Authors: Stephanie Tyler
“Do what you can here,” Clutch told him weakly. “I’m not going to a hospital. No fucking way.”
He began to cough, and she caught the look between Nick and Chris that told her things weren’t good.
“I’m not losing you to an infection,” Sarah told Clutch as Chris pulled out an instrument from his bag and told Clutch to hold on to something.
Clutch took Sarah’s hand, the pain he was in more than evident from the way he howled as Chris worked behind him. Nick was bracing Clutch with his own body, stopping him from rolling onto his back.
“One more, man,” Chris told Clutch, who nodded and held his breath. Kaylee realized she was holding hers as well. Another howl of pain that brought tears to Clutch’s eyes, made him slump forward, and then it was over. Nick was helping Chris stitch up the wounds, giving Clutch whatever medicine Chris had in his bag, while Sarah spoke softly in Clutch’s ear.
“We can’t, Sarah—can’t risk it. Suppose…” Clutch trailed off.
Suppose the article doesn’t help anything. Suppose there were more men no one knew about, waiting behind the scenes to finish GOST off, once and for all
.
Suppose this was all for nothing.
And Kaylee was helpless again, hated that feeling more than anything else in the world. But she suddenly knew she could do something while they waited to see the fallout from the article.
Once Clutch and Sarah broke apart, Kaylee approached the man with the nearly colorless eyes and reached for his hand. “Thank you,” she said softly.
“I’m the one who needs to thank you.”
“You helped Aaron—you were there for him. Maybe the only one who was, and that means so much to me, to know he wasn’t alone. You let me prove that he was a good man, that he served his country well. His name will be cleared.”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the bankbook and the paper that held the codes for the new account. She opened it to the last page, the one with the total.
Clutch merely stared at it. “I meant it when I said I didn’t bring you here to take your money. That was Aaron’s—and now it’s yours.”
“No. It should go someplace where it can do some good. You deserve it. And I hope this helps give you a new start—for you and for Sarah.”
“I can’t—”
“Please, Clutch. Aaron would want it this way. I don’t need it—I’m okay. And with this, you will be too.”
Chris moved away from Clutch as Kaylee hugged him. “Go to the hospital. Please. I couldn’t bear if anything happened to you when you’ve come this far.”
She pulled back, to find Sarah smiling at her.
“I’ll go,” Clutch said, handed the bankbook to Sarah, who simply mouthed,
thank you
.
Jamie had watched Chris do a quick and dirty removal of the bullets from Clutch’s shoulder, all the while chomping at the bit to ask about Sophie.
Kaylee touched her shoulder. “If you hadn’t gotten me that information about Caspar, I don’t know what would’ve happened,” the reporter told her. “And then that woman came in…”
Sophie. “What woman? Where is she?”
Kaylee looked around the gray-walled room. “She had dark hair—she distracted Caspar. She was one of the GOSTs.”
“She went to check for bombs,” Sarah called over to the women. “She’s probably on the upper floors.”
Sarah was still talking even as Jamie took off through the warehouse, yelling Sophie’s name.
She took the rickety metal steps two at a time up to the top floor. Her voice echoed through the broad halls, and she stopped for a second and just listened. She heard rattling coming from a room on the right, entered with her gun drawn, to find Sophie on her knees checking a floor vent.
Her sister turned and glanced up as Jamie entered—Sophie looked different, but she always managed to look so. Constantly changing, the ultimate chameleon, and Jamie was never sure if that was because of necessity or if Sophie would’ve been like that if they’d had a normal childhood.
Then again, Jamie had no real idea what normal was anymore. “It’s really you. Thank God—I thought we were too late. I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner.”
Sophie stood, brushed her hands off. Then she moved closer, touched Jamie’s shoulder, stroked her hair the way she always had when Jamie was younger and upset. “It’s okay. We would have found a way on our own.”
“God, that’s so like you—I broke my ass, risked everything to help you, and that’s all I get?”
“Okay, so you saved me. Does that finally make us even?”
“I don’t want even. I just want my sister.”
Sophie relented, barely, by changing the subject. She was good at that, using distraction when things got too close to her, when emotions threatened to break through the surface—hers or anyone else’s. “This wasn’t my choice. I’m sorry I wasn’t around to help you through your rehab, or to grieve Mike.”
