by Lucy Monroe
“Kadin still likes to poke at people?” Rachel asked the medic.
Doc frowned at Kadin. “You’re saying he’s always been like this?”
Rachel nodded, a world of words in her eyes.
“Good job,” Doc said.
Rachel gave her a questioning look.
“Not talking. I can tell there’s plenty you want to say. Don’t worry, you can tell us all his secrets tomorrow or the next day.”
A frown settled over Rachel’s features.
“What’s wrong, Rach?” Kadin asked, only to get identical glares from both women.
“You’re not helping by asking her questions like that. If she’s got something to say, she’ll say it.”
Kadin’s communicator sounded a soft beep in his ear, and he answered. “Marks.”
“How’s your little gal gettin’ along this morning, boss?” Cowboy’s Texas twang was entirely too happy for O-dark-thirty after hitting their racks as late as they had.
“Our extractee is showing signs of voice strain and some impairment in movement.”
“She any more reasonable about leaving?”
“Negative.”
“You fixin’ to give her the lay of the land?”
“It wouldn’t do any good.” He’d known Rachel longer than anyone else in his life except his family. She did “stubborn” better than a CEO hanging on to his stock options.
“You sure about that, son? I’ve heard of seasoned warriors who pissed themselves when they had to go toe-to-toe with you, Trigger.”
“That’s because they realize I can kill them in their sleep and leave behind no evidence. But Rachel knows she’s safer with me than anyone else on earth.” At least, he hoped she did.
After the way he’d disappeared from her life, maybe she didn’t trust him any more than she did the man she’d been spying on. He wished it could be different between them.
He wished so many things were different, starting with the way he’d given her up all those years ago and ending with her becoming a spy instead of a nursery-school teacher, like they’d always planned.
“Is that right?”
“Yes.” The growl in Kadin’s tone said, drop it.
If Cowboy didn’t get the message, they were going to tangle when the other former MARSOC soldier got back.
“We’re still on for the information-gathering this morning?” Cowboy asked, showing he was smarter than he acted sometimes.
“Roger that.”
“Spazz has a nest with a clear view of the road.”
“And you?”
“I’ve got eyes on the compound.”
“That’s damn risky, Cowboy.”
“Yeah, well, your lady love isn’t going to leave here without photos of whoever shows up today. Spazz is good, but there’s no guarantee he’ll get a clean face shot with his toys.”
“I’m assuming wherever you are, there is.”
“Yep.”
Well, shit. As much as he appreciated the other man’s dedication, there was only one way Cowboy had a clear view that would guarantee a face shot. “Spazz know you’re back inside the compound?”
“I may not have mentioned the exact plan, no.”
“That’s a good way to get your ass kicked.” Especially if what he was beginning to suspect about the two men was true.
“It should make for some lively discussion, yes.” There wasn’t a speck of worry in the anticipation lacing Cowboy’s tone.
“It’s your funeral, buddy. Especially if Spazz decides your actions indicate you don’t trust him and his toys to get the job done.”
“Well, now, it sounds like we’re fixin’ to have a proper tie-up for sure.” If anything, the Texan sounded plenty happy at the prospect.
Crazy fool.
“As soon as you get visuals, I want you back here.” He siphoned all the friend from his voice and injected a healthy dose of obey-orders-or-your-ass-is-mine.
“I might be a tad late.”
It had been a hell of a lot easier to deal with when Cowboy pushed the boundaries of direct orders when Roman Chernichenko had been the one giving them.
“Why is that?” Kadin asked with fatalistic calm.
“I might have set things up to look like Rachel got away on her own. I’ll want to lay a false trail for when they go a-searchin’.”
“You think they’re going to buy that scenario?” Not that Kadin didn’t like the sound of it, because he did.
“Into every soldier’s life, some luck must fall.”
“Counting on luck will get you killed.”
“We already got the luck. It looks like those boys are in the habit of indulging in their after-dinner drinks pretty heavily. Their superiors are going to have no trouble believing the carefully laid evidence in front of their eyes.”
“And Rachel’s interrogators won’t remember anything from last night, so they can’t deny it.” Not after the drug cocktail Cowboy had dosed them with the night before.
“I almost feel sorry for them.”
Screw that shit. “I don’t. If it had been my assignment to administer the ketamine, those bastards wouldn’t have survived it.” Not after what they’d done to Rachel.
“You like her.” Cowboy didn’t bother to say who her was, but he didn’t need to.
“There was a time when I used the word love,“ he admitted. He didn’t even know if he was capable of that emotion anymore.
Before he had learned to take life, Kadin would have given his for Rachel in a heartbeat. Weapons could not afford to have emotions, though, and that had been the key factor in Kadin’s decision to walk away from the woman he’d promised to marry.
She’d been such an emotional, vulnerable girl, and she’d deserved better than a paid killer for a husband. Even if Uncle Sam was the one doing the paying back then.
“She could do a lot worse than you,” Cowboy offered quietly.
Kadin just snorted his disbelief. “Keep me apprised on any movement.”
