by J. L. Saint
“Now you’re talking.” Dugar smiled back at the man. He had one hell of a surprise for the impotent bastard. That had to be the root of Slayer’s all-talk-but-no-action problem. Dugar had to decide if he was going to get the towelhead bitch first or take care of Slayer.
It was about time things got interesting around here.
Chapter Nine
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Roger sat on the couch in his apartment, stunned, staring at the closed door to his bedroom.
Mari had been learning how to shoot.
He wasn’t sure how long it had been since Holly had dropped that bombshell into his lap before she left for duty. At the time he’d been trying to figure out why Mari hadn’t told him about her panic attacks or how severe they’d become. The revelations had him reeling.
Not because she had an anxiety problem or that she wanted to learn self-defense, but that she’d hidden them from him.
Connecting the dots between Mari, a gun range and shooting lessons was a stretch. Even though he believed every woman should know how to defend herself, it all seemed so at odds with her quiet, overly subservient manner whenever she was in his company.
It was as if she didn’t trust him enough to be herself around him and that gnawed at his gut, had him questioning what he really did know about her.
He was an open book to her, right?
His thrillers and political favorites were on the shelves across the great room. Movies he’d bought, mainly action thrillers and war documentaries, were stacked by the DVD player. He didn’t have a clue as to what she liked to read or watch, but did trivia really matter? He knew other things, more important things about her.
She loved and grieved for Neil. She desperately loved the baby growing inside her and had great hopes for her child. She’d shared that with him in a moment he’d never forget.
Closing his eyes, he recalled the details. He’d stopped at her home to gather some of her things and see the destruction Dugar’s drive-by shooting had caused. The dozens of shot-up butterfly- and flower-themed wind chimes surrounding the porch hung in tatters, but were still a reflection of beauty from the hands who’d hung them. A few minutes later, it was those broken chimes that had saved his life. Their sudden tinkling on a windless afternoon had brought him to a standstill in the hallway of Mari’s home, a hair’s breadth away from completely triggering an IED that Dugar had planted.
Come to think of it, there’d been butterflies all over her house, ceramic ones amid the framed snapshots of her and Neil on the shelves. Dugar’s bullets had cut a window-high path of destruction through the room, but the underlying beauty and hominess was still there. Butterfly motifs were in the handmade lace doilies covering brightly colored pillows. Softly muted butterflies emerging from cocoons themed the watercolors hanging on the walls. And Mari’s scent had lingered in the air. Jasmine and spice. Distractingly sweet and alluring, just like her voice.
He’d called her as he waited for the bomb squad to arrive. If he was going to die before they could disarm Dugar’s bomb then her voice was the last thing he’d wanted to hear. She’d answered on the first ring, as if she’d been waiting to hear from him, worried about him. It had felt good.
“Mr. Wes—uh, Roger, are you all right? You’ve been gone a long time.”
He cleared his throat, thinking her voice sounded like an angel’s, something every man on death’s doorstep craved to hear. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just…just delayed. I had a few extra minutes and thought I would check on you. Is Holly still with you?”
“Yes. She has been very kind.”
“Good. Humor me a minute. There’s been so much happening that I never got the chance to ask. Tell me about the baby. What your and Neil’s plans were for the little one. Names, hopes, dreams. I’d like to know.”
He shut his eyes as she spoke, letting everything about her wash over him.
“Neil wanted a girl. We were just starting to look at names before…he left.” Her hesitation and pain tortured him as much as the sound of her voice soothed him. He stood beneath the onslaught of them both, absorbing it all.
“Amara,” she said. “He liked the name Amara. It means eternally beautiful and he thought it perfect for a little girl.”
Eternally beautiful. Just like her mother. Roger barely stopped himself from saying the words aloud.
“I thought Neil for a boy, but he said not to worry about a boy’s name. It was a girl. A girl who will grow up free to spread her wings and be whatever her heart desired. It didn’t matter what.
