by Zara Chase
Cantara shrugged, took a deep breath and pushed elegantly into the water. She dipped her head beneath it, and then surfaced again, spluttering and laughing. “Race you to the other bank,” she said, setting off before they realized what she had planned.
Of course they could have beaten her easily, but they let her win, if only for the pleasure they got from following close behind her cute butt and admiring the way it cut through the water. She was breathless and laughing when she reached the other side.
“You’re right,” she said, rolling onto her back and floating, staring up at the cloudless sky. “It’s invigorating.”
Raoul couldn’t resist. He dove beneath her, came up right under her, and scooped her into his arms.
“Glad to see you having fun, darlin’,” he said, kissing her wet lips.
“I am, thanks to you guys.”
“That’s real good, but there’s just one problem I’ve got.”
“Not again,” she said, with a martyred sigh.
“Oh, that’s always a problem when I’m anywhere near you,” Raoul replied, feeling his cock stirring again, even in the cold water, simply because he was holding her in his arms. “But this is way more serious.”
She flexed her brows. “More serious than sex? I know my memory’s not all it could be, but I seem to recall that nothing was more serious for you guys than getting it on.”
“Ah, but darlin’, you insulted my manhood. That wasn’t nice.”
“I did?” She opened her eyes very wide—all wet lashes and feigned innocence. “What did I do?”
Zeke’s amused chuckle rang out. “She didn’t find anything to insult about mine.”
“Did you have something to say about someone being a wuss?” Raoul asked, ignoring Zeke’s banter.
Before she could answer, he tossed her in the air and let her fall back into the water. She squealed with laughter, swam over to Zeke, and whispered protractedly in his ear. Her eyes danced as she glanced back at Raoul. With a squeal of laughter she swam over to him and splashed him from behind. Before he could retaliate, she set off for the other bank, as sleek and graceful through the water as an otter. Raoul matched her stroke for stroke, sending her an egregious grin as he plotted his next move.
“We all make our own choices in this world, sweetheart,” he said, wagging a finger at her when their feet hit the shallows on the side of the lake. The horses looked up to see what the commotion was about, then went back to their grazing.
Cantara was in an uninhibited mood, out to have fun. He expected a pithy retort but instead she stood stock still in the shallow water and gaped at him.
“What is it, babe?” Raoul rushed to her side, sensing a swift swing in her mood that bothered him.
“What did you just say?” she asked. Her eyes had lost their sparkle, and the haunted expression he’d hoped never to see again returned to her features.
“We all make our own choices.” Raoul shared a look with Zeke and shrugged, unable to figure out what had gotten to her. “It was just an off the cuff remark. I didn’t mean anything by it. I sure didn’t mean to upset you.”
“But you didn’t, you made me remember.”
“My comment made you remember.” Raoul was totally bewildered. “Made you remember what?”
“All of it.” She sucked in a shuddering breath, trembling from head to foot. “It was what Salim kept saying to me. The fog’s gone. I remember everything that happened to me after I was captured.”
Chapter Eleven
A thousand dire recollections of her three-year ordeal chased one another through Cantara’s mind. Her head throbbed and her limbs trembled as she was swept back in her imagination to the dank prison that she had thought would become her tomb. She had spent the past month living in a bubble, unsure of her history, her identity—unsure of anything except the unshakable certainty that she was supposed to be with Raoul and Zeke. Now that she remembered the cold hard reality of how she’d gotten a second chance to be with them, she belatedly realized that ignorance had been bliss.
“Come on, darlin’,” Raoul said, sweeping her into his arms and carrying her out of the lake. “Let’s get you warm and dry. You’re shaking like a goddamned leaf.”
Zeke produced a towel from his saddlebags and rubbed Cantara’s limbs briskly with it. “Let’s get your circulation going again, sweet thing,” he said. “Then you can tell us what you remember. It might help to talk about it.”
When her body was dry, Raoul helped her back into her clothing and Zeke set about towel-drying her hair. She was incapable of helping herself and stood compliantly where she was while they took care of her. The initial shock of recollection was wearing off and, at first reluctant to speak of the horrors she had endured, she now wanted to share them with the only two people in the world who could possibly understand.
The two men whom she loved unconditionally. The only family she now had. The only family she would ever need.
“Better?” Raoul asked, gently kissing her brow as he took her hand, sat down on the grass, and pulled her down with him.
“Yes, I think so.”
“That’s good.” Raoul’s reassuring smile helped her to emerge from the pain of recollection. “You remember your family now.”
It wasn’t a question, and Cantara merely nodded. “It feels like I’m grieving for them all over again,” she said, wiping away an errant tear.
“I imagine it must,” Zeke said, stroking her arm. “But the special thing about you is that you didn’t want revenge, like the majority of people in your situation would have.”
“Like my brothers did?”
“Right. You could see the futility of violence, wanted to try and put a stop to it. You were absolutely determined to make a difference. That takes real courage, especially when so many people tried to dissuade you.” Zeke paused. “Us included.”
“I should have listened.” She looked from one to the other of them, tears streaming down her face. “I thought you were dead,” she said bleakly. “Which meant my life was over, too, because I couldn’t imagine living without you, even if I could get past the guilt.”
