Authors: Lindsay McKenna
He felt Lia relax as he kept his hand on her elbow, seeming to accept his courtly gesture. They stood there looking at one another, and this time, this close, he clearly saw that deep welt of a scar on her left cheek. It made his gut clench. Lia had such a flawless complexion, but not around the scar….
Her cheeks instantly became red. She was blushing. He felt her waver, but smiled to reassure her.
“Thanks,” she murmured, quickly getting into the van.
Cav got the impression that she didn’t want any man close to her, and right now, she wasn’t up for him touching her, even if it was well meant.
He had a lot of questions for this enigmatic woman. In the boardroom, he’d been visibly touched by her impassioned plea to stay and help the children. There weren’t many women he knew who would stay after surviving a brutal attack, one she’d miraculously survived. It made him want to know a lot more about her.
As Cav shut the door, he remained alert as he walked around the front of the van. Despite the scar, he found her very attractive. Sure, the scar on her face was unfortunate, but it didn’t take anything away from her beauty. Hell, he had so many scars on his body he’d lost count.
Climbing in, he saw the lead black SUV move ahead. That one had three other security men inside. Robert Culver had come down here with a small armada of ex-military contractors because he hadn’t known what to expect at La Fortuna. He wasn’t going to put his wife, himself or the rest of his team at risk.
Glancing to his left, Cav said, “Ready?”
Lia nodded, quickly putting on her seat belt.
Cav drove the van as the second vehicle in the group. Behind them would be Dilara and Robert, with two contractors on board. Behind them was the staff in two other SUV’s, with an operator in each one. The last vehicle was a huge truck loaded down with supplies for Lia’s village.
Cav admired her guts. Out of the corner of his eye, he looked at Lia’s profile, thinking that her face could be found on a Greek vase. “You have to be tired,” he said, sliding a glance at her in the rear view mirror.
“I am. Exhausted, if you want the truth.”
He drove out of the airport, following four car lengths behind the first van. “Understandable. You’ve been through a lot.”
Rubbing her brow, she muttered, “Yes. But I’m far better off than Maria or Sophia. I’m just grateful I’m alive.”
“It helps to be an optimist in situations like this.”
Lia stared at Cav’s profile for a moment. She heard the grittiness in his voice. He was so tall, over six feet, and his shoulders were thrown back with pride, typical of a military person.
“I don’t like the other choice. Do you?” she replied, her hands folded stiffly in her lap. Just being this close to Cav was doing odd things to her. It had been so long since she’d had a relationship with a man, she’d nearly forgotten what it was like to be attracted to one.
“No, the other choice sucks, that’s for sure,” Cav agreed.
Cav had an interesting face that spoke of a lot of life experience. The feathery lines at the corners of his eyes revealed that he squinted a lot. Or maybe laughed a lot. Lia had little experience with black ops people, so she wasn’t even sure they did laugh—at least, not on the job.
She took a quick peek at his profile. One corner of his mouth had turned upward in a half-grin, and he had both hands on the wheel. She imagined his eyes were constantly moving, looking for potential trouble. While she didn’t think there was any trouble here in the busy, prosperous city of San José, Cav was getting paid to be alert and ever watchful.
It felt nice, actually, to have a guard dog, but Cav was a truly handsome species, in her eyes.
Noticing the white scars and nicks over his large, long fingered hands, and the deep tan, she figured he had been outdoors a lot, probably in the Middle East. She noted his well muscled back. He probably worked out daily, but he wasn’t excessively muscular.
As she took glances at him from time to time as he drove, she realized how many scars he had on the arm nearest her. Hah! She’d thought she had scars? This guy had her beat!
“I’ve never had a guard before. Is there a protocol to it?” she asked, clearly wanting some guidance from him.
“Some,” he murmured, checking his rear view mirror. The whole armada, and it was certainly that, was now on a freeway heading north toward the Monte Verde Cloud Forest Reserve. “General Culver wants me in close proximity to you at all times.”
“What does that mean?” she asked, frowning. She was still jumpy as hell from the attack on the school, which spilled over to extreme nervousness around men. It wasn’t that she was afraid of Cav. She just hadn’t expected him to be so…polite. What man nowadays helped a woman into a car? Or shut her door for her?