“I knew you were—in your own way.” Jamie grabbed her sister’s hand. “Come on, we’ll take you back. We’ll talk to people at the FBI, figure things out from there.” Kevin would help—their foster father would have the pull to put Sophie’s name back into the U.S. marshals’ system.
Sophie shook her head. “There’s nothing to figure out. I’m not coming with you.”
Jamie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry—the laugh came first and then the sob choked her throat. “So, what, you’re just going to leave? Disappear with Clutch and Sarah?”
Her sister looked at her calmly. Sophie could’ve been so many things—everyone who met her wanted to be her friend, wanted to be like her. Jamie included. Sophie had one of those faces, one of those bodies. Her expression was cool and haughty, and people always wanted to be like her.
“Yes. I’m going with them for now—they’ll need some help, some cover. And you know as well as I do that it’s not safe for me.”
“Not yet. But the article Kaylee wrote about GOST will run—I can make sure your name gets back in Witness Protection, with Kevin’s help. You’ll be watched by U.S. marshals again. You’re almost free—you can come home.” Jamie heard the pleading in her voice and hated it. “Please, Soph, after all we’ve been through—”
“Don’t bring up Mom and Dad. Not now.”
“I’m not the one who’s letting it get in the way.”
Sophie nodded, as if Jamie was right. “Clutch understands me. He’s been through Witness Protection too.”
“So have I, in case you’ve forgotten.” Jamie heard the anger in her voice and tried to quell it. “I want to be there for you, to help you, but you never let me.”
“It’s not the same for you. Maybe because you were so young… because you didn’t see it happen. I don’t know how, but you adjusted.”
Jamie didn’t know what to say to that.
“Stop thinking about it—please, Jamie; I can see the whole thing in your eyes,” Sophie implored her and Jamie wondered what that must’ve been like, to see the man who’d murdered their parents. To see him coming after her, until he’d been startled by the sirens and had run off, into the night.
To have him get captured, only to escape after Sophie testified against him.
Sophie had been a fourteen-year-old, very vulnerable witness, and yet, Jamie could still see Sophie’s face before she took the stand. So strong, even then.
“PJ, we have to leave now—we’re taking Clutch to the hospital,” Sarah’s voice came up the stairs.
“I’ll be right there,” her sister answered. Jamie noted that a packed bag lay in the corner of this nondescript room, nearly as bare as all the others.
But that wasn’t what made her blood turn cold. “‘PJ’? You’re calling yourself PJ?” she breathed. Back in Minnesota, Jamie had been Ana Caldwell and Sophie had been Patricia Jane, known to everyone as PJ.
Sophie gave her a quick hug. “That’s who I am, Jamie. Always was.”
Sarah and Kaylee were still talking—Nick left them by the car they’d loaded Clutch into the back of and headed to talk to Chris.
“Clutch is definitely going to the hospital?” his brother asked.
“Yeah, he finally agreed—PJ’s going with them.” Nick stuck his hands in his pockets. “I hope this is really over.”
“You and me both. By the way, you look like hell.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”
Normally, Nick hated letting anyone fuss over him—he and Jake were very alike in that manner—but Chris pretty much insisted and so Nick sat in the back of the car and let Chris clean his face and apply Steri-Strips to his lip and eyebrow.
“Does anything hurt?” Chris asked.
“No.”
“The day you say yes is the day I’ll worry.” Chris stepped away. “You still look like hell.”
“Fuck off.”
Chris snorted.
“Hey, where’s Jamie?” Nick asked.
“She’s talking to PJ.” Chris looked over his shoulder, but Jamie was actually standing in the mo wed-down field by herself. A few feet away, Sarah and PJ packed their bags into the car and drove off.
Nick and Chris watched until the car completely disappeared and they couldn’t hear the rough motor cutting through the otherwise almost eerie quiet.
“Come on, let’s get the hell out of here,” Nick said finally.
Chris stared at him, was rubbing his fingertips together. “What did you do, Nick?”
“Nothing.” And really, that was the truth. He wasn’t about to spill what Kaylee had found out about his past here, in the middle of the jungle.
