Heatseeker (Atrati) (7 page)

For all intents and purposes, that’s exactly what had happened. Whatever vagary of thought had prompted him to keep up with her career hardly mattered. Not after Linny.

“I wasn’t a part of your life anymore.”

“No.” By his choice.

“I found out about Linny after the fact. I’m sorry.”

“Your card said.” Delivered in an envelope without a return address.

Stupidly, she’d hoped it meant Kadin would contact her again. She’d believed that maybe out of the horrible tragedy of Linny’s death at least that much good would come.

Rachel had felt guilty for that hope. When she discovered it was a false one, she’d convinced herself that she deserved the pain that came later.

“What happened?” Kadin asked.

Rachel shook her head, not up to explanations.

“Is that when you left the DEA?”

That much, at least, she could answer. “Yes.”

“You must have impressed Whit. He runs a pretty select crew.”

She shrugged, the slide of the cover against her bare breasts reminding her that she was still naked. The blanket slipped down to reveal the upper curves of her chest, and she tugged it higher, but Kadin had already noticed. Of course he had. The suddenly heated look in his eyes said he liked the view, too. And, despite everything, desire pooled deep in her belly.

He’d always had that effect on her. Every other emotion seemed to have died inside her with Linny’s suicide, but not this one. Not desire.

It was like the cockroach of feelings, and right now all she wanted was a guaranteed exterminator.

He looked away first, cursing under his breath. “I’ll get you some clothes.”

“Thank you.”

His shoulders jerked in what could have been a shrug as he backed out of the tent. The sound of him barking an order for something to dress her in was followed by Eva coming into the tent, a bundle of khaki cloth in her hand. It turned out to be scrubs, and Rachel was grateful.

The loose-fitting clothes didn’t rub any abrasions or make her feel constricted, but they did make her feel safely covered, regardless of the fact they did not come with underclothes.

Rachel didn’t mind. Her breasts weren’t so large that she couldn’t comfortably go without a bra. And the very idea of trying to get one on with her sore muscles made her cringe inwardly. Same for the thought of having to pull underwear over her hips.

Just getting the scrubs on had been hard enough, leaving her panting, with beads of sweat on her forehead and trickling down the center of her back. It would have been easier if she’d accepted Eva’s offer of help, but Rachel wasn’t so good at letting others do anything for her these days.

Another legacy of her many losses.

The less she relied on others, the less chance she would be hurt again. She always had a personal exit strategy, one that didn’t rely on the cooperation or help of anyone else.

Her mind grappled now with one for her and Jamila Massri, in case the Old Man remained firm on not bringing the young Egyptian woman in.

Kadin’s thoughts were in a turmoil as he helped Peace pack the camp with efficient movements.

How could he have gotten turned on by Rachel’s bare shoulders and that peek at the upper swell of her breasts when her face still bore the marks of someone hitting her and her wrists were bandaged because of the deep abrasions there? What kind of man was he?

The kind he’d always known he would be if he didn’t get out of Rachel’s life completely. One who wanted her and everything she represented to him almost more than his honor. His honor
almost
was his personal salvation. He couldn’t afford to give it up now.

But damn . . . it was close.

“Your
wahine
okay to hike?” Peace asked, his Hawaiian accent thicker when he didn’t get enough sleep.

“She’ll insist on it.” Even if Rachel wasn’t up to hiking on her own. “I’ll let her try.”

“You make allowances for dis one.”

“She deserves them.”

“After what she been through? I think you are right, but it’s more than that, brah.”

On this mission Kadin had found himself being more emotionally honest with his team than ever before, but he owed it to them. He was making choices with that stone in his chest he called a heart, and they had a right to know it.

Besides, he wasn’t the only soldier recruited into the Atrati with a past full of regret. “She was my one and only.”

“Was?”

“When we were kids.” And innocent.

Before the Marines made him a weapon, a man who had lost his humanity.

“
One and only,
that don’t expire, brudder.”

“It does when one of you changes into something else.”

“Something like a MARSOC assassin?” Peace asked knowingly.

