HER SECRET GUARDIAN

by Sally Tyler Hayes

  "You've got to be kidding."

  "I mean it. You're not going back. Not after that bastard snatched you that way. Good God, he could have done anything to you. One of his goons nearly did."

  Grace glared at him. "Who in the world are you to even imagine you can tell me what to do?"

  "It's time someone did," he said, at his most maddeningly arrogant. At least, she hoped this was his worst.

  Grace laughed at him. She couldn't help it. "I don't even know you. I don't have any idea who you are. I don't even know your name. Let's start with that. If you think you're going to dictate terms to me, I have some of my own. Who are you?"

  He remained stubbornly silent

  "What? You could tell me, but you'd have to kill me?" she said flippantly.

  "Not after I've worked this hard to keep you alive. Although, at the moment, the idea is tempting. I wonder sometimes if you have a bit of common sense."

  "And I suppose you never put yourself into dangerous situations?" She laughed. "You've been in the same places I have for the last ten years, in case you've forgotten. But then, that would be your job, I suppose. You're just doing your job?"

  He glared right back at her.

  "And exactly what," she asked, "would make it acceptable for you to stick your neck on the line, but unacceptable for me to do the same thing?"

  "I take carefully calculated risks. You see people shooting at one another, and you can't wait to get there."

  "Funny thing about that – people who shoot at one another happen to need doctors, and I am one."

  "You're reckless, Grace. You know it."

  "I am not." Fearless, according to her friends. She wasn't sure what she truly was, didn't even want to think about it. He just stared, daring her to lie to him again.

  "Oh, and you're not reckless yourself?" she cried. "Just how is it that you think we're different?"

  "I give a damn about whether or not I stay alive," he roared. "I'm not sure you do."

  Grace wouldn't say anything to that. She couldn't. That would be the other possibility, the one she didn't want to consider. Reckless, fearless, or someone who really didn't give a damn whether she was alive?

  She had to take a second, because her chest hurt. She felt like someone had slammed a weight down upon it. "I…"

  "You're really not going to try to deny it, are you?" Grace stared at him, thinking again of the all-knowing, all-seeing, superhuman being she'd once thought he was. He couldn't possibly know, she told herself. The whole conversation was ridiculous. He couldn't know what went on inside her head. Especially when she fought so hard not to acknowledge it, even to herself.

  But he always knew where she was. He always knew when she was in trouble. How could he possibly know?

  "Who are you?" she cried.

  "I told you. I'm just a man. An American…"

  "Right. A man. An American. Not exactly a soldier…" she said, helping him along. "Then what? What do you do? Who do you work for?"

  "I'm here … with some friends. Who work for an agency of the U.S. government. I could tell you the name, but it wouldn't mean anything to you."

  "You're telling me they're spies?"

  "It's a counterterrorism unit. Top secret."

  "And these people happen to be your friends, and you're … what? Coming along for the ride?"

  "They'd already been given the job of getting the American businessman I mentioned out of here. They knew the area. They had a mission planned, were ready to go. And then Milero took you. I…"

  "What? Said you'd just come with them? Grab me at the same time?"

  "Something like that."

  Of course. He'd just invite himself along on a top-secret mission by a top-secret, nameless agency, and they'd just say yes?

  She let that one alone. What was the point? Asked instead, "Why?"

  "Because I didn't want that bastard to kill you."

  "Why? What am I to you?"

  "Someone who irritates me half to death," he roared. "Unfortunately, I'm bound and determined to keep you alive, although I wonder if I'm up to the job, at times. Why do you make it so hard on me, Grace?"

  "Why do you even try?" she cried. "What could I possibly matter to you?"

  "You do. You matter a great deal to me."

  "Why? You keep telling me you're just a man. Well, I'm just a woman. A doctor. That's it. There are tons of women doctors in this world."

  "Not like you," he claimed.

  "There are," she insisted. "There are hundreds of doctors in the relief organization I work for. If you were a soldier all these years, you had to have come across dozens of them. You can't tell me you watch over them, just like you watch over me."

  "No, I don't."

  "So why me?"

  "I happen to think you need looking after. That you deserve it."

  "Why? I'm just one person. A very ordinary person. There's nothing extraordinary about me at all."

  "Of course there is," he said.

  The quiet seriousness of his tone, that bit of – what? Admiration? For her? It stopped her cold.

  Grace thought perhaps she understood part of this now. Although it simply couldn't be. She'd successfully hidden her identity for years. He couldn't know. Could he?

  But he said he had friends in some super-secret American spy agency. Friends he could just call and invite himself onto their mission. What kind of man had friends like that?

  A man who could find out things? Things he had no business knowing?

  Grace backed away from him. She had a wall inside of herself, a door she'd always been able to close at will. It slammed shut right then.

  She didn't really need to know anything about him. Not if it was going to lead to this. To him wanting to know all abut her, or maybe telling her what he thought he already knew about her.

  "Okay," she said. "You can watch out for me. For whatever reasons you like. And you can keep all the secrets you want."

  "What?"

