by Cindy Dees
Dutch was right. He and Mac knew what they were doing. She let go of the tension across the back of her neck.
He spoke behind her. “I hate to ask for your help, but in these rocks, it’ll be tricky to set up your tent by myself.”
“As soon as I’m done with the horses, I’m all yours.”
Dutch threw her a broad grin. “Don’t let Mac hear you say that, eh? I’d hate to have to kill him.”
Susan looked over her shoulder at Dutch, surprised. “I beg your pardon?”
“Mac’s a little, uh, proprietary, where you’re concerned.”
Susan glared at Dutch over the back of the packhorse. “Despite what you may have seen last night, Mac Conlon’s got no hold on me, whatsoever. Anything we had between us was over a long time ago, and I wouldn’t trust him now any farther than I could throw him.”
Dutch said earnestly, “My job last night was to watch the scout, and that’s what I did. Whatever happened between you and Mac, I didn’t see a thing.”
Susan was more relieved than she’d expected. What had happened between her and Mac had been so…raw. So personal. It was bad enough knowing a total stranger had witnessed it, but it had been even worse thinking that Dutch might’ve seen it, too.
She set down her mare’s hoof, which she’d been checking for stones and bruises, and straightened slowly. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
“No problem. It was a rough night.”
Susan was impressed when Dutch rigged her tent cleverly between two large boulders, tarp-like, at least doubling the amount of space under cover that way. She eyed its shady interior longingly and didn’t hesitate when Dutch suggested she get some shut-eye. She crawled inside and stretched out on top of her sleeping bag, so happy to be horizontal she didn’t care that the ground was hard and uneven beneath her. Her last thought before she went unconscious was that this was how cowboys managed to sleep on the ground. They were too exhausted to care.
Sometime later, her bed got comfortable all of a sudden, and a pillow materialized under her head. She snuggled into it, moaned her contentment and settled back into oblivion.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Mac’s hand wandered to Susan’s hair, stroking it gently as she sprawled half on top of him, dead to the world. What in the hell was he going to do about her? He shouldn’t even think about her in that way, let alone have feelings for her. He was on a mission, for God’s sake.
His impulse to play amateur psychologist was huge. Every time she called herself crippled or told him what she couldn’t do, it set his teeth on edge. One of the first lessons of special ops was to think positive. Concentrate on what assets you have and what you can do with them.
But it wasn’t as if Susan was going to listen to him anytime soon. She could hardly stand to be in the same state with him. Unless… He turned the idea over in his head. It might just work—a little reverse psychology to get Susan defending her abilities. It was worth a try. If that killer kiss they’d shared last night hadn’t convinced her that he didn’t give a damn about her bum knee, not much else was likely to work.
One step at a time. First he had to gain her trust. Then he could show her how valuable a person she was. And then he could move on to the real challenge—gaining her forgiveness.
At least she was speaking to him now. It was an improvement over the past ten years of stony silence. He’d asked Tex once if she ever mentioned him, and her brother hadn’t hesitated in answering, “Never.”
He could only hope she wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t rescue her from the lonely, unhappy world she’d locked herself away in. Whether or not Susan wanted to admit it, there was definitely something simmering between them that still had to be dealt with. Something spicy and wild. Ten years ago their relationship had been sensational. But last night…that kiss had been in another class altogether. Hot. Racy. Unlike anything that had ever passed between them. He wanted to know more about this new, even sexier Susan. A lot more.
But not here. Not now. They were in the middle of a dangerous situation, and he needed to make decisions with his head, not his cock.
Despite his assurances to her, this mission had a couple of serious problems.
In the first place, they were undermanned. Tex was on a well-earned vacation with his fiancée, Colonel Foley was back at Ops getting the paperwork and permissions for an arrest or execution of Ramon Ruala, and it would be a couple more days before Doc and Howdy got back from Washington.
In the second place, Ruala was a highly dangerous opponent no matter what the environment, unpredictable and smart.
