by Ronie Kendig
“Sorry. Didn’t tell anyone. Going to use the back rooms. You got motion detectors out there, right?”
Rocket nodded.
“Shoot to kill anyone else who shows up.” Dane started for the back then stopped. “How’d you get off base?”
Rocket shrugged with a cheeky grin that Aspen didn’t quite understand. “After that little diversion, word came down it was a false alarm.”
“Huh. Well, glad you’re here. She needs to rest and eat.”
“Scrip here can get something cooked up.” Rocket nodded to his partner.
“No,” Aspen said, her objection much weaker than she’d intended, “it’s okay.”
“Bring her whatever you can.” Dane strode toward the back with her in tow.
She peered up at him. Why had he countered her?
“You need the nourishment to rest well.”
Only as he turned did she realize they were still holding hands. He hadn’t let go. He hadn’t surrendered his position of control. And he was still asking her to trust him. Did he realize that?
In the back he led them into the rear room. A bunk bed, a table, and chairs hunkered in one corner against a peeling and cracked wall. A makeshift shower stood in the other with a curtain pinned to the walls that stood at right angles.
“Here.” Dane guided her onto the lower bunk and squatted in front of her, once again cupping her face. “Rest. I’ll be here. So will Talon.”
“Talon…he needs water.”
“I’ll see to it. Just rest.” With that, he slipped out and returned in what felt like seconds later with a bowl of water. He set it in front of Talon, who splashed it around as he inhaled the liquid.
Dane smoothed a hand along her cheek again. “Aspen, rest.”
Mutely, she obeyed. Curled on the gray mattress with the thin sheet wrapped around her shoulders, Aspen stared at the ground. At nothing in particular. Just something for her gaze to rest on. The replay of those terrifying seconds in the alley replayed over and over. She shuddered, her mind taking every element down to the microsecond. Talon had never hit or alerted to the danger. Strange.
She must’ve drifted off to sleep because when her eyes opened next, Dane was gone. Aspen drew herself off the mattress and sat propped against the wall, her knees pulled against her chest. She tugged the sheet around her. Not that she was cold. She wasn’t. Couldn’t be—not in one-hundred-plus-degree weather. But there a chill coiled around her bones. From the stress. The anxiety. The man calling Talon by name.
“You okay?”
She turned, feeling numb and out of touch with reality. Dane eased into a chair in front of a computer, the side door ajar. She pushed the curls from her face and drew in a long breath, her mind hung up on the man in the alley. “I think I knew him.”
Dane sat back, expectation hovering in his handsome features. “Yeah?”
She shook her head and shrugged at the same time. “I don’t know. It’s ludicrous to think someone I might know or have met is here in Djibouti, the armpit of the world.”
“But…”
“There was just…something.” She sighed. “I can’t explain it.” As she extended her legs so they draped over the edge of the mattress, Talon pushed himself upright and cast those soulful brown orbs her way. His gaze darted to the mattress then to her as if begging for permission. Like he needed to. “Hup,” she said and held her palm out over the mattress.
He leapt up and slumped against her side. She wrapped her arms around him, finding familiar strength and warmth in his pure devotion and loyalty.
“So, he felt familiar? Or something?”
“Yeah.” Aspen dug her fingers into Talon’s fur and bent to kiss his head. “Even Talon never made strange with him.”
“Is that unusual?”
“Think about when you first met him.”
Dane nodded. “Noted.”
“A total stranger, and Talon doesn’t warn the guy off with a throaty growl?”
“Do you think it could’ve been Austin?”
“No. He didn’t look anything like my brother.”
“You’re sure?”
She laughed. “Trust me, I know my brother.”
“Disguised, maybe?”
Searching her memory banks, she scoured the mental notes of the man. “No,” she said slowly. “He didn’t look anything like my brother. Black hair—”
“Could be dye.”
“Brown eyes—Austin had blue like mine.”
“Contacts.”
