Asleep, the lines of fatigue and ill health smoothed themselves out and the beautiful Blondie that had set the Foreign Service males into a testosterone-fueled frenzy came back.
Jesus Christ, she was beautiful. The short, pale blond hair formed a halo around that perfect face. Every line of her was perfect, or would be perfect if she could manage to put on a few pounds.
He’d fantasized about her, even dreamed about her. More nights than he cared to count, before Laka, he’d jacked off to her. When he thought she was dead, he couldn’t jerk off to the thought of a dead woman. He simply spent the nights with a sad boner and nowhere to go with it.
And now here she was. More beautiful than in his memory. More . . . everything. Smarter, braver, sharper. Even recovering from near-death, even on the run from killers, even with amnesia, Claire was an extraordinary woman. He’d never met anyone even remotely like her.
He was under no illusions that the sex last night had been anything more than comfort sex for her. She’d been scared and stressed and he’d been handy.
What the hell. It didn’t matter. He’d take whatever he could get. Probably she hadn’t quite realized it yet, but she was his. He’d just stick around until it sank in.
And while she was in danger, he had no intention of ever being more than a hand’s span from her until he figured out who was after her and he could kill the fuckers.
Well . . . until
they’d
figured out who was after her. Claire was scary smart. Smarter than he was, that was for sure. If anyone could get to the bottom of this shadowy business, she could. She had a spook’s convoluted mind.
That was okay. Dan was fine with being the muscle in the relationship. All he wanted was to keep her safe.
He was astonished at the rush of protective feelings she aroused in him. He’d never felt that for a woman before.
His sex partners were kept at a distance. He liked sex and except for the past two years when the idea of Claire messed with his head and his dick, he had as much of it as he could.
He’d had no idea at all what sex with emotions was.
Scary, that’s what it was. Things running wild in his chest, feeling ten feet tall, then shit scared he’d lose her. Both emotions at once. This protectiveness was brand new and terrifying.
What blew him away was the wild
possessiveness
that reared up and grabbed him by the throat. Something he’d never felt before, ever, about anyone.
Touch Claire, and you were a dead man.
Claire was
his
. He’d seen the flare of interest in Jesse’s eyes and he’d immediately put his arm around Claire. Jesse was a good friend. He’d got the message immediately. What scared Dan was what he’d have done if Jesse hadn’t got the message.
Ripped Jesse’s fucking head off his fucking shoulders, that’s what he would have done.
Whoa.
He and Jesse went back a long way. They’d gone through basic training together, a major bonding experience. He’d saved Jesse’s life in Afghanistan.
Dan would give all his money, his help with anything, an arm, a kidney, to Jesse. Just not Claire.
Claire was his.
He sat in the dark cabin, while the day went by and the woodstove warmed the simple cabin, holding Claire’s soft hand in his and watching over her sleep. Letting these raw emotions run through him, helpless to stop them.
He’d rarely thought about having a woman of his own. What the hell did he know about relationships? Fuck all, that’s what he knew. The couples he’d seen growing up had been like how-not-to manuals. Some had even tried to kill each other.
But when he did think about it seriously, he imagined it could be sort of nice. In some vague future. Maybe.
It hadn’t occurred to him that it would
hurt
. That he’d barely be able to deal with the terrifying rush of feelings he couldn’t control slicing through him.
Control. It was what had made him the man he was. As a teenager he’d acted out his rage and had been in and out of juvie for stealing, getting into fights, just about everything except drugs and booze. His father had immunized him against drugs and alcohol. Dan had seen up close and personal what getting high and staying high meant.
But everything else—man, he’d been up for it. You name it, he’d done it. He’d been on a fast track to nowhere, a candidate for dying young with a big splatter, when he’d joined the Corps.
The Corps had saved his life and taught him discipline. That’s what the Corps was all about—discipline and control. He’d taken to it like he’d been born to it. He was in control even in combat, cool and calm and precise.
This—
this was scary as hell. He’d been completely self-sufficient up until now, completely his own man. But now his happiness, his whole fucking
being
was tied up in a slender woman who had big trouble on her tail.
Jesus.
He sat, holding her hand, trying hard not to think about this massive curveball life had thrown at him. His head was a jumble but one thing was very clear. Watching over her, touching her, knowing she was safe, that was what made him happy.
An hour passed, two, three. The clock in his head told him it was late afternoon. Tomorrow was going to be busy. He needed to be sharp. Fast reflexes had got them out of two ambushes. God knew what tomorrow would bring. But somehow he couldn’t bring himself to let go of her hand and lie down in the bed.
In some crazy way, it was as if staying awake could keep the monsters after her at bay. It was nuts, of course, but he was getting used to the idea by now of Claire messing with his head.
As if his thoughts had reached out and touched her, Claire suddenly opened her eyes. There hadn’t been any coming up out of sleep.
