Still, he’d ended up trapped in morning rituals enough times to know it could take a woman an hour to get herself ready for the world.
The glop they put on their faces. The stuff they used on their eyes. He’d once had the misfortune of seeing a woman contour her face.
Contour her face.
With all those brushes and all those little pans of goop, she could have contoured a map of the world.
And then there was the what-shall-I-wear bit. Yank a thousand things out of the closet. Toss them on the bed. Hold them up in front of the mirror. Try them on. Discard them.
“It’s just the way babes are,” Nick Romano had said one night when they were BS-ing, killing time, waiting for darkness to fall before they headed into an Iraqi village to deal with a problem.
“And a good thing too,” Aidan had added. “Because if you ever saw them without all the war paint, you’d just keep walkin’.”
Everybody had laughed, Dec included.
Except, it wasn’t true.
Annie had spent lots of nights at his place. In the morning, she’d never bothered with any of that stuff and she’d still been the most beautiful woman he’d ever known.
Even now, dirty, exhausted, wearing things that were torn and tattered and mud-stained—even now, she was lovely.
More than lovely.
Everything about her said she was strong and capable, that she could survive whatever life threw at her, and, God, he wanted to take her in his arms, tell her—tell her—
He came to an abrupt stop and thrust the reins at her.
“Water the horse,” he said brusquely. “You can do that, right?”
She gave him a look that questioned his IQ level.
“Of course. I can also unsaddle him.”
“Fine. Do that.”
“I can also tether him, assuming you have some sort of line in that pack of yours.”
He tried not to show his surprise. “In fact,” he said, digging into the pack and coming up with a long length of paracord, “I do. Tether him near the cave.”
“Glad you told me that or I might have set him up on the far side of the meadow.”
Dec’s gaze narrowed. “Dammit, woman—”
Shit. He was talking to her back. Okay. Just as well. He had a lot to do before nightfall, which he figured was maybe a couple of hours away.
Like trying to contact Recovery Base.
Like collecting wood and laying a fire.
Like figuring out what to do about their sleeping arrangements.
It was going to get cold. And he had one thermal blanket.
Only one.
He could be a gentleman, let her have the blanket while he froze his ass off—except freezing his ass off wasn’t the real issue.
The real issue was going to be lying next to her, either on top of that blanket or under it, and not touching her all through the long, dark night.
* * *
The sun was setting.
Brushstrokes of color shading from deepest vermillion to the palest pink hung in the sky.
Annie sat within the shelter of the cave, her arms wrapped around her knees, staring into the oncoming night.
Declan had tried to use his satphone, but it hadn’t worked. He’d spent a few minutes pressing buttons and muttering under his breath before he’d tossed the thing aside and turned his attention to lighting a fire with some kindling and what he’d told her was a ferro rod.
She’d had to ask twice before he’d told her what the little tool was called.
Obviously, he was not eager to talk to her.
So be it.
The fire felt good even though he’d built it small. She knew it was to avoid making it visible at a distance. After starting the fire, he’d said he was going to scout the area.
“I’ll be back,” he’d told her.
She’d almost said that Arnold Schwarzenegger had used the same line, but he was gone before she could work up the energy.
Annie sighed.
She was tired, dirty and hungry. But for the first time in months, she felt safe.
Which was, she knew, abjectly ridiculous.
They weren’t safe. They were in deep trouble. Ass-deep in shit, she’d once heard a guy in Declan’s unit say about some mission in the past, and right now she couldn’t think of a more accurate description of their situation.
Men who wanted to capture her and kill Declan were after them. The outlaws who’d kidnapped her? Her uncle? The horrid king he’d sold her to? The terrorist her kidnappers had sold her to?
Annie shuddered.
No. She wasn’t going to think about any of that. Not tonight. She had little doubt that they were all out there somewhere, searching for Declan and her.
Still, she felt… Well, maybe safe wasn’t quite the right word, but it was close enough. The rocky cliff at their backs offered some sense of security. So did the cave. And the fire. There was something wonderfully atavistic about a fire.
All those things were a comfort.
But nothing was as much a comfort as Declan.
All through the endless trip up the mountain, riding behind him with her arms around him, her body pressed to his… She’d been frightened, yes. Terrified. But the feel of him in her arms, the heat of him, the strength…
Annie closed her eyes.
How she’d missed him! She’d dreamed of him at night, thought of him during the day, always wondering what he felt about her, believed about her.
She had never dared imagine seeing him again.
And then the shock of finding he was beside her in that awful shack, hearing his voice, feeling his lips on hers and knowing it was not a dream, that he was real, that he had come to save her…
That he despised her.
A soft whisper of despair rose in her throat.
Of course, he despised her. She’d vanished from his life and when she’d reappeared, it was as someone else, a woman he’d never known before…
“Okay.”
She looked up. Declan stood in the mouth of the cave, water bottles slung over his shoulders, a bunch of reeds and leaves in his arms, and a knotted bandana in one hand.
“We’re good until morning.”