His brother stared at him—just stared. Nick wouldn’t be as lucky when Jake got ahold of him, and he reveled in Chris’s quiet disapproval as it strummed through him.
“There’s a hotel close to the airport. We should be able to catch a flight out later tonight or tomorrow, unless we can grab a ride back with Jamie.” Chris glanced at the tall blond woman who stood watching the empty space the car had just passed through. “I don’t know how that’s going to play out.”
Kaylee walked up next to Nick, was looking toward Jamie. “She looks upset.”
“Shattered is more like it,” Chris muttered. “I’ll go talk to her.”
As his brother moved off, Nick turned to Kaylee, took this quiet time to check her over again, to make sure she was really all right. “You’re sure those bastards didn’t do anything to you? You can tell me.”
“No. I knew I would be okay, and I am.” Still, she accepted his touch, fell into his arms, and then pulled away. “Sorry.”
“Come here,” he growled, pulled her back against him. Didn’t matter that his body ached—the pain helped—and when he pressed her to him, he liked
feeling
.
She pulled slightly away a few seconds later. “Roger called—the article ran. Now we just need to hope it gets picked up by some major affiliates and other media outlets.”
“No matter what happens, you did good, K. Darcy. Never forget that.”
She pressed her cheek against his chest. “I don’t plan on forgetting anything about what happened here.”
22
Jamie had brushed off Chris’s concern at the warehouse, hadn’t said a word during the ride from the warehouse to a hotel close to the Kisangani Airport. Instead, she chose to seat herself all the way in the rear of the car by herself, staring out the back window, as if Sophie might come bursting from the shadows.
Chris drove, Nick next to him, and Kaylee dozed on and off in the middle seat.
It had been one of the longest years of her life. Everything had changed. Things wouldn’t stop changing, and there was nothing she could do about it.
God, she was tired.
“Hey, we’re here.” Chris had opened the door and was staring at her. She hadn’t even realized the car had stopped moving, that Nick and Kaylee had already gotten out.
“Nick and Kaylee went inside to grab a room for a couple of hours before their flight tonight. I’m guessing your plane is ready to take you back whenever you need to go. I can take you to the airport if you need me to.”
She didn’t want to need him for anything. “I’m going to wait here in Africa for a few days. I told Sophie where I’d be, gave her my number. I can get myself to my hotel.”
“I’ll drive you there. I’ll wait with you.”
“No thanks.” She rummaged in her bags, tying them up and focusing anyplace but at him, until he took her chin into his palm and forced the issue. She fought the urge to jerk away. “Don’t do this—not now.”
“Jamie, please, don’t shut me out.”
She grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand off her. “There’s nothing between us, Chris.”
“You can’t mean that. I don’t want you to mean that. Look, I know you’re upset about PJ—”
“Sophie.”
“She asked to be called PJ. That’s what I’m calling her.”
“You don’t know her. You don’t know what she wants.”
“Obviously, neither do you.”
“I didn’t mean to tell you all of it. I don’t want you to know any of it—my background or the way I grew up. And I can’t take it back and I’m so tired of living with regrets.”
A fleeting look of pain crossed his face and she wanted to tell him that she didn’t regret her time with him, that that’s not what she meant. But she didn’t. Because maybe if she hurt him enough, he’d forget about her.
“You didn’t tell me all that damned much about how you grew up, Jamie. I can only imagine—”
“No, you can’t even begin to imagine. And you let her go. I asked you not to, to stop her somehow.” Irrational and unfair—she knew that accusing him was both those things.
“I don’t make promises I know I can’t keep. She’s a grown woman. She wasn’t being kidnapped—she had a weapon. She made her own choice.”
“Well, fuck her and fuck you—fuck you both for making choices.”
“You’ve got to let her come back on her own accord.”
“I’m going to lose my job. I’m going to lose everything. It’s easy for you to be reasonable, you’ve gotten your brother back. I’ve got nothing.”
His jaw clenched. “Your sister is alive. And you’ve got me. I’m standing right here in front of you.”
“It shouldn’t have happened. This—” she motioned between them “—shouldn’t have happened. I wasn’t ready.”
