by Dana Marton
Jake kept silent, probably thinking about how he could make up for all the time he was spending with her and away from his job.
“Are you on deadline with your publisher?”
He hesitated for a second. “I’m all right. Almost have all the material I need.”
Good. She didn’t want to inconvenience him more than absolutely necessary. “I’d be more than happy to pay you for your time.”
“No need,” he said again, same as last night.
Very chivalrous, but her father had been Blake Myers of Myers & Mondini, the New England industrial giant. A business she struggled to prove herself in ever since his death.
“I have a lot of friends in publishing. If you ever need help in that area, you have to promise me you’ll call me,” she offered, without spelling out exactly who she was. Sometimes people looked at her differently once they knew she had money.
He grinned. “I promise you’ll be the first to know the next time I have a press release.”
The thought of him calling on her after they were both back in the U.S. sent a not altogether unpleasant tingle down her spine. His alpha male aura, the charisma that emanated from him seemed to effortlessly envelope her. But a prickle of guilt burst that pleasant bubble.
She needed to focus on Kenneth.
They pulled over in front of a large building complex about five miles outside of town, walled in by eight-foot tall mud brick walls. Part of the wall had been blown in, from the looks of it, maybe in the battle that had chased the warlord away. The compound stood stark and threatening in the bare landscape.
A sudden premonition shivered up her spine. “Do you really think we should go in?”
He got out and opened the door for her. “Might as well. We’re already here.”
He helped her over the rubble when they reached the hole in the wall.
“Why aren’t they guarding this place?”
“A question of manpower, probably,” he said. “They need their equipment when they go out on week-long patrols. And if they leave nothing behind, they don’t need to leave anyone behind to guard it. They have better use for their men on the front lines.”
The courtyard had seen better days, probably back when the warlord and his family had lived here. Looked like at one point it even had a rose garden. All that had been destroyed, only a few forlorn trees remained, doing their best to shade the well in the middle.
She’d seen a lot of destruction and abandonment since she’d come to this country, and it made her sad every time, made her appreciate what she had back home.
They crossed the yard. The building seemed just as deserted close up as it had from afar. When Jake walked through an open door, she followed him.
Empty rooms opened into each other, holding nothing but broken furniture and garbage. She couldn’t imagine Kenneth in this place.
“Amazing that some of the poor don’t simply move in here.” She’d seen beggars on nearly every corner of the main streets in town.
“They’re probably still afraid of the warlord. To the locals, this will always be his place. And they probably don’t want to run into the XO-ST team either,” Jake said.
They meandered through the ground floor, finding some animal droppings in one of the rooms. Looked like some stray dogs or goats might have taken shelter in there at one point. She hurried past the spot when suddenly Jake raised a hand to warn her, his powerful body frozen motionless.
She stopped in her tracks.
He was looking through the window.
She followed his gaze and caught movement out there. Her pulse sped.
“Stay inside for now,” he said in a low voice, then went to investigate, moving like a shadow, his boots making no noise on the stone floor whatsoever.
She followed him to the exit, not nearly as silent, but silent enough so she wouldn’t be heard from the outside. She wanted to be as close to him as possible in case of trouble, but stopped just inside the door while he moved forward, every step filled with control and self-confidence.
A woman and a couple of men came to a halt in the middle of the courtyard. The men led donkeys laden with wood and food. The woman carried a pottery jar on her shoulder.
“Soldiers they come back?” one of the men asked Jake in broken English.
They had no guns, nothing remotely threatening. They looked like simple farmers. Jake must have come to the same conclusion after scanning the small group, because he turned back to her and nodded.
Allison stepped out of the doorway, went to stand behind him and felt immediately safer.
“We’re just tourists. Looking around,” Jake told the visitors. “You know the soldiers who sometimes come here?”
They shrugged with disappointed looks on their faces. They’d probably been hoping to make some money by selling their goods, thinking the mercenaries were coming back, having seen Jake’s SUV.
“You stay at hotel?” the tallest of the men asked.
Jake nodded.
The man hung his head. People who stayed at the hotel wouldn’t need firewood or sacks of figs. He turned around with a dejected set of his shoulders and led his animals back through the hole in the wall. The other men followed him.
The woman remained. She approached Allison and Jake, setting the jar down at a safe distance and wringing her hands. She wore the local garb of loose full-length dress and veil, but her coloring was lighter than usual around here.
“You friends of soldiers?” she asked in broken English, with a heavy accent.
“Not really,” Jake said, but Allison nodded quickly.
If these people came here regularly to trade with the mercenaries, and if Kenneth had been here by some remote chance… She dug into her purse, pulled out Kenneth’s photo and walked over to the woman, giving her an encouraging smile. “Have you seen this man?”
The woman’s face lit up, tears of joy coming into her eyes as she grabbed for the picture. “Yes. He is marry me. He sent you bring me to him?” She hugged the picture tightly to her chest.
Allison’s mind stalled. Her knees went weak. Thoughts started in her mind, but refused to be completed.
