by Kaylea Cross
She wasn’t stupid. She knew he was only doing his job the best he knew how. And maintaining his distance from her would make that easier for him. Probably would increase her chances of living through this, too, and she was all for that. But was it too much to ask for him to be nice to her? If he wouldn’t allow himself to revert to the tender, flirtatious Dec she’d known in the hospital, he could at least be civil.
Wow. Wasn’t that a stunner to realize how attached to him she’d become in such a short time? Transference, she decided. Had to be. He’d saved her life, after all. No wonder she went all gooey over him. But as far as he was concerned, that train had reached its final destination. And if she knew what was good for her, she’d get on board with that theory.
Okay, onward and upward. “So…does this mean we’re still friends?” she asked, giving him a hopeful grin calculated to make him into a human being again.
“I’m not here to be your friend, Bryn.”
Whoa. Must have lost his sense of humor somewhere since the last time she’d seen him. “You know what I think?” she ventured, determined to break past this harsh side of him and push away the hurt his cool manner stabbed her with. “I think Ben put you in this mood.”
A frown formed over the bridge of his nose. “I’m not in a mood. I never get in moods.”
Uh huh. “No, I understand, believe me. Ben does that to me, too, sometimes. But don’t worry, you’ll like Rhys much better. He keeps Ben in line when no one else can.”
“Rhys?”
“Yeah, you know, Ben’s twin brother?”
Dec stared. “His twin?”
Bryn stifled a laugh. “Uh-huh. Fraternal. He’s coming in tonight, didn’t Luke tell you?”
Dec’s smile was stiff. “No. No he didn’t.”
****
Ben liked that Dec’s eyes were always moving as he ushered Bryn toward the Range Rover and into the back seat. So far at least, the guy seemed to be taking Bryn’s protection seriously, which put points in his favor because she was going to need all the help she could get.
Ben had tried everything to persuade her to change her mind about taking on this op. He’d ranted. He’d pleaded. He’d tried logic. He’d threatened—something he used only as a last resort with Bryn, because she was likely to let him have it between the eyes.
Nothing had worked. She was as stubborn as her old man. Once that chin of hers stuck out, forget about changing her mind. So now the only thing left was to cope with her decision and work with the others to keep her safe.
He was already well on his way to developing an ulcer. Popped Tums like they were candy, and kept a roll in his pants pocket at all times, along with his gum.
Dec stared at him through the Range Rover’s open back door. “We got a different set of wheels? Something that doesn’t scream ‘Very rich, important people inside, please shoot at us.’”
“Not unless you want to drive her yourself in the two-seater Mercedes.” He couldn’t help but smile at the other man’s grunt of annoyance. “This baby might not blend in with the local traffic, but it’s armor plated and reinforced. And it’s comfy too, right Bryn?”
“Very,” she agreed, buckling her seatbelt as Dec slid in beside her.
Driving toward the gates, Ben angled a glance at him in the rearview mirror. “You mind if we pick my brother up at the airport after her doctor’s appointment?”
“So long as we don’t have any security issues along the way, I don’t have a problem with that.”
Ben sighed. “Ever the optimist.”
Though to be truthful, he was a little more edgy than usual this morning. He’d never had to protect anyone who had a bounty on them from a sophisticated terrorist cell. And Bryn was kinda hard to miss, even with his cherished Red Sox cap covering her hair and dark glasses shading her eyes. Her baggy shorts and t-shirt might be nondescript, but a person would have to be blind not to notice the body beneath them.
Blind, and dead from the neck down.
At least the sleeves were long enough to cover the scars on her arm, because they were a dead giveaway to anyone targeting her.
To help keep her calm Ben chatted with her along the way, but every time she tried to draw SEAL-boy into the conversation, Dec answered with a grunted word or two, pointedly shooting the effort down. Jeez, the guy was an uptight bastard, he thought, pulling up in front of the medical building before Dec propelled Bryn inside with a hand wrapped around her arm. Dec’s unyielding attitude reminded him of his twin, Rhys.
