He made a humorless noise. “Approve? Baby, I was part of it.”
She knew the horror must have shown on her face because his mouth thinned and his eyes went as dead as the people lying on the ground.
“Those bastards were threatening their homes, Rainie. Threatening innocent women and children. I didn’t start the shooting, and neither did the villagers, but I sure as hell helped when they started fighting back.”
That’s when she noticed them, the villagers. Standing in a semicircle and staring wide-eyed at the three of them. The men held guns. All aimed at them. Well, her and Marc.
But these were real people, simple villagers, not hardened, hooded thugs, or even trained special ops guys. Somehow, that was worse. How could
normal
people have done this awful thing, committed the atrocity surrounding her?
Some of the villagers studied them suspiciously, some with amazement, a few like they were aliens from another planet. Which she supposed they were to them. As their world seemed to her. And suddenly, the lover who held her with one arm and a deadly rifle with the other seemed just as alien.
But blood was blood.
Nurse mode.
She scanned the bodies on the ground. “I should still check pulses,” she said, taking a step away from the man she realized—big surprise—she didn’t know at all. “Someone could have survived.”
He grabbed her wrist to prevent her from going. “Even if there were survivors,” he said sharply, “you’re a woman, a foreigner, and they’ll think you’re my wife. They’d never let you near those men, let alone treat them.”
But she was stuck back at the first part. “Your
wife
? Why would they think that?” Especially with those flat eyes he was watching her with.
“Because that’s what I’ll tell them.” Before she could ask why again, he leaned his face down close to hers. “Because you’re a woman traveling alone with two men. In this culture, if you’re not wife to one of us, you’re a whore. Fair game for any man in the village. Which option would you prefer?”
Fire flamed through her face and hurt through her chest. At his sudden anger at her. At the massive confusion in her heart. At this whole hellish situation.
She couldn’t help her belief in the sanctity of life.
Any
life. Even that of a lowlife scum who had no such qualms about hers. Was it so strange she might be the teensiest bit upset that a man she’d made love to was capable of the very violence that had given her nightmares for most of her life?
But goddamn it, she would not cry. She’d done enough of that to last ten lifetimes. Didn’t help. Never had.
She drew herself up. Lifted her chin. “Maybe I’d prefer to be
Marc’s
wife,” she responded coolly.
Kick flinched. Like she’d slapped him. He gave her a death-ray glare and for one thunderous second she thought he might strike back. But his hand didn’t even twitch. Instead, his voice became dangerously soft. “You want to share Lafayette’s blanket tonight, fine.”
With that, he turned on a heel, held his rifle above his head surrender-style, and strode toward the clutch of village men, oblivious to the guns suddenly whipping around to point at him.
“
Ah, ’tite fille
.” Marc sighed, startling her from her dismay. “
Dans in coup de colere, cet homme
.”
“Excuse me?”
“Hope you don’t mind if I step out from the middle of it,” he said, shook his head, and followed Kick, his good hand raised in the air.
And once again—what a shock—she was left standing apart, all by herself.
RAINIE
was very proud of herself. She didn’t lose it. She didn’t burst into tears. Didn’t stamp her feet. Didn’t have a panic attack, or go running after her two “protectors.” Didn’t even curse. Aloud, anyway.
All she did was snap her mouth closed, turn oh-so-calmly, and walk toward a grove of palm trees at the far edge of the pathetic clutch of mud huts passing itself off as civilization. God, was she tired. So damn tired.
“Rainie?” Marc called after her. “Where you goin’,
’tite
?”
She toodled her fingers over her shoulder and kept walking.
“Rainie!” This time it was Kick yelling. “Get the hell back here, woman!”
Ah, well. So much for not cursing.
“Fuck you,” she yelled back.
God, that felt good on so many levels.
She’d already picked out a big patch of shade with her name on it. Let the dickhead surrender, or trade for camels, or get himself tortured, or commiserate with the murderous village men on the maddening irrationality of women. Whatever the hell floated his boat.
