She swore she saw him flinch before he answered, “No way.”
“Then I’ll find my own way there.”
And just like that, the closeness they’d shared disappeared. Good. Don’t get attached, Liv. “Ama said it’s a camp for people who need a specific kind of help.”
Zane raised his brows but didn’t say anything, gave nothing to indicate if he would agree to go there or not.
“It’s on the way to Freetown,” she continued.
“Yeah, on the way,” he said finally. And she could tell he knew what she was thinking.
But Zane wasn’t on a suicide mission either. “You’ve got coordinates?”
“I’ve got better—a phone number.”
“Give it to me.”
She found the paper inside the black medical bag Ama had given her. “It’s run by Doc J.”
He grabbed the phone from his bag. “I’ll call Dylan about him. See what he knows.”
With that, he walked out of the house, leaving her alone, wondering why he was suddenly taking her seriously. Was it a trick, or had she worn him down?
She’d picked the fight, started the battle and had a real chance of winning the war. Why did she feel so disappointed?
———
The rain hadn’t abated at all. Zane remained close to the house so he wouldn’t get soaked again. Reception was better than he’d expected but still spotty enough that he used the satphone to dial his brother.
“I need you to check on someone for me,” he said without further introduction when Dylan answered with a muffled curse. He didn’t wait for his brother to say Go ahead before he gave him Doc J’s name, location and satphone number. “I’m hoping you know him—or of him.”
“Hold on,” Dylan said, sounding like Cael, and Zane heard typing in the background, Riley’s murmured voice and then he heard Dylan speaking with someone.
Liv remained inside—probably listening through the window.
She’d spoken so calmly. Like she’d thought all of this out. Like, when he was holding her this afternoon, she hadn’t been relaxing, but planning.
What the hell was he doing, in this country, risking his damned life to save a woman who didn’t want to be rescued?
Then again, what had he done for years after his rescue, but push everyone who tried to love him away? In many ways, he still did by not having anything close to a serious relationship—or any friendships. It was his brothers, and his team when he was on a mission, or else he was alone. By choice or because of his past, he still wasn’t sure. Who knew who he’d be if he’d remained in Africa, if his biological parents hadn’t been killed … if everything had stayed perfect.
He started, because it was the first time he’d thought about his early years in the missions as perfect.
“Okay, Doc J is Jason Berent—he’s ex-Army. Ranger, not Delta, but he was in when I was. He’s been running the clinic for the past five years. He was a good guy—my sources say that hasn’t changed. He could be a good stopping place on the way to Freetown,” Dylan confirmed, breaking into Zane’s walk in the past and cementing his next move.
“The doc doesn’t necessarily want it to be a stopping place.”
There was a deadly silence on the other end. Because Dylan tended to give Zane a lot of rope to hang himself most of the time, he’d forgotten how badassed his brother really was. There was a reason people feared and respected him.
Zane respected him, but the fear had never been there.
“Give me your damned location, Zane,” Dylan finally growled in his ear, and Zane felt the tension mount between them.
Dylan never demanded things from him. Caleb did, but Dylan … “No. I’ll get her to the clinic and then—”
“And then what? She’s leading you around by the balls, letting you risk your life.”
She didn’t appear to be in shock, but she had to be severely traumatized. And as badly as he didn’t want anything to do with a camp for missionaries, he couldn’t abandon Liv now.
He would stay with her, take her where she needed to go; he knew she would come to her senses at some point. She had to.
“That’s just it, man. She wants me to leave her so I stop risking my life, okay? She’s scared. She thinks she’s doing the right thing by staying on the run.” He didn’t bother to add that he knew what that was like, because Dylan was a smart man, even when he was being an asshole. “I’m guessing Cael knows.”
“I had to tell him.”
“Did you run any of that intel Olivia gave me, about the doctors?”
“I did. I checked out the names with some of my sources and they’re already known in some circles as being willing to do anything for a price, medically. Now I have to figure out what to do with what I know, and you need to get Olivia out.”
“She’ll come around, Dylan. Let me take her where she wants to go. This is a journey back for her—I can’t rush it. I understand that.”
And with those words, the tension broke. “Just be careful, Zane. Please, just be fucking careful with this one.”
Zane wanted to tell his brother it was way too late for that, but he didn’t.
Rowan Moller was twenty-eight, looked much younger, even though her eyes held a deep knowledge of someone much older. Maybe she could be helped and maybe she couldn’t, but none of that was up to him.
Jason had been thinking on it while nursing a beer for the better part of an hour. Dinner was long ready, but he wanted her to wake on her own. The dark circles, the more than slight panic in her eyes could be sleep dep … or it could be something worse.
And she was looking to him for salvation. They all were looking for that from Doc J.
He’d heard himself called Doc J for so long that he’d stopped thinking of himself as anything but, stopped thinking of himself as a red-blooded, forty-six-year-old American man with needs and wants and desires.
