"I'm good," she repeated when he gave her a look that telegraphed concern, skepticism, and pity. Then she glanced out the window. "I'd be a lot better if the sun would come back out."
He didn't say anything for a moment. "He's a complicated man."
"Yes," she agreed. "Who's half a world away with a life to live. I've got a life, too. A good one, so stop looking at me like my dog died. Go back to your wife and give her a hug for me. I've got to tie up this report, then I'm heading home. It's been a long day."
"Fine. I get it. I'll butt out." He rose, his kind eyes assessing. "But if you ever want to talk..."
"I did enough of that yesterday. Now go. I'm fine."
She was still trying to convince herself of that when she pulled into her driveway an hour later. The drizzle had transitioned to a steady rain, so she gathered her purse and laptop and sprinted for the door.
"Come on, come on," she muttered as she dug into the bowels of her purse for her house keys, trying to keep from dropping her laptop.
"Can I help you with that?"
Her head flew up.
And there he was.
The man who had haunted her days and kept her awake at night.
She simply stared incapable of speech as he relieved her of the laptop.
"I don't know about you" he said with a trademark David Cavanaugh smile, "but I'm getting a little wet."
Yeah. He was. So was she. She didn't care. "What... what are you doing here?"
He smiled. "Getting wet. But we already covered that."
"Oh. Right. Sorry. Hold on." Her hands were shaking as she dug back into her purse and finally came up with the elusive keys.
"Damn it!" she swore, almost dropping them when she couldn't make her fingers work.
A big hand covered hers. "Let me help."
She let him take the keys. Then she just stood there, staring at his beautiful, hard, amazing face, trying to come to grips with the fact that he was here, in Georgia, on her porch.
He calmly inserted the key in the lock, turned it, and swung the door open.
"Carrie?"
She blinked. Lifted a hand. "Go on in."
He motioned for her to lead the way.
Her legs felt wooden as she stepped into the small foyer. Her heart beat like crazy. And though it was a muggy eighty degrees outside, she shivered in her wet clothes as the door closed behind her.
"Pretty dress," he said from behind her.
"I... um... thanks." It was a pretty dress. It was a sleeveless, summery yellow linen, and why they were talking about it was beyond her.
Apparently any semblance of rational thought was beyond her, because she couldn't come up with a single thing to say to him that didn't start and end with her begging him to stay. Only pride kept her from doing that.
"How are you, Carrie?"
She walked across the foyer, set her purse on a small table, and after drawing a steadying breath, turned back to him. He looked so big standing there in her little house. Big and imposing and uncomfortable as he held out her laptop. And wet. His hair was wet. His shirt was wet and plastered to his skin. And why, oh why, was he here?
"I'm okay." She took the laptop, then set it down beside her purse. "You... you look good."
He looked fantastic in dark dress pants and a pale blue silk shirt that was open at the throat. She could see his pulse beating there, and suddenly she was swamped by a memory of her lips pressed there, where he'd been hot and salty and vital.
"Let me get you a towel." She took off like a shot, because if she stood there one moment longer she was going to do something stupid. Like fly into his arms. Like kiss him until they were both senseless and show him exactly how desperate she was to keep him here. Right here, where he couldn't possibly want to stay.
In the hallway that separated the living area from the bedrooms, she flattened her palms against the wall and leaned back against it. She closed her eyes, made herself draw a deep breath, willed herself to get it the hell together.
"Carrie."
Her eyes flew open. He stood right in front of her, his dark eyes steady and unblinking on her face. His big body close and moving closer. "I don't need a towel."
His mouth was a shallow breath away. Heat pulsed off of him like a heartbeat.
"N-no towel?"
He shook his head, brushed his nose against hers. "No. What I need is you."
"Oh, God," she sobbed and flew into his arms.
She didn't care anymore that she should exercise caution. And when his mouth slammed over hers in a kiss of desperation and desire, she knew he felt the same way.