He dumped the reeds and leaves on the cave floor. The floor was relatively smooth, made that way by people and animals over the centuries.
“This stuff will make a decent bed.”
She nodded. “Fine.”
“I have a thermal blanket. You’ll be warm.”
“What about you?”
He shrugged. “No worries.” He sat down cross-legged opposite her. “Supper time.”
“More energy bars?”
“MREs. Meals Ready to Eat. If you thought those energy bars were good, you’re gonna love the MREs.”
His lips twitched. Was he going to smile? Best not to get her hopes up. Instead, she poked at the knotted bandana.
“What’s in there?”
“Open it and take a look.”
She unknotted the ends of the cotton square, looked at the contents, and then looked at Declan. “Wineberries,” she said with delight.
“Uh huh. They’re pretty dried out—they’ve been around for a while—but they’ll still make a good-tasting tea.”
“And… Are those cattail corms?”
Dec raised one eyebrow. “Correct on all counts.”
Annie smiled. “My mother was into wild plants. Edible wild plants. My father used to tease her about it. ‘I’m the barbarian,’ he’d say. ‘You’re the debutante. You’re supposed to know all about fine wine and caviar, and I’m supposed to be the expert on foraging for food.’”
Declan looked at her. Then he picked up a long stick and poked at the fire.
“A barbarian who just happened to be the ruler of a wealthy kingdom.”
His tone was neutral. The look in his eyes wasn’t. Annie met his gaze, flushed and looked away. Why on earth had she mentioned her parents?
“And mom. The girl fro
m—what was it? Smith? Vassar? Barnard?’
“Smith,” Annie said in a small voice. “That was where she met my father. He’d come to endow a building You know. He’d provided the backing for…”
Dec laughed.
“No need to explain endowing to me, Princess. My old man endowed a building too. A chicken coop he turned into a studio. Only problem was, we really needed that coop. Without it, the hens laid their eggs every which place and if the foxes didn’t find ’em, the snakes did.”
Annie raised her head. “Declan. I know you’re angry—”
“Angry? Me? Fuck, no. What’ve I got to be angry about?”
“Hurt, then. And—”
“Is that what you think? That you hurt me?”
Dec set aside the stick, grabbed his pack and began taking things out of it. A small metal pot. A plastic cup. Two packages that were the MREs.
A map.
“I know I hurt you,” she said. “But you have to understand that I—”
“You didn’t. Hurt me, that is. And I don’t have to understand a thing, Your Highness.”
He spread the map on his crossed legs. Firelight played over his face, making him look tough and mysterious.
Annie swallowed hard.
He didn’t look tough and mysterious; he was tough and mysterious. Tough in the best possible way, with that strong, hard body and all those lean muscles; mysterious because she had no idea what he was thinking—except to be pretty sure that if it was about her, it was nothing good.
“Declan?”
“Hmm?”
What are you thinking? Is it about me? Do you hate me? I couldn’t stand it if you hated me.
“Do you know where we are?”
He looked at her, then at the map. “Yes. We’re on a mountain.”
“I mean,” she said carefully, “do you know where we are. In Syria? Tharsalonia? Qaram?”
“No.”
“No what? No, we’re not in any of those places?”
“No, I don’t know where we are. I have an idea, but not enough data to be sure.”
She nodded. She remembered how careful he’d been about data when he’d hacked into a bunch of Top Secret files to help Chay Olivieri find the man who’d been stalking Bianca, who was now Chay’s wife.
Precise. Goal-oriented. Committed to facts.
Was that part of the reason she’d never told him the truth about herself? Because the facts that had brought her into his life were too ugly to share?
She cleared her throat. “I—I’m sorry I got you into this mess.”
“You didn’t get me into anything. My unit was assigned to handle the situation.”
The situation. Surely, she was more than that to him.
“Declan?”
He looked up again, a scowl on his face. “What now?”
“I know you must have questions.”
“The only questions I have are the ones that deal with getting us out of here.”
“I meant—I meant that you must also have questions about—about me.”
“Why would I have questions about you? I know all I need to know. You’re some kind of hot prize with a lot of guys competing to get past me so they can win you.”
She flinched.
Okay. He’d been a little rough, but he was in no mood to be kind. Yes, he’d wanted to hear her story, but making the fire, then foraging for whatever food he could find had given him time to think.
He didn’t need to hear her story. All he needed was to contact Recovery Base, arrange for a pickup and make it clear that for whatever reason, the princess didn’t want to be returned to Qaram or sent to Tharsalonia.
She was a twenty-first century Scheherazade and he was living proof that a man could fall for the tales she told and, in the process, lose his grasp of reality.
He’d never thought about being with one woman to the exclusion of all others until she’d come along, and look what that ridiculous idea had done for him. Weeks of missing her, then trying to get over her, all of it leading to that disaster with the blonde a couple of nights ago, hell, to the disasters before that.
He was in the prime of life and he couldn’t get fucking laid because Her Highness the Princess Anoushka had taken up residence in his head?
It was like the punch line to a bad joke.
