by Kaylea Cross
She was like a bulldog, wouldn’t let Luke wiggle out of admitting the truth. Dec admired that.
“In a manner of speaking, yes.”
She considered it all, chewing on her lip.
Say no, damn it. Come on, Bryn, you’re a smart girl.
Instead, she aimed a glower at him. “And why are you here for this meeting?”
“Because I needed another operator,” Luke answered for him. “And I prefer to work with SEALs when I can because they’re disciplined and I know how they work. Specifically, I want McCabe because he’s the best they’ve got, plus I know he’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”
Her dark eyes softened as she stared at Dec, but she said nothing.
Which was good, because Dec couldn’t come up with anything to say either. Besides telling her not to even think about doing this.
Then Luke pulled a manila folder out of his briefcase and slid it across the table toward her. Like a man coming up with a trump card.
Alarm bells sounded in Dec’s head. “What’s in there?” he demanded, afraid he already knew, and damn sure he didn’t want Bryn seeing it.
She reached for it anyway, giving Luke a sideways glance.
Dec grabbed her wrist. “Don’t open it, Bryn.” He leveled a glare at Luke. “What’s this?”
Luke ignored him, watching Bryn. The bastard must have known curiosity would get the better of her.
She pulled her hand from his and went to open it.
“Damn it, no,” Dec said, snagging her hand again. It was soft, slender in his. He shook his head at her. “You don’t need to see whatever’s in there.”
She didn’t flinch. “I’m a social worker, Dec. I can handle it.”
“No—”
She used a quick wrist break and got loose, taking him off guard and giving him a pointed reminder of her martial arts training. Bracing himself, he watched her flip the file open. She sucked in a quick, soft breath, her eyes filled with horror.
Dec angled his head. A photo of a decapitated woman dressed in a Burqa. A burning rage filled his gut that Bryn was seeing this. He glared at Luke.
“My God, it’s Qamar,” she whispered.
Luke measured her reaction closely, ignoring Dec’s anger. “Tehrazzi tortured some villagers and found out she and her husband brought you water. After several hours of torture, that’s how he repaid her.” He flipped the page to the next photo. “And her husband.”
She flinched at the hideous new image of the old man’s decapitated body.
“They were his adopted grandparents.”
“Dear God.” Her fingers hesitated on the awful photograph, then started to shuffle to the next one.
“Jesus, that’s enough,” Dec said, slamming the folder shut and tossing it to Luke in disgust. But it was too late. Bryn’s eyes were already brimming with a lethal rage.
Luke pressed his advantage. “So will you help us?”
She turned her head and sought his gaze. “Dec?”
His answer was instant and heartfelt. “Go home, Bryn. You’ve been through enough. Go home and sit on the beach and watch the sunset, breathe in the fresh air. Be safe and warm.”
She held his gaze, probing his eyes for something. What, he wasn’t sure. Then she turned back to Luke. “If I agree, what kind of protection will I have?”
“Dec’s in if you are. You’ll have the two of us and the rest of my handpicked team. Maybe some of your father’s security team, if I like what I see.”
“And you honestly think I’m your best chance of nailing this guy?”
He gave her a meaningful look. “Would I be here otherwise?”
Bryn studied him. “Emily always said you were the one she’d want watching her back if she were in trouble.”
Some turbulent emotion flickered in Luke’s dark eyes before he masked it with a stiff smile. “She’d know all about that, wouldn’t she?”
A subtle undercurrent of tension simmered between the two of them. What was that about?
Bryn nodded. “I guess she would, but that’s still how she feels. And since I trust her and your son, I guess in a roundabout way I trust you too. But I’d feel a damn sight better with Dec there.”
Dec was glad she trusted him and had faith in his abilities, but he still couldn’t believe she was giving this serious consideration. Come on, you don’t want to do this. The guy sliced the heads off dear old gram and gramps. You need to go home, get back to your life and put all this whacked shit behind you.
She regarded them both for a moment more, then nodded. “Okay. If you think I’m what it’s going to take to nail him, then I’m in.”