Protective worry for her surged in his gut. He would keep her safe. At all costs. And that was their third problem. The surest and fastest way to send a mission straight to hell was to inject personal feelings into the mix. They were distracting, caused undisciplined behaviors and bad decisions, and were a general pain in the butt.
The way the other guys on the squad were standing back from Susan bothered him. Like he’d staked out his territory with her. He supposed Dutch could’ve made out with Susan instead of him while he tracked the scout…
Mac’s thoughts derailed abruptly. Damn. The very thought of Dutch doing with Susan what he’d done last night had just shot his heart rate up thirty points and sent a rush of hot, adolescent rage to his face.
He froze beneath her sleeping form. He was in trouble, here.
Susan murmured sleepily, her hand wandering across his chest, her mouth nuzzling the base of his neck like a kitten seeking food. Her thigh rode higher, rubbing him in places that didn’t need to be rubbed just now. He gritted his teeth and tried to think of cold, painful things. It didn’t help.
“Take it easy, honey,” he murmured into her hair. “You’re killing me, here.”
Her reaction was violent. She lurched upright, awakening with a squawk of outrage. “How dare you let me do that!”
“How dare I…?” he spluttered.
“Yes! How dare you!”
He glared at her, matching her outrage. “How am I to blame because you were crawling all over me in your sleep?”
She glared back at him. “You just are.”
“Hey. I’m out here putting my neck on the line to save your cute behind. A little gratitude wouldn’t hurt.”
“Gratitude? Why you arrogant…oaf! Why don’t you just go home?”
The insult bit a lot deeper than he wanted to let on. She’d been the one with the stellar future before her as a brilliant computer scientist. He’d been just a slogging soldier. Except now they were on his turf. This was his world, his area of expertise.
“An oaf, am I? Who found the scout last night? Who laid the false trail away from our camp to buy us time this morning?” He couldn’t shout, but he did lean forward until he was nose to nose with her. “Who spent the past three hours doing a perimeter check of this whole godforsaken corner of Texas so you could have a peaceful nap? And who spent a solid hour hauling water so your damn horses could have a drink?”
That made her blink. “You hauled water?”
“Yeah,” he grumbled.
“Damn you, Mac Conlon! Just when I was sure I hated your guts, why did you have to go and do something thoughtful like that?”
He stared down at her, shocked. “Thoughtful? We need the horses, so I took care of the asset.”
“It was still kind of you to take care of them so quickly,” Susan declared.
He added slowly, “Do you have any idea how many people I’ve killed in the last decade?”
“No, and I don’t want to know. Thank you for watering my horses.”
“You’re welcome,” he mumbled. Kind? Him? Not hardly. Mac couldn’t remember the last time he’d met a woman who was completely unimpressed by his work. Yet here was Susan, tickled pink he’d watered her horses and totally disinterested in the number of people he’d killed. He couldn’t say that about most of the women he met. Groupies who wanted to bed Special Forces types were abundant near the military bases wh
ere the teams were stationed.
But what about being loved? The question crept insidiously into his consciousness and stuck there. He tried to shake it off, but it wouldn’t go away. What did he care about love? It was a weak emotion meant for women. Another thought wormed its way inside his head. Susan had loved him once. And it had been pretty damned wonderful.
Dammit! He wasn’t going down that path again. Love had been great right up until the part where his whole life and hers had come crashing down upon his head. Would that cursed night never end? Its horror stretched on and on in front of him, swallowing his whole life in that one, black moment.
All he had to do was close his eyes to hear the shots ringing out below him. A high-powered rifle. Ripping into the thin metal skin of the surveillance van like Godzilla’s claws. He could still feel the gut-wrenching nausea of realizing Susan was caught inside a tin-can deathtrap with bullets ricocheting around in it like pinballs. He’d never run so fast in his life. He had one lousy pistol on him. Nine shots. But by God, he’d nicked Ruala. Made the bastard take cover and then run before police arrived. More important, he’d backed Ruala off of taking any more shots at Susan.
