Undercover Warrior

by Aimée Thurlo

  “Maybe,” he said, and moved back, giving her more room. “When you grow up like I did, you learn fast that it doesn’t pay to let anyone get too close.”

  She reached for his hand and held on to it. He appeared unbreakable, but only because he’d learned to hide the cracks in his armor. For the first time she began to understand him.

  “I know what it’s like to have your heart ripped out. When my marriage fell apart, I had no one to turn to. I had to stand on my own and find a way to survive,” she said. “If there’s one person you can count on never to betray you, it’s me. I care about you. I really do.”

  He kissed her hand gently, then let it go. “You’re following your heart but, sweetheart, I’m a bad bet.”

  “I know,” she said, not bothering to argue the point.

  Erin stepped back and looked away, searching for a distraction. That’s when she saw that the potted plant she’d left on the counter was leaking soil. “The pot’s cracked,” she said, hurrying over. “It must have taken a harder fall than I realized. Do you have something I can put Mabel in?”

  “There’s a shed beside the barn,” he said. “If we have any flower pots, they’ll be in there.”

  Taking a lantern from the table, he led the way to the small building beside the barn. Kyle opened the locked shed door. There were cans of paint, tools and other supplies they’d used to update the ranch house, but nothing suitable for Mabel.

  “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “How about a big bowl from the cupboard?”

  “There won’t be any drainage. We need something else. I can’t just let it die,” she said, taking a shuddering breath. “Mabel is all about keeping the faith and about not giving up.” She swallowed hard to keep from crying. “I sound deranged, right?” she added with a weak smile.

  “No, darling, you don’t.” He picked up a shovel and gestured toward the house. “Let’s go. We’ll put it in the ground. I know the perfect spot. It’ll get light almost all day, and when it rains, the water collects there.”

  “Where Hosteen Silver’s bush now grows?”

  He nodded and smiled, leading the way. “Yes. His plant is called oak-under-a-tree and only grows to be about six inches tall. It’s great ground cover, so it’ll also help keep the soil around the rose moist whenever it rains,” he said. “Most important of all, oak-under-a-tree is a good luck plant.”

  Setting the lantern down where it would illuminate the area, he dug a hole.

  Erin carefully planted Mabel, then shaped the soil around it into a small basin so that water would collect around its roots.

  “There,” she said at long last. “That’s all we can do.”

  “One more thing.” He reached into the leather pouch she’d seen him wearing around his neck, brought out a pinch of something, then scattered it over the plant. “Pollen is a symbol of light and life. It’ll bless your plant.”

  A moment later his voice rose in a haunting, monotone chant that seemed to reverberate with power and a gentleness she wouldn’t have associated with Kyle.

  When he finished, she looked at him with new wonder. “That was beautiful.”

  “It’s something I remembered, a hozonji, a song that brings luck.”

  “Thank you,” she said. The fact that he’d understood and respected what the plant meant to her, and that he’d tried to help insure its survival, had touched her in a way that she hadn’t expected. “Kyle, you’re full of surprises.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  They went back inside as thunder began rumbling in the distance, accompanied by distant streaks of lightning. “It looks like we’ll have rain tonight,” he said.

  “The weather’s really cooled off, too. Will you build a fire and then tell me about your leather pouch?”

  “Sure, but first I have to split some logs, then we’ll bring in some kindling and firewood.”

  “I can help carry them back in.”

  “Sounds fair. I chop. You carry,” he said. “There’s a firewood carrier under the overhang of the barn by the woodpile.”

  They returned outside and Erin held the lantern while he began splitting wood on an old pine stump. Cutting through the thick logs with powerful strokes seemed effortless to him.

  Then as he raised his axe again, his shirt flew open and something flew outward, landing in the dirt. “I just lost three buttons,” he said. “That’s what I get for trying to wear Dan’s shirts. Puny son of a gun.”

  She laughed, knowing that Daniel was anything but that. However, in all fairness, none of the brothers she’d met so far had Kyle’s build. He was broad in all the right places, and narrow where it counted.

  He stripped off his shirt, found the missing buttons, then walked over to her. “Hang on to these for me while I finish, will you?” Then, taking the medicine pouch from around his neck, he gave that to her, as well.

  She stood back, enjoying the view. His shoulder muscles rippled and his stomach tightened as he swung the axe. He was a thing of beauty—all male and a temptation to any woman who still drew breath. She could feel her hands tingling with the need to touch him.

  “I’m almost through. How about you? Had enough?” he asked, then gave her a thoroughly masculine grin. “I’m not shy, so if you want a more thorough look, I’ll be happy to oblige.”

  She sucked in her breath. “I wasn’t staring.”

  “Like hell.”

  “Okay, busted. Now come on,” she added, quickly diverting him. “Let’s carry the wood inside. It’s starting to rain. Can you—”

  At that precise moment the skies seemed to open up and sheets of rain descended.

  They loaded the metal carrier, then hustled inside as fast as they could.