He lifted his head long enough to murmur, "Bedroom," against her lips before taking her under again with a blistering kiss that stole what was left of her breath.
They managed to stumble down the hall, fumbling with buttons and zippers before falling onto her bed. Naked. Hungry. Beyond greedy for the feel of skin on skin, his mouth on her breast, his hands in her hair, his body pressing hers into the bed.
"I'm sorry," he whispered against her breast, his breath hot and damp on her nipple. "I'm sorry I let you go. I'm sorry I hurt you."
She choked out a sob, a memory of the pain of losing him, and embraced the reality of now. He was here now. He was hers now. And there wasn't any pain. Only deep, penetrating pleasure.
She arched against him, reveling in his weight and his heat and his passion as he parted her thighs and entered her on a long, deep stroke.
She cried out with wonder as he led her to a rich orgasm that shot through her like a fire that an entire year of rain could never douse.
Trembling, clinging, crying, she rode the stunning wave while he pumped into her one last time, then collapsed as his own release ripped through him.
IT WAS DARK by the time Cav roused himself enough to realize he was alone in the bed. A dim light glowed from the top of a chest of drawers across the room.
He rolled over to his back, willed the fatigue away, and indulged himself in his surroundings. Soft greens, pale, pale blues. Cloud whites. The woman knew how to create a serene, peaceful haven.
Ultimately, that's what he'd come here searching for. A safe haven in the arms of this woman he loved.
"You're awake."
He glanced toward the doorway and felt both arousal and gratitude when he saw her standing there. Her pretty blond hair was a mess and he felt a swell of pride that he'd been the one to mess it up. To mess her up. Her lips were swollen. Her eyes were slumberous and dark.
She was wearing his shirt. One button buttoned, falling off her left shoulder. It had never looked better.
He held out a hand. She crossed the room, took it, and sat on the mattress by his hip. He lifted their linked hands and studied the fit of their entwined fingers before shifting his gaze and searching her face.
Her beautiful, open face.
She was uncertain about what would happen next. And she was edgy with it.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said, because she needed to hear it, he needed to say it, and because it was true.
She closed her eyes and lowered her head, but not before he saw a tear trail down her cheek.
"Come 'ere," he whispered and tugged her down beside him.
He wrapped her in his arms and held her while she cried.
"I'm sorry," he murmured against the silk of her hair.
"I don't know why I'm doing this." She sounded embarrassed and angry at herself.
He knew why. And it broke his heart.
"I'm not usually such a weenie."
"Sweetheart." He squeezed her hard. "I know what you're made of. You don't have to apologize for anything. But I do."
She sat up and wiped her eyes. He scooted over so she could sit cross-legged beside him, the tails of his shirt tucked between her legs.
"I didn't think I was ever going to see you again." She looked down at the cuff of his shirt, which hung well past her fingertips.
"That was the original plan." He reached for an ext
ra pillow and propped it behind his head.
"But you changed your mind."
Hands crossed behind his head, he stared at the ceiling. "I'm not sure I'm going to be any good at this," he admitted. "At being the man you need. At being the man I need to be. For you. And for me."
"Cav--"
He cut her off with a shake of his head. "You need to know up front what you're getting into, Carrie."
More than that, he needed to tell her.
"My old man was career military," he said after the long moment it took for him to decide to just tell it like it was. "Loved the army, his booze, and his family, in that order. He was a good man. Just didn't always have his priorities straight, you know? He always figured he'd die in action, but in the end it was the booze that got him."
He glanced at her, then away, and went on before he lost his nerve.
"Look, I don't want this to come out like the ramblings of a poor, neglected army-brat son of an alcoholic. It wasn't that way. I admired him. Even though I knew where I stood on his food chain. And it was okay. It set my career course."
He glanced at her again, half expecting her to ask, but she didn't. Another measure of her intelligence and sensitivity. She knew instinctively that he had to tell this in his own time, his own way.
"I was CIA," he said, knowing those three little letters were right now painting a picture in her mind of shadowy warriors pushing the envelope of diplomacy and international law.