Aspen wrinkled her nose. “Wrong nose. Austin’s was aquiline. This guy’s nose was hooked.”
“Broken nose?”
“No, it was wide and hooked—what is this? I told you I didn’t know this guy.”
“I know, but sometimes it’s those things that feel familiar, that we can’t quite finger, that are the biggest connectors. Can you think of anything else that seemed similar or familiar?”
She sought more differences, but it stopped there. “No.” And thank goodness. She couldn’t grapple with the thought that the man could have been Austin and now he was shot and killed, right in front of her eyes. A shudder wiggled through her spine.
Dane stood and came to the bed. He perched on the edge next to her, making her stomach squirm. “But you said he felt familiar.”
She nodded as she traced his profile and frowned when his jaw muscle popped. “What are you thinking?”
His steel eyes rammed into hers, sending a silent, intense signal of warning. “I have to go back to the alley.”
“No!” She shoved off the wall and scooted to the edge of the bunk bed. “Are you crazy? Someone was out there sniping at us, and you just want to walk back into the middle of that?”
“Not want, have to.” He remained undeterred. “Two things need to be ascertained—whether the man is dead and who he is. Why he knew what he knew.”
“Maybe he knew Santos. There are a thousand explanations. But you don’t have to go.” Her heart pounded at the thought of him out there, exposed and getting shot at. “Please.”
He hesitated, watching her. A war seemed to erupt within him, dancing in his blue eyes. It was something deep, something…dark. “I have to do this.”
Somehow Aspen knew that this moment was a new one for Dane. In all the times they’d been working on finding Austin, he had rarely taken the time to explain what he was doing or justify it.
He was opening up to her. Something told her to give him the room to do it. To give him another reason to trust her. She almost smiled as that word—trust—sneaked into their relationship again. “Okay.”
Dane’s eyebrows danced for a second. “That was easy.”
She laughed. “I’m never easy.”
“I knew there’d be a catch.”
“Just help me understand what is going on in that mind of yours. You never smile.”
“I just did.”
“No, that wasn’t a smile. It’s a smirk. Now, what’s the look that’s haunting you?”
He drew back, surprise etched into his face.
Spurred by that reaction, she knew she’d somehow hit on something. Maybe even something close to home, close to his heart. “Please.”
“Okay.”
Her heart rapid-fired.
“When I get back.”
Twenty-Six
Special Operations Safe House, Djibouti
Weren’t we supposed to find something here?” Candyman glanced around, eyes shielded by his sunglasses and the bill of the baseball cap he wore low over his brow. The sun glinted off his thick, sandy blond beard. “Like a body?”
“Should’ve brought the dog.” Watters walked to the end of the alley where the building abutted another.
“That dog don’t go nowhere without his girl,” Candyman countered.
“And I don’t like going nowhere without my girl.”
“What girl?” Watterboy turned from his surveying and scowled at his buddy.
“Timbrel.”
�
�Dude, you’ve got a long, hard road if you think she’s going to be your girl.”
“I got time. And hard roads—they’re the best kind.”
“You’re begging for trouble.”
“Nah, see, it’s like this—the biggest trouble yields the best reward.”
“That’s some messed-up thinking.” Watterboy patted his shoulder, a big grin ripping through his dark beard.
Ignoring their banter and honing his skills, Cardinal stood at the intersecting paths, examining, studying, thinking. They were both right—Talon would’ve been an asset in tracking down the man. Or the body. Considering the disruption of the molding cardboard, the stench wafting up from a freshly exposed patch of wet earth—no doubt caused by the overturned cardboard—whoever went down, whoever terrified Aspen when he got shot, that person was still alive.
“Thinking we should bug out. Keep our heads and body parts where they belong.”
Cardinal looked at Candyman. “What?”
“He doesn’t want to get shot and lose his chance to win the woman whose head is as thick and stubborn as his.” Watterboy started out of the alley.