He was far from a saint, certainly never thought of himself as a religious man and yet everyone seemed to buy it. He liked helping the people here, liked helping the men he’d recruited and trained for mercenary work even more. Yes, he brought help and consolation to the weary and chronically unprotected, and most of the people who passed through the camp never realized what it actually was.
The medical staff never did—he’d made sure to keep them separate. Most of them were savvy enough to know that the men who passed through weren’t simply men passing through.
In truth, he was looking for a permanent medical staffer and had been unable to find the right candidate. The men got restless, the women scared, and in all truth, sometimes this place was too damned good at healing people.
Doc wanted that for everyone, sure, but he also needed to find someone who loved this place as much as he’d come to.
Rowan Moller’s tough as shit, calm under pressure … and she’s got some pretty high walls no one here’s been able to scale. Not easily intimidated, but she’s skittish at the idea of making connections, her CO, and Doc J’s friend, had written.
He had people counting on him left and right, money piling up in an overseas account he’d no doubt never touch, and he knew he’d never be done here, despite the ten-year plan he’d promised himself.
Then again, what did he have to go back to?
Concentrate, Doc.
There was too much going on at once—and that was always a harbinger of bad things. First, the family he’d hidden away, then Rowan’s arrival. Coupled with the phone call from a man named Zane and his imminent arrival—well, things were going to hell in a handbasket soon enough.
“Hey.” Tristan settled next to him, bottle of water in his hand. “New medic?”
“Yes.” He stretched his hands. The arthritis was better here in the dry heat, but his hands would never function the way they had when he was twenty-five. Combat—different kinds—harsh environments, life experience, they all showed in those tanned hands. A map of his life until now, with no hints of what was to come.
“I hope
you don’t expect me to, like, help her.”
“God forbid,” he said wryly.
It was the first time Tristan gave anything close to the hint of a smile in weeks. Sometimes the stretches were longer. When the younger man had first arrived, Doc J swore it took six months. Now Tristan was his right-hand man, had been for the past three years. He nodded in the direction of where Rowan slept. “She’s bad off?”
“No worse than you.” Doc J gave him a sideways glance and Tristan snorted.
“Then she’s screwed,” Tristan stated. “Is she having flashbacks?”
“She doesn’t have PTSD.”
Tristan looked at him quizzically. “Then why the hell wouldn’t she just go home? What’s her deal?”
It was the first time Tristan had asked about any of them. And so Doc J answered. “She lost her husband in the towers. Enlisted soon after.” His voice was brusque, and he heard Tristan muttering something about feeling like an asshole now.
And still, they both knew that Rowan had a less than five percent chance of making it here. Very few lasted longer than a month. Longer than that, they tended to stick around, if not here, then at another mission or wherever they were needed.
Jason ran into them, on radio or infrequent trips to town. Most often, it was when they’d motor in, and then they’d sit around and drink warm beer and talk about the good old times they’d had together, which by definition were neither very good nor all that long ago.
But none of them would ever cop to it.
He’d seen it all between the Army and here—worst of the worst, best of the best and most of what was in between.
“Think she’ll make it?” Tristan asked him, his demeanor calm and unassuming, but Doc knew better. Tristan had his back, was ready to strike at a moment’s notice if needed.
The man was Irish-Cuban; he had fled into the Army and then fled from it. Then he’d come here and he’d stopped running, but Doc J was damned concerned, because the boy had never really settled.
What was here for him, beyond backbreaking labor and very few means of thanks? Would he ever be ready to take over this place alone? Would he want to? He was never fully unpacked, like he could leave at any second without so much as a good-bye.
Speaking of leaving … “You’ve got a pickup to make. Early morning.” Doc J rattled off the coordinates and saw Tristan’s small nod. Paper was in short supply here and the men got used to memorizing what they needed to know.
“How many?”
“Two. A female doctor, and an active-duty.”
“Great,” Tristan muttered. “Better not be a fucking know-it-all.”
“I’m sure you’ll set him straight.” Doc J paused. “The doctor’s a friend of Ama’s.”
“The same friend who got her killed?”
“You might not want to mention that when you meet Olivia.”
Tristan shrugged, like he couldn’t commit to that either way, and ambled off without another word.
Doc J stared up at the stormy sky, swore he could hear the voice from long ago, telling him, When your prayer is answered, you take it. It’s that simple.
Nothing was that simple, but it had been a start.
Caleb sat quietly in the next room scribbling something furiously—Vivi could hear the scratch of pencil to paper, and she still felt her cheeks flush, the way they did when her mind wandered back to their embrace.
When she’d torn herself away from the comfort of his arms, she’d felt more naked in the sweats than she had in her workout clothing, which was ridiculous. Maybe it was the way Caleb had looked at her when she’d pulled away from him. It was strange, but her first impression would’ve been … lust.
But men like him didn’t fall for women like her. This was simply a case of babysit the geek, play nice and make her do what you want. She’d been there her entire life, had fought the stereotype and then had simply given up.
Still, when she’d glanced at Caleb again and his expression hadn’t changed—but his eyes, oh his eyes, dark and fierce and locking her in their scope—it had made her shiver.