While unexpected, Lia was enjoying that little bit of pampering. It was actually very nice.
“I go everywhere with you. If you have to go to the grocery store, I’m with you. If you need to go anywhere, I drive you to and from your destination.”
“I hope you don’t go into the women’s restroom with me!” She laughed, joking.
“I’ve been known to do that, too.”
She stared open-mouthed at him. “You’re kidding—aren’t you?” She saw amusement gleaming in his hazel eyes.
“Not at all.”
“But,” she sputtered, “That’s awful!” This man had been very close to her earlier, and Lia had felt the coiled power in Cav’s body as he stood waiting for her at the open van door.
“What’s awful,” he said, raising his dark brows. “Is taking a bullet while you’re in a stall.” Then, he turned his head, pinning her with a dark look. “And General Culver wants you tailed. That’s what a tail does…they’re your shadow.”
Snorting, she muttered, “Well, we’ll see about that. I don’t want a strange man with me in a woman’s restroom, bullets or no bullets.” Lia could swear he was smiling, but damned if his face wasn’t absolutely expressionless. And whether she wanted to or not, she
enjoyed
looking at him. He’d stirred her lower body into a new awakening, just like that!
She suddenly realized that she wasn’t focusing on the report she’d submitted in the boardroom. Should she feel guilty?
No, she had to admit, she was more interested in Cav at the moment. What had this man suffered? He had far more scars than she did, but they weren’t on his face. Unconsciously, she touched her scar on her cheek.
“Is that hurting you?”
Startled, her hand dropped away. For a moment, she caught him not wearing his game face. Instead, she saw concern in his eyes. For her.
“No, I’m fine,” she said with embarrassment, feeling her face heat up. She stared straight ahead, tensing, afraid of what he might say. She couldn’t link his compassionate nature with his being a man. Nearly every other man who’d seen that scar had shown disgust, or gave her a look that that spoke volumes about how it messed up her face.
Truth be known, Lia had never given much thought to her looks, even though her mother, Susan, had always said she was beautiful. Didn’t every mother think her child was beautiful?
Cav held out his arm toward her. “I’ve got you beat by a mile on that score,” he said, giving her an amused look.
Lia stared at his hard, muscled arm, so close to hers. Her fingers itched to slide along his darkly bronzed flesh and feel that black hair sprinkled across his forearm. It was tempting. She curved her fingers into her palms, keeping them on her lap.
“Yes, you do,” she whispered.
Cav put his hand on the wheel once more. He’d recognized the fear in her gray eyes when he mentioned her scar, and she’d actually yanked her fingers away from it, as if she’d been burned. Now, he knew how sensitive she was about it, and he wanted to calm her down. He actually felt a need to hold this woman in his arms, a reaction he’d never had before on the job.
In truth, his heart had been engaged from the moment he’d seen her standing so uncertainly in the doorway of the boardroom. She looked like a deer ready to run pursued by a nearby predator.
Would he want to have great sex with her? Absolutely. But this other feeling of
personally
wanting to protect her was very uncommon in his experience. It actually reminded him of the feeling he often had around children. For him, children always needed to be protected. Hell, he knew that better than most.
This wasn’t the first time he’d worked to protect a female, but it was always all business. He’d never wanted to ask them personal questions or get to know them on a one-to-one basis. On the other hand, with Lia, he wanted to bombard her with hundreds of questions.
He was sorry he’d upset her about her scar. He could see it in her sudden stiffness, the way she sat up in the seat, her hands fisted in her lap when he’d asked her if that scar was hurting her. The woman had suffered enough trauma without him stirring up whatever had created that scar on her face.
“Aren’t you going to ask me how I got all my scars?” He kept his voice light and teasing, adding a slight curve to his mouth. Instantly, Cav saw Lia relax. She leaned back in the seat, her fists uncurling.
“Did you get them as an operator?”
“Yes, I did. I joined the SEALs at eighteen and stayed until I was twenty-five. You get a lot of nicks and scratches doing that kind of boots-on-the-ground work.” He glanced at her profile through the rear view mirror. Those sweet lips of hers had softened, and he sensed she was heaving a huge sigh of relief. Obviously, if he talked about himself, she was comfortable with that.