"We're not everything the novelists and journalists would have you believe we are. We don't do all the things you might have been led to believe we've done."
"You save lives," she said simply. "You serve your country."
He swallowed, humbled by her absolute, unquestioning belief in his motives and integrity.
"Yeah," he said. "All that."
He looked at her then. "It... it takes a toll after a while."
"How could it not?"
He firmed his lips, looked away. This was the hard part. "Service to country isn't all I inherited from the old man," he finally admitted.
She was quiet for a while. "You said he was an alcoholic."
"Yeah." He looked back at her. She watched him with quiet eyes, no judgment. "And I don't want to be."
Her gaze held his, steady and unwavering in the face of what he hadn't said. That he had a problem. That he wanted to fix it.
"That's why I resigned," he clarified, and even now he felt the weight of that decision and the shock wave that had rippled through the chain of command. "I've developed an unhealthy relationship with scotch over the years."
"To help you cope."
And to help him forget. "I don't want to use that crutch anymore. I can't use that crutch anymore."
"Then you won't," she said simply.
He smiled, feeling cynical and weary. "You don't know me well enough to know that. And I don't deserve that much credit."
"This is what I know." She reached for his hand and folded it between both of hers. "I know that I love you. I know that for you to open up to me this way, you love me, too."
"I do." He reached for her and pulled her down until her mouth was a breath away from his. "I do love you. More than life."
"Damn," she whispered against his mouth. "I'm going to cry again."
And he was going to spend the rest of his life making sure she didn't ever have a reason to cry again.
"SO WHAT TOOK you so long?" Carrie teased as she wiped her hands on a napkin.
They were naked in the middle of her bed. Still working on slaking their desire for each other, refortifying their energy with a bucket of take-out chicken.
"To come for you? The guys and I had a little unfinished business to tend to." Cav set the bucket aside.
She settled into his arms like he'd had a place for her there forever. "The guys?"
"Reed, Green, Colter, and Black."
Her eyes went all soft and adoring. "You went back to the mines."
"I told you I wouldn't forget about those people."
He couldn't save the world. He'd thought he could once, but he knew better now. He could save those starving, abused souls who'd been enslaved at the Myanmar ruby mine, though.
And thanks to this woman, he might even be able to save himself.
"Thank you," she whispered, pressing soft kisses along his jaw line.
"The pleasure"--he rolled her beneath him, thanking good fortune that she'd come into his life--"is all mine."
When she fell asleep a little while later, he simply laid there and watched her. She was smiling. At peace.
So was he. He'd made the right decision to come to her.
He still had no idea what his future held. After years of service, that should have been unnerving. But now he had Carrie by his side.
Haven. Yeah. It was right here, he thought, drifting off to sleep. Right by this woman's side.
Unstoppable
LAURA GRIFFIN
One
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN
0200 hours
Sometimes they went in with a flash and crash, but Lieutenant Gage Brewer always preferred stealth. And tonight, because the team's mission was to outsmart a band of Taliban insurgents, stealth was the operative word.
The night smelled like smoldering garbage and rot as Gage crept through the darkened alley in an industrial neighborhood on the outskirts of the city. They were in a hot zone, a place where anyone they encountered would like nothing better than to use them for target practice.
As the SEAL team's point man, Gage moved silently, every sense attuned to the shadows around him. Particularly alert at this moment was Gage's sixth sense--that vague, indefinable thing his teammates liked to call his frog vision. Gage didn't know what to call it; he only knew it has saved his ass a time or two.
In the distance, the muted drone of an electric generator in this city still prone to blackouts. And, closer still, footsteps. The slow clomp of boots on gravel, moving steadily nearer, then pausing, pivoting, and fading away.
Wait, Gage signaled his team. Lieutenant Junior Grade Derek Vaughn melted into the shadows, followed a heartbeat later by Petty Officers Mike Dietz and Adam Mays. Gage approached the corner of the building, an unimposing brick structure that was supposedly a textile factory. Crouching down, he slipped a tiny mirror from the pocket of his tactical vest and held it at an angle in order to see around the corner.