Dec couldn’t believe his ears and had to clench his fists to keep from dragging them through his hair in frustration. He wanted to grab her, shake some sense into her. Didn’t she understand the danger she’d be in? The danger she would inadvertently put them all in? She would make them that much more vulnerable because men were innately programmed to protect women. And she was no ordinary woman.
If she was in danger or hurt, they would wind up taking stupid risks to save her because of basic instinct, let alone that Dec already felt something for her. And that wasn’t a good thing if he was going to have to protect her on this assignment.
Mission accomplished, Luke squeezed her hand. “Thank you.”
Chapter Ten
Day 8, Beirut
Morning
Dec wasn’t really into surprises. In his choice of vocation, they were never a good thing. But when he walked into the training room at the compound next morning, he got a big one.
Bryn, hair wound in a long braid and dressed in a ji, was full-out sparring with someone. While he stood at the door pulling off his shades, incredulous, she let loose with a series of impressive kicks and punches at her opponent. Whoever he was, he was quick, but even so the dude barely managed to block a rather vicious kick to the kidney.
Bryn danced back, gathering for another attack when the guy went after her, forcing her to dodge and duck his blows. Dec’s shout of anger at her partner’s lack of restraint stuck in his throat as he watched her defend herself. She blocked two kicks and a combination of punches before moving in for a jab, only to be thrown over her partner’s hip.
She landed hard on the tatami and rolled to her feet, right back into the action. When the guy threw her again, she hit the mat and tried to roll out of it, but Dec knew she was hurting. She was slow to get to her feet, bent over, her lips pressed together in a bloodless line. Her eyes, however, burned with steely determination.
He shouldn’t have been surprised that instead of calling a halt she went right back into her fighting stance. Her sparring partner, his back to Dec, lunged toward her.
Dec’s patience came to an abrupt end. “That’s enough!”
His voice boomed through the room, and both fighters stopped and whipped around. His boots thudded on the hardwood as he stalked toward them, ready to tear the man’s head off his shoulders for hurting Bryn.
“Dec,” she panted. Her hand came up to press against her right side, and she winced. “What are you doing here?”
Her partner came up and steadied her with an arm around her back.
“What the hell are you doing?” Dec aimed a lethal glare at the big son of a bitch, then studied her. She was far too pale for his liking. “Don’t you think it’s a little soon for this kind of workout?”
Her chin came up. “I have a black—”
“I know what you’ve got,” he snapped. The man standing next to her had him by an inch or two and ten pounds of muscle, give or take. Something possessive snaked through him as his gaze locked onto that brawny arm wrapped around Bryn. Some foreign part of him felt like growling.
“Dec, this is Ben Sinclair,” she said, breaking the tense silence. “Ben, Dec McCabe. He’s the SEAL that got…Dad and me out.” Her eyes clouded at the mention of her father.
“A SEAL,” Sinclair said, tightening his hold on Bryn. “Wow. I’m honahed
.” His south Boston accent didn’t disguise the animosity behind the words.
Dec disliked him on sight. “You’re the head of security?”
Sinclair’s pale green eyes stared straight back at him, a mocking light in their glacial depths. “You did your homework.”
Dec ground his back teeth together, tried for diplomacy. Ben Sinclair was a thirty-one-year-old former Army Ranger who had done covert ops and hostage extraction. For the past four years he’d been Jamul Daoud’s head of security. Two years younger than Dec, he’d done more time in the Middle East than Dec had completed in the military.
Whatever. He didn’t care if the asshole was best friends with the director of JSOC. His primary concern on this op was Bryn. Period. He was in charge of her safety, no matter what Sinclair thought, and in his mind the former Ranger already had two strikes against him. A: Sinclair hadn’t pulled his punches while he sparred with Bryn; and, B: Dec fucking hated the proprietary way Sinclair handled her.
If he was being honest, he hated it even more that she allowed it.