He’d been out of his mind with terror when he literally tore open the van’s ruined door with his bare hands as the fire Ruala had set to burn it licked at the interior. He would never forget the sight of Susan crumpled on the ground, lying in a huge pool of her own blood. He’d died inside. Right there on the spot. Until she took a single rattling breath. It was the longest couple of seconds of his life until she drew the next one. And then the paramedics had shoved him aside and hauled her away to the nearest hospital.
He still felt guilty as hell for not anticipating that she would take the van and try to do the surveillance on Ferrare’s meeting by herself. He should’ve seen it coming. She’d been too smart to buy his line that the Blackjacks were just walking away from the mission. She was too confident, too focused on nailing Ferrare to walk away herself. He’d underestimated her. And the rest was history.
“Could you please step outside?” Susan’s voice intruded upon Mac’s bleak thoughts. He blinked as a tent came back into focus overhead.
“It’s my turn to sleep,” he protested. That probably didn’t make any sense to her. He tried again. “I’m supposed to be asleep right now. I’m taking the first watch tonight.” He didn’t add that he hadn’t slept at all last night and wouldn’t sleep tonight, either. He could go sixty hours without sleep if he had to, but it was no fun, and he’d rather skip the stimulant pills.
“You can sleep as soon as I’ve changed my clothes and freshened up” she retorted. “I’m wearing half the dirt in Texas right now.”
He supposed cranky was better than that long-suffering-victim mode of hers. Rather than burn any more time arguing with her, he just crawled out of the tent. He passed in a jug of water for her and stood up, surveying their position.
Susan eventually appeared beside him. “Go take your precious nap. I’m going to check on the horses.”
“Gee, thanks,” he said dryly. It was probably just as well that she was being antagonistic. It made objectivity where she was concerned a whole lot easier to achieve.
SUSAN HEADED FOR THE HORSES, a little farther up the valley. The task of brushing them usually was soothing to her, but today her thoughts kept going around in circles. She was supposed to hate Mac. But she kept remembering how good it used to be between them. Kept wanting to crawl all over him. Kept wishing he found her as attractive as she did him. But that was a dead-end road. She couldn’t get rid of the scars or the limp. Except when he’d put his arms around her and kissed her into oblivion last night, her imperfections suddenly hadn’t seemed nearly as important.
The horses’ coats glistened, and still she had come up with no profound revelations. Frustrated, she headed back toward camp. A movement up high caught her eye. It was Dutch, stretched out on the ground, peering over the ridge through a pair of binoculars. She picked her way up to his position.
“See anything interesting?” she murmured.
He passed her the binoculars. “Look for yourself.”
She put the lenses to her eyes and another camp leaped into view. Ruala and another man stood by a truck, smoking. She recoiled sharply. “They’re so close!” she gasped, startled.
“They’re about a half mile away,” Dutch replied. “These are high-powered binocs.”
“What’s keeping them from just walking into our camp?” she asked.
Dutch grinned over his shoulder at her. “Besides the fact that we’d blow their heads off if they tried?”
She gestured at Ruala and his men. “They don’t know that.”
“They don’t know we wouldn’t do it, either. Ruala’s suspicious of us, but he’s not willing to chance a confrontation until he knows more about who we are.”
“How will he learn more about us?”
Dutch shrugged. “He’ll try to draw us out, test us, maybe. We’ll no doubt play some cat and mouse games with him tonight.”
“You sound like you’re looking forward to that.”
He grinned wolfishly at her. “I am.”
Susan shuddered. She didn’t like being a mouse one bit. Especially with a deadly cat like Ruala camped over the next hill.
“Can I bring you anything, Dutch?”
“Nah, I’m fine. But you could…”
“What?”
“Never mind. It’s none of my business.”