“Oh, darlin’!” Raoul pulled her into his arms and she found sanctuary against the solidity of his granite chest. “We thought the same thing about you.” He nuzzled the top of her wet head with his lips. “Do you imagine we would have stopped looking for you if we thought there was even an outside chance you were still alive?”
“No, I’m sure you wouldn’t have, so I guess that means I’m glad you thought I was dead. You never would have found me, and would probably have gotten yourselves killed in the hunt. You know how volatile things are on the West Bank.”
“We know,” Zeke said. “But it wouldn’t have stopped us.”
Cantara didn’t quite know how she finished up there, but she was now sitting on Raoul’s lap. He and Zeke were still naked, which didn’t appear to bother them, and Zeke pulled her legs over his groin, so they each had a part of her to touch with their skilled fingers, to comfort, to caress. Now that they had taken control over her body, showing her through their fierce desire to protect her just how much she was loved, Cantara’s mind felt better able to face her memories. They were just memories. They couldn’t hurt her now.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“We followed you, as agreed, but sensed from the get-go that something wasn’t right,” Raoul replied. “But it was too late to turn back because we had no way of pulling you out. That was stupid. We should have insisted on a failsafe of some sort. Anyway, they had you and we weren’t about to let you out of our sight.”
“But we rode that damned motorbike straight into an ambush,” Zeke said. “They knew we’d be following you, knew what we were to you, and planned to take us out. We couldn’t figure out why at the time. Now we know it was personal because Salim wanted you for himself, it makes more sense.”
“I’m so very sorry,” she said, shaking her head against Raoul’s chest.
“It’s not
your fault, darlin’,” Raoul said. “We were taken, held for a week, but we managed to break out. We dealt with the guards and the head honcho guarding us and managed to get back to base. But we only escaped after we’d been shown a video of you…” Raoul choked on the words and took a moment to compose himself. It was Cantara’s turn to comfort him by gently caressing his face with the tips of her fingers, running one of them across his lips until he expelled a soft sigh and continued talking. “You were tied to a chair. A man approached you. He had his back to the camera so we never were able to identify him. Anyway, he slapped you so hard that you fell to the ground.”
“Which must be how you fractured your skull,” Zeke added. “There was so much blood. It killed us to see it, but we couldn’t show any reaction to that damned psychopath who was holding us. We were denying all personal connections to you, you see, but he didn’t believe us. Then we saw you laid out, eyes dead and staring, on a bed. It damned near did our captors’ work for them and finished us off then and there.”
“They tortured you,” she said on a whisper, fresh tears flowing. “All because of me. I can’t stand it.”
“We’re big boys, darlin’,” Zeke assured her. “We got through it, and got our revenge, at least on the guys who held us.”
“That was after they showed us the video of your dead body,” Raoul explained, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed down his emotion. “We couldn’t risk escaping all the time we thought you were still alive, or they would have taken it out on you. Once they showed us that fucking video, the effect of which I’ll never forget, we figured there was nothing left for us to lose.” He ran his hand possessively down the curve of her face. “We had lost our reason for living because we were stupid enough to fall for their cheap trick. Our training was better than that. We never should have believed second-hand evidence like that.”
“One damned thing that idiot Pool was right about was our being too close to you to be objective,” Zeke explained. “Anyone else and we would most likely have seen through the ruse.”
“They did something similar with me.” Cantara froze at the memory.
“What did they do, honey?” Zeke asked.
“They showed me a picture of the two of you, naked, bloodied and apparently dead.” A series of shudders shook her body. “I died with you that day because I had nothing left to live for.”
“Probably taken in the cell where they kept us while we were asleep,” Raoul replied.
“Tell us what happened to you, from the beginning,” Zeke said.
“Unlike you, I didn’t realize things weren’t going according to plan. Until…well, until they took me, not to meet with the separatists, but to a private house. I was taken into a small room, given some tea, and told to wait.” Cantara stared at the lake without seeing it, reliving her version of hell. “I started to get anxious when I was kept waiting for too long, and when I realized I’d been locked in. Then, eventually, Salim came into the room, which is when I knew I’d been duped and I wasn’t there to broker peace. You were right to say they’d never let a woman get involved.” She shook her head. “Salim always gave me the creeps. He played the role of the bookish researcher, always in his brother’s shadow—”
“His brother being your husband, Jordan,” Zeke clarified.
“Right. Jordan was the accredited academic. No one thought Salim was his intellectual equal because he never gave them any reason to think that way. He crept about like a wraith, always seeming to turn up wherever I happened to be, as though he was spying on me. I was polite, but tried never to be alone with him. It was the way he looked at me that really freaked me out. But when I mentioned it to Jordan he just laughed and said I was imagining things. Salim was his brother. It was only natural that he would watch over me when Jordan wasn’t around, and that he only wanted to protect me.”
“I’m guessing Salim was the leader of the separatist group you were trying to talk to,” Zeke said.
“Right.” Cantara replied, scowling. “And he was the one who encouraged my brothers to join them, then sent them on a suicide mission. He was very proud of that fact and told me good, loyal Palestinians had a duty to stand up for their country.”