He needed another Tums. Christ, he was strung tight as a trip wire and they hadn’t started the op yet. If he didn’t keep a tight lid on himself, not only would he piss off Bryn, who didn’t like being told what to do and hated men being possessive of her, but he’d be off the team. Off the team meant he’d have no choice but to sit on the sidelines and hope the others would keep her safe.
To hell with that. The only way he was leaving this team was if he stopped breathing.
Keeping the engine running, he noted who came and went, the cars entering and leaving the parking lot, but nothing tweaked his radar. It was so damn hot he was sweating like a hooker in church. Beads of perspiration rolled down his temples and soaked his chest and armpits. He was glad Bryn didn’t complain about any of this, just did as she was told without whining. He was so damn proud of her.
Had he been here to see her, her father would have been, too.
Ben pulled in a deep breath of hot air to ease the pressure building in his chest. God, look at her, taking on this op after everything else. Her whole right side was peppered with scars, and although they would fade from purple and red to a silvery white, they’d never disappear. He’d been working vitamin E oil into them and forcing vitamin C down her, but damn, he hated that she was hurting more than she let on.
That was Bryn for you though. Stubborn to the core. But what about the scars he couldn’t see, the ones that worried him most—the psychological ones?
It was all his fault. The guilt ate at him. He should have found some way to prevent what had gone down at the embassy. He should have sensed something was up. He’d been back at the compound checking the security cameras when the bomb had exploded. Christ, the memory made his heart clench. By then, there was nothing he could have done. But as head of Daoud security he should have seen it coming, should have been there to get everything secured in the aftermath.
If he’d succeeded, she and Jamul might not have been abducted. Bryn wouldn’t have suffered in that hellhole, wouldn’t have been wounded. And Jamul wouldn’t have died.
He’d been a mess the whole time she’d been missing, hadn’t eaten, had hardly slept. And when the call had finally come that she was safe in the hospital, he’d broken a dozen traffic laws getting to her as fast as he could. Since then she hadn’t been sleeping for shit. When she did, she left her bathroom light on and cracked the door open so she wouldn’t be alone in the dark.
The whole time he’d known her, Bryn preferred to sleep in complete darkness. But now she was too afraid to close her eyes, was afraid to be alone in the dark because she’d been out there in the desert for two days in a godforsaken hole in the ground without food or water.
Bryn didn’t blame him for any of it, though. She’d made that perfectly clear when he’d picked her up at the hospital. The sight of her lying so still and fragile in that bed, covered with shrapnel wounds after watching her father die had nearly broken his heart. Then, despite her stitches and bandages, she’d crawled into his lap and held on like she was afraid someone would tear her from his arms.
He’d savored every precious second of it. She wanted the world to think she could handle everything on her own, that she didn’t need anyone’s help, but Ben knew her better.
In there somewhere was the woman whose eyes went dreamy when she saw anyone holding a baby, the woman who had clung to him in the hospital while her world fell apart. She did need someone, wanted someone, and Ben would love to be the guy she chose. He was beginn
ing to lose hope she’d ever look at him that way.
Her absolving him of blame didn’t matter, though. He couldn’t get over it. He’d failed to protect them once, at the cost of her father’s life, and he’d made a vow to himself to die before letting anything happen to Bryn.
Christ, just the idea of her being in danger from Tehrazzi made him half-crazy. Where she was concerned he’d always had a protective streak, but now he hated letting her out of his sight.
Yeah, Hutchinson was a legend in the Spec Ops world, and he was up there with the intelligence crowd too, but Ben wasn’t going to hand Bryn’s life over to him without being there. So far, McCabe seemed competent enough. Maybe Bryn was a little too attached to the newcomer for Ben’s liking, but at least the SEAL distrusted Hutchinson and his CIA handlers enough to sign up for the job.
When Dec and Bryn returned, he pulled away from the curb and joined the flow of traffic in downtown Beirut. “So?”
“I’m good to go,” Bryn announced. “Clean bill of health.”