“He said he’d play ball with her and have tea parties. I wanted picnics at the beach and to take her to Disney World. I think she’ll want a career. Be a person with a voice who can make a difference in the lives of others, be a leader. But it doesn’t matter. What is important is she will have the freedom I never had.”
Emotion unlike anything Roger had ever felt flooded his being as he let himself yearn from the bottom of his soul. Yearn for things he’d never found the time to make happen. A wife, a child, a home. Considering he might be living the last minutes of his life, the timing sucked. Mari continued talking, unaware of his struggle. He didn’t tell her what he was facing. She didn’t need the worry.
“Neil had already started calling her ‘Princess’. Even bought all of Hallmark’s recordable books and recorded…them. My Little Princess was his favorite—”
Her voice broke with a cry and Roger’s heart twisted.
“Do you think Neil instinctively knew something?” she rasped painfully. “Do you think he knew he wasn’t coming back and didn’t say anything?” She sounded hurt, almost betrayed that Neil would have done that.
Roger had heard stories of men, who’d seemingly known death waited not on the sidelines as usual for men in their line of work, but dead ahead. He didn’t believe them though. Often thought stuff like that was like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“No,” he said forcefully enough to convince her as he clenched every muscle in his body to keep from moving. His slightest tremor could completely trigger the bomb that was wired to the trip line lying tight against his jean-clad shin. “No, he didn’t.”
He could tell she didn’t believe him.
“Think, Mari. Didn’t Neil always plan ahead before he left on a mission? All the guys on the teams do it to some extent.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “You’re right. He did. I just never thought he wouldn’t come back.”
Shit. Roger jerked his mind back to the present, stood, and started pacing as he reexamined his apartment. He had no pictures or art on the walls. No collectibles on the shelves. No decorations or even plants about. Just comfortable furniture, a big-screen TV and a remote. Generic and middle of the road. Nothing personal. Except for evidence of his Oreo addiction hidden in the pantry and the freezer, anyone could live there.
This was his home. Occasionally, when he wanted to get away from everything, he’d go to the small house in Fayetteville he’d inherited—by default—from his grandparents. The house had been left to him and his brothers, but being the adrenaline junkies they were, they had no use for something so mundane. Things at the house were slightly different. There were a few pictures on the walls, trinkets on the shelves, and some pictures too, but they weren’t anything he’d chosen or a reflection of his personal life. Just stuff his mother had left when she’d cleared out his grandparents’ belongings.
He’d been around the world. He was an officer in the Army. He’d been through Special Forces training, and now held a commanding position in the elite Delta Force. Unlike his brothers, who were into extreme experiences and treasure hunting, whenever Roger faced death it was for a reason.
He was thirty-nine years old and this was his life.
He didn’t have a headscarf and black gown, but wasn’t he just as hidden and imprisoned as Mari?
He’d gotten a glimpse of the man he wanted to be when he’d faced Dugar’s bomb that day in her house—having a wife, a family, a home w
ith character to it, and someone who answered the phone with concern when he ran late. But he’d done zippo about it since.
He was about as far from an open book as a man could get. He was also the reason Neil was dead. So who was he to call the kettle black?
Weighing only the moral factors, he should tell Mari his part in Neil’s death. But then he’d sworn his oath to his country and government, and they demanded deception from him right now, a little tactical deception to avoid World War III. He had to abide with the story that all the explosions in Lebanon had originated from the terrorists themselves.
Still, he should tell her.
That Roger had ordered the missile strike after all data indicated the team inside the hideout was dead and that al-Qaeda’s number two man with a truckload of radicals had entered the building didn’t wash the blood from Roger’s hands. Nor did the later discovery that the terrorists had used a new jamming device powerful enough to wipe out signs of life from his men and make the GPS system of this missile he’d ordered go awry, hitting two buildings instead of one.