  “You’re a native New Mexican, so you know storms like this don’t last. They come on strong, it rains like mad for fifteen minutes, then it’s over.” He grabbed a couple of towels from the linen closet in the hall and tossed her one.

  “Take one of my shirts from the bedroom on the left. It’s around fifty degrees inside the house right now, so you’ll need dry clothes.”

  “I’ll be okay once you build a fire,” she said, returning the buttons and medicine pouch. “What got the wettest is my hair.” She glanced out the window as she towel-dried it. “Do you ever get flooded here at the low end of the canyon?”

  “Not really.” Kyle placed the kindling on the fireplace grate. “Hosteen Silver chose this place carefully. After a heavy rain, the intermittent stream that forms passes out of the canyon west of the road. Just to make sure we’d always be safe, he also buried earth bundles filled with soil from the sacred mountains in all four corners of the house. That soil is particularly powerful because those mountains are said to be the forked hogans of the gods. When the spring winds rip through here and branches and trees topple over, they always seem to fall away from the house, too,” he said. “I can’t explain it logically, but when Hosteen Silver blessed something, you could count on results.”

  “That also explains why you and your brothers turned out so well.” Her gaze strayed over him, enjoying that perfect moment. The fire now roaring in the fireplace made his copper skin glow and accentuated his muscular build.

  He smiled. “Come over here.”

  She hesitated, but he looked so sexy shirtless, she just couldn’t resist. She wanted to touch him, to feel his naked skin against her palms.

  “Touch me, I don’t bite,” he said, his voice husky. “You’re safe. All I want is one kiss in return.”

  She should have run. This man could make her yearn for things she had no business wanting. Yet something inside her refused to take the safe road and back away.

  She touched his chest gently, taking pleasure in skimming her palms over him, loving the way his muscles rippled under her touch. He was all hard planes and ridges. His
jeans hung low, so she trailed a finger down his chest all the way to the lower part of his stomach.

  She heard him draw in his breath. “You’re not as controlled as you want me to believe.” Looking up at him, she saw the heat mirrored in his gaze.

  “Nothing will happen, just one kiss.”

  She stepped closer to him and lay her head against the crook of his neck, loving the way their bodies fit together.

  His hand curled into a fist as he struggled for control. Tucking it beneath her chin, he lifted her face toward his and kissed her, his mouth moving tenderly over hers, coaxing her lips to part.

  She soon lost track of everything except the hazy wave of pleasure that was coursing through her. The deeper and the rougher his kiss got, the more she surrendered to those forbidden pleasures.

  She didn’t want to stop. She’d never needed anything, or wanted anyone, more than she did him. Hunger, yearnings...was she falling in love?

  The thought frightened her and stopped her cold. She wedged a hand between them and stepped back. She wouldn’t give herself to a man who didn’t love her, and who’d leave her as soon as his work was done. Promises whispered in the dark died in the light of day, breaking the heart and spirit. She deserved more—and so did he, though he probably didn’t realize it.

  “That was an incredible kiss,” she said, still struggling to catch her breath.

  “It doesn’t have to end. There are other places I could kiss.”

  Her knees nearly buckled. Her entire body felt electrified and sensitive to even the heat of his breath. She moved back another step.

  “I don’t play at love, Kyle. I don’t know if the real thing will ever find me, but I won’t settle for an imitation, or a temporary substitute.” As she walked away from him, he focused on stoking the dying flames in the fireplace.

  He took a seat on the hearth as she sat down on the sheepskin rug near the fire.

  “You want to know more about me, and I get that, but it’s hard for me to talk about myself,” he said. “Let’s give things another try. Ask me whatever you want.”

  “Tell me something, anything, I don’t already know about you,” she said.

  “My mom died giving me birth and my dad died six years later in a mining accident.”

  “But you didn’t go live with Hosteen Silver until you were thirteen?”

  He nodded. “At first I was taken in by my uncle, but he didn’t want a kid around, particularly me. He said I’d been bad luck from day one.”

  “That’s a horrible thing to tell a kid,” she said angrily. “An adult can deal with that kind of rejection, but a six-year-old kid hasn’t learned to put up solid defenses.”

  “Like I said, I had to grow up fast.”

  “I’m glad Hosteen Silver eventually found you.”

  “I didn’t make things easy for him, though. I was a handful back then.”

  She smiled. “You’re a handful now.”

  He laughed. “You think so, do you?”

  She looked around the main room and smiled. “This looks like a terrific place to grow up.”

  “When I first came out here, it wasn’t nearly so comfortable. The ranch house had few modern conveniences. There was no electricity and we had to haul water for the horses and the sheep. That, by the way, is one of the toughest jobs in the world,” he said. “One time after working all Saturday on chores, I got angry and told Hosteen Silver that the only reason he’d fostered us was ’cause he wanted money from the state and free labor.”

  “How did he react?”

  “He told me to grow up, that any able-bodied man who was worth a damn was capable of doing a day’s work to earn his keep,” Kyle answered. “He was trying to teach me respect for honest labor, but at that point, I was a kid used to doing pretty much whatever I wanted. To me, it all hinged on who could stop me, and whether it was worth the fight.” He paused, then added, “I owe him everything. My brothers, too.”