She woke up like a soldier, instantly alert. One minute she was deeply asleep, the next she was watching him out of those gorgeous silver blue eyes. Each time her gaze shifted, it was like lightning flashing in a summer sky.
She looked around, as if orienting herself. She hadn’t seen the cabin yet and he could tell she was having trouble placing herself.
The cabin was simple, a one-room structure with rough, handmade furniture. A bed in the corner, a long hand-hewn table in the center with three chairs—Dan was sitting on the fourth—a stone counter with wood-fired range and oven. A big stone bowl under a hand pump. A woodstove for heat. A huge stone hearth that was black with use, but swept clean of ash.
She’d fallen asleep in twenty-first century Washington and woken up in nineteenth-century Pennsylvania.
He saw the exact second she realized what she was doing here. The two attempts on their lives, the close escapes.
“Dan?” she said softly. Something in her voice raised the hair on the nape of his neck. He could feel the hairs of his forearms brushing against his shirtsleeve.
So lost. She sounded so lost and so lonely. A unicorn in the forest, in the gunsights of cruel hunters.
Well, she wasn’t lost and lonely. She was right here, with him. He was by her side and, by God, would stay there forever, if she let him.
He’d been thinking the thing through, planning tomorrow, putting together a tentative strategy while holding Claire’s hand. All thoughts fled from his head, though, when her eyes met his.
She didn’t say anything. She simply lifted the covers in an unspoken invitation.
Hell, yeah.
He forced himself to take his clothes off normally, not in a frenzy like last time. Sweater off, placed on the chair he’d been sitting in. He didn’t fold it. There were limits to what a man could do, but at least he didn’t rip it off and toss it over his shoulder. His shirt seemed to have a million buttons, all tiny. He was never going to buy a shirt ever again, not with Claire around. Maybe he’d just wear one of those Arab
thoubs
, go commando underneath, pull it up and off and there you were.
Instead, he struggled with the buttons, the cuffs, had to bend down to unlace his boots, take off his socks, winced as he unzipped over his blue steeler. It took what felt like forever but finally he was naked. He looked down at himself and winced. Oh man. Every single drop of blood in his body seemed to have pooled in his dick.
He checked Claire, hoping she wasn’t looking uneasy. She wasn’t. She wasn’t even looking at his hard-on, she was looking at his face, arms up, an expression on hers that nearly unmanned him.
Trust, affection . . . love?
Dan had no idea, all he knew was that no woman had ever looked at him that way before.
For a second, it made him uneasy. It would almost be better if what he saw on her face were lust, because that was something he was familiar with, something he could handle. This—it was truly scary shit.
“Dan?” She reached out and touched his arm.
A shudder ran through him at her touch. It was as if something immense had suddenly slotted into place, something in the universe aligned. Her hand on his arm felt
right
. Something that simply had to be.
“Yeah, I’m here,” he answered huskily. He placed a knee on the mattress and bent down to her. “Raise your arms over your head.”
Instantly, without even thinking of it, she obeyed, her long slender arms rising above her head. He pulled her T-shirt off, undid her bra, slid her pants down her legs and simply looked.
Was there any woman in the world who looked like that? Pale as moonlight, graceful, small perfect breasts rising and falling with her breaths. Her left breast pulsed with her heartbeat.
This was magic. Everything about her was magic.
“Come to me,” she whispered, and he did, rolling on to her and in her in one smooth movement and he felt an immense peace come over him.
Home. He was a man who had never had a home before, but now he did.
Claire was home.
Dan was also armed to the teeth. Claire had watched him strap on two guns, a .45 and a scary Desert Eagle, both fully loaded, and put three clips in each pocket. He had a knife in a sheath hanging down his back—a big black one that looked ready for business, down to a big groove for the blood.
His Cherokee also held a Remington rifle with a scope that looked a yard long, ammo, night vision goggles, several grenades and something that looked suspiciously like C-4.
That old military saying—there wasn’t any problem that couldn’t be solved by judicious use of C-4.
He’d looked at her as he armed up. Did he think she’d mind? She was only sorry that they didn’t have an RPG and a fifty cal machine gun.
She’d kissed him to reassure him and the kiss had lasted ten breathless minutes.
He’d been aroused and so had she. Breaking off the kiss had been incredibly hard. The heat that flared up between them simply blew away all her anxiety and fear.
Claire shot straight into another land and another time when Dan kissed her. A place where the bombing hadn’t happened and no one was after her. Her father was still alive, her home was intact and so was she.
It was sunny and hot in that other place. Roses bloomed and robins sang. She could stay in that other place forever, kissing Dan, feeling his strong arms around her, gasping for air with each surge of his penis against her belly, feeling an accompanying tug in her groin.
He’d finally held her at arm’s length and growled, “Later.” And then he’d given her a look that would have incinerated rock.
