by Paige Tyler
He charged into the hallway just as Calballero and the two men with him topped the stairs. They had a clear view of the office—and Ivy—from the landing, and didn’t even see him. They immediately pulled their guns and aimed at her.
Landon squeezed the trigger, taking all three of them out just as one of them shot at Ivy. As the bullet hit the wall beside her head, Ivy spun around, a laptop in her hands. Wide-eyed, she gaped at the dead men on the floor, then at him.
“Dammit, let’s go!” he shouted.
She obeyed, running past him into the bedroom. He followed, pulling the remote from his pocket and setting off the explosive charges near the main gate as he went. Hopefully, that’d distract the rest of Calballero’s guards long enough for him and Ivy to get away.
Outside, Ivy jumped up and grabbed the wire, then pulled herself onto it and gracefully raced back to the guard tower. Landon scooped up the sniper rifle he’d discarded earlier. It might be ruined beyond repair, but he wasn’t about to leave it. Praying someone wasn’t below waiting to pick him off, he grabbed the cable and climbed hand over hand up to the tower. The thin cable was rough on his hands, and it took him a while to get across.
By the time he got there, Ivy had already leaped from the wall. He vaulted down after her, following as she sped toward the tree line. If he wasn’t so damn pissed at her right now, he’d have seen the two guards come around the corner of the wall ready to shoot him. Luckily, Ivy put a bullet through each of them before Landon could even lift his carbine.
Swearing under his breath, he tossed one of the concussion grenades over the wall into the compound. With any luck, the other guards would get confused and think whoever had killed Calballero was still inside.
The blast rocked the ground as he and Ivy disappeared into the trees. She made a beeline for their packs. While she recovered them from the bushes where they’d hidden them, he shoved the ruined sniper rifle in the bushes. Trucks roared in the distance, echoing in the jungle.
He took his pack from Ivy, slipping his arms through the straps as he ran after her. Somewhere behind them, Calballero’s guards randomly shot at them. They didn’t sound like they were getting closer, but he and Ivy ran for a solid thirty minutes before stopping to rest.
Their headlong flight through the jungle hadn’t done a thing to cool Landon’s temper, and he immediately rounded on her. “What the hell happened back there? Why didn’t you respond when I told you Calballero was back?”
Ivy flinched as if he’d hit her. “I-I couldn’t hear you.”
“What the hell do you mean, you couldn’t hear me? I was practically shouting in your ear.”
“I…”
She looked away. But not before he saw the tears shimmering in her green eyes. Another reason he was glad they didn’t allow women on the A-teams. They were too freaking sensitive.
“I…” She swallowed hard. “I messed up. I’m sorry, okay?”
Landon frowned. He got the apology. What he didn’t get was the way she’d said it. Like she was some timid mouse instead of the bold, confident woman he’d spent the past two days with. That Ivy would have glared and told him she’d been trying to get the information they’d come there for and wasn’t leaving until she got it.
There was more going on here than just a screw-up on her part; he’d bet his next paycheck on it. And whatever it was, it had something to do with her being a shifter. Their ability to work as a team depended on each of them knowing the other’s weaknesses. If she went deaf sometimes, he needed to know about it. But the middle of the jungle wasn’t the place to have that conversation.
Landon jerked his chin at the laptop she still clutched in her hands. “You think that’s what we’re looking for?”
Ivy lifted her head to look at him. “Probably. People don’t lock up a laptop unless there’s something important on it.”
She had a point. “It’ll be easier to carry if we rip out the hard drive.”
“Yeah.” She dropped to her knees, flipped the computer over and used the tip of her nail to unscrew the compartment holding the hard drive. She took it out and put it into a plastic bag, then sealed it and stowed it in her pack.
He hadn’t really been concerned whether the laptop was what they’d been after. It either was or it wasn’t. It wasn’t like they were going to go back and look for something else. But he needed Ivy’s head back in the game, so he’d wanted to kick her mind into gear. It was a long way to the extraction point and there were likely going to be patrols out looking for them. He and Ivy needed to put as many miles between them and the compound as they could before daylight.
Landon buried the laptop, then pulled out the map. “Here’s where we’re supposed to ditch our uniforms, weapons, and gear.” He pointed at a tiny village about fifteen miles up the road. “Think you can get us past all the patrols on the road?”
Ivy didn’t look at the map. “Yes,” was all she said.
“Then let’s go. We need to be there by daylight if we can.”
Landon let Ivy take the lead again. Regardless of how unreliable her hearing was, her eyesight was still a hell of a lot better than his, especially at night. He prayed whatever had happened to her at Calballero’s was a fluke. But what if it wasn’t? What if it happened to her all the time? As much as he didn’t want to believe that idiot Foley, maybe the man was right. Had that been what got her previous partner killed?
***
Ivy could feel Landon’s eyes boring into her back all the way to the village. She glanced over her shoulder at him. His jaw was tight, as if he had to restrain himself from shouting at her. He was probably so pissed he couldn’t see straight and was likely berating himself for ever getting put on a team with a whack job like her. She couldn’t blame him. Her mistake could have gotten both of them killed. She wasn’t sure why she should care what the hell he thought about her, but all of a sudden, she did.