“What were you going to say?” she prompted. “It was about Mac, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he answered reluctantly. “Back off a little, okay? He hasn’t slept much since the colonel told us you were in trouble. He didn’t get any sleep last night, and he’s going to be up all night tonight.”
She hadn’t realized…and she’d been snippy to him about taking a nap, too. Sheesh. She owed him an apology.
“Thanks for telling me, Dutch. I’ll leave him alone.”
“No problem.” The Viking trained his binoculars on his quarry once more.
She puttered around the camp, fidgeting really, trying to keep her mind off cats and mice until Mac woke up. He emerged from the tent just as the sun touched the western horizon.
Susan held out a canteen. “Water?”
He took the canteen and tipped it up. The tanned column of his throat caught her attention, its corded muscles contracting each time he swallowed. Lord, he oozed sex appeal.
He handed the canteen back to her. “Thanks.”
He sounded distant. Impersonal. Panic tickled her ribs. “Look, Mac. I shouldn’t have snapped at you earlier. I appreciate you putting your neck on the line for me.”
He looked hard at her but didn’t say anything.
She swallowed her pride and added, “I’m sorry.”
He nodded briefly, acknowledging her apology. Drat. Why did he have to go all strong and silent on her now, when she was laying her guts out to him? “Truce?” she tried.
He considered her for a moment. Then his dimples flashed in that devastating grin of his. “Truce.”
Relief poured over her. She watched Mac sit down on a boulder and rip open a brown plastic pouch he’d dug out of his pack. He pulled out something that looked marginally like food.
“What’s that?” Susan asked dubiously.
“Supper,” he replied with obviously false enthusiasm. “Want an MRE of your own? Stands for meal-ready-to-eat. Seventeen hundred calories of prepackaged cardboard, but it’ll keep you going.”
“Aren’t you at least going to add water to that…stuff?”
He grinned. “We reserve that for gourmet occasions. I suppose this qualifies.” He pulled out another MRE and added water, squishing it around in the plastic pouch. In a cheesy Italian accent, he said, “For your dining pleasure, I geeva to you zee beefa ravioli.”
Susan grinned. “Dehydrated ravioli, huh? Sounds yummy.”
They ate in companionable silence. It felt shockingly familiar. Once upon a tim
e they’d been so attuned to each other that words weren’t necessary to share their thoughts. An insidious warmth seeped through her as the moment drew out. She ventured a glance up at Mac, and he was looking at her, a curious expression in his eyes. She would describe it as affection if that weren’t the farthest thing from what he must feel for her. She looked away, but the warmth persisted.
When they finished eating, Mac gathered the food packaging and stowed it in a saddlebag. He sat down on his rock once more. “Talk to me about the horses, Suz.”
Susan blinked. Just like that, the charming man she used to know and love was replaced by this hard, businesslike warrior. She replied, “They’re tired but not worn out. As long as they get plenty of water and rest, they’ll be fine. Right now, they’re grazing some grass I found further up the canyon.”
“When will they be ready to go again?” he asked.
“It depends on what you mean by going. They could move tonight if they had to, but I wouldn’t do more than walk them.”
Mac shook his head. “When we move again, we’ll probably go hard, like we did this morning. How long until they can do that?”
Susan flinched. They were going to have to do that to her lovely Arabs again? “They’ll need at least twenty-four hours of solid rest before they give another maximum effort.”
Mac nodded. A frown of intense concentration wrinkled his brow. She’d never doubted that Mac was highly intelligent, and it was gratifying to see him apply his formidable intellect to the work. She only wished their lives didn’t depend on it.
He spoke abruptly. “Dutch has the right idea, then. We’ll mess around with these guys tonight. Ruala should back off by daylight tomorrow. We’ll rest through the day, and then leave tomorrow night.”
“Please tell me we’ll be heading back to the ranch,” she said.
“Ideally, we will. Okay, now for our next problem.”
When he didn’t continue, Susan asked, “And that is…”
“You.”
“Me? And here I was trying so hard not to be a pain in the neck.”