A solitary shadow ambled north toward the front of the building, an AK-47 slung casually across his body. The shadow told Gage three things: the intel they'd been given was good, this building was under armed guard, and what was going down tonight at this factory had nothing to do with textiles.
Gage eased back into the alley.
"Sixty seconds," Vaughn whispered.
Gage had known Vaughn since BUD/S training. Besides being a demolitions expert, the Texan had the best sense of time and direction of any man in Alpha squad, and tonight he was in charge of keeping everyone on schedule.
Soundlessly, they waited.
Then, like clockwork, a distant rat-tat-tat as the rest of Alpha squad exchanged carefully staged, nonlethal gunfire in an alley much like this one.
Beside Gage, the building came alive. Footsteps thundered in a stairwell. Excited voices carried through the walls. A door banged open and more shouts filled the night as men poured from the building. A truck engine roared to life. Gage and his teammates watched from the shadows as a pickup loaded with heavily armed insurgents peeled off, no doubt to help wipe out the American commandos gullible enough to walk into a trap.
Twenty more seconds and Vaughn gave the signal. Gage peered around the corner. The guard now stood in a pool of light spilling down from a second-story window. The sour expression on his bearded face told Gage he wasn't too happy about being stuck guarding hostages while his comrades got to slaughter American soldiers. His lips moved, and Gage guessed he was cursing his prisoners--two Afghani teachers whose heinous crime had been taking a job at a newly opened sch
ool for girls.
Their boss, the school's principal, had been beheaded on live Webcam two days ago.
Watching the footage had made Gage's blood boil. But his anger was tempered now, a tightly controlled force he would use to carry out his mission.
In addition to rescuing the Afghanis, the SEALs were tasked with finding and retrieving forty-two-year-old Elizabeth Bauer, an American reporter who had been working on a story for the Associated Press when the Taliban stormed the school. She was thought to be next in line for execution, if she wasn't dead already.
Gage chose to believe she was still alive--at least, pictures of her beheading weren't yet bouncing around cyberspace. The picture Gage had seen--the one provided during the briefing--reminded him of his aunt back in Chicago. The minute he'd seen it, Gage had felt an emotional connection that went beyond his usual hundred-and-ten-percent commitment to an op.
The guard turned the corner. Vaughn and Dietz fell back, circling around to the building's other side.
Follow me, Gage signaled Mays. The kid was young, green. He'd grown up in Tennessee and spoke with the thickest accent Gage had ever heard. But he could shoot like nobody's business.
A quiet thud as they rounded the corner told Gage that Vaughn and Dietz had neutralized the guard about ten seconds ahead of schedule. Gage stepped over the lifeless body and entered the building with his finger on the trigger of his M4. He glanced around. The space was dim and cavernous, empty except for a few junked-out trucks and some tires piled in corners. A band of light shone onto the dirt floor from some sort of upstairs office. Given the satellite dish they'd seen mounted outside, Gage figured it was used as a media room. According to their intel, the hostages were being kept in the basement.
Vaughn went up to take out any hostiles who might have stayed behind. Gage scanned the room's perimeter and quickly located an open doorway leading down to a lower level.
The earthen steps were steep and Gage took them silently. Clearing out the bulk of the tangos with a diversion had been a good plan, but one that relied on a fair amount of luck. Gage was a gambling man, and the first rule of gambling was that luck eventually ran out. He expected an armed guard at the foot of the stairs and that's exactly what he found.
Gage delivered a well-placed blow with the butt of his rifle, rendering the man unconscious before his weapon even clattered to the floor. A collective gasp went up from across the room as Gage knelt down to collect the Kalashnikov. He slung it over his shoulder while Mays zip-cuffed the guard. Their orders were to keep at least one of them alive, if possible, in case they needed him for information.