“We need to hit a drugstore for the sleeping pills your doctor just prescribed you,” Dec reminded her.
In the rearview, Ben caught the way Bryn’s jaw tightened.
“No,” she said with tired patience, “I told you, I don’t need or want them.”
“We should get them in case—”
“No. I. Don’t. Want them.”
The anger in her tone was so rare, SEAL-boy must have managed to irritate the shit out of her in the four short hours they’d spent together this morning. For some reason, Ben felt like grinning.
“Now, now, children,” he chided. “Let’s play nice.”
He stopped for a red light behind a rattling diesel truck, a low-grade tension filling their vehicle. In the passenger side-mirror he saw a silver car weaving its way through the lanes of traffic. The light turned green and Ben waited impatiently while the smoking diesel started rolling with a grinding of gears, its balding tires inching forward slowly enough to make the most patient driver want to drive up its tailpipe.
Another glance in the mirror showed the silver vehicle closer still, near enough for him to be able to make out the two occupants: twenty-ish males, Middle Eastern. They seemed to be looking back at him.
His instincts lit up and his hand tightened on the steering wheel. The damned truck was still taking its sweet time, and the only other options were to slip into the middle lane—a fine choice if you wanted to end up boxed in by bad guys and get shot to death—or drive onto the crowded sidewalk and run over a shitload of innocent people.
“Silver car?” Dec asked, his eyes pinned to the side-mirror.
“Yeah.” His fingers gripped the wheel as he considered his shitty options. He’d have to risk it and force them into the center lane.
Dec’s voice broke his concentration. “You need to—”
“I got it,” he said tightly, resenting that the guy would tell him how to do his job. He hadn’t become Jamul Daoud’s head of security by being an idiot.
The truck in front finally shifted into second gear, and Ben waited for those precious inches he needed, then wrenched the wheel and nosed them into the center lane, nearly taking the bumper off a taxi. While the pissed-off driver flung up a hand and leaned on his horn, Ben hit the gas.
Behind them, the silver car’s tires squealed as the driver gunned it, cutting into the center lane and accelerating.
“Hang on,” Ben said grimly, catching sight of Bryn’s worried face and Dec’s hand as it flashed out and yanked up hard on her shoulder belt.
****
“Keep your head down,” Dec commanded, shoving hard on the back of her neck.
Bryn’s cheek hit the seat, her seatbelt digging across her chest as the Rover’s engine roared and the vehicle leapt forward, then lurched sideways and back again as they dodged the traffic.
She closed her eyes and focused on breathing, taking comfort in Dec’s warm weight pressed on top of her torso as Ben zigzagged away from whoever was following them. Above the metallic taste of fear in her mouth, she smelled the leather seat beneath her and Dec’s warm, clean scent.
Her mind raced. Had someone really recognized their vehicle? Or her? Dec’s million precautions didn’t seem so annoying anymore.
The Rover’s tires screeched as Ben took the corner at breakneck speed, and through the cacophony of blaring horns she swallowed a squeal of fright. Their back end fishtailed, then righted, Dec’s grip tightening on a fistful of her shirt. Was he getting ready to haul her out and make a run for it if they crashed?
Her fingers curled into his sleeve as she lifted her gaze to his face, finding him staring intently out the rear window. Above the noise of the engine came a distinct cracking sound.
“Shit,” he muttered.
Shit what? She lifted her head in a flare of panic.
“Stay down,” he snapped, exerting more pressure on her nape.
Something pinged off the Rover. Christ, were they being shot at? “Dec—” she croaked.
“We’re fine,” he said above her, his hold on her unrelenting. “We’ve got armor plating and bullet-resistant glass.”
“Hang on, guys. Just another few turns,” Ben said while Dec’s weight kept her in place as the Rover skidded around a sharp left.
Her seatbelt snapped tight across her body as Ben slammed on the brakes, throwing her forward. Dec crashed into the back of the front seat with a grunt then flung himself back on top of her as the vehicle turned another corner and zoomed ahead.