“Yeah. Something like that.”

“You aren’t that guy no more, brah.”

“You call me
Trigger,
just like everyone else does.”

“So you good with a sniper rifle. You a captain in the Atrati now. We specialize in protection and extraction.”

“But we still wage war, still kill.” He’d killed as a member of the Atrati, too—maybe not as often as a Marine, but Kadin was still a weapon.

“Warriors have been necessary since the beginning of time.” Peace shook his head, as if he was thinking that Kadin had a stupid bone. “There is no shame in being a soldier.”

“No, there isn’t.” But Rachel deserved better than him, better than a man who could and would kill on an order without ever letting his enemy look him in the eye.

“We’re damn fine men, Kadin,” Peace said without a trace of his usual Hawaiian laid-back manner. “Don’t you doubt it.”

Kadin nodded, because on one level, he completely agreed with Peace. The men he most admired were all soldiers, or former soldiers.

That didn’t change what he wanted for Rachel, what she seemed to have spent the last ten years trying to make sure she would not get. A decent,
normal
guy. Kadin had been knocked straight onto his ass when he found out that she’d gone to work for the DEA out of university. And not in the administrative sectors, either, but as an agent.

He didn’t know why she’d given up her dreams of teaching in a nursery school until she could save up the money to open her own. Rachel loved kids, but she sure wasn’t going to work with them as a government agent.

And now she was TGP, taking ultra dangerous assignments out of country.

Losing Linny could have done that; Rachel didn’t have anyone Stateside to keep her there anymore.

But what had changed his sweet and gentle lover into a woman who carried a gun and could withstand the kind of torture she had without breaking?

Chapter Five

F
eeling so pissed that red hazed his vision, Neil took lateral guard position.

When Wyatt caught up with them, Neil was going to give the damn Texan a verbal smackdown that would leave his ears ringing.

What the
hell
did the man think he was doing, going all
cowboy
on them? What did Wyatt think? He was running his own mini-op, or something?

Shoving his anger down with the rest of the emotions he’d been stuffing for the past year, Neil erased all evidence of the team’s movement through the forest.

The TGP agent was leaving the most markers. The stubborn woman was barely able to stand without assistance, but she’d insisted on walking on her own.

Neil expected that to last another thirty minutes—an hour, tops—and then Kadin’s patience was going to run out like the minutes on a burner phone.

Moving at their current pace, it would be near dusk before they reached their transport. That would leave them driving down most of the mountain in the dark.

No way would the captain let them use headlights until they were in a populated-enough area that doing so wouldn’t give away their position or otherwise make them memorable.

It was a damn good thing Peace had eyes like a mountain cat’s.

It was a whole forty minutes later when Rachel stumbled for the third time in as many minutes, and Trigger raised his hand to indicate they needed to stop. Because of their slow progress, Neil caught up to them within seconds rather than the minutes it should have taken him.

The female government agent stood swaying slightly and blinking, as if she didn’t really comprehend what was going on.

The captain’s expression was hard enough to crack concrete. “Peace, help Rachel onto my back.”

That brought the woman’s head up, her eyes narrowing despite the exhaustion pulling at her features. “That’s not necessary.”

Her voice was barely discernible, and Trigger’s expression tightened. “The hell it’s not. You’re done walking.”

She shook her head but winced when the movement clearly caused her pain.

Kadin made an animalistic sound that Neil understood only too well. Wyatt brought the same sound from his lips often enough.

The stubborn bastard.

“You need to ride,” Eva said, her tone brooking no argument.

“ No. ”

“If you’d rather Peace carried you . . .” Eva let her voice trail off.

Rachel took an infinitesimal step nearer Trigger, though she seemed wholly unaware of doing so. “I can walk.”

“We need to pick up our pace, angel, and we can’t do that with you walking on your own,” he claimed.

“He’s right,” Neil said as he tossed a broken twig she’d stepped on into the brush. “I’ll be able to move faster clearing our six if you’re not leaving behind so much trail, too.”

Trigger glared at Neil as if he’d insulted the agent’s mother rather than pointing out the obvious.