Tears stung her eyes and she blinked them away. She had to face it. Landon was the best thing that had happened to her since she’d come to the DCO, and she’d just blown it. She wouldn’t be surprised if he bailed on her when they got back to the States. She supposed she should be lucky he’d come to get her out of Calballero’s and hadn’t simply followed orders and shot her.
They reached the tiny village around midmorning, exchanged their military clothes for civilian clothes, then dumped their gear. The locals—mostly older people and small children—pointedly ignored them.
Landon didn’t say anything to her as they hiked the last two miles to the extraction point in Puerto Carreño. That hurt more than having him shout at her. She wished he would yell. At least then she’d know what was going on in his head. She could hardly wait to meet up with the eco-tour group just so she wouldn’t have to listen to the endless silence.
Fortunately, she and Landon got to the outpost around noon. A smiling blonde checked them in under the names Sam and Marcy Colter, newlyweds. Like she and Landon could pass for a couple on their honeymoon. He couldn’t even look at her without grinding his jaw.
They sat on the shore of the river while they waited for the other tourists to show up. Ivy opened her mouth half a dozen times to tell Landon what had happened back at Calballero’s and that it would never happen again. But she couldn’t find the right words.
Two miserable hours later, the other tourists arrived along with their tour guides, and by then it was too late. Ivy pasted a smile on her face and did the meet-and-greet with the other people in the tour—a mix of Americans, Europeans, and travelers from nearby South American countries. As they chatted, one of the tour guides came over to introduce himself as Dean Stockton—and give the prearranged code word that identified him as their contact.
“Play it cool today, but after we stop, announce one of you aren’t feeling well and go to bed early. Feel slightly better in the morning, then take a turn for the worst after the noon sto
p. You do your part and I’ll do mine.”
Right. Part of that was acting like a married couple. Something Landon must have finally remembered. He put his arm around her waist as they followed their tour guides over to the waiting rafts. His skin was warm through the thin material of her T-shirt, and she had to stifle a moan.
Ivy tried to keep up friendly chatter with the other couple who climbed into the raft with them, but it was tough to act like a newlywed when Landon was sitting beside her looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. Putting on the happy-couple act was more exhausting than hiking the thirty-five miles to Puerto Carreño, and she sighed with relief when they pulled onto a sandbar to stop for the night.
“We’re not supposed to know how to do this, remember?” Landon gave her a pointed look as they set up the small tent the tour guides had provided.
It wouldn’t look good for a couple from the big city to be more efficient at setting up their tent than the tour guides. So, she and Landon pretended to fumble with it for a while before they both got tired of being incompetent and just put the damn thing together. Then they gathered around the campfire with everyone else while their guides cooked the fish they’d caught for dinner.
Ivy waited until after they’d eaten before she announced she wasn’t feeling well. Landon played his part, getting up when she did, concern on his face as he helped her to the tent.
Since their clothes weren’t wet—wasn’t that a shame?—she didn’t have a reason to get undressed, so she took off her boots and socks, then unbraided her hair. The tent was bigger than the lean-to they’d slept in the other night, but not by much, and she was keenly aware of Landon sitting beside her, staring into space. Why the heck didn’t he roll over and go to sleep? He had to be as tired as she was.
“Did your last partner get killed because you zoned out on him like you did on me back at Calballero’s compound?”
Ivy stopped combing her fingers through her hair and looked at him sharply. She could handle his anger, even his silence. But having him think she was so incompetent she’d gotten her former partner killed? That was the worst.
She went back to running her fingers through her hair. “No. Dave didn’t get killed because I zoned out.”
“Then what did happen?”
She didn’t want to talk about this. But not talking about it was part of the reason they were in the place they were right now.
“The DCO paired me up with Dave less than a month after what happened with Jeff. He’d heard the rumors about what I’d supposedly done to my first partner and decided they were true. He didn’t trust me and wouldn’t talk to me more than he had to. And forget about using my shifter skills. He’d rather die first.” Bad choice of words. “I still have no idea how we made it through certification.”
“Why’d the DCO put you together if you didn’t function well as a team?”
“Because, even though we fought like cats and dogs, we always managed to get the job done. Which, looking back on it now, was stupid. We hated working together and if we’d failed to complete a mission, the DCO would have split us up. But we were both too pig-headed. Besides, I was afraid if I complained about Dave after what happened with Jeff, the DCO would decide I wasn’t worth the trouble of keeping around.”
“So, what happened to him?” Landon prompted. “Dave, I mean.”
She took a deep breath and told him, starting with why they’d gone to Grozny and finishing with Dave getting shot.
“Dave ordered me not to follow, but I did anyway. He wasn’t in there five minutes before I heard gunfire. I shouted at him to answer me, but he’d turned off his headset. I didn’t know if he was alive or dead or what.” Which was exactly the way Landon must have felt back at Calballero’s when she hadn’t responded. Knowing what she’d put him through made her feel even worse. “By the time I got to him, he and the Russian were both dead.”