“When did you last see him?” Jake had come up behind her and put a steadying hand on her shoulder.
“Five months ago. Me his girlfriend. I’m from Ukraine. Came for job at hospital in Kabul. They no want me, no pay. Friend has parents in Lahedeh. They help. Then Mr. Ken came. He says he take me America.”
She smiled shyly. “But one day he go away. I ask other soldiers, they chase me. Then they leave. I know Mr. Ken come back someday. He sent you, yes? For me?”
Her dress was soiled and torn, her eyes the eyes of a woman who’d been through things Allison didn’t even want to contemplate. She was thin to the point of being malnourished, but her face held so much joy and hope as she hugged that photo, she looked as if she might burst with emotion.
“Sorry,” Jake said. “He didn’t send us. He disappeared. We’re trying to find him.”
The light slid off the woman’s face, replaced by stark despair. “He must come back. He promised take me,” she begged.
Instead of feeling sorry for herself for being betrayed or feeling angry at Kenneth, all Allison felt was compassion for the woman in front of her. She thought of what her life must be, eking out a tenuous living on the charity of strangers here, waiting for a man who’d promised the world to her and who might never return. How long would she last, stuck here alone? In a country that had few opportunities for women.
“I don’t think he’s coming,” she told the woman quietly.
Kenneth had ambitions. He needed a wife who could help him fulfill them. She’d always known that and never minded that it had been one of the hundred reasons why he’d chosen her. Relationships were complicated. She believed in him and his causes. She just wasn’t in love with him. The truth hit home, suddenly undeniable.
Yes, his betrayal hurt, but her heart didn’t shatter into a million little pieces. She fe
lt as if she was watching the scene in the courtyard unfold from above, an out of body experience.
She didn’t have the heart to ask for the photo back. She had others at the hotel. She pulled out her wallet, grabbed a handful of local currency without counting and held it out. “Go home to your family.”
The woman looked at her with tear-soaked eyes and an expression of profound adoration, then collapsed to the ground and kissed her feet.
~~~***~~~
Chapter Four
She was a class act all the way. And tough. She didn’t fall apart, but she was shaken. Jake drove Allison back to the hotel, his admiration for her having grown a couple of notches since they’d left the place that morning.
He walked her up to her room and sat her down. A shot of whiskey might have done her good, but with Islam forbidding alcohol, he couldn’t just order up a bottle.
He stood in front of her and took in the brave set of her shoulders. “Talk to me.”
“I feel bad that I’m not more upset,” she said at last, looking a little dazed and a lot vulnerable, which brought out his protective instincts.
He moved away from her to pace the room. “You’re not the party that needs to feel guilty here.”
He wanted to punch a wall on her behalf, since she seemed too much of a lady to do it for herself. Not that he didn’t admire her restraint. Some people equated restraint with weakness, but he’d learned better in the Army. To restrain one’s emotions and act from a place of calmness took a hell of a lot of inner strength.
“Where do you think he is?” Her blue gaze hung on his face.
Six feet under, he wanted to tell her, not feeling particularly sorry for the jerk at the moment. But if he told her that Kenneth was dead, she would want to know how he knew. And he couldn’t blow his cover, although keeping the truth from her felt more and more wrong with every passing minute.
In hindsight, he preferred the straight forward fighting style of the Army, his previous employer, as opposed to the whole FBI sneaking around thing.
“I don’t think he’s here in Lahedeh. You should go back to the states.”
He had the information he needed from her. The congressman’s little brother, Mitch Wharton had been here. This had to be how the congressman was tied to XO-ST business. Mitch had done something here that was bad enough so that one of the XO-ST, Foley, could blackmail the congressman. All Jake needed now were specifics and tangible proof he could take back to the U.S.
Allison had her hands folded on her lap, her shoulders slumping a little as she considered his advice.
He resisted the urge to gather her into his arms. The sooner she left, the better for the both of them. “I’ll take you to Kabul in the morning.”
For a second she looked like she might agree, but then she steeled her spine. “I can’t leave without finding out what happened to Kenneth. Beyond this other woman… Beyond the engagement…” She drew a shuddery breath. “Kenneth is my friend. He was there for me when Daniel died.”
He stared at her, a bad feeling spreading through him. “Daniel?”
“My first fiancé had cancer. Kenneth and he were friends. That’s how we met.” She closed her eyes for a second. “Kenneth isn’t perfect, but neither am I. He’s missing. If I just leave him to his fate because he’d been… unfaithful,” her voice broke on the word, “what kind of a person would that make me?”
About average. Except, she was anything but. She was pretty far from the spoiled, self-involved heiress thing. He hadn’t given her enough credit at the beginning.
He hated the thought of her hurting, hated to see her so crestfallen.
And she didn’t even know about Kenneth’s death yet. Guilt sank its sharp talons into Jake. He shook off the feeling. He was a soldier, dammit.
She wrapped her arms around herself.
He sat down next to her, ignoring the seductive scent of her expensive perfume that tried to pull him closer. “It hurts when you’re betrayed by someone you love.” Which was why he never gave his heart to anyone.