  She frowned and looked around at the cave, considering her current state. She was so upset she was shaking. She was also tired and cold and filthy, and maybe she could do something about those things and ignore the rest of it. Ignore the things he made her think about, the things he made her feel.

  She looked up to find him staring at her and quickly looked away. "I don't suppose you have a bar of soap I could use?"

  "What?" he roared.

  "And something I can clean my teeth with?" That would be heavenly, she decided, determined to change the subject, to end this conversation about her and whatever he thought he knew. She didn't want to talk about it. He couldn't make her.

  "You've got to be kidding me," he said, obviously intent on still trying.

  "No."

  He stared at her, as if he might look right through her. Was that how he knew? Could he look right inside of her? See all her secrets?

  "Please." She closed her eyes, so tired. "I just want to clean up. I think I might feel like a seminormal person if I could just clean up."

  He kept right on staring. She feared he was going to press the point. But he finally gave in, turned his back and went to search through his supplies.

  She could finally breathe freely again. Her heart was finally slowing to a normal rhythm.

  Let him keep his secrets, she decided. And she'd keep hers.

  * * *

  Chapter 6

  « ^ »

  He directed her to the makeshift bathroom he'd set up in one of the deeper passages of the cave, gave her some water and things to wash with, another of his T-shirts and a pair of his boxer shorts, the best he was able to do for clothes for her on such short notice.

  He'd been too busy convincing his brother-in-law to let him come with the team, so he could get Grace. Too busy arguing that it didn't matter if he wasn't part of their organization and he hadn't been in on the lengthy background preparation they'd already undergone. Or that the plan they'd devised had nothing in it about rescuing a woman snatched mere h
ours ago. And what was a little thing like a hurricane heading their way, when Grace was in the clutches of a devious bastard like Milero?

  He'd talked his way around all of those things, and he was here. He'd gotten her away from Milero, and she would be okay. This time. Now, if he could talk some sense into her…

  Oh, hell. That was the problem. He couldn't.

  Which meant he'd be back right here with her before long, either getting her out of some jam or trying to make her leave another hot spot before it erupted. He'd been doing it for ten years now, ever since she headed off on her first mission with the IRC's medical corps, when she was just a med student. He worried it was never going to stop, that she wasn't. God, when he'd gotten the message that morning that Milero had her…

  It was the closest he'd come in years to losing control.

  He'd always been so careful with her. As careful as he could be and still keep some distance between them. While she'd been so damned reckless her whole life.

  Well, obviously he hadn't been careful enough. He'd been lulled into a false sense of security, thinking she was contending with nothing but a mud slide, and he knew Grace. She could handle that easily. Disaster was her forte.

  As long as nobody was shooting at her and there were no bombs going off around her, he tended to back off. Which was obviously a mistake.

  God, if that man had killed her…

  As it was, the guard had hurt her, nearly raped her. His killing the guard had shocked her, but anything short of that would have risked his chances of getting Grace out undetected, and he would never do anything to put her at even greater risk.

  And now, here he was, trying to save her and trying not to touch her, to kiss her, and tempted beyond belief. Just like he'd been tempted that night in the bombed-out church when she just couldn't seem to let him go, and he couldn't bring himself to walk away one more time without saying more than a few words to her.

  She'd had the funniest ideas about him. She and her friends. She was so curious, so alive, so interesting. So beautiful.

  He hadn't lied. He lay awake more nights than he cared to remember thinking about her, wishing he had her in his arms. Ever since he'd been foolish enough to give in to the impulsive desire to kiss her in the courtyard of the church.

  All this, he thought. Over a kiss.

  Over a woman he could simply never have.

  He'd told himself that for so long. It was pointless to ever get this close. To give in to his fascination and admiration for the beautiful, stubborn, incredibly generous and talented woman she was.

  He was closer to her now than he'd been in so many years, stuck here with her, the elements conspiring against him.

  Dammit, he'd gone beyond just wanting to keep her safe. He'd like it a lot if she was happy, and he feared she wasn't. Content with her work, committed, busy, but happy? He'd never allowed himself to linger close enough to see or to ask.

  But he suspected he'd gotten the answer from the look in her eyes when he'd told her the difference between the two of them was the fact that he cared whether or not he stayed alive, and he feared she did not.

  "Ah, Grace."

  There it was. He'd finally asked, and as far as he was concerned her answer was loud and clear. And he had to find a way to help her deal with it. There certainly didn't seem to be anyone else around to do it for her.

  How was he going to do that? To fix this, when it was every bit as bad as he feared?

  She complained that he wouldn't even tell her who he was. As near as he could tell, she was a woman who'd lied to the whole world about who she was for all of her adult life.

  * * *

  Grace felt halfway human again, once she'd cleaned up a bit. She was used to roughing it, so the conditions didn't bother her. They had food that was edible, water and adequate shelter. Nothing to complain about there.

  The only real problem was him. He left her feeling so edgy, so unsettled. It was the energy inside of him, that feeling that with him, things could simply explode at any moment. Grace placed a great value on control. Or at least, controlled chaos. She prided herself on staying cool under pressure, on being the one people turned to for direction when all hell was breaking loose around them. She knew all about disasters.