“I’ve heard about you guys, but I never met one while I was in the military,” she admitted.
“What branch were you in?” Cav asked, and saw her tighten up a little. As an operator, he knew body language. It was the nonverbal language of a human being—and was used sixty percent, versus the forty percent verbal language. He’d been trained to observe even the most minute body changes and could read them with great accuracy. He had her file, read it and memorized it. Cav knew the answer to the question, but he needed to establish some connection and trust with Lia. Her military file had a large, redacted section, so he had no way of knowing what that was about. And it was important he knew why that part was hidden from the world.
“I was in the Army. Motor pool.”
“Officer or enlisted?” She went rigid again. Why? He wondered if she’d been in combat, maybe a PTSD survivor. The questions he had for her were on a long, long list.
“Enlisted. I was a sergeant, an E-4.”
Now, even her voice was going tense. Lia usually had a mellow voice, a soothing alto, and it relaxed him when she spoke.
“I was an E-5 when I got out, Petty Officer, second class,” he offered.
Her mouth relaxed, giving him another clue. Cav wasn’t the greatest communicator, but hell, in his business, being the quiet type was a decided asset. But with Lia, he was just the opposite. He could see that she didn’t want to talk about herself just yet. If he opened up about himself, she became at ease once more. What the hell was she hiding?
“Did you like being a SEAL?” she wondered aloud, turning to him.
“Yeah, as a kid I’d always wanted to be one. They were kind of my comic book heroes.”
Not that his childhood was a fairy tale. It was an ongoing nightmare, but he definitely wasn’t going there.
“I loved comic books,” she said in a new, delighted voice. “I devoured them as a child.”
“Who was your favorite?” Cav leapt on that like a bee discovering a flower. Lia, he was learning, was not only mysterious—she was hiding from the world.
“I love the X-Men. Especially Wolverine,” and she smiled a little. “He was so scarred and been so badly wounded by brutal men.”
Another puzzle piece. Clearly, some man or men had hurt her. Was that what the scar on her face and throat were all about? Cav ached to ask the question, but it was way too soon. He desperately needed to establish a platform of trust with this skittish woman with the beautiful diamond gray eyes.
“Do you have a soft heart toward wounded animals,” Cav kept his voice light, with a little teasing, hoping to draw her out a bit more.
Lia turned, studying him for a long moment. “Are all operators like you?”
“Like what?”
“Always asking sensitive, insightful questions?”
Shrugging, Cav gave her a lopsided grin. “I don’t know. Is that what I do?”
“Yes. You’re very good at it.”
Almost too good
. She swore she could feel Cav probing her, and the caring that burned in his hazel eyes told her he was sincerely interested in her.
But why? Was he coming on to her? It didn’t feel like it. She’d had enough relationships and God knew, had been hit on enough in the military, to know when a man wanted one thing from her.
But Cav’s inspection of her, that gentle prying, didn’t feel at all like that. This was a watershed moment for her, because ninety-nine percent of the men who had hit on her weren’t coming from the direction Cav clearly was. She had so little experience with a man like him, she felt inept and vulnerable.
“When I was in Afghanistan, because I spoke Pashto, one of the main languages for that country, I was often called in on interrogations at Bagram. From a lot of early experience, I learned you got more with honey than vinegar.”
Cav was definitely honey, Lia decided. “I was at Bagram,” she blurted out, then snapped her mouth shut. Damn! Her attack had happened there. Her fists curled on her thighs and she stared straight ahead, trying to will Cav into not pursuing her statement.
“Really?” Cav saw her face drain of color after she’d said it. The vibe coming off her right now was stark terror. Okay, then, step around it. He opened his hands on the wheel and said, “It was a big base. At its peak, there were twenty-two thousand people there.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her draw in a deep breath, close her eyes for a moment and then reopen them. He was headed the right direction now.
“Let’s talk about Wolverine? You up for that?” he teased. Even more relief showed in her face after that last comment.
“I loved Wolverine as a teen,” she admitted. “As badly scarred and hurt as he was, he never took it out on others. All he did was protect the innocent and save others’ lives.”