She sipped and then leaned her head back against the dirt wall behind her.
Silence filled the hole for long moments. Her breathing was short and erratic, and every few seconds she would flinch or grimace just enough that he caught the wary movements in her expressions.
He wanted to hold her. She was almost broken, maybe not physically, but mentally at the least. She had endured this far, he had to get her just a little further.
“The trucks are getting closer.” There was weariness in her voice, but no fear yet.
“They’ll search for a while. I’m good at this. Don’t worry.”
He checked on Faisal’s hole. It was silent. Faisal knew how to hide; it wasn’t his first time, probably wouldn’t be his last. He had everything he needed to stay secure as long as no one identified the hiding place Natches had made.
“How did they get you?” he finally asked her when she said nothing else.
“Dragged me out of my car outside Baghdad, threw me in a van, beat the shit out of me, and played with some torture.” She shrugged, but he heard the echo of horror in her voice.
“What do you have that they want?”
She was an American woman and she had enough strength to strip a dead man and get his clothes on in the time it took him to pop a few heads and get to her location. She was an agent; he knew that from the comment she had made about needing to let someone know about Nassar. That was going to take a few hours at least.
“I don’t have anything anyone wants,” she said tiredly. “I’m a relief worker. I was working in Baghdad.”
“Don’t pull no shit with me, sugar.”
“Then don’t pull none with me. You know how it goes.” She copied his accent exactly. “I have to get out of here.”
Yeah, he knew how it went. She couldn’t disclose and he shouldn’t be asking, but he was a nosy bastard and that was the truth.
“Won’t be long now. I’ve already missed my bus,” he stated. “When I’m not at extraction, they’ll send a team out for me. I’m important, you know.”
“Obviously more important than I am.” She sighed. “Can I take a nap?”
“No naps.” The helicopter was getting closer. He hoped Faisal had his deflecting blanket over his head. “Come here; we gotta hunker down.”
Fear flashed across her face for just a second as he unfolded the light, silver-backed blanket and pulled it over their heads, tucking it in carefully around them. So much as a foot sticking out from beneath it would allow any heat-seeking equipment to pick them up.
He had no idea what that helicopter was packing, and he wasn’t taking any chances.
He was wrapped around her like a possessive lover now, and he could feel her fear as easily as he could feel the heat building beneath the blanket.
“You know, if I was back home, the ladies would be purring at being here with me,” he pointed out to her as he smiled against her head. “They like my hard body. They think I’m sexy.”
A nervous laugh parted her lips as he rested his cheek against her hair.
“I can’t see if you’re sexy,” she reminded him, and he hated that quiver in her voice.
“Oh, you’re missin’ out.” He sighed pitifully, his voice whisper soft. “I’m damned fine, Chay. Green eyes and a nice tan. I got hard abs. Black hair. The women drool over me.”
He smiled, listened carefully, and was thankful to feel a small measure of the fear ease from her. He didn’t consider himself particularly handsome, but he knew what the ladies said. He had to distract her though, and this was all that mattered.
“Conceited, too.” Her hands were clenched tight around his lower arms, broken nails digging into his flesh.
“Hell yeah, I am. I’m spoiled as hell.”
“So what are you doing here?”
“Playing? Escaping the marriage market?” He held her closer as the sound of the helicopter hovering overhead had her shuddering against him. The camouflaged top of the blanket, added to the dead brush secured to the narrow timbers above them, would hide them from sight. He had a moment to worry about Faisal, then pushed it away. If they were caught, they were probably dead anyway, despite the extraction team that he knew would be barreling its way to him.
He had pictures, layouts, troop movements, and hidden terrorist bases. He’d been out in bum-fucked nowhere for six weeks now after completing the primary mission he had been sent on to aid in the extraction of another captured agent.
That agent had been rescued. So why hadn’t a team been sent out for this one?
“They’re getting closer.” Her voice was a breath of terror.
“No worries, baby. By nightfall, we’re going to be safe and sound and celebrating with some homemade shine I’m saving just for the end of this mission. I’ll get you drunk and seduce you.”
“Seduce me?”
“Oh yeah.” He held her closer. “I’ll lay you down and kiss every bruise, then lick all the hurt away. I’ll lave those pretty, tender ni**les, and when I go lower, you’ll forget all about the pain.”
“Ego.” She was shuddering in his arms at the sound of the vehicles moving into the ravine.
“Truth.” He kissed the top of her head. “When I’m finished, this will all seem like a very bad dream. Distant and gone away. It will be just me and you, sweetheart. Sweaty and hot and doing things that might make both of us blush.”
“I bet you don’t blush.” She buried her face in his chest at the sound of voices shouting in Arabic.
“I bet you could make me blush.” He kissed the top of her head and smiled, triumph singing through him at the feel of the light vibration of the radio at his thigh. “You gonna make me blush tonight, sugar? I just got signal.” He took her hand and laid it against the radio. “Five minutes and hell is gonna sweep through here. Five hours and I’m going to make you blush.”
“You can’t.” He could have sworn he heard tears in her voice.
“Making you blush would be my sole aim in life,” he murmured. “I promise, baby, I can do it.”
“I’m married.”
PROLOGUE II
Lake Cumberland, Kentucky
August, Four Years Later
Chaya Greta Dane found the tracking device that had been left beneath Dawg Mackay’s vehicle on the side of a dirt road so deep in the Kentucky mountains that she knew she would play hell finding her way out.