He told himself it didn’t matter. Even if Bryn and the security chief had a thing going, that wasn’t going to change how this op went down. He’d signed on to look out for Bryn, and that’s what was going to happen. While he reminded himself of this, he couldn’t help staring a few holes in Sinclair’s perfect, movie-star face.
As though Sinclair knew what was going on in his head, his mouth lifted in the ghost of a smile. “How’s ya back, sweets?” he asked, turning to Bryn as though Dec wasn’t standing there glowering at him.
He slid his arm up toward her shoulders, pressing his hand into her muscles, earning a moan of pleasure from her. “Why don’t you get showered up and then I’ll work out some of these knots for you?” The rolling cadence of his Southie accent removed most of the R’s.
She glanced uncertainly at Dec. “Okay. You guys gonna call a truce so I can leave you alone together? I’ve seen enough blood spilled to last me a lifetime, thanks.”
Dec forced a smile. “Nah, we’re cool. Go ahead.” He waited until she’d closed the door behind her before addressing Sinclair. “So you’re a bodyguard, a martial arts expert and a massage therapist.”
Sinclair’s eyes glinted. “Whatever the situation calls for. I’m highly adaptable.”
The bastard had balls, Dec’d give him that. “So why don’t you explain to me what the hell you were thinking, going at her so hard?”
“I’ve known her for years now, McCabe. I think I know what she can handle and what she can’t.”
“And yet you don’t care that she just had her stitches removed and has a long list of healing muscle tissue?”
“You mean her right deltoid, triceps, vastus lateralis, serratus anterior and pec major?”
Dec’s eyes narrowed at the punk, surprised at how hostile he felt. He was not going to lower himself and go after him. No matter how good it would feel.
Sinclair raised his eyebrows in feigned astonishment. “Didn’t you read the part in my file that said I was a medic, too?”
Okay. Fuck polite. “Yeah, I saw that. I also read the part that said you didn’t pick up on the threat at the embassy the day the bomb went off, killing five people and resulting in Bryn and Jamul’s kidnapping. Which was when my team had to find and extract them,” he couldn’t resist adding.
Sinclair’s eyes frosted. “Fuck you. If you’re so worried about her, then why the hell are you putting her in the middle of this shit with Tehrazzi?”
“I’m not,” he said tightly. “I tried to talk her out of it. If I had my way she’d be back in Lincoln City right now with a security detail watching her.”
“So why’d you sign on, then?”
“Because she’s dead set on going through with this and I don’t trust the CIA to keep her alive.”
Sinclair’s posture lost its aggressive edge. “You and me both.”
A heartbeat passed. “Well, then, I guess we’re on the same side after all.”
“Yeah.” The younger man sighed, his shoulders relaxing as he ran a hand through his dark hair, short in back and a little longer in front. “Look, Bryn’s an amazing girl. I trained her for her black belt, with a lot of other CQB thrown in. She can handle herself.”
Close quarter battle skills were handy if you got assaulted in a nightclub, or in an alley someplace. Cold comfort against the terrorist network they were after, seeing as any contact would most likely involve automatic weapons or an RPG, so hand-to-hand wasn’t going to help much. Sinclair had to know that. “As far as I’m concerned, our job is to keep her from needing to use any of her fighting skills. You feel me?”
“Hell, yeah.” Sinclair strode away, grabbed a towel off a bench and wiped his face. “She really is good. See for yourself.”
“I plan to.”
When Sinclair turned his broad back on him and sauntered out, Dec felt his molars grinding together. So much for friendly introductions. They didn’t have time for arrogance and hostility between team members, so Sinclair better quit that shit ASAP. And so, Dec realized, had he.
He wasn’t used to anyone questioning his authority, let alone confronting him with outright defiance. Reality check time. This wasn’t going to be a standard military op. The guys he’d be working with were private contractors, trained in the military but no longer forced to abide by its strict rules of rank and regulations. He wasn’t worried, though. Luke Hutchinson might have a reputation as a scary-ass bastard, but he was a professional. No way would he jeopardize the mission by inviting someone on the team he didn’t have absolute confidence in.
