Eventually, he’d come to accept that when Danielle Stanton said, Thanks for the sex. It was great, but it’s over and I’m outta here, she meant it. Especially when she stared at his dog tags as if she’d dearly love to use them to strangle him with.

  “Are you going to release me?”

  “No.” There wasn’t a blessed thing she could do about it either and she knew it. Not given the crowd up in that house.

  “Jack…this isn’t fair.”

  He had to laugh at that. Curtly. “Fair? Don’t talk to me about fair, lady.” He leaned low so he could grate the rest directly into her ear. Not because he was afraid C’emal would remember who he worked for any time soon, but because he still didn’t even want to admit it to himself. “You’re not the one who twisted your life into a pretzel only to find out afterwards that while you thought you had something great going, the other person had been driven by nothing more than a mix of good old-fashioned lust and surging adrenaline.”

  She flinched.

  He dropped his stare to her throat as he dragged his mouth away from her ear, maintaining his hold on her arms as he stared down at the pulse now thundering at the base of her neck.

  “Go to hell.”

  “Been there, done that, sweetheart. You ought to know, you’re wearing the T-shirt.”

  “Screw—”

  He anticipated that one, tightening his grip just enough to cut the rest off. “Done that, too, honey. Again, with you. At least I was honest about it the morning after.” The smoke in her gaze grew so dark and so thick, he should have choked on it.

  “Honest? Oh, that’s rich. Even for you. You’re the one who slept with me to further your precious career.”

  “I did what?” He stiffened as the accusation ripped through his gut like a fragmentation grenade. She glared at him as he struggled to stanch the shock. The fury.

  The absolute confusion.

  “Oh, kill the innocent routine. It didn’t work the first time and it won’t work now. I was there. Again. Outside your office this time. I heard it all.” She flicked her gaze at the barn. “I hope you’re keeping a better lookout this time because frankly, for a Delta operative, your stealth skills suck. Or maybe I’m just better at my job than you and my father think.”

  She had been there.

  And the shrapnel was still pinging around inside him.

  He released her arms, slowly, deliberately, knowing she wouldn’t stalk off. Not now. Not even when he turned away to stare out over the gradually warming hills to try and absorb the blow. The shock. The goddamned irony of it. Dani was wrong. She hadn’t heard it all that day. She couldn’t have. If she had, they might still be standing here, but it wouldn’t be like this.

  Eleven months. He’d wasted eleven long months. Hell, he’d changed his career. Yeah, he’d have switched it anyway. But she might have been at his side while he’d done it but for that overbearing, meddling man. He might finally understand why the general had treated his daughter the way he had her entire life, but he couldn’t forgive it. It had caused too much damage. To Dani and to them. Jack reached for the pack of Marlboros ins
ide his cargo pocket, tapping out a cigarette before he remembered he didn’t even smoke. He shoved the pack home and hooked his T-shirt around the back of his neck, gripping the damp ends hard to disguise the trembling in his fingers as he turned.

  “You misunderstood what you heard.”

  The fire cooled in her gaze. Shadows replaced it. Pain. Resignation. And a host of uglier emotions he’d give every last one of his concealed weapons to ease. But the most insidious was doubt. He watched it invade that soft gaze before she turned away from him to stare at the barn beyond. To hide. He knew then that not only had Dani heard her father tell him she never belonged in the Army and never would, but that she’d also heard the deliberate, resounding silence that followed—his.

  At the time, he hadn’t argued with the man. Too much had been at risk. So he’d said nothing. Talk about a minefield of a conversation. He’d just finished confessing his professional and personal intentions to the one man who had the power to destroy both. With the Army short of special operators, as his commanding general, all Ramrod-and-Ruthless would have had to do was not support his request to resign from Delta and then blackball his invitation to join Diplomatic Security. The man had enough buddies in the Army and the State Department to pull it off. Then where would he and Dani be? She wasn’t the only soldier her father had trapped beneath his iron thumb during the past thirty years. Nor was he. He was just the one willing to risk it all to get out.

  She was worth it. Not that she’d believe him if he told her. The acid of her father’s subtle but continuous undermining had finally eaten its way into her confidence. He’d watched Dani stand up to the man for years. It was one of the reasons she’d managed to steal his heart as a sixteen-year-old kid. But it wasn’t until this mission, until Lina’s death that she’d finally succumbed to it. And she had succumbed. It was in the way she’d bowed her head. The silent quake of her shoulders. In each hoarse rasp as the warming air around them ripped in and out of her lungs.

  “Dani?”

  She ignored him. He couldn’t blame her. He was too busy cursing himself. He was the one who’d screwed this up. Screwed them up. Adrenaline. What should she have said? I heard my lover agree with my father that I was incompetent?

  “Danielle.”

  She flinched. Again, he couldn’t blame her. He’d used her given name only once before in ten years—during a four-hour stretch in his bed and in his shower.

  “Please, honey. Just look at me.” She did. His fingers shook as he smoothed them across her bruised cheek, then her perfect one, erasing the tears from her flesh. More than anything, he wanted to ease them from her heart. “I didn’t agree with your father. I just didn’t…disagree.”

  He watched her suck in her breath, her pride. “That I know. What I don’t is why you even discussed me with him at all?”

  In the terse moments that followed, he came perilously close to giving her the truth. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Not with that fresh bruise on her face and the memory of her head slamming into that wall. Not with Youssef in the house up on that rise, nursing the hatred he’d seen burning in the bastard’s eyes, more determined than ever to dog Dani’s every step, waiting until she was alone, distracted, before he pounced. The hell with his mission, it was too critical to her life that she remain completely focused—lest she end up dead. All he could do was give her as much as he could and pray she still cared enough to stick around when this was over and listen to the rest.