  As lightning crashed nearby, she jumped. “Wow, that was close!”

  “You afraid of lightning?”

  She shook her head. “Not afraid, I just don’t like it striking so close. It’s loud and angry. It destroys, causes fires... I see nothing good in it.”

  “I’ve always enjoyed watching thunderstorms. It’s nature’s light show,” he said, pulling her to her feet. Turning off the lamps, he led her to the kitchen-area window that offered a clear view of the upper canyon, and stood behind her as they watched the sky.

  There was a bright flash overhead, followed only a few seconds later by a loud clap of thunder that shook the house and rattled the windows. She sucked in her breath.

  Kyle wrapped his arms around her and held her close. “It’s raw power—defiant and unpredictable,” he whispered in her ear, “but if you accept it for what it is, and use caution, it can’t harm you.”

  “Some things are better avoided.”

  “Maybe, but you’ll miss a lot of life that way.”

  “Some people rush toward danger, others duck and take cover. Given the choice, I prefer ducking,” she said with a tiny smile. “Good thing you don’t, considering your job.”

  “I love my work,” he said, moving her gently to one side of the window, probably so they wouldn’t present the perfect targets to anyone outside. “But once this case is wrapped up, I’ll have to see where things stand for me. If there’s a specific reason I’m still needed at NCIS, I’ll stay till the work’s done. I never run out on people who are counting on me.”

  “What if they always need you?” she asked, leaning back and enjoying the warmth of his chest and arms, which were wrapped securely around her.

  “That won’t happen. My usefulness is limited. I’ve seen...too much. Burned out, some would say.”

  “Something happened to you and it changed everything, didn’t it?” she asked. When he didn’t answer, she turned in his arms and faced him. “Sometimes it helps to talk things over, and I’m the perfect person for you to use as a sounding board.”

  “How so?”

  “I’m only going to be in your life for a short time. Sharing your secret can’t change anything between us,” she said, stepping back.

  “I’m not sure if I agree with that. Once I’m home, we could see each other as often as we like.”

  She walked over to the fireplace, enjoying its warmth. She wanted to cling to the hope that, against all odds, things would work out between them.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked when she didn’t answer.

  “Holding back is second nature to you, but what you don’t seem to understand is that I would never judge you—no matter what.”

  “The world I’ve lived in is nothing like life here in Hartley. I’m not sure you can handle this.”

  “When you rescued me our lives became intertwined. How long that will last, who can say? But here’s what I do know,” she said, cupping his face in her hands and meeting his gaze. “No matter what’s in your past, I know who you are right now. If falling down along the way made you who you are today, then it was worth it.”

  He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly for a brief eternity. Then, as the downpour continued outside, he released her.

  Erin returned to the sheepskin rug by the fire and sat down. In his arms she’d known warmth, but now, despite her proximity to the flames, it felt as if the temperature in the room had dropped ten degrees.

  “I’m going to trust you, Erin, not because I have to, but because I want to,” he said. “Before I begin, I’ll need your word that you won’t ask me where I was, or anything specific about my mission. Agreed?”

  She nodded.

  He began to pace restlessly around the room, but it took several minutes before he finally spoke. “I was on assignment overseas, deep undercover and under orders to cul
tivate some sources so I could gather intelligence. Before long, I found a young man about sixteen who worked pumping gas and selling cooking fuel to those with stoves at home. He’d taken the business over from his father, a mechanic, who was disabled. It was just the two of them.”

  “Someone with such an ordinary job was important to you?”

  “I was trying to find out who in the village was working with terrorists, making smuggling runs involving stolen navy ordnance and communications equipment. Since that would require a lot of extra fuel, I figured the boy might have the answers I needed.”

  He said nothing for a long moment, continuing to pace, then began again.

  “I knew the boy’s father was in a great deal of pain from his disability, so I went up the chain of command and arranged for him to get the medications he needed. Soon after that, he began to walk again and resumed working with his son. They were both very grateful and, in return, gave me access to their records. From the fuel outlays and customer lists, I was able to get all the information I needed.”

  “So you succeeded,” she said.

  “Yes, but in the meantime, word traveled fast and a local warlord heard what I’d done. One morning I dropped by early and was there talking to the son as his father approached on foot. Before he could join us, two men on a motorcycle stopped to talk to him and the three began to argue. I held back, thinking it was a private matter. I didn’t want to make things worse by intervening.”

  He turned away from her, and stared outside. “I was less than fifty feet away when one of the men grabbed something from the boy’s father and pushed him back hard. I drew my weapon, but by then it was too late. They gunned him down right in front of his son.”

  Erin drew in a sharp breath and covered her mouth with one hand.

  “I shot one of the assailants, but the other raced away on the motorcycle,” Kyle said in a monotone. “The father was dead by the time we got to him. On the ground, between the father and the gunman, was a broken vial of painkillers.”