But that one word had been enough to shut it down. The roses withered, the birds grew silent, dark clouds covered the sun. They were catapulted back into the Land of Bad Things.
Jesse stood when they walked into the diner and didn’t sit back down until Claire was seated. The two men sat with their backs to the wall and she sat perpendicular to Dan, looking out the window over the dark parking lot.
Jesse looked grim. He nudged a huge shopping bag with his foot over to Claire. “First off, here’s your stuff. It should keep you guys going for a while.”
He slid the satphone over to her. She picked it up, liking the feel of it. Thuraya satphones were heavier than cell phones. But then they did a heavier job. Jesse slid across a USB modem and she put both in her purse. Then he pulled out a netbook and opened it, facing her.
“It belonged to a friend of mine. He emptied the hard disk. It’s got everything you need, plus Wi-Fi capability.”
That was good. And if they were in places where there were no hot spots, the Thuraya would take care of it
Claire powered it up. It came to life crisply, a good sign. She checked the computer resources, hard disk properties, ran a few tests. “Perfect,” she said.
Jesse nodded. A zippered bag followed. “There’s the cash in there. If you need more, I can front you.” His eyes slid to Claire’s. “I went to eight different ATMs, and I blinded all the security cameras. And streetlights all around tended to malfunction.” His mouth lifted in a half smile. “I hope it drives them nuts. Here are your cards back.”
Claire put her hand over Jesse’s. “No, keep pulling out money in small increments. If you can, give one of the cards to a friend who lives out of town and have him drive around. That
will
drive them nuts.”
He nodded and put the two cards back in his jeans pocket.
“Did you talk to Marcus?” Dan asked.
Jesse nodded. “Oh yeah. They don’t have any clues at all on the hotel knifing and about a ton of bleach was poured over your front lawn, so there’s no DNA there. I know you said the bad guys took some hits, but Marcus didn’t find any trace evidence. These guys know what they’re doing.”
Dan nodded. “Marcus get anything off my security cameras?”
Jesse shook his head. “Nah. They all wore ski masks, so facial recognition software won’t work. I saw some footage, though. You did some great driving. And Claire, you should be in major league baseball. You threw the grenade and the flashbang right where they would do the most good.” He brought two fingers to his forehead in a salute. “You’re a dangerous woman.”
It would be nice to think so. She turned to Dan. “When this is all over, I want you to teach me how to shoot.”
He smiled ironically.
She was—had been—a military analyst. She had a deep knowledge of military hardware, including drones, tanks, gunships and aircraft carriers and their tactical and strategic uses. She knew every gun ever manufactured from the 1950s on. But she’d never shot a gun in her life. It was all book knowledge.
Now she wanted a hands-on knowledge of guns. Have the feel and the heft of them in her hands. So she could shoot any son of a bitch who came after her.
“Count on it.” He closed his eyes briefly and sighed. “Okay, Jesse, tell Marcus to keep his eyes peeled.”
Claire leaned forward. “Tell him I’m going to set up a bulletin board only he and I can access. I’ll text him the BB info and our passwords. We need to know anything he comes up with that can help us. We need to know who we’re up against.” She looked at Dan. “I want to do some sniffing around on the internet and the sooner we get going the better. Can we order some takeout and eat back at the cabin?”
He nodded. “Good idea. What do you want?”
Claire consulted her stomach and it gave her an enthusiastic internal organ equivalent of two thumbs up.
She took stock of herself. She’d been a human wreck when she’d come rushing up to Washington on the flimsiest of excuses. Seeing a man she’d dreamed about.
But then she found out Dan existed. He was real. She’d known him in her previous life! He was real and warm and solid. He’d saved her life twice yesterday and the good news was . . . the danger was real, too.
Someone
real
—a flesh and blood human, not the monsters in her head—was after her. He was real and he was dangerous, but being
real
meant he could be destroyed.
The next step was figuring out what was behind all of this, and now that she was facing real world problems, she could bring her real world skills to bear and—modesty aside—her real world skills were formidable.
The old Claire, the Claire from before, was rising up in her, stretching, looking around.
Well well well, what have we here? You thought I was gone, but here I am. And someone’s after you? Oh, that won’t do. That won’t do at all.
She’d been beaten almost into oblivion, but now she was back and out for blood.
Most of it was thanks to Dan. His solidity, courage, steadfastness. Oh, and the sex, too, which was off the charts. Blinding sexual pleasure as a reality stimulant. Hmmm.
He made her feel like a giantess, bigger than life. A woman who could make a man like Dan literally pant with desire.
Heady stuff. He’d awoken Old Claire, Strong Claire. She was back in the game and she was . . . hungry.
“Double cheeseburger with all the trimmings, a double order of fries, big portion of coleslaw and two—no make that three slices of apple pie. A la mode.” She turned to Dan. “And what will you be having?”