“You okay, Irish?” Ben asked.
“Yeah. I’m good.” Dec shifted into his original position against her. “Just lose ‘em.”
“Roger that.”
Belatedly Bryn realized Dec must have taken off his seatbelt to shield her with his body. She choked back a cry of protest and squeezed his forearm, the muscles solid under her clammy fingers. As his thumb moved against the side of her neck in a gesture of reassurance, she wanted to cry.
The Rover’s engine hummed as Ben maintained their speed, then revved as they took another curve and accelerated, their unimpeded route and speed suggesting they’d finally hit the freeway. Above her, Dec’s body relaxed, but when she risked a glance up at his face, his gaze was still fixed out the back window. Had they lost whoever had shot at them?
“Got the plate number?” Ben asked.
“Yeah.”
Another few minutes ticked by until Dec eased his weight off her and helped her sit up. Heart racing, she could only stare out the windshield and savor that she wasn’t bleeding from a bullet wound or burning to death in a fiery car wreck.
When Ben asked if she was okay, she met his gaze in the rearview mirror and forced her creaky neck to move up and down. Swallowing the lump stuck in her dry throat, it dawned on her that her fingers were wrapped around something. Glancing down, she found Dec’s hand clutched in hers. Since he wasn’t pulling away, she didn’t let go.
“Well,” Ben announced to no one in particular a few moments later. “Guess my brother’s gonna have to find his own ride back from the airport.”
Chapter Eleven
When Luke entered the dining room that evening, the first things he noticed were the dark circles under Bryn’s eyes, and her rigid posture. Not surprising considering the reports he’d received about the car chase and shooting that afternoon, but not good signs, as he’d already been questioning her mental ability to take part in this op.
Everything he knew about her said she was strong and resilient, but she’d need every ounce of backbone she possessed. And whatever he personally thought about taking her along didn’t mean shit. If they were going to nail Tehrazzi, they needed her. Period.
She poked at her salad and kept glancing at her father’s place at the head of the table. Out of respect for him they’d left the chair empty, but it was probably worse for her to see it unoccupied. Clearly she had to make herself swallow the bite of greens on her fork, almost gagging as she forced it down.
&nb
sp; “Hey, boss,” Ben said around a mouthful of lamb. “Got any news?”
“That source of yours pan out yet?” Dec asked.
Luke slid into his chair and placed his napkin across his lap. “He did. Word is Tehrazzi’s headed to Damascus. No better place for a terrorist to do a little fundraising. Except maybe Baghdad.”
Bryn stiffened. “Damascus?”
“Tehrazzi’s got backing from all sorts of sponsors,” Dec explained. “Wealthy businessmen, Hezbollah, Hamas, Shiite militias in Iraq. Maybe even state backing from Iran.”
Hell, knowing Tehrazzi, it was likely. They just hadn’t been able to prove it yet.
One of the household staff came to the doorway. “Excuse the interruption, but there is a phone call for you, Miss Bryn.”
“You can’t leave yet,” a deep voice called from the doorway, and everyone turned toward it.
“Rhys!” Bryn cried, jumping to her feet and heading for the dark-haired man who stood there grinning at her.
“Hey, little girl.” The former Delta operator caught her up in a hug.
“I’m not little.” But even on tiptoe she could barely reach high enough to wrap her arms around his neck. “And I’m three years older than you.”
He set her down. “No. Are you really?”
“Please, like you don’t have everything about me memorized, right down to my social security number and bra size.”
He held up a wide palm in defense, navy-blue eyes laughing. “Strictly for professional reasons.” Then he gathered her tight against him and spoke against the top of her head. “I’m real sorry about your dad.”
“Thanks.”
She led him to the table, where he shook hands with Luke and Dec and scrubbed a hand over his twin’s hair on his way to his seat. “Hey, little bro.”
“Hey, dickhead.”
Rhys swatted the side of Ben’s head. “Watch your mouth in front of Bryn.”
Ben rolled his eyes. “Yeah, because she’s never heard me call you that before.”