  “Well?”

  He sucked in his own breath. “Your father got in earlier than I did that morning, Dani. He’d driven by my house. He recognized your car. You and me, standing—kissing—beside it.”

  Her lashes flew wide as she blanched.

  He knew the feeling. He’d felt it himself. His surprise had quickly deepened to shock, however—over the depth of her father’s. That any man, even him, had dared to sleep with the general’s little girl. The man’s initial, barely suppressed fury hadn’t even made sense. She’d been twenty-six at the time. Old enough to make her own decisions regarding where she spent the night and with whom. Jack shrugged. “At first, I was hoping to keep the peace. At least until I’d had a chance to talk to you.”

  She just stood there, those huge eyes filling her face. Those damned bruises on her cheek and jaw, the marks on her neck, the tears still dampening the ivory skin that was left. He brushed at them again, this time with his right thumb, trying to brush the salt away before it slid down to burn the split in her lip. Before he realized what he was doing, he’d leaned down and dried the rest with his mouth. He heard the catch in her throat, felt her soft, swift exhale bathe the stubble on his cheek and jaw. When she didn’t pull away, he took a chance and trailed his mouth to hers. He forced his lips to hover. To wait.

  Relief, hope and desire blistered through him all at once as he finally tasted her bittersweet sigh. The years fell away as he reached out and slowly slipped his tongue into the tentative warmth of her mouth. He was twenty-one again, responding to a thank-you kiss he’d known was innocent the moment he’d tasted it, well aware he had no business accepting it, much less in that café for all of West Point to see. For her father to see. It was a miracle the man hadn’t. Though he wouldn’t touch these lips with his for another ten years, he’d never forgotten that brief, mesmerizing caress.

  That kiss, like this one, was why he’d really gone Delta.

  Dani was so wrong. He hadn’t forged a relationship with her father through the years and then slept with her to further his career. He’d chosen his career track and his mentor to stay close to her. He slowly lifted his head, determined to tell her.

  “Good God, Sergeant—aren’t you done yet?”

  They stiffened together as the shout reverberated across the grass and around the side of the barn—and she finally spoke.

  “Rurik.”

  Jack nodded. As much as he wanted to force her down the hill to link up with Hamid, it was too late. He couldn’t see Rurik yet, but the man was bound to be headed straight for them. He tugged on his damp shirt as he rushed through the rest. “It’s time. We’ve got a drive ahead of us, into the mountains. I may not be back until dinner. Don’t worry about Youssef, he’s coming with us. If Rurik changes his mind, I’ll refuse to go.”

  She smoothed the collar of his T-shirt as he crammed the damp hem into the waist of his fatigues. “Is that wise?”

  He checked the sides of the barn, the path. Still no sign of Rurik. “Don’t worry, Rurik won’t call my bluff. He’s desperate for whatever I’m supposed to inspect. Think about it. I’ve written my own game plan twice now. Playing basketball with Youssef’s head this morning and last night, with you. He never should have let you go for three hundred dollars. Not even to a man who saved his life. It’s just not in his nature. Not when you’re worth two, three times that amount to these goons.”

  To him, she was priceless.

  Deep down, he’d always known that.

  He checked the barn again. Rurik was on this end of the gravel path now. Jack tipped her chin, captured her stare. “I asked for your clothes. Rurik says he doesn’t remember a watch but he promised to produce your shoes. Zorah should have them. Swear to me you’ll go for the transmitter this time if you need to.” Relief seared through him when she nodded. “Good. I left a leather belt under the bottom of the dresser along with my cell phone in case someone searches my duffel while I’m gone. Flip the belt over. There’s a small, razor-sharp knife sheathed in at the buckle.” God willing, she wouldn’t need that either.

  He shot off another furtive glance. Rurik had sauntered halfway down the length of the barn and he wasn’t even close to being done. Damn. He cupped his hand to Dani’s neck and dragged her body to his as he had eleven months earlier, standing beside the door to her car. But this time, he was forced to twist his torso to shield her from Rurik’s stare as he lowered his mouth. He put everything he’d ever felt for this woman into a brief, searing kiss. The way her pulse thundered beneath his thumb,
the way her eyes darkened as he lifted his head, gave him hope that someday she might feel the same.

  “Honey…we need to talk.”

  She licked the split at her lip as she nodded slowly, cautiously. “I agree.”

  Before he could kiss her again, Rurik’s rotting grin fouled his peripheral view. Jack forced himself to release Dani as he turned to face it. She’d agreed to talk. If everything went down as he hoped today, they might even get the chance.

  Chapter 6

  Jack was late.

  Dani finished scrubbing the last of the earthen bowls and stacked it to the right of the sink with the others as the reality of the hour locked in. Jack had promised to return by dinner. The Spartan dinner of leek stew and bread had ended an hour ago. The sun would be setting soon. So where was he?

  Was he safe? Had the arms deal soured? Or had Youssef decided to try and even the score from this morning? Yes, Jack was extremely good at what he did. But she’d also learned firsthand that Youssef turned downright rabid when thwarted. So had Lina. Once Jack completed his part of the arms deal, would Rurik bother to keep Youssef leashed? Dani purged the terror from her heart, but before she could concentrate on the next set of questions, the source of most of them appeared beside her.

  “We need water. Come.”

  Zorah ignored the thugs nursing their coffee at the island and passed an empty pail over as they left the kitchen. As with most of the chores they’d accomplished together, they headed down the path silently. While Dani had begun to suspect sometime during the dinner preparations that Zorah might be ready to open up to her, she didn’t push. She’d already plied the woman with questions the day before. Zorah would decide to answer or not.