Guarding the Soldier's Secret (12 page)

She actually met Sam Malone.

The thought brought a smile to her lips and a soft chuckle to join the night’s symphony.

But the smile and the laughter died quickly to be replaced by that aching emptiness.

It’s Hunt, dammit. Damn him. I miss him.

She hadn’t expected it. She hadn’t known how much seeing him again would bring it all back. So vividly. So vividly she could taste him...feel his touch. Smell him on her skin. Those moments in the car when he’d held her and she’d hidden her face against his chest... He’d never held her just that way before. Ever.

In exasperation, she blew out a breath, waggled her shoulders and gazed up at the milky sky.
Damn the man!
For so many years she’d called him Ghost, as he’d flitted in and out of her life—
and bed
—without warning. He’d haunted her then, too, but never like this.

Because she’d had no expectations of him then—until he’d dropped his daughter into her lap and disappeared.

Finally, after hearing no word from him for years, she’d given him up for dead, come to accept that and shifted his memory to the attic of her mind. Having him turn up again had not only brought all the old memories back in vivid living color, but something had changed profoundly about the
way
he occupied her thoughts.

Before, she’d kept him in his own little compartment, one she could close the door on when she needed to concentrate on her job, her life—or bring out to hug close to her heart in secret. But now he filled her head, owned her thoughts, gave her no respite at all. He was always
there
. She couldn’t get him out of her mind.

Before, she’d thought of him with inner shivers of desire, excitement, anticipation, yes, and sometimes longing. Now he aroused in her every kind of emotion she could imagine herself capable of: anger, panic, elation, desire, joy, helplessness, dread, confusion. Fear. And all the nuances in between and in combination thereof.

And love? What about love? Do I feel that, too?

No. Of course I don’t love him. How could I? I don’t even know him!

He was a complication in her life;
that
she was sure of. Hers and Laila’s.

Maybe more than a complication. Maybe even...a threat?

What if he wants to be a part of Laila’s life? She would love that, and I want that for her. But how could it possibly work?

Worse—what if he— Oh, God, what if he wants to take her back?

Could he do that?

He’s her father!

The night was balmy, but she shivered and goose bumps roughened the skin on her bare arms. She rubbed at her arms, reminding herself that she had no reason to be afraid; she and Laila were safe here.

Safe from the Taliban, yes. But...from Hunt?

* * *

Flat on his belly on a rocky outcropping, Hunt surveyed the moonlit valley spread out below him. The mountains that ringed the valley were silhouettes in varying shades of indigo against the milky sky. A fair number of warm yellow pinpricks of light dotted the valley floor, more widely scattered on the slopes, and a few lights still moved slowly along the highway that bisected the valley. Only a few of the brightest stars gave them any competition.

His eyes, accustomed to nighttime reconnaissance, had no need of the night-vision goggles he carried in his backpack to make out the three men making their way steadily up the steep and rugged slope below him. They moved slowly and in utter silence as they closed in on their quarry, pausing every now and then to communicate with each other with hand gestures. They would be using infrared sensors, he thought, and would be well armed—with assault rifles at the very least.

He allowed himself a smile and a brief nod of approval. Then he laid his backpack aside and rose to his feet, holding his arms wide to each side.

Fifty yards below him, the three men halted, alert but not alarmed, forming a semicircle across his only reasonable route of escape. The middle one spoke in a voice not loud but heavy with authority.

“Sir, do you know you are trespassing on private property?”

“I do,” Hunt said.

“Well, sir, I’m gonna need for you to come down from there and explain what you’re doing.”

“Of course. Sure. No problem.”

“Backpack first, please. Toss it down—easy.”

They hadn’t asked him about weapons or whether he was alone, Hunt noted as he followed instructions, using one foot to nudge his backpack over the edge of the rocky outcropping. Which confirmed his assumption that they were equipped with both infrared sensors and night-vision glasses and already knew the answers.

“All right, sir, now keep your hands where we can see them and come on down. I would strongly advise you not to make any sudden moves.”

Hunt chuckled. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

He made his way down the steep slope through a jumble of boulders and brush, sliding on his backside a time or two since his hands weren’t of much use to him, held wide, as they were, in a nonthreatening posture. Once clear of the rocks and on reasonably level ground, the voice of authority told him to stop right there, which he did. He stood relaxed and benign, while two of the men approached him. The third went to retrieve his backpack. After confirming that it contained no weapons or explosives, he picked it up and came to join his comrades.

