Avenged (Hostage Rescue Team Series) (Volume 5) (10 page)

The phone in the console rang. Taya tensed and glanced at it, prepared for more bad news. It was almost midnight. She expected an unknown number or maybe a picture of one of his teammates to show up on screen. Instead a twenty-something blonde named Jennifer appeared.

Taya frowned. Seemed weird, but maybe someone he worked with. Had to be important, if she’d called at this hour though.

Or it could be his girlfriend.

Taya flushed, a sudden sinking feeling in her gut. The way he’d jumped in and volunteered to guard her had somehow convinced her he was unattached, but now she realized that was stupid. A man like him wouldn’t be wanting for female company. A sharp spike of jealousy streaked through her, taking her by surprise. She had no claim on him.

Nathan climbed back into the vehicle and started the engine. “You hungry? Want me to stop to grab something before we head out of town.”

“No, I’m good. Someone named Jennifer just called you, by the way.”

His expression froze for an instant, then he looked almost uncomfortable. “Thanks,” he muttered, but made no move to check his messages or call her back. Not work related, she guessed. And for a woman to call at this time of night, they had to know each other pretty well. So, either girlfriend or a hookup.

Nathan didn’t offer an explanation and she didn’t ask. It was none of her business, she reminded herself. “Where are we going?” she asked instead when he pulled out onto the road, not wanting to think about Nathan and whoever he was seeing at the moment.

“Out to the coast. We’re booked in a small inn just south of Virginia Beach.”

An inn? It didn’t seem like the most secure choice, but she supposed it made sense in terms of decreasing visibility. And she’d have three highly trained and extremely capable HRT members to watch over her. “For how long?”

“A few days at least, until we’ve got a better idea of what’s going on. But we won’t be moving you back into D.C. until the night before you take the stand. Maybe not even until that morning. Normally we’d use a safe house but there wasn’t time to secure one and this place has been well vetted so we’re staying there for the time being.”

She nodded, but inside she was thinking about all the things that were out of her control right now. She didn’t like it, but there was nothing she could do to change that. When the quiet grew oppressive, she searched for a change in topic. “Briar seems like a very interesting woman.”

“Yeah, you could say that,” he said dryly. “She and DeLuca have only been together for a few months, but I can’t imagine him with anyone else now. She’s badass, for sure, but she’s also pretty quiet and on the shy side. Introverted, like you.”

Taya made a humming noise. She hadn’t always been that way. Before she’d been kidnapped she’d loved to go out to clubs with her friends where she’d dance the night away. Now her social circle consisted solely of her dad, brother, and a handful of long-term girlfriends. “Guess she’d have to be if she was a sniper.”

“A lot of them are wired that way, but not all. She’s been on her own for a long time before she met Matt, so this is a big change for her. The guys like to get together for barbecues and dinners from time to time and I know at first it was really uncomfortable for her to be thrown into the middle of that.”

“Now, see, being in the middle of that much testosterone would intimidate me, but I doubt it would faze Briar.”

Nathan shot her a sidelong glance. “I don’t think it would intimidate you either. I don’t think much could, actually.”

It was true that her tolerance for stress was much higher than it had been. Little things that might have bothered her before didn’t even register on her radar anymore. But since she didn’t know how to respond to the praise in his voice, she changed the subject. “Everybody seems to call you Nate or Schroder, but I’ve always called you Nathan. What would you prefer I call you?”

He shrugged his broad shoulders, drawing her eyes to the swell of muscle beneath his shirt. She’d love to glide her hands over them, explore every dip and hollow, find out what spots made him purr when she kneaded his muscles. “Whatever you want to call me is fine. But I like the way you say my name.”

There was no mistaking the sexual undercurrent to his tone on that last part. It surprised her for a moment, but when he glanced over at her this time she felt the invisible currents of heat flowing between them. Was he seeing anyone, or not? She’d told herself it was none of her business but dammit, she wanted to know whether or not she had a chance with him once his bodyguard duty was over.