Candyman grinned wide through that scraggly beard. “See? I knew you understood.”
“Give me a minute.” Cardinal stalked down the alley, searching the dirt, the cardboard. A rat scurried from one box to another, surprisingly nimble for its fat body. But it wasn’t the rodent or the smell that drew him in. It was the trail of blood. Smeared up and over the seven-foot cement block wall that barred the exit.
Who are you?
Cardinal breathed out in frustration. He knew the answer. Didn’t want to admit he did, but the gnawing in his gut told him he couldn’t ignore this any longer.
Austin. Somehow and for some reason, the only man Cardinal had ever brought under his wing to train and mentor had turned on him.
Which meant when Austin cornered Aspen—the man knew she was his sister.
Yet he didn’t tell her.
It was rare to have an agent go rogue and in such a super-expensive way like this. He couldn’t be Austin. Not with the cost of plastic surgeons and experts it would take to create an entirely new identity. It meant Austin wasn’t working alone—he had a handler.
A new handler.
Who was Cardinal’s competition? Who had ripped his agent right out of his fingers?
You’re really reaching with this one, Cardinal. This was all speculation. Trying to put the pieces together that were dangling in front of his nose. Options…options. What other options were there?
Austin wanted out.
No. He had thrived and excelled. Said he loved getting to take care of things that were otherwise undoable due to laws and such. Cardinal tried to remind him they weren’t necessarily breaking laws. Just bending them. Really far.
Options…Austin…found…something. Or someone.
Okay, that made some sense. One of Austin’s last communiqués mentioned meeting someone. Cardinal had taken it to mean a contact.
What if it was another agent? What if someone turned him, made him a double agent?
Cardinal ran a hand along the back of his neck. That thought had a ring of truth to it. Somehow.
“Hey, Spook.”
Cardinal dragged his attention back to the two soldiers.
“We should get moving. Dark’s coming.” Watterboy thumbed over his shoulder. “And we have an audience.”
Cardinal’s gaze shifted to the narrow space between the two buildings. A small crowd had assembled at the corner of the northernmost building. He nodded and started back. The ride was made in relative quiet, affording him the time to sort out his thoughts. Anything was plausible at this point. Until they had some more facts…
“What’re you thinking?”
Cardinal met the ironclad gaze of Watters just as Candyman slowed and turned into the alley behind the safe house. “Too much.”
“You do remember we’re on your side, right?”
“This isn’t ‘my’ side—it’s a mission.” He flung open the door, agitated with the questions, the ones that had no answers, just more mystery. Inside, Rocket and Scrip pushed from their seats. Both lobbed questions at him.
Cardinal gritted his teeth and kept walking. Down the hall.
Growling announced Talon’s presence seconds before the yellow Lab and Aspen stepped into view at the other end. The sight of her, those blond curls framing that beautiful face, slowed him. I’m failing her. The sidewinder of a thought spiraled through his chest and rammed into his heart.
Cardinal lowered his head and banked right. Flung back the door to the stairs. Climbed them three at a time, moving quicker with each advance until he jogged toward the door. Pushed through it. Agitation kept him moving, his mind warring that he had to corral his buzzing nerves.
Sticky, warm air coiled its arms around him. He paced. His nerves vibrated. Nothing was going right. Everything was wrong. The mission. Austin. Burnett. Payne. Aspen—especially Aspen. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This—the way things had changed between them—was the reason he had Cardinal rules. Cardinal Rule #1—Never work women. He had others—never stay somewhere longer than you have to, always have an exit strategy, never engage the heart.
The door groaned and creaked behind him.
“Hey, you okay?” Aspen’s sultry voice was as warm as the air. Her shoes crunched over the rooftop as she came closer, trailed by the soft padding of Talon’s paws.
Just give her the facts. Get the game plan established. Move on it. That should be enough to keep his mind active and his heart inactive.
He pivoted and dropped against the half wall that served as a barrier against the two-story fall. Arms folded should send the message he wanted: he was closed to her. Had to be. “No body.”