She
was getting some sleep. If anyone wanted to shoot her over that, let them. She was so far beyond caring it wasn’t funny.
Sinking down in the shade of a thick palm frond, she closed her eyes gratefully. The warm sand welcomed and embraced her into its grainy arms; a hot breeze stroked her cheek and kissed the sweat from her brow. She let out a long, shuddering sigh. And as she willed herself into an exhausted sleep, to her surprise an odd sort of peace stole over her.
Peace.
Spitting mad, five thousand miles from home in the middle of a savage foreign desert, surrounded by gun-toting natives, chased by terrorists, protected by men who were probably even more dangerous than the ones chasing them, and on top of it all, actually falling for one of the macho jerks. Talk about insanity.
And yet, there it was. For the first time in a long, long while, she didn’t feel like she was teetering on the verge of terror, or balancing on the edge of blind panic.
Wow.
If that didn’t beat all.
KICK
was having a hard time concentrating on what the village sheikh was saying. He and Lafayette were sitting cross-legged on the ground facing the stern old bugger. The side of the old man’s face was crusted with blood—the first victim of the tangos’ brutality. The other village men sat around them in a circle, some holding rifles that had probably been around since Chinese Gordon marched through on his way to Khartoum. Lafayette looked like he might fall over any second.
Kick was red-hot furious, worried as hell, hurting like the dickens, and running on fumes. He was sure the only reason the two of them hadn’t been shot on sight, despite the help he’d given them picking off the bads, was that the villagers were too stunned by the crazy woman sleeping under a palm tree as though she didn’t have a care in the world.
Well, except for him. She’d taken great care to shine
him
on. That had been patently obvious even to the villagers. The women peeking out from behind the houses had actually giggled at him when he’d gotten the bird from Rainie.
Giggled.
Females! Pure trouble from beginning to end. Why did he never
listen
to himself?
Jesus, the maddening woman must have ice in her veins to lie down for a snooze while he and Lafayette were being held at gunpoint.
Or maybe she was just fall-down, done-in tired. Like he was. When was the last time he’d slept? Except for a few stolen minutes on the plane . . . hell, not since he’d been unconscious detoxing. If he could just get some sleep, maybe the constant buzzing in his body would calm down, his stomach would settle, the cramps would stop, the never-ending reminders of the physical need would go away.
If only he could—
Suddenly, he realized the villagers were glowering at him. Getting agitated. Lafayette gave him an owlish look.
“Sorry,” he told the sheikh in respectful Arabic. “I didn’t understand. Could you repeat that?”
The old man looked annoyed. And very suspicious. “Why are you here? What do you want?”
Beyond the circle, the broken bodies of the tangos were being loaded into the backs of the Jeeps.
“Where are you taking them?” Kick asked instead of answering the question.
“Far away,” the old sheikh said. “So the others won’t come back for revenge. Give me one good reason we shouldn’t add your bodies to theirs.”
Several men shouted in agreement. Rifles rattled threateningly.
Kick cleared his throat, doing his best to look small and harmless. And not shake.
Yeah, sure.
“Because I helped you, and you are honorable men. My friend and I wish only to buy water and food.”
“You are the American spies from the plane!” he accused loudly. He pointed at the dead. “The ones they were looking for.”
Kick shook his head. “Not spies. We are headed for the refugee camp on the Nile. I’m sorry your village was made to suffer. I assure you—”
“Who is the woman?” the sheikh interrupted with furrowed brow.
Kick pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly, darting a glance at Lafayette. He’d realized a while back that the STORM agent spoke Arabic and understood every word of the exchange, though he hadn’t opened his mouth.
“She is a nurse.”
At his prevarication, the Cajun’s brow flicked up. A challenge?
No fucking way was he letting Lafayette touch her. She was
his
. “She is also my wife,” Kick said returning the look.
The sheikh digested that for a moment, glancing from him to Rainie and back again. “She is willful. She does not obey her husband.”
“The temper of a camel,” he agreed with enough honest chagrin to raise a rumble of laughter among the men. The old man’s lips finally curved in acknowledgment of a universal male dilemma.