Not wanting to make things awkward between them, she didn’t ask, but she planned to eventually. They kept the conversation light, mostly about her family, and then let a comfortable silence descend after a few minutes. “You must be tired,” he said, reaching into the backseat to grab something and came up with what looked like a jacket. “We’ve got another two-and-a-half hours or so on the road. Fold this up and use it for a pillow if you want. Get some sleep.”

She took the thick hoodie from him with a murmur of thanks and rolled it up into a makeshift pillow. It smelled like him and laundry detergent. Setting it between her head and the window, she closed her eyes and breathed in the clean, spicy scent, wishing it was his chest her head rested upon instead. Feeling truly secure for the first time all day, she put her safety in his hands and let herself drift off.

Taya wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep but the next thing she knew she was opening her eyes to find Nathan parking the SUV out front of a pale yellow Victorian-style inn.

“We’ll wait here until Cruz checks us in,” he said, watching as his teammate entered via the front porch.

“Where’s Vance?”

“He’ll stay in an unmarked car down the street. We’ll all take turns rotating through various roles.”

Taya secretly hoped that Nathan would be spending more time with her than the others. “I’m not complaining and it’s beautiful, but why this place?” This wasn’t a holiday, she was a federal witness.

“One of our teammates, Bauer, is a former SEAL and he knew about this place. The innkeeper’s got a good rep in the Spec Ops community. Her son is an active duty frogman stationed out of Virginia Beach, so she knows all about security and discretion. A lot of Spec Ops guys come to stay here when they want a few days away with their wives or girlfriends or whatever. We didn’t have a lot of time to find a good location so Bauer called to set it up and she put her two guests up at another inn just to make room for us.”

“That was nice of her.” She stared through the windshield at the pretty inn, the front verandah wrapped with strands of white lights and a pair of gas lanterns flickering on either side of the wide front door. A few minutes later Cruz stepped back out onto the porch and held up a key.

“All right, let’s go,” Nathan said.

As soon as he opened the passenger door, the rhythmic sigh of the surf reached him. Standing beside the vehicle, Taya closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath of the cool, salt-tinged air. Almost as though she was savoring the experience.

Nate took her suitcase from the back and stayed at her back while she walked up the front steps to meet Cruz. The other agent gave her a small smile and handed her the key. “Pleasant dreams.”

“Thanks. You too.” The response was automatic, but immediately she realized it sounded stupid. Both he and Nathan would likely be up most of the night, keeping watch and doing investigative work and whatever else being on a security detail involved.

“Let’s get you settled,” Nathan said, leading the way up the wooden staircase to the second floor, Cruz right behind her. Nathan held up a hand in a silent command for her to stay put while he and Cruz went in the room first to look around.

Cruz walked out and gave her a nod, then Nathan stuck his head around the doorway a moment later. “Okay. I put your suitcase on the ottoman over in the corner.”

“Thanks.” She walked past him into the room and tucked a lock of hair behind one ear, trying not to stare at him as he shut the door, the action sending her heart rate up a notch. Over by the bed the leaded glass lamp on the nightstand cast a warm yellow glow that brought out the rich red highlights in his hair and lined his broad shoulders. He was an inch or two over six feet and his presence in this cozy, feminine room seemed suddenly intimate somehow.

Blocking the path her train of thoughts wanted to follow, she searched for a safer topic. “Should I color my hair now, or…”

“In the morning’s fine. Get some sleep first. We’ll probably eat downstairs, but not all together. One of us will be with you whenever you leave your room.” His warm hazel eyes seemed to caress her face for a moment, then settled on her eyes. “Just remember you’re safe here. And I’m right next door if you need anything.”

He might not have meant the double entendre intentionally, but there was no mistaking the sudden leap of heat she read in his eyes as his words registered. She’d caught flashes of male awareness and maybe even appreciation from him a few times today, but this was the first time she’d been sure the pull wasn’t one-sided.

Staring up at him, Taya caught her breath at the answering flare of arousal that sparked inside her. Their history was already problematic, all tangled up with strong emotion forged in the most difficult of circumstances. Knowing he was guarding her only intensified her attraction to him. If it had been just physical, she could have ignored it easily enough. But it wasn’t.