“And die for it,” Raoul muttered through clenched teeth.
“He seemed to think I would be grateful,” Cantara explained, puffing out her cheeks indignantly.
“He went to considerable trouble to get you alone,” Zeke said. “I’m almost afraid to ask what he wanted.”
“What he wanted was me,” she replied, shuddering. “He said he had always known we were supposed to be together and didn’t blame me for trying to interfere in men’s business. He said grief must have warped my mind and he had a duty to look after me. It was what Jordan would have wanted him to do.”
“Oh, baby!” Raoul held her a little tighter. “The man sounds as though he was deluded.”
“And dangerous,” Zeke added, massaging the instep of her left foot, his expression thunderous.
“I told him I’d made a mistake and needed to leave, which was when his personality underwent a complete change. He was no longer the meek, eager to please little man I remembered. He turned into a maniac, throwing things around the room, ranting about my head having been turned by the Americans and Israelis and not knowing who I was anymore. I was scared, I’ll admit that much—”
“Of course you were,” Raoul said soothingly.
“Then it was like someone turned a switch and he was calm again. He offered me food, which I refused, and that angered him. He locked me in the cellar then and I must have been there…well, certainly overnight, and it was some time into the next day before he opened the door.”
“Did you see anyone else?” Zeke asked.
“Not at that time, but people came and went later on.”
“Did you recognize any of them?” Raoul asked. “Pool and Hassan will be interested, but we can think about that later. Go on with your story, darlin’.”
“He came in the next day and asked if I had come to my senses. I basically told him to get lost, which is when he hit me for the first time.” She shook her head. “I was clinging to the hope that you guys would be on my tail, and that rescue was at hand. I can’t tell you how desperate I felt when he took great pleasure in telling me you were both dead. I knew I wasn’t supposed to react to the mention of your name, Raoul, but I guess I’m not a very good actress. He actually laughed, the bastard enjoyed my despondency, and told me I would always be let down if I put my faith in Americans.”
“He sounds like a real piece of work,” Zeke said.
“I told him I had no idea what he was talking about, which is when he showed me the video of the two of you, looking beaten and dead. I lost it then and fell apart.” Cantara impatiently swiped away fresh tears. “I had nothing left to live for, but was damned if I’d give myself to Salim, just to try and find an opportunity to escape. I had nothing left to escape to without you guys,” she added softly. “When he tried to comfort me I used some of the self-defense techniques you’d taught me and landed him on his ass. I think I hurt him pretty bad. His body and his pride.”
“Good!” both guys said together.
“He was like an enraged bull after that. He tried again and I kicked him in the balls so hard that I think I might have ruptured one of them. He howled with pain, and threatened me with all sorts of dire consequences. I told him I’d rather be dead than have him touch me, and if he tried to come near me again he’d get more of the same. I was almost as tall as him and a damned sight fitter, so I think I scared him. Anyway, he called two other men in. I fought them like mad but they were too strong for me. They tied me to that chair and Salim hit me hard enough to knock me off it, which must be when I fractured my skull. I now remember waking up in that cellar with my head bandaged and a throbbing pain inside of it.”
“Poor baby,” Raoul soothed. “It’s a damned shame the slime ball is dead. He’s robbed me of the pleasure of detaching his head from his
frigging body. Slowly and painfully.”
“He came in to see me, all smiles again, and said I only had myself to blame for what he’d been forced to do to me.”
“Scum like that always find a way to blame others for their own actions,” Zeke said, scowling.
“Don’t I know it.” Cantara convulsed at the revisited memory. “He kept me in the cellar all the time after that, and told me no one would ever find me. I believed him. But he also didn’t try to touch me again.”
“Thank fuck for that,” both guys said together.
“I think he must have seen something in me that told him I was serious. Even in my weakened condition, I could still probably have taken him and he knew it. So, he came down every day, offering me decent food instead of the swill I was given the rest of the time, if I would do one small thing for him in return. Touch his hand, smile at him, innocuous things like that. The smell of the food was tempting, but I kept thinking he’d had you two killed, and was damned if I’d give an inch. It infuriated him, which is when he would take a whip to me, or amuse himself by nicking my skin with a knife, stuff like that. Other times he just sat looking at me for hours on end, rubbing his cock, bringing himself off.”
Raoul and Zeke scowled, obviously remembering the state of her body when she’d been rescued. Some of the scars would never disappear completely.
“I didn’t care about the psychological torture, just so long as he didn’t try it on again, which he never did. He just kept trying to wear me down with the carrot and stick approach, telling me I’d thank him in the end for reminding me where my loyalties ought to be. I was a Palestinian woman with a duty to have sons.”
“With him, I suppose,” Zeke said, scowling.
“Yeah.”
“And that went on for three years,” Raoul said, shaking his head. “He was a damned patient man.”
“Oh yes, stubborn was his middle name. Think about it, Raoul, he spent all those years playing second fiddle to his peace-loving brother, pretending he was of the same persuasion. But all the time he was heading up one of the most extreme factions in the PLO and no one close to him even suspected. He was a man who always got his own way, no matter how long he had to wait to make it happen.”