“It’s okay to be angry and hurt.” If Kenneth was still alive, he would have gladly punched the idiot’s lights out for her.
“I’m not sure if I was ever in love with him. I thought I was, for a while,” she said, choking out the words, moisture filling her brilliant blue eyes.
He didn’t normally do the emotions and feelings talk. He wasn’t the ‘best friend’ type of lover. He was more into whirlwind romance: heat, need, passion then a mutual “see you later.”
“Of course you loved him.” He patted her slim shoulder awkwardly, in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. “You came halfway around the world for him.”
Pretty damn impressive. For a second he wondered if he’d ever have someone in his life who cared that much about him. Probably not. There weren’t too many women out there like Allison Myers.
“He’d do the same for me,” she said.
Jake wasn’t so sure.
“Despite that…” She didn’t seem to be able to bring up the other woman. “He is a good man. His parents died when he was very young. He was raised by court-appointed guardians who controlled his trust fund and his entire life. Everything was so difficult for him, but he overcame all that. He made himself a name in business and he was going into politics. He wanted to accomplish great things for this country. He needed my help.”
Her tears spilled over.
Anger rose inside him. Hatch had never deserved her. You just didn’t betray a woman like Allison. Or any woman, for that matter.
Enjoying female company was one thing, but Jake drew the line at cheating and had no respect for guys who did that kind of thing. He knew first-hand what a broken-hearted woman looked like. He had sisters.
Jasmine, especially, had had a lot of up and down relationships in college before she found Gabe a couple of months back. At least, now Jake didn’t have to worry about her in that regard. Gabe would lay his life down before letting any harm come to her.
Allison bit her bottom lip. “I know you think I’m a good person for having come after Kenneth, but I’m not. You know how I found out that he was missing? I called the hotel to tell him that I had second thoughts about our engagement.”
She drew a long, shuddering breath. “They told me he wasn’t registered here. I talked to management. I talked to the embassy. They said they would look into it. Months passed. Nothing happened. Then they told me he was with some commando people. I knew they were completely off base. I had to come.”
“You should have hired a professional to come in your place.”
She sounded exhausted as she said, “I hired a PI to come with me. He backed out at the last second.”
Probably looked into the case and found out XO-ST’s involvement. Outfits like that had a pretty rough reputation in the business. “There are companies who specialize in these kinds of things.” Retrieving kidnapped businessmen, negotiating ransom with pirates, whatever.
“I couldn’t get a whole company involved. The more people knew, the better chance for a leak. I have no idea what’s going on, but Kenneth wants to run for office soon. There can’t be any scandals. You can’t tell anyone about this. Especially about the girl.”
She was still protecting him. Unbelievable. He wanted to yell at her to snap out of it, but at the same time, couldn’t help admiring the unwavering loyalty. “You’re not alone in this anymore. Why don’t you go home, and I promise I’ll look for Kenneth here.”
She tried to smile through her tears, then reached for her purse and grabbed a tissue to dry her face. She drew a deep breath, pulling herself together little by little until she was miraculously back to her composed, lady-like self. “I’m fine. Sorry about losing it. I can handle this. Really.”
“Putting yourself in danger here won’t solve anything.” She didn’t fit in. People didn’t like her being here asking questions. The police were suspicious of her and were probably keeping an eye on her. Kenneth was dead. She wasn’t goi
ng to save him. She had no good reason to stay.
Except that he could use her. Working for her added to his cover. She might also have more information on the connection between her fiancé and Congressman Wharton’s brother.
And she was a distraction. While the locals watched her since she looked different and acted different than the women they were used to, Jake could fly under the radar.
She clearly had her uses, and he’d been trained to always use every weapon in his arsenal. He always had before.
“You need to go home,” he told her again then stood to walk away before he could closely examine why he would put her interest before his mission.
“Not until I know what happened to Kenneth.”
To hell with Kenneth. “Get some sleep. I’ll take you to the airport in Kabul in the morning,” he called back from the door, then closed it behind him before he could go back and kiss her.
Because he’d wanted to kiss her from the moment he’d met her.
Shit.
Women were supposed to be entertainment at this stage of his life, not a complication.
Allison Myers was too serious by half, definitely not the sun and fun type he normally went after. She stuck with things even when they were uncomfortable or downright dangerous.
She simply didn’t leave. She risked her life for a man because it was the right thing to do, even if she no longer loved him. How far would she go for a man she loved?
Part of him wanted to be the man who would inspire such devotion, even while the rest of him knew it could never happen. She would never settle for less than everything, never accept anything but forever, which was exactly what she deserved.
But he wasn’t the right guy to give her that.
The thought bothered him more than it should have as he rode the elevator up to his floor, above Allison’s, then strode down the hallway.
The sound of powerful engines outside reached him through the window as he opened his door, drawing his attention from things that could never be. He crossed the room to look out. His window faced the street, while Allison’s looked to the quieter courtyard of the hotel.