“Roger that.”
They cut the communication, and Kadin turned toward Rachel. Her eyes were open, but barely. He didn’t know how much she’d overheard, not that it mattered. He’d always been lousy at keeping secrets from her. If he had been able to, they might still be together.
But she deserved better than a half life with him built on lies.
He reached out to brush her hair from her face, the exhaustion of her body caused by torture even more apparent in the natural light of morning.
She flinched so readily, the reaction seemed long-standing rather than a response to what she had just been through.
“You don’t like to be touched?” he asked, making no effort to hide the shock he felt at that reality.
The Rachel he remembered was a cuddler. She liked holding hands, nuzzled right in to watch movies on the sofa, and loved casual brushes of affection.
This woman gave off the vibe that she’d prefer that even Doc keep her hands to herself.
Rachel shook her head, mouthing the word no in case there was any question about her answer.
“Now or ever?”
She shrugged, her expression asking if it mattered.
“It matters. If something happened to you that has significantly altered your personality already, your post-assignment debriefing is going to have to be adjusted for additional psych work.”
Rachel just shrugged again. As if it didn’t matter, as if the fact that there was such an event in her past was of no importance.
Looking into her eyes, he saw something he had never expected to see there. Apathy. Her eyes had burned with need when she’d told him they couldn’t leave this area yet, but when it came to her own welfare, Rachel showed little interest and even less concern.
The feeling—or lack thereof—was too familiar for him not to recognize it.
And damned if he was going to let that stand.
“When your throat is better, we’re going to have a full debriefing.” And then some.
Because a world where his Rachel had lost all passion for her own life wasn’t worth living in. Seeing the same shell-shocked apathy in Rachel’s beautiful blue gaze as he had in so many brown eyes in Iraq was totally unacceptable.
Why the hell had he joined the Marines in the first place if it wasn’t to protect the people he loved from that very type of thing?
She stiffened and gave him a stubborn look he’d never forgotten; the pain and fear lurking in her eyes were new, though. With a decisive shake of her head, she turned on her side, away from him.
Like hell. He might have let her down in the past, but this time she was getting everything she needed from him. Even if she didn’t want it.
“If you were returning Stateside right away, it could wait.”
That stubborn chin jutted, and she jerked her head in another negative.
“Okay, then, you debrief with me.”
“Someone else,” she whispered with clear effort.
“No.” He didn’t bother explaining himself to Rachel. She wouldn’t agree with his reasoning, but this wasn’t something he was budging on.
He dug through his rations pack and found an envelope of protein-drink powder. He mixed it up with water and handed her the cup. “Drink this. You need the calories.”
Rachel drank, showing her less-than-approving reaction to the taste with a wrinkling of her cute little nose.
Kadin grinned. “Yeah, it tastes like shit, but it’s got all the essentials to help your body start healing.”
When she was done, he handed her a bottle of sports drink to replenish her electrolytes.
She gave a significant look at the I.V.
“You need to replenish your electrolytes. And the sooner you’re drinking and passing fluids, the sooner you can get that needle out of your hand.”
“Good point,” she mouthed without sound, and she gulped down half the bottle before setting it aside. “Sleep,” she breathed, and then she did just that.
He’d like to indulge himself and just stay in the tent to watch her, but there was too much to do to ensure her safety and that of his team.
The first thing was making a sat call to Roman Chernichenko to update the chief on the change in their objective.
Chapter Four
“You didn’t tell me you two had a past when you took this assignment,” Roman said in a neutral tone.
“Me demanding you send my team didn’t give it away?” Kadin asked with pure sarcasm.
Like hell Chief had not realized Kadin had a personal interest in Rachel Gannon’s extraction. The man was too smart to claim ignorance now.
“I may have had an inkling. When a war machine like you shows emotion, it makes a man sit up and take notice. Last time I saw emotion burning in your eyes like that, you were stupid drunk and going on about your ‘Sunshine. ’ I didn’t figure you were talking about the song.”
No, not the song. In another lifetime, Kadin used to call Rachel Sunshine. “I don’t remember that.”
“The powers of copious amounts of alcohol.”
“I don’t drink.”
“Not often, no, you don’t.”
“I had just found out that Rachel’s baby sister, Linny, was dead,” Kadin said, knowing that was the last time he’d been drunk.
“Reason enough to tie one on.”
“Yeah.”
Roman sighed. “So, what happens after you get the intel?”
“Ideally, we’d head home.”
“But you don’t think that’s going to happen?”
“Rachel’s been using an unwitting information asset in Egypt. She babbled a lot about the young woman when we first extracted her from her kidnappers. She’s not going to want to leave this girl behind.” Not after saying over and over again that Jamila was just like Linny.
Kadin didn’t know the full story behind Linny’s suicide, but he could guess what a burden of guilt Rachel would carry over it. Protecting her baby sister had been what Rachel was all about as a teenager, especially after they’d lost their parents.
“Would it do any good to order your sorry ass home?” Roman asked with exasperation but without the lethal edge that could chill his communications to below freezing.