That said, Dec was going to make damn sure everyone on the team knew their place. Starting with Bryn.
****
Dec was waiting for Bryn when she came out of the change room, and from his expression, his initial impression of Ben had not been a good one. Understandable, she thought, summoning up a friendly smile to lighten his mood. Ben could be a giant pain in the ass sometimes.
“So what’s the plan for today?” she asked brightly.
Dec ran a cursory glance over her, then focused on her eyes. The jolt of awareness she felt was so sharp it made her breath hitch.
“You don’t seem any worse for wear.”
She gave herself a mental shake. “I feel great. Stitch marks are a little sore in spots, but that’s all.” Actually, she’d loved being able to let loose for a while, even if she didn’t have her usual strength and stamina yet. But she wasn’t going to admit that when Dec had that disapproval on his face.
He studied her for the longest time, making her want to squirm. She clenched her fingers tight into her palms to keep from fidgeting. Was this some kind of test? See who would look away first—eye-contact chicken? Well, he’d have a long wait on that one. She raised her brows in silent challenge.
He didn’t exactly smile, but his eyes warmed a fraction. “I think maybe we need to set some things straight.”
“Okay.” This ought to be enlightening.
“I want to clarify your role in this mission.”
“I’m going along as human bait for a terrorist with a hard-on for me because he wants to prove to the world—”
“Because he wants you dead, Bryn,” Dec interjected flatly. “Plain and simple. We’re all infidels to him. And you’re worse, because you’re a woman, and the half-American daughter of a U.S. political ally.” He angled his head, frowned. “Do you get that? Do you understand the kind of hatred I’m talking about?”
“Yeah, I’ve got it.” It was all she thought about sometimes, especially late at night when she woke up sweating and gasping as though she was suffocating back in that god-awful cellar. “My background is in psych and sociology, Dec, so I understand just fine. I’m actually quite intelligent,” she added with a good deal of bite.
“Yeah, but there’s book smarts, and then there’s street smarts. You’ve got the book smarts covered—”
Her back went up. “I’m a hell of a lot tougher than you
think I am.” And he should know that. Hadn’t she dragged her tired and wounded ass across the desert without complaining?
Dec sighed, his expression almost disappointed. It should have pissed her off, but instead she felt insecure, as though some part of her was desperate for his approval.
“You’re mentally tough, and you’re no quitter, but you’re not on this op to prove any of that to anyone. The street smarts, Bryn, are where I come in. Me and the rest of the team. Got that? Any training we do with you in terms of hand-to-hand or firearms is only as a self-defense last resort. Meaning, you only get to use them if the rest of us are dead, because that’s the only time you’ll need to use them.” He raised his brows exactly as she’d done. “Got it?”
His mention of them dying took some of the starch out of her backbone, and she swallowed past the sudden tightness in her throat at the thought of any of them coming to harm, especially for her sake. “Got it.”
“So then you’ll understand why this Charlie’s-Angel-meets-Bruce Lee thing I saw ten minutes ago won’t be necessary from here on out.”
For some reason, his words stung. On some level, she’d expected to impress the hell out of him. Come on, even a Navy SEAL would have to respect a girl sparring like that while she was still healing, right?
“And,” he went on, as though lecturing a truculent four-year-old, “I expect you to do as you’re told, when you’re told. No questions, no exceptions. Ever.”
She blinked up at him, wondering if she was really hearing this. Was this the same man who had kissed her in the hospital? The same one who had smiled at her with admiration and tenderness? Because that’s not who she was staring back at right now. No, this was Declan McCabe, professional warrior. Remote, all business. Hard. As if that kiss had never happened and she didn’t mean any more to him than the next person he came across.
“Bryn? Tell me what I want to hear.”
“Yes. Got it.” Okay, so she was just another assignment for him, she realized, hating the lick of pain blooming in her chest. While they worked together, their relationship would have to be purely professional. Period.