Aspen frowned. “I guess that’s good.”
“Good? No, it’s not good. It means someone wants that person dead. And if that person tries to contact you again, it puts your life in jeopardy.”
“our lives.”
He shoved off the wall and turned around. Had he really done that? Funneled down the danger to include only her? Is that where his mind had gone? Not good. Anger tingled through his chest, down into his arms. To avoid fisting his hands, he gripped the ledge. Stared out over the darkening sky.
A devastating realization spread through him. Aspen. He was worried about her. Austin he could sort out. The mission he could handle. Aspen…if anything happened to her…
And the angel flew.
No! He snapped his eyes closed against the image, against the face becoming Aspen’s. Oh merciful God! Help me. I can’t go there….I can’t fall for her.
“Dane?” Aspen came to his side and touched his oblique. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he ground out. His mind reared, ordering him to pull away from her.
But he couldn’t. Didn’t want to. Her warm touch soothed the beast within. Made the sun shine in a storm-ridden life. Just as someone else in his life once had. “My mother.”
Aspen gave him a quizzical look.
Worms. A can of worms. But…“She died when I was fifteen.” He slumped against the wall and forced himself to straighten. Look at her. “There are very few amazing women in this world. When she died, the world was one less a beautiful, amazing woman.” Torment smothered him. Don’t do this. Don’t go there. Not with Aspen. “I always wondered if I could’ve saved her, stopped her death.” He looked at her. Knowing he was defeated having opened that cauldron of history. “I don’t want to have that regret with you, Aspen.”
No sweeter words could’ve moved her heart more. And yet anchored her life more firmly in his hands. He cared about her. A lot. That’s what all this “don’t trust me” stuff was about.
“Dane, you’re not God.”
The fight seemed to have drained out of him. “Trust me, I’m completely aware of that.”
“But you’re trying to be Him, trying to control the outcome.” Emboldened by his openness, she
reached out to brush away the hair from his face.
He caught her hand and held it in midair. “Please, Aspen.” He shook his head. “I’m not…I can’t do this.” He lowered his gaze then tugged her hand to his face and kissed her palm.
Butterflies swarmed her stomach. “Then you shouldn’t do things like that.” She smiled as she inched closer to him. “Tell me about your mom.”
The shift in his demeanor was swift and large. “No.”
“Why do you think you could’ve saved her, stopped her death?”
“She was murdered.” His breathing grew heavier, his eyes clouded. “Murdered right in front of me.”
“Oh Dane, I’m so sorry.” Less than a foot remained between them, but the romance dimmed beneath his words.
“I just stood there, watching, like I was disembodied.” His words whispered his agony. “But I wasn’t. I was there. Right there.” His brows rippled. “Why didn’t I stop him?”
“You were only fifteen.”
“But she was my life, the only good thing besides my sister.”
Waves of grief and awe crashed through Aspen—first that he’d paralleled what he felt for her with what he felt for his mother, murdered. And he’d just told her he had a sister, too. “Is your sister still alive?”
Dane blinked. His grief washed away. “What?”
Oh no. She saw it. The vulnerable side of him blinked out, like darkness when a light is turned off, and in its place returned the formidable fortress that was Dane Markoski. Aspen cupped his face. The move surprised them both.
“Dane, don’t shut me out.” She leaned closer, just inches from him. “Please—I see what you feel for me. It’s a reflection of my feelings for you. It’s not wrong or bad.”
“No, but I am.” He stood, and she saw the move for what it was—his attempt to place distance between them.
“You’re what? Bad?”
Though he stood at least a foot taller than her, he sagged beneath whatever weighted him. “That’s an oversimplification. I’m just…”
“What?”
He cast a sidelong glance in her direction, the moon and city lights, sparse though they were, reflecting off his face and eyes. “This is upsetting you.” He turned and stalked the three feet to the other ledge. More distance.