Kick’s shoulders notched down just a tad.
Whatever.
He so did not feel like bonding. He just wanted to get the hell out of there. Get Rainie to the DFP camp and safety. Christ, when she’d stalked off like that he’d nearly had a stroke, terrified some trigger-happy villager would stop her with a bullet in the back.
What was
wrong
with her?
Other than thinking he was some kind of homicidal monster, of course. Which, oh, yeah. He was.
“So you wish to buy water and food?” the sheikh asked, finally motioning his men to lower their weapons, and for the women to bring the trays of tea they’d already prepared.
“
In shah allah
,” Kick said, putting on his best poker face. “And God willing, I’d also like one of those Jeeps.”
SOMEONE
was shaking her.
Again.
“Go away,” Rainie groused, groped for the blanket, and ended up with a handful of sand.
Crap.
A jet of warm, mint-scented breath hit her in the face. “We have to go.” Kick. He sounded irritated.
He wasn’t the only one. “Be my guest.”
There was a pause, then, “All right. Have a nice walk home. Or maybe the sheikh will take you for his third wife.” The grinding sound of boots scrunched in sand. “Though I doubt it,” he added in a muttered growl.
“I heard that.”
She pried her eyelids open and watched Kick’s straight back and stiff shoulders march away. He’d taken off his cammie jacket so his ripped muscles were clearly visible under his formfitting khaki T-shirt. How could someone so bad and so damn infuriating look so ridiculously good to her?
Sunstroke maybe.
She got up and trailed after him. She was
so
not wanting to—
Whoa
.
He hopped into a Jeep. Marc had already collapsed in the passenger seat. They had a ride? Her feet practically jumped for joy. Her mind started to panic.
“If you’re coming with us, get in,” Kick ordered her gruffly.
In.
The Jeep.
Her mind and her feet screamed at her to run—in opposite directions.
“Preferably sometime
this century
.”
She told her mind to go to hell.
Gingerly, she approached the open-topped vehicle, and with her heart pounding, touched its ancient fender. A big clump of dirt and rust fell off, landing at her feet. She jumped and let out a squeak.
“You going to be okay?” Kick asked, bringing the engine to life.
“Yes,” she said confidently, far more to convince herself than him. She tamed her careening heartbeat. She would be okay if it killed her.
No deep breaths necessary.
He swung his door open and leaned forward so she could squeeze past to the hard, narrow bench that laughingly called itself a backseat. It was filthy. It was cramped. It stunk like dead goat.
But it beat the hell out of walking.
And . . . the most amazing thing happened. When Kick slammed the door, ground the thing into gear, and the wheels lurched forward, panic
didn’t
swamp over her.
“Here,” he said, holding up the GPS unit she’d found in the pack last night. “Make yourself useful.”
She grabbed the instrument and the back of the driver’s seat, and hung on to both as they jounced between the mud huts, then burst out into the rocky desert beyond.
“I don’t know how to work it.”
“I need a navigator. Learn.”
They practically flew across the landscape, which suddenly didn’t seem barren at all. The dunes and hills were beautiful, the few plants that clung to the dry ground exotic and inspiring. The sky was brilliant blue overhead. Wind whipped through her hair. Even the oppressive heat didn’t seem so bad.
Kick’s eyes met hers in the cracked rearview mirror, holding a distinct challenge. He didn’t think she could do it.
Ha. As if.
She worked every day with instruments a hundred times more complicated than following a stupid arrow across a bunch of squiggly lines. This would be a piece of cake.
“Okay,” she said.
She smiled. He didn’t smile back. But he did manage to look relieved as he clipped out the instructions.
Fine. Let him be surly. She wanted to laugh out loud.
For the first time since she was twelve years old she was not terrified of being in a moving vehicle.
And
she was in charge of finding their way through the wilderness. It was a pure miracle.
Almost made her wonder what other irrational fears she might be able to conquer, if given the chance.
Like maybe her fear of falling in love
.