She was playing with the ring she still wore on the third finger of her right hand. She’d tried to tell herself that it was an amulet, her way of keeping Mike close and protecting her.
But he’d been gone for too long and she’d never believed in lucky charms anyway. She held up her hand while she spoke. “Mike was my partner. Five years together—on the job. And off.”
She watched his eyes as he processed that information. In the sunlight, their colors should’ve evened out a bit, but instead, it just made the differences more noticeable.
“No one knew. No one knows a lot of things about me,” she continued.
“You want to keep it that way, don’t you?”
She wanted to tell him no, to throw caution to the wind, to free herself the way Sophie was attempting to do. But she knew it wouldn’t work, not now. “I do want to keep it that way. I don’t think we’re right for each other. If circumstances hadn’t pushed us together—”
“But they did. You can’t change that.” He reached out to her, and she let him take her hand and pull her body to his as they stood on the dirt road outside the hotel.
And then he kissed her, a long, deep kiss that made her heart sing, kissed her for what seemed like forever, so when he pulled back her lips felt swollen and bruised.
“I think you think too much,” he murmured against her ear. “I think you like being out of control more than you admit. I think you need a lot of fucking crazy in your life right now, and fast.”
And then he took a step back and stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I can handle a hell of a lot of things. But I can’t compete with ghosts, Jamie. Can’t and won’t.” He pulled one hand out of his pocket briefly to toss her the keys to the Land Rover.
She almost called out his name. But he was walking toward the hotel and away from her without looking back.
They had about four hours before they had to be at the airport, and so Kaylee and Nick checked into a hotel to rest and clean up.
Chris was with Jamie—what was happening there was anyone’s guess, but Jamie hadn’t looked happy during the ride from the warehouse to Kisangani.
While Nick checked his messages and made some phone calls regarding their flight home, Kaylee stripped and headed for the bathroom.
She showered the dirt of the last few days off her, watched the red dust of her past run down the drain. So much had happened, too much in too short of a space for her to fully process it all, but they were safe. Finally. Nick had promised that, and he hadn’t lied to her yet. No, he’d even seemed to find a way to forgive her for what she’d found out.
They could forget the past.
But even as she told herself that, she knew it wasn’t true … and she didn’t want it to be. History wasn’t always a bad thing—the history she and Nick had created had brought them closer. The future could only bring them closer still.
Nick watched Kaylee through the steam-misted glass door, her long, lean form outlined in a way that made him ache, and he wished he had the right words to say when the door opened and she came out holding a towel to her that did nothing to cover her.
He’d always believed in action over words—had never really seen that action from his family, from Deidre. He’d had the words, sure—in cards and letters and toys strewn everywhere so the doctors and nurses and therapists could see them. Once he’d been old enough to realize that the cards had been purchased, written and sent by personal assistants rather than his own mother, he’d begun to understand that people who said
I love you
could easily be full of shit.
The Winfields, legendary for their inability to remain faithful to any one person, were no strangers to affairs. As much as Nick tried to deny that he was anything like them, he knew that the Winfield blood ran deep, and his inability to commit could easily stem from not wanting to cheat on someone. No, it was much easier to not get involved.
Maggie and Kenny told him they loved him, and their actions matched the words. Same with Jake and Chris. Nick understood love on the deep, familial level. Sharing it with someone where sex was involved seemed more intimidating.
“You don’t need the towel,” he told her and she smiled, let it fall to the ground.
Her hair was wet and tied in a loose knot at the nape of her neck. Impulsively, he reached around and took the band out so the long auburn mane tumbled over her shoulders and down her back. He wanted her. Maybe, once again, for tonight that would be enough.
His hands framed both sides of her face, his tongue danced with hers, until she found herself clutching at him frantically. God, she was a walking aphrodisiac—one look, one kiss and he was ready to give up the farm and let her in more deeply.
His only comfort was that she seemed as out of control as he was.
He moved in to take a nipple into his mouth. She gasped, threaded her fingers through his hair and let herself melt into him.
Sex was far less complicated than trust. Right now, that was all he could promise.
