Chapter 1 #2
She could feel the burn of his gaze on her skin, just like she always had. And it made her sick to her stomach. Angry. How dare he make her feel anything.
Especially now.
She hardened her heart. She wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t do it. She owed them nothing. She’d done her time, and she’d gotten the hell out. She straightened and lifted her chin. “Get someone else. You’ve got any number of people who can interpret for you.”
Those firm lips turned down in a frown. “It’s more than translation. We need you on the inside.”
Her heart thumped. “I’m not in that business anymore.”
As if she ever had been. Her stay with Al Ahmad had not been planned. His people had grabbed her at a market in North Africa when she should have been out of their reach. They’d proven she wasn’t. That none of them were.
Day after day, she’d thought her life was over. Day after day, he’d toyed with her. Poisoned her mind.
Broke her.
She faced Kev head on, a current of defiance growing inside her with every second. No way in hell was she letting them shatter her carefully reconstructed life. It didn’t matter that Al Ahmad had resurfaced, that she damn well wanted to nail the bastard to the wall with a rusty railroad spike.
If she were a different person, a braver person, she would take this chance. She’d get close enough to kill him herself. And then maybe she could forget how weak she was. How needy. How malleable she’d been in his hands. She’d fought him, but not hard enough.
Kev pulled the sunglasses from his face and tapped them against a muscled forearm wrapped in ink. “This is too important. It’s you we need. No one else.”
Lucky had to remind herself to breathe when faced with the full effect of blue eyes and silky, dark hair that was much longer than Army regs allowed. But Kev was a Spec Ops soldier, and that made the rules different for him.
Women, as she knew from first-hand observation, couldn’t help but fling themselves in the path of Kevin MacDonald.
Which was precisely why she’d been determined not to do so when they’d first met a couple of years ago.
There’d been something between them, some spark, but she’d never found out what it was.
Because as quickly as it ignited, it was gone.
It still hurt, remembering the way he’d held her so close when he’d gotten her out of Al Ahmad’s compound, the way he’d seemed so intent upon her. He’d kissed her. The one and only time he’d ever done so.
Even now, her lips tingled with the memory. Her body ached with heat.
But it had been nothing more than a beautiful lie. When she’d looked for him afterward, when she’d expected him to come to the hospital to see her, it had been Marco who came instead.
And now Marco was dead, and she had no right to feel anything but grief. Yet that didn’t stop her belly from churning at the sight of Kevin MacDonald.
He watched her with an intensity that both unnerved and angered her. How dare he walk back into her life looking like something straight from a Hollywood movie set and calmly inform her that her world was about to be turned topsy-turvy?
Again.
She picked up the surfboard and started up the beach. “Go tell Mendez to reactivate me,” she called over her shoulder. If they wanted her back, they had to force her. “If he could do it, he’d have done it already.”
“Aw, sweetheart, don’t be like that,” Kev said in that Alabama drawl of his, and she stopped short, swung around as fury lashed into her.
“Don’t you dare call me that!”
He held up both hands, backed away a step.
“It’s all right, I can take a hint. No sweet nothings.
” He dropped his hands to his sides, but not before sliding the sunglasses back into place over those beautiful eyes.
“But you and I both know Mendez could reactivate you with a phone call. Don’t make it happen, Lucky.
Help us out, you’re done. Get recalled to duty, and God knows what comes next when this is over. ”
Hell, yes, Mendez could do it. She knew that. But it would take slightly longer than one phone call.
“Tell him I’ll think about it,” she said, but she wouldn’t do anything of the sort. Yes, she’d love to get Al Ahmad. But she’d like to live even more.
“He’s dangerous. You know that better than most.” He seemed to hesitate for a second. “Marco would want you to help us get him.”
Lucky whipped the surfboard in an arc and let it go. Kev leaped backward as it crashed to the ground. He stumbled and fell against a coconut palm, the fronds shaking with the impact.
“Jesus Christ,” he yelled. “What’s the matter with you?”
She was shaking. “Don’t you ever tell me what Marco would want. Invoking his name won’t get you anywhere with me.”
Kev looked solemn. For the first time since he’d started talking, she felt like she was seeing the real him. The man who’d called her almost nightly for months, trying to make sure she was all right. That Marco’s death hadn’t killed her too.
“We all lost him, Lucky. We all miss him.”
Tears boiled near the surface. Fury ate at her like battery acid. He had no idea. No idea.
Of course she missed Marco. And yet she’d been so wrong for him. She’d tried hard to love him the way she should, but loving anyone after what she’d been through with Al Ahmad hadn’t been easy.
The guilt of her failures ate at her. She’d been doing a good job of forgetting out here in the sun and surf, of moving on and accepting her life, and Kev was wrecking it all.
“You let him die out there.”
It wasn’t what she’d meant to say, but she couldn’t call the words back now that she’d released them. Kev looked as if she’d slapped him. She knew Marco’s death wasn’t his fault, but that hadn’t stopped her from blaming him—blaming all of Marco’s team—for what had happened.
She should apologize, but her throat seized up.
Kev’s jaw tightened. “That’s not fair, and you know it. Marco died doing the job. It’s a risk we all take.”
Yes, she knew it. And it was the thing that kept her awake at night sometimes, thinking about Marco, about Kev, wondering if he was still alive or if he’d met his end in some dank, lonely, war-torn country the way Marco had.
But she couldn’t say any of that. They stood there staring at each other until Kev took something from his pocket. He held out a card.
“I’m at the Hale Koa. Call me when you’ve thought about this.”
She still couldn’t speak. How could she say all the things she needed to say? The things she’d bottled up for so long? How could she ever explain where it had all gone wrong?
He didn’t put the card away. She wanted to leave him standing there, but her feet seemed stuck in the sand.
“Take it, Lucky.”
She snatched the card from his grasp with a growl. Then she picked up the surfboard and trod up the beach, feeling his eyes on her back the whole way.