Landon was silent for a long time. “I’m sorry. For thinking you had something to do with what happened. When you zoned out at the hacienda, I assumed…” He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “What happened to you back there, Ivy? And don’t say you couldn’t hear me.”
She lifted her head to see him regarding her expectantly, his dark eyes almost desperate for the truth. She owed him that much, didn’t she? “Sometimes when I shift really deep—like I had to do to pick up Calballero’s scent on the safe’s keypad—I get lost in my animal side.”
His brows drew together. “What do you mean, get lost?”
“My feline side takes charge and I take a backseat. I’m there, just not in control.” That made her sound like she had some kind of split personality. She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “I heard you over the headset. I just couldn’t answer.”
“How many times has this happened to you?”
“Never,” she assured him, then added, “At least never on a mission. The only time it’s ever happened is in intensely emotional situations.”
The first time it happened had been when she’d lost her virginity. She was twenty, a sophomore in college. Getting to the point where she trusted a guy enough to sleep with him in the first place had taken a while, and when it’d finally happened, she wondered why it had taken so long. It had been incredible and as she got more and more into it, she found herself slipping into an almost trancelike state where every sensation in her body had been heightened a hundredfold. She’d been on top, completely lost in the sensations as she rode her boyfriend into orgasm when the one small part of her awareness that still seemed to be intact realized she was clawing the bed on either side of his head. The realization that she’d shifted without knowing it had jolted her back into her own body, where she’d been horrified to discover her fangs had come out. She’d immediately jumped up and run into the bathroom where she’d looked in the mirror to discover her eyes had changed, too. Thank God her boyfriend had been too caught up in his own pleasure to notice any of it.
When she finally came out of the bathroom—an hour later—she found her boyfriend sitting on the bed, completely dressed, his head in his hands. He’d been convinced it was his fault regardless of what she said. It hadn’t helped that she’d broken up with him. But what else could she do? A guy might want a woman who was an animal in bed, but not in the literal sense of the word.
It was no surprise she didn’t get serious with anyone for a while, and when she did, she was careful not to lose control in bed, which resulted in some very unsatisfying sex. On the bright side, she’d gotten great at faking it.
Landon definitely didn’t need to know any of that. She cleared her throat.
“Up until now, I’ve always kept myself completely under control.”
“What made this time different? You weren’t emotional while you were trying to crack the safe, were you?”
“No. But while emotional situations can bring on a deep shift accidentally, I can do it on purpose if I really need to. Like figuring out which keys a person touched on a keypad. It takes a lot of concentration, and I can’t do it without letting my feline half take over.” She looked up at him. “I’ve never attempted to do anything like that on a mission before because it leaves me so exposed. I never trusted any of my partners enough to shift that deep. I never believed they’d have my back. But I really wanted to show you I could get that safe open. I’m sorry for putting you in that position.”
Landon didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. It was too late for excuses. And too late for apologies. It wasn’t too late for self-recriminations, though. Hot tears stung her eyes. Now she was going to start crying, too. Her humiliation would finally be complete.
She tried to look away before Landon could see, but he cupped her cheek. “Hey. Why are you crying?”
“I’m not…”
Her voice broke. A tear trickled down her cheek, making a liar out of her. Dammit. She wasn’t usually so emotional. It had to b
e tied to her body’s crazy reaction to Landon—a side effect of being in heat.
He gently wiped the tear away. “Tell me why you’re crying. Please.”
She sniffed. “Because you’re the best partner I’ve ever had and I screwed it up. And because the thought of you asking John to team you up with a new partner is tearing me up inside.”
Her chin quivered. She had to get out of this tent ASAP or this was going to get even more embarrassing than it already was.
She tried to get up, but Landon cupped her face with both hands, refusing to let her go. He brushed more tears away, making quiet shushing sounds. “You haven’t screwed up anything. Please don’t cry.”
Another tear fell. “It’s okay. I don’t blame you for wanting another partner. I don’t.”
He swept her hair away from her face, shushing her again. Then he leaned forward until their faces were only inches apart. It was hard to think about crying when he was this close.
“I’m not going to ask John for a new partner, Ivy.”
She blinked at him, afraid to hope. “Y-you’re not?”
“No. And I’m not telling him about what happened at Calballero’s hacienda, either. But we do have to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. Your animal nature is part of what makes you so good in the field, but it’s not the only part. Your human side plays a part, too. You can’t let one part shove the other part in the backseat. You have to be the one in control.”
He made it sound so simple. “That’s easy to say, but hard to do. In some ways, I’m half human, half animal. It’s not always easy to separate the two.”
“Then we’ll work on it together. That’s what partners do. And you’re my partner—period.”
Partners. Her heart squeezed at the word. She wanted to thank him, but nothing she could say seemed adequate. So, instead, she leaned forward to touch her forehead to his. It wasn’t their foreheads that touched, however. Not even close. She couldn’t swear to which one of them initiated it, but she found her lips on his. Then she didn’t care who started it.