He’d never taken the time to learn any one woman’s body so intimately and that luxury was something he enjoyed. Being able to know just the right place to make her come was one thing—knowing several that would make her alternately smile and come and moan his name was another entirely, and called to his most primal instincts.
He pulled her against him and kissed her as if it was his last breath, kissed her and then took her to the bed.
“You’re so handsome,” she told him as she brushed his hair off his face.
He felt his face flush—she noted it too and looked surprised. “I know you’ve heard that before.”
“Yeah. A lot. Never means anything.”
“You don’t think people mean it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t think it matters. It’s bullshit. Skin deep.”
“Is that why you don’t…” She paused, sucked her bottom lip in that goddamned sexy way that got him right between his legs. “I mean, when we’re together, you never…”
He’d known she’d ask eventually. “What? Whisper sweet things while I’m fucking you?”
She wasn’t shocked by the words. Maybe she’d gotten used to his honesty, which he’d been told could be crushing at times.
“Yes. You never tell me I’m beautiful, or that you like my body. All things other men have said to me in the past.”
He rolled over, trapping her beneath him, a thigh holding her legs apart. His erection pressing her belly. “Do you miss it?”
“No, I don’t miss it,” she whispered. “I’d miss you, though. Miss your body on mine.”
He’d miss it too. How he’d gotten so tangled up in such a short time was something he couldn’t figure out. But with her legs scissored around his waist, her fingers digging into his shoulders, giving the right amount of pressure that made his back arch and mouth open in a guttural groan, there was nothing to miss. And if they could stay in this moment, things would be damned perfect.
“You don’t have to say anything. You show me how you feel with every touch,” she murmured in his ear before her orgasm took away her words.
Yes, this woman had captured a part of him he’d never anticipated. What he would do about it was something else entirely, and he couldn’t bear to think about it now.
Ilike it here, with you, like this,” Kaylee whispered a little while later from the pillow next to him. “I even like this country.”
He shifted, noting how she waited for him to hold her, how she kept her hands from touching his body when they weren’t having sex. He took her hand in his, threaded his fingers through hers and curled her against him. And that was all right. “After everything’s that happened, you like it here in Africa?”
“I’ve never really belonged anywhere. I’ve always felt in between, never finding where I fit.” Her voice drifted up through the darkness, a confessional lying naked in his arms.
“Seems like you created a pretty fit for yourself. You’ve got a career.”
“Yes, I’ve got a career. That’s about it.”
“What else do you want?”
“You’re kidding, right?” She shifted, leaned up on one elbow to look down at him. The sheet that had been draped over her breasts fell, exposing the creamy, still sex-flushed skin, the taut light pink nipples. He hardened from watching them and wished they were done talking.
“I’ve let my job take over my life. I’ve pushed people away—kept them at arm’s length because it was easier,” she started. “I had boyfriends, but I never felt right with them. I used my career to pretend that I had everything I needed. A tribute to the mom who never wanted me.”
He shook his head, like he was trying to tell her that she was wrong. “But you love your job.”
“I love it, yes, but I’m tired of loving it because it’s all I have. I want it, yes, but I want so much more.”
“Family.”
“Yes.”
He stared at the ceiling. “Suppose that doesn’t make things all better?”
“Fuck you.” She shoved the sheet aside and he reached out to stop her from leaving the bed.
“Kaylee…”
“No, you don’t get to tell me that what I’ve wanted won’t fulfill me. You don’t even know what you want.”
“I know what I want. I also know what I can’t have.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
He wanted to tell her that this had all been too dangerous for her. That she never should’ve opened the safe-deposit box. Never should’ve gotten involved with another military man to begin with, never mind a Spec Ops one.
Instead, he simply told her, “I’m sorry.”
“I’ll ask you the questions you asked me the other night—what are you sorry for, Nick? Sorry you met me? Sorry we’re stuck here together? Because if that’s what you’re really trying to say, then have the balls to say it.”
“I’m not sorry.” His voice was hoarse. “But when we get back home, everything’s going to change.”
“Then let’s not go home—not yet. Please. Can we just stay here, pretend there’s nothing waiting for us?”
He shook his head slowly. “I wish we could. But it’s all there—especially the press. People are going to have questions for you.”