And what if the story she told him this time was true? Forget that. What if it sounded true? What if he believed that her uncle had sold her as if she were a piece of property?
Dec felt a stab of rage in his gut, followed by an immediate sense of calm.
Simple.
He’d have to kill her uncle. Her uncle, and the would-be bridegroom who she said had bought her. Eliminating them would move to the top of his To Do list and he’d need to deal with the planning and the doing, and what that would mean was that he’d lose focus.
He could not permit himself to lose focus.
Getting her to safety was the priority. He needed to be able to think clearly, without emotion, for that to happen. She didn’t want to go back to Qaram? Her business, not his.
His business was contacting Recovery Base, setting up a new extraction location and getting to it. As for her tale of woe about Qaram—no problem. He’d tell his communications liaison that the lady wanted to be taken, well, wherever she wanted to be taken. Paris. London. New York. Hell, Disneyland.
So, no. He didn’t need to hear her story. He didn’t want to hear her story. He wanted to figure out where the fuck they were and then get through to base.
He wanted this to be over.
Annie—the princess—got to her feet.
“If you need to pee,” Dec said, without lifting his gaze from the map, “don’t go very far. Right outside the cave is best.”
“Thank you for that heartwarming advice.”
Okay. That made him look up. What he saw wasn’t good. Her eyes were hot, her mouth was a tight line. He wasn’t particularly good at reading women, this one especially, but even he could tell that the lady wasn’t happy.
“Just trying to be helpful, Your Majesty. You want to risk walking into a wolf or a badger, be my guest.”
“Do not call me that!”
“Sorry. I guess I’m not up on court protocol. Your Highness. How’s that?”
“Stop it!”
“Stop what?”
“Stop acting as if we’re strangers.”
A muscle knotted in his jaw. “But that’s what we are. Strangers.”
“We aren’t! You can’t pretend we were never—we were never—”
“We were never what? I mean, how would you define our relationship? I thought we were Dec and Annie. Wrong. Turns out we were the fall guy and the princess.”
“You were never that. And I wasn’t a princess. I hate those titles. I always did. I never liked hearing people use them. And with you, especially—”
“With me, especially, you didn’t use a title. I get that. It was part of the act. No title. No demand that I bow in your presence or walk a couple of steps behind you. It was too much fun playing at being a sweet little innocent who was all alone in the world.”
“I wasn’t playing,” Annie said fiercely. “How can you even think such a thing? You know me.”
“I sure as hell know you now. So do us both a favor and keep quiet. I have to do some thinking. You have to keep your strength up.” He jerked his chin at the bandana and the MREs. “No filet mignon or lobster on the menu. Not up to your regal standards, but it’s the best I can do.”
Annie felt the sting of angry tears in the backs of her eyes. “Do you hate me so much?”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the simple truth is that I don’t feel anything for you one way or the—”
A cattail corm whizzed by his head. Dec looked up. Annie glared at him, breathing rapid, eyes flashing.
His vision blurred.
He wanted to grab her and shake her.
Or grab her and haul her down on top of him, kiss her until she sob
bed with wanting him, until her hands were all over him…
Shit.
He dragged his gaze back to the map.
A couple of minutes went by. Then she spoke in a shaky voice. “The sooner this is over, the better.”
Apparently, it was her exit line because she spun on her heel and marched deeper into the cave.
Dec folded the map and stared at the fire until all he could see were flaming points of light.
She wanted to sulk? Let her. Why would he give a damn?
She’d gotten one thing right. The sooner this was over, the better.
He put the map away, filled the small pot with water and set it over the fire. Then he peeled and sliced up some of the cattail corms. Those, some wineberry tea and the MREs would do for dinner. Not a gourmet meal, but it would be filling and, according to Uncle Sam, it would also be nutritious.
One small problem.
He had no appetite
And Annie was still back there in the darkness of the cave. So what? She could do what she wanted.
The water was boiling. Dec took it off the fire, poured some into the plastic cup and dumped in a handful of wineberries. The smell was pleasant and the tea might have some minor medicinal benefit. Annie had probably known that. She said she’d learned about wild edibles from her mother.
She’d smiled when she talked about her parents, but she never smiled when she mentioned her uncle Cyrus. If anything, her expression always turned wary.
More than wary.
Frightened.
Okay. Maybe the uncle was a shit. Yeah, but if he was, it had nothing to do with him.
The berries had been steeping for a couple of minutes. Long enough.
Dec blew on the steaming liquid and took a careful sip. Man, it was hot. Yeah, well, that was good. He wanted something warm in his belly. It was black as ink outside and the temperature was taking a nosedive. Hot food would help, as would the fire, though he’d kept it small rather than run the risk of it being visible.
And just how long was the princess going to do the sulking routine?
She had to be getting cold without the heat from the fire to chase the chill of the mountain night. She had to know that she needed food. Whatever else she was, she wasn’t stupid. She surely realized that their survival depended as much on their physical well-being as on his ability to protect her.
Renegade: Special Tactical Units Devision (STUD) Book 3 Page 8