Rachel frowned. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for. You’re trained as a spy, not in covert wilderness ops.”

She gave a barely-there nod, but Kadin was still scowling.

Neil shook his head. “Pick her up already, Trigger. We haven’t got all day.”

Especially if they wanted any hope of traveling down the narrow mountain road with some daylight.

Rachel sighed, her eyes bloodshot from not enough sleep and what she’d been through. “Fine. I’ll piggyback on Kadin.”

Like anyone thought she’d choose to ride with someone else.

She moved around the big former Marine, even more obviously unsteady on her feet than when they’d been walking.

Trigger made another sound of frustration and looked like he wanted to just pick her up, but the stubborn set to the woman’s features seemed to make him hesitate.

Eva ended up helping Rachel settle into a piggyback position on Kadin; Peace was too damn smart to lay a hand on his captain’s woman. Even to help.

They started off again, their pace increasing significantly. Neil wasn’t worried about Trigger keeping it up with the woman on his back, either. The captain had slogged through way worse conditions than this for a hell of a lot longer than they had to hike now.

Neil let the others get far enough ahead that he could monitor their trail without fear of missing something. If he was lagging just a little to give Wyatt a chance to catch up, he wasn’t going to admit it to anyone.

Not even himself.

He didn’t like how long it was taking the other man to reconnect with the team, but Neil didn’t let himself get too worried. Wyatt had checked in with a steady, evenly spaced set of clicks over their comm-units.

An hour later, Neil sensed eyes on him. He slowly moved to better cover as he scanned the area without moving his head.

There, movement in his left periphery.

Moving around a large tree, Neil stopped on the other side, giving his pursuer a chance to catch up with him.

His hand was raised to deliver a debilitating blow when he recognized Wyatt’s gray eyes in his camo-marked face. Neil nearly let the punch fly, anyway, but held back and swore instead. “What the hell? Why didn’t you comm in your location when you got close enough to make visual contact?”

Wyatt smiled, his eyes filled with amusement. “Wanted to surprise you, sugar.”

“I nearly surprised you with a chop to your windpipe.”

“Nah, you’re too good to mistake a teammate for the enemy.”

“Asshole.”

“There you go, using endearments again.”

For some reason Wyatt’s amusement set flame to the tinder of Neil’s temper, and he took the swing he’d stopped himself from earlier.

His ex-lover was good. The blow didn’t connect. He didn’t lose his look of amusement, either.

And that just pissed Neil off even more. He swept his foot out and knocked the other man off his feet.

Wyatt managed to tangle their feet and bring Neil down with him. Neil landed on top of the Texan, before Wyatt rolled and reversed their positions.

“Now, this has possibilities. Too bad we’ve got to get off this mountain.”

“We’re on assignment,” Neil growled, ignoring the hard-on pressing against his thigh and the one trying to crawl out of his own pants. “Get the hell off me.”

“You feel good.” Wyatt rocked his pelvis against Neil, leaving no doubt just how good.

Neil bit back a moan and glared up at the other man. “Wyatt, damn it . . .”

“Say it again.”

“What?” But he knew what the other man wanted to hear, and no way was he giving in.

“My name.”

“Cowboy, get your lazy ass off me. I’m not your bedroll.”

“Ah, sugar . . . I’d give a lot to be in a bedroll with you right now.”

“Stop it.” Neil shoved the other man, hard, but the oversized idiot wasn’t going anywhere.

Wyatt leaned down and touched noses with Neil. “I want to kiss you.”

“No.” But damned if his voice didn’t sound almost breathless.

“You’re right. Now isn’t the time.” Cowboy got up, putting a hand out to Neil.

He slapped it away and jumped to his feet. “We need to clean up.”

“There was a time you said that in entirely different circumstances.”

“That time is over.” Neil started working on removing evidence of their little skirmish.

“No. It’s not.”

That had him spinning to face his cowboy. “Yes, it is. It ended when you got engaged to a woman.”

“I’m not engaged anymore.”

“You’re not out of the closet, either.”