He was responsible for Neil’s death, for the deaths of the women and children next door where a so-called orphanage fronted the terrorist’s armory. He was responsible for the injuries to his men and the women they were there to rescue. Innocent blood covered his hands. Lives were shattered and Mari’s life was one of them. He owed it to Neil to give both her and their unborn child the best life he could.
He owed Mari the truth, too, but couldn’t tell her and honor his oath to his country.
And frankly, if he did tell her, odds were she wouldn’t want him anywhere near her. He wouldn’t be able to protect her then. So in the end, a little tactical deception for the greater good was his only option. He was exactly like the government he served. Sometimes that was a good thing and sometimes it seemed it was bad. He wasn’t even sure he could live with everything that had happened, but right now he didn’t have a choice.
His duty was to protect and to serve. Keeping Mari and her child as safe and as taken care of as if Neil himself was at her side was paramount.
Before the guilt of Neil’s death could get another strangling hold on him, Roger marched to his bedroom door. He couldn’t effectively take care of Mari if she hid herself from him. Something had to change. He knocked on the door.
No answer.
He knocked harder.
Still no answer. Worried now, he opened the door. “Mari?”
Light from the bathroom highlighted her figure at the window. She stood minus her abaya and hijab—her black gown and headscarf. She wore a long tunic over slim pants, a vision of cream-colored silk and ebony hair that fell well below her waist. Gold leaves embroidered the collar, sleeves and hems of her outfit. The effect was delicate, exotic, almost ethereal.
Tears streamed down her cheeks and she had her hands pressed to her abdomen, to the child growing within her.
“Are you hurting? Is it the baby? Do you need to go to the hospital?”
“No. The baby is fine. No pain.”
Relief had his blood rushing with dizzying force, leaving him almost light-headed and his chest tightened into a knot. Emotion, pain and desire, sucker punched him in the gut and below. What kind of low-bellied dick was he?
The lowest, he decided. He couldn’t stop his heated arousal in response to her beauty, but he damn well could ignore it and remember with every shred of decency he had in him that if it wasn’t for him, Neil would be with Mari right now and none of the shit that had happened to her lately would have occurred.
She stood frozen a moment then turned, reaching for her black gown.
“Don’t. Please don’t hide from me.” His voice escaped in a harsh rasp.
She paused, looking at him, her hand resting on her heavy gown. Her golden eyes were wide with…fear?
He covered the distance between them.
“Are you afraid of me?” Their gazes met and she lowered hers.
He knew before he slid his thumb under her chin how soft her skin was. Just weeks ago, he’d lost his restraint and kissed her tear-dampened cheeks after Dugar had taken a shot at her outside the hospital. That night he’d held her bandaged hand as she’d restlessly slept between nightmares. And until helping her up from the street today, it was the last time he’d touched her.
He clasped her hand resting on her gown and brought it to his chest, placing her palm firmly over his racing heart. Her gaze reconnected with his and he asked her again. “Are you afraid of me?”
“No,” she whispered before shutting her eyes and pulling her hand away.
She said no, but he swore he saw fear swirling in her conflicted expression.
“Why then? Why didn’t you tell me how bad things were for you? I could have helped or gotten you help. And why didn’t you tell me about the shooting lessons? I would have arranged for them. Made sure you were safe.”
“You would have?” She blinked at him with surprise. “But you were adamant about me not leaving the post for any reason. Not even to go with Holly to the store in Fayetteville.”
“Going to a shoe sale in a crowded mall is different than going to a gun range. Besides, learning to protect yourself is more important than buying shoes.” Roger raked his fingers through his hair. He remembered the conversation they’d had a few weeks back. And yeah, he’d been pretty strong in his objections about them going to the mall. But then, someone had been calling in bomb threats at that time too. It had been three weeks after Dugar’s attempts to kill her and Roger would have bet money Dugar was behind the threats. He hadn’t told Mari about any of it though. He hadn’t wanted her to worry. Only to heal.