Nathan was strong and protective and capable, but he also had a softer, incredibly caring side to him that had stolen a piece of her heart long ago. She’d seen him fight through his grief to do his job while under fire and mourning the loss of his fellow PJ, in the field and on the chopper ride to base.

She’d felt his skilled touch while he tended to her, keeping her from bleeding to death, then again later after she’d come out of surgery at Bagram. His face had been lined with exhaustion as he’d leaned over her bed. He’d cupped the side of her face in one hand, just above where the bandages stopped, smiled down at her and said,
You’re going home today, Taya.

She remembered tearing up instantly, her voice scratchy because of the recent intubation.
Because of you.

No
, he’d said, shaking his head, his expression fervent.
Because you’re a survivor.

Just the memory of it made her heart swell.

All those things together made him impossible to forget. Him stepping up to guard her today, now standing only feet away alone in this room with her, made him irresistible.

Nathan cleared his throat and looked away. “Well. See you in the morning.” He started for the door, took two steps then paused and turned back to her. His shoulders were tense and while she couldn’t read his expression, she could tell he had something important on his mind.

“What?” she asked softly, heart beating faster.

“I need to know,” he began, then stopped. “I need to know if—” He pulled in a deep breath, let it out, and his hesitation told her that whatever he was about to ask, it had been bothering him for a while. “Did Hassan hurt you? Did he…” He let the sentence trail off, though there was no mistaking what he was asking.

The mention of her tribal husband’s name caught her off guard for a moment and doused the flames of desire slowly licking at her insides. But she understood why Nathan asked her, given what she’d said about Chloe earlier. She should have expected him to ask more.

Holding his gaze, Taya considered her answer carefully before speaking. “He treated me better than any of the other men treated their wives.”

Nathan stared back at her in silence, his eyes full of torment as he put together what that probably meant and filled in the blanks on his own.

Taya wished she could say something to ease his mind about it, but she couldn’t. And she refused to lie to him about this. “He was an undercover DEA agent, born to parents who emigrated to the U.S. from Tajikistan before he was born. I didn’t know any of that until later though. In fact, the first time he ever spoke English to me was the night he took me from Qureshi’s camp and ran.”

She’d been confused and terrified, woken from a sound sleep when Hassan had come into her tent and clapped a hand over her mouth, stifling her scream. He’d been rigid with tension.

No time to explain
, he’d said.
If you want to live, we have to leave right now
.

As the shock wore off she’d become furious. He’d lied to her the entire time, put her through nine months of hell, using and manipulating her as much as Qureshi had.

In time, she’d come to understand why he’d done it. “His life depended on his ability to play his part without ever giving himself away, and maintaining his cover no matter what. So he did what he had to do to make our marriage look real.”

Not rape in the violent sense that most people would assume she’d endured. More of an awkward, uncomfortable joining that she’d been too afraid to protest. It had been awkward for him too. He’d cared about her on some level. But even if she’d protested it wouldn’t have mattered.

She could feel herself flushing as she went on. “It would have been suspicious if he hadn’t. And it was only once.” Once in nine months as husband and wife, to make it official. She swallowed. “He didn’t have a choice. Two of Qureshi’s men were in the room as witnesses.”

That was the hardest part to get over, that awful, crawling mortification she’d felt as they witnessed that humiliating act. Hassan had treated her gently and gotten it over with as fast as possible. It was by far the worst thing she’d endured during her captivity. Bruises and cuts healed. Her soul hadn’t recovered as easily.

Nathan drew in a ragged breath but didn’t say anything. She could feel his stare boring into her, feel his horror and outrage.

As difficult as this was to say to him aloud, she shrugged. The past was what it was, and couldn’t be changed. Twisted though the reasoning behind Hassan’s decisions and actions might have been, she accepted it all now. Looking back, she realized now that he’d actually protected her from a lot of things during the nine months they’d been “married”, at least as far as tribal custom was concerned.