Love did that to a man, Kadin guessed, and his boss deserved his happiness.
But Kadin wouldn’t be adding to it today. “Nope.”
He was here as long as Rachel needed him.
“Rachel may get her orders sooner than she expects. Washington is in a furor of political posturing right now.”
“When isn’t it?” And Roman might think orders were going to sway Rachel, but Kadin knew better. They weren’t leaving Africa until Rachel was convinced Jamila Massri was safe.
Roman just chuckled and rang off without saying good-bye.
Rachel woke to the sound of low voices outside her tent. She recognized those of Kadin and the doctor, Eva, but she could also hear a smooth, melodic male voice that was unknown to her.
She couldn’t make out all the words; they were being too quiet, but she thought she heard “Cowboy” and “picture.” She noted the empty glucose bag hanging from a tent pole above her and decided it was time to take out her I.V.
She’d done it before, but it never made the doctors happy. The nurses, either, for that matter. She couldn’t help the fact that an I.V. line always made her feel tethered. Once the feeling of being trapped set in, she got a little irrational.
It had always been that way. Ever since the accident that killed her parents. And the accident’s aftermath.
Better to get rid of the I.V. before the inevitable panic set in.
She carefully withdrew the needle, wincing at the pain but managing to stifle her gasp. Blood ran in a thin rivulet from the place the needle had been. She looked around for something to blot it away and spied a pack of wipes. She opened it and yanked one out, vaguely remembering the medic using them to clean her up the night before.
She pressed the wipe against the tiny wound until the blood stopped, and then she looked around for something to wear. Her soiled clothes had been removed at some point, though she couldn’t remember exactly when.
Things had been pretty hazy right after her rescue, Rachel’s discordant sense of reality in no way helped by the presence of the one man she had resigned herself to never see again.
She still didn’t understand how Kadin Marks could be her rescuer; the mere idea was worthy of a drug-induced hallucination. She’d had those once, after a mission that ended badly, with her recovering in a hospital on narcotic painkillers. She hated hospitals.
The zipper on the tent opened as Rachel sat up despite her muscles’ screaming protests. She yanked the cover over her, glad she had when her visitor turned out to be Kadin, not the female medic.
He noticed her missing I.V. immediately, his eyes narrowing, his gaze focused on her hand. “What did you do?”
Right. Ask a stupid question, she snarked in her head.
“Took it out, Capitan Obvious. What does it look like?” Okay, maybe she should tone down the sarcasm, if for no other reason than because her throat, though better, was still strained.
Kadin didn’t appear fazed by her detour to Snarkville. “If Doc wanted the shunt removed, she would have done it.”
Rachel shrugged, unconcerned by the possibility. She had enough to worry about already. The medic’s reaction to Rachel’s necessary action didn’t even make it onto the bottom of her A-list.
“Maybe she’ll want to administer meds through the I.V. line,” Kadin said in clear censure.
Well, that was hardly impetus to have left the shunt in. “No meds.”
“Your body took a lot of abuse.”
And her muscles wouldn’t be forgiving her for a while, but that wasn’t the most important factor to consider. “I don’t need to be loopy.”
“You can
afford to get some relief. I’m watching out for you.” Now he looked offended.
“I stopped trusting someone else to take care of me a long time ago.” She was careful to keep her voice modulated, but the words refused to stay inside.
That he’d been the one to teach her that lesson remained unsaid, however.
He frowned as if he’d heard the unspoken caveat and really didn’t like it. “You can go back to being the Lone Ranger when we hit Stateside. For now, I’ve got your back.”
No long-term promise, but then, she hadn’t expected one. Kadin had stopped making forever promises to her about the time she stopped believing in them. It wasn’t a coincidence.
Cause and effect, more like, and it was about to bite them both in the backside. She could feel it.
Maybe because she knew that “for now” was going to be shorter than she wanted and he expected. It wasn’t going to last past her refusal to leave Africa without Jamila.
Rachel was under no illusions that the Old Man—Andrew Whitney, head of TGP—would approve bringing the young Egyptian woman in. Rachel had already requested it once and gotten turned down for well-articulated reasons, but that wouldn’t stop her from trying again.
She had to. Jamila deserved to be safe. Rachel hadn’t been able to protect Linny, but she wasn’t going to let down another vulnerable girl who should be able to count on her.
“No drugs,” she repeated firmly, letting Kadin know she was taking his assurances as seriously as he’d taught her to.
Which was not at all after he broke the most important promise he’d made to her: to love her forever.
Tension filled him, but he did a darn good job of hiding it. Too bad for him that she knew his tells and had been trained to notice. The slight tightening around his sherry brown eyes and the way his breathing hitched belied the casual stance he tried to portray.
“Have the bigwigs arrived?” She still wasn’t convinced Chuma and his cohorts would show at all once they realized she was gone.
“Cowboy and Spazz both worked to get pictures.”
“They did?” Her breath caught in excitement, and she winced at the immediate pain tensing her muscles caused. “Face shots?”
“You’re hurting.”