She frowned at him as if he’d grown horns. “What?” he asked. Had he said something wrong?
“So what does that mean? I am not supposed to do something, but if it’s something you approve of then it is all right to do it?”
Hell. She made him sound as if he were a bipolar prison guard. He counted to ten, hoping to ease his frustration, but it didn’t work. “No. Well, sometimes, maybe, yes. I mean—” Tension knotted his brow. What did he mean? Couldn’t she see the difference between the two outings? “We can discuss the details later. I just need to know why you couldn’t tell me about the anxiety you’re having and that you wanted to learn self-defense.”
“I didn’t want you to worry.”
Roger opened his mouth then shut it. He’d kept things from her for the same reason, but this was different. She’d put herself in both physical and mental jeopardy. Then again, hadn’t he set himself as her prison guard as opposed to a bodyguard? Had he done anything personal to put her at ease enough to be able to share her anxiety with him? No, he’d let his guilt and his need to avoid his attraction to her keep her at a cold, formal distance.
He had to change. “You can’t do that anymore. From now on, no matter what you want to do, just tell me and whether I like it or not, I will help you do it, okay? It is the only way I can assure your safety.”
“That’s it? If I want to go buy shoes then you’ll take me?”
He exhaled. “Yes. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to voice my opinion on whether it’s a smart thing to do or not. And if I really think something is too dangerous then I expect you to respect my serious concerns. This isn’t a forever state of affairs. It’s just until Dugar is caught, then you’ll be your own woman, okay?”
Her own woman? Did she even know who she was? Mari looked up at Roger, her heart racing so fast she could barely think. A few moments ago, she’d been staring out at the purple-red sunset, wondering how she could face Roger. She’d done exactly what he’d told her not to do and it had turned out so badly. She’d been sickened over how miserably she’d failed in establishing any shred of independence. Her worst fears about herself had come true. She’d had a total panicked meltdown. She’d been thrust back into the darkness of what had happened in Afghanistan. She’d hit the bottom and was surprised that she’d survived it all. Her pride was bruised, but she was
okay.
Now she was not only facing Roger but…she stood alone with him, in his bedroom, wearing only her tunic and pants and she wasn’t embarrassed or shamed. She wanted this familiarity between them.
He wasn’t as mad as she thought he would be either.
It wasn’t as if her choosing to leave the post didn’t matter. She could see that he was clearly upset and worried about her. But it wasn’t how she’d thought it would be. Her father would have—
Roger wasn’t her father. Never would be. But he wasn’t the easygoing teddy bear Neil had been either. In some ways Roger was like a fierce warrior. Dangerous and remote. She’d seen the deadly anger in his eyes when it came to Dugar. She had no doubt that Roger would kill Dugar with his bare hands if he had to. She’d also seen a haunted darkness in him too. Roger had deep secrets that she instinctively knew he’d never let another person near.
Neil had been different. There wasn’t a part of him he didn’t openly share with her. It wasn’t that he didn’t keep information from her. There were things about his job he couldn’t tell her and things she would never ask him. But his soul and heart had wrapped warmly around her as accepting and loving as a puppy. He’d never said anything to curtail what she did, but then, she’d never ventured beyond the strictures of her upbringing. It was two years before he could talk her into going to the store alone.
It wasn’t until she met Holly that Mari started thinking about doing things outside of the rules, about getting an education, a job, learning to shoot a gun, and yes, one of those things was standing without her abaya before a man who wasn’t her husband, her brother or her father. A man who said she could be her own woman? What did that mean?
“Okay?” Roger angled his head to look into her eyes as he set his hands on her shoulders.
She nodded. Her tongue was tied in the gratefulness clogging her throat and in the fire burning through her senses at his heated touch. He’d made this whole big problem and the fiasco of the day all so simple. So easy to let go of and move forward. At least she thought he had. Currently her mind reeled, making coherent thought debatable. His nearness and intensity had her blood racing places her mind couldn’t go yet.