Well, at least now she knew the look had most definitely been pity. She’d been a fool to beg him to kiss her.
At least he’d given her space for several hours. Now it was well into the early morning hours, and even though Vivi was tired, there was no way she could sleep. No, the stress kept her moving forward as her eyes blurred and her fingers ached, but she was no closer to finishing the program than she’d been hours before.
What did you do, Dad? Why couldn’t you have let me in?
Lawrence Clare had been a certified genius, so much so that he seemed to live in another world—and often, he did. Most of the time he forgot he had a family, which she knew was the reason her mom left them. Vivi stayed behind because, even at twelve years old, she knew her father needed help.
There was no way he could have survived on his own. Beyond that, the relief in her mother’s eyes when Vivi insisted on staying was apparent.
Even as a child, Vivi had been almost as good at reading people as she later was at interpreting code. Besides, Vivi had a lot of her father’s qualities, and she figured her mother wouldn’t want to put up with two of them cut from the same cloth.
Like her father, Vivi could be forgetful, distracted, and so she wasn’t allowed to ride her bike or walk alone, because she’d do things like wander into the street. She’d finally learned to harness all of that distraction though, something her father had never really been able to do.
He’d do things like put water on for tea, then forget about the pot and nearly burn the house down. Most of the time, he forgot to eat—or to buy food.
She understood that her gift for numbers came from him, and he’d always told her to use her gift for the common good, not to be ashamed of her intelligence.
Not to hide behind it.
She wasn’t ashamed, but found it was a problem for making friends. Although not on the same plane as her father, she’d still found herself without common ground with the kids around her. She would often zone out, planning mathematical possibilities in her mind. Would rather spend time with her computer on Saturday nights than anyone else.
Contrary to popular belief, a laptop did keep you warm at night.
“Dad, you have to help me out here,” she muttered and, not surprisingly, she got no answer in response.
She attempted to get the feeling back into her hands, rubbing them together roughly, attempting clumsily to massage one with the other.
That’s when she saw Caleb from the corner of her eye, hadn’t heard him move from one room to the other, wondered if that stealth came naturally or if it had taken practice.
He didn’t say anything, just sat next to her and took one of her hands in his and began to work it between his own. He stared at her hand intently, doing something with trigger points, something she’d attempted to read and forgotten about in lieu of work.
“Better?” he asked after a few minutes.
She flexed her hand, although truth be told she’d been reluctant to pull it away from his. “Better.”
He went to work on her other one, while she rubbed her eyes with her free hand.
“You’ve been working non-stop.”
“I figured you would like that.”
He laughed—a short one, but it helped. “The faster you work, the faster we can make headway, yes. But sometimes walking away for a little while helps you solve the problem. It’s always worked for me when I’ve been too close to something.”
The thing was, his problems dealt with the safety of the world, so really, he did understand. Except … “Caleb, what if I can’t do it?”
“In my world, we don’t use that word. There’s no can’t. You’ll pull it out of the fire. Maybe you should take a short nap. You’re tired.”
“You must be too.”
“I can handle long nights,” he said easily, letting her hand slide between his again.
“Right.” She wanted to pu
ll it away and turn back to the computer, because that’s what she understood—it was safe. It needed her to work, and with the right kind of coaxing, she could get it to do anything she wanted.
Staying away from the computer meant spending more time talking to him, and that in itself was confusing. He was still looking at her with the same intensity in his eyes … and she was still confused as hell.
“Why didn’t you accept the FBI’s offer?” he asked finally.
“I considered it. I still am, I guess. But it’s a huge commitment. I don’t know if I’m any good working for other people. I think I lived with my dad for too long.”
“It must’ve been tough growing up like that.”
“People just saw the crazy. They couldn’t see beyond that to the genius.” She paused. “For a while, I tried to fit in, but it never worked. I followed in his footsteps—I’m a computer geek and I’m really good with numbers, but I’m nowhere near my father’s level. I use what I know for practical purposes.”
“So there’s never been anyone in your life—boyfriends?”
Her stomach got those nervous butterflies she’d heard so much about but never actually experienced. Now she understood. They got stronger when she forced herself to look directly into his deep, dark eyes. “I dated a couple guys when my father was alive—nothing too serious. And then he got sick and I put all my efforts into making sure he was comfortable. After he died, I dated one guy for a while … it was serious, I guess. As serious as I’d ever gotten.”
“We probably should check all of them out, just to be safe.”
“I’m sure none of them knew what I was doing, job-wise.”
“What did they think you did?”
“I told them I was in IT. It was much easier that way. It’s what I tell everyone,” she said. “The first two were just some casual dates here and there. One guy was an auto mechanic. Kind of a bad boy, motorcycle-gang type.”
Cael stared at her. “I know. Not the best choice,” she told him. “The other was a guy I’d known from my classes freshman year in college. We kept in touch and he told me he’d wanted to ask me out for a while, but then …”
“Not a bad enough boy?” he asked.
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