  She just didn't know much about men, and he seemed like a particularly dangerous one. So she approached him with great caution, as she might walk up to the bars of a tiger's cage. She would treat him like that, she decided. She'd been to Africa. She'd seen tigers on the prowl. She'd try hard not to do anything to catch his attention, to interest him. To make him think of making a meal of her.

  Grace frowned. Even while she was trying to concentrate on staying away from him, she'd been thinking of him eating into her, metaphorically. Digging into her soul. Getting to her. And somehow it had all gotten turned around in her head, the image turning sexual instead.

  Him devouring her.

  He would be insatiable, she thought. What would that be like? Being with an absolutely insatiable man? She'd never really considered it before.

  "What in the world are you thinking?" he said.

  "What?" She blinked up at him, lost in thoughts of him, insatiable, devouring her. Damn.

  "You had the oddest look on your face."

  "Nothing," she lied. "It was nothing."

  He didn't believe her, of course. Because somehow he did see right through her. She didn't even want to think about that.

  He waited a long time, watching her in a way that had her fighting not to squirm. She didn't have to let him know he was getting to her.

  Finally, he let it go and said, "Feel better?"

  "Yes. Thank you for the clothes."

  She felt his gaze rake over her, too slowly for her own comfort, saw the slight tightening of his jaw, which did funny things to her insides. He liked looking at her. She hadn't known many men who simply liked looking at her. Or if she had, she'd never noticed. She was usually so matter of fact in her dealings with them. She either patched them up and sent them on their way, or she watched them die. Some, she worked with, considered them friends and colleagues. She really couldn't think of any men who fell in between. Friend, colleague, patient. That was it.

  Grace looked around for something to do, something to say, and one of his weapons caught her attention. They were in danger. There was a nice, diversionary subject for them.

  "Do you think Milero's men are looking for us?"

  "I don't think so. Not in the middle of this. But we won't take any chances."

  This. The storm. The relentless wind and rain. Sometimes it faded into the background, became merely a dull roar, and then she'd hear a gust or a crackle of a branch hitting the ground and it would leave her unsettled all over again.

  "They know there's no way we can get off the island now," he said. "They'll wait it out. Wait us out. Sooner or later the storm will end, and we'll have to make our move. They know that, too."

  "So when it's over … we'll just try to get out of here before they find us?"

  "We will get out of here before they find us," he said.

  Yet another promise. She should have stopped him right there and told him, don't promise me anything. Don't. She found it disconcerting that she didn't. She was also scared to get within arm's length of him, afraid that if she did, she might want to be even closer. She was thinking more clearly, and her memory of the last few days, from the kidnapping forward, was coming back to her, more vivid than ever before.

  She had been so scared. Scared like she hadn't been since … well, since her whole life fell apart. She was hovering around that part of her brain where she hid the really bad things. The worst. In a place she never went. Never.

  Grace sensed movement, looked up and found he was right in front of her. So very close she could feel the heat coming off his body. He managed to move more silently than any man she'd ever known, and it was just one of the many utterly disconcerting things about him.

  "It's all right to be scared, Grace
. Especially after what you've been through. It's all over but the shouting now. I'll get you out of here," he whispered, his big hand at the side of her waist, then sliding around her, pulling her to him, settling her gently against his hard mountain of a body.

  She remembered this feeling. The sheer might of the man, the strength. Back in her cell, he'd held her up against him like this, as if to show her more clearly than any words could have that everything was going to be all right. He was going to get her out of this, and she thought he was a man capable of doing anything he set his mind to.

  She let her head rest against his shoulder. Barely, she fought the urge to bury her nose against his neck, against the tantalizing strip of browned skin. But her hands found his waist, slid around his well-muscled back. As always, he was deliciously warm and so very solid. There was such reassuring bulk to him; he was an all-together substantial man.

  And there was more, as well. Her breasts were crushed against his hard chest, her legs against his equally hard thighs. She remembered the way it had felt, when he'd been so obviously aroused the night before, how it made her go hot and cold all over and set her to trembling from head to toe.

  Not that he'd touched her in a sexual way at all. He was just standing there holding her, comforting her. His big hands traveled in slow, soothing strokes up and down her back, but other than that, it was as if he was barely even breathing. As if he'd been caught in the same spell she was.

  Unnerved by how much she wanted to stay with him, maybe get even closer, she stepped away. He didn't try to stop her, didn't protest in the least Instead he stood, unmoving, staring at her.

  "Sorry," he said finally.

  "It's – why?"

  "I don't want to make you … uncomfortable."

  She frowned at him. He was a master at making her uncomfortable, on so many levels. But she didn't think she needed to elaborate on that. Let him think it was merely sexual or about her being afraid. Grace ignored both what she'd said and what he'd done. She looked around the cave, fighting the urge to pace.

  "I guess we just have to wait," she said, thinking she'd just stay away from him, stay out of his arms, try not to be drawn into conversation with him.