“I imagine you’ll want to see my ID,” Hunt said.

The trio’s spokesman didn’t seem all that impressed with his apparent willingness to cooperate. He pulled a tablet from somewhere on his person and said in his authoritative but oh-so-polite manner, “Sir, if you would place your hand, palm down, on the screen for me, please.”

Again Hunt uttered a small grunt of approval. “Nice,” he remarked as he complied with the
request
. IDs could be forged; fingerprints couldn’t. “I’m impressed.”

Still no response from the security guard, who was now busy tapping on his tablet screen. The other two guards remained silent but alert, weapons lowered but not put aside. After several tense minutes, the spokesman looked up from the screen and aimed an impenetrable gaze at Hunt.

“Evidently,” he said in a voice like flint, “I am talking to a dead man.”

Chapter 9

“I
can explain,” Hunt said.

“I’m looking forward to that, sir. Right now, I’m going to have to ask you to come with us.”

“Sure, no problem.” Hunt was feeling pretty good about what he’d seen so far of the security at Sam Malone’s June Canyon Ranch.

On a rough dirt road at the base of the steepest slope, an electric ATV waited. Four passengers aboard made a tight fit, but the cart carried them all down the mountainside in near silence and with only a few truly alarming bumps and lurches. Another kilometer or so farther on, the ATV pulled up in front of what appeared to be an unpretentious rural residence. The three security guards got out and waited politely for Hunt to do the same.

Hunt allowed himself to be escorted into the house, where, in a modestly though comfortably furnished living room, he was invited to take a seat. Two of the guards remained standing, alert but at ease. The third laid aside Hunt’s backpack and his own weapon and perched himself on the arm of the sofa, arms folded on his considerable chest.

After regarding Hunt in silence for a full minute, he said, “Well, sir, this is where you get your chance to explain how your fingerprints come to be an exact match to those of one Lieutenant Hunt Grainger, US Army Ranger, reported killed in action in Afghanistan three years ago.”

Hunt gave a brief nod of acknowledgment. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. Sorry, it’s classified.” The other man tensed almost imperceptibly. Hunt held up his hand. “What I can do is explain why I’m here, trespassing on private property, as you say. I can also give you the contact information of someone who will vouch for me. Will that do?”

“Start talking,” the guard said, “and we’ll see.”

* * *

Yancy was a very light sleeper and accustomed to receiving various communications alerts at all hours of the day and night. The musical trill of an incoming text message woke her even from the desk across the room where she’d plugged her phone in to charge its batteries overnight. The time, given in large numbers on the main screen, registered first: 3:15 a.m. The message itself, from a number she didn’t recognize, took longer. Two words, which for a moment her freshly awakened brain could make no sense of.

POOL. NOW.

She read them again:
Pool...now?
And knew a moment of clarity before her mind went blank with shock.

How long she stood rooted to the spot while the room whirled around her she didn’t know, but her first thought when she started thinking again was:
Impossible.

Impossible in so many ways. Impossible that he could be here, in California, when she’d left him only a few days ago in Kabul, wearing the garb and full beard of an Afghan tribal elder. Impossible that he should think he could pick up where he’d left off three years before, popping into her life whenever he felt like it with no warning whatsoever, expecting she would welcome him with open arms. That she would drop everything at his beck and call, even in the middle of the night!

Impossible most all that she would. Still.

She stood for a few moments longer, waiting for her heart rate to return to normal, waiting for her hands to steady and her legs to grow firm and solid once more. The phone in her hand uttered its ripple of music again. She stared down at the lit screen.

Yankee?

She sucked in a full breath and huffed it out.
Don’t be ridiculous. It isn’t the same—of course it isn’t. Whatever it was we had before, it’s the past. All we have between us now is a child. He’s come to see her, not me. He probably didn’t want to disturb anyone else at this hour.

Or...he has information about the bombing.

It took her several tries with stiff and not-quite-steady fingers, but she managed to text back:
Coming.

She was digging through her suitcase for something to put on over her skimpy summer shift when exasperation hit her.

What is he doing? What am I thinking? Why on earth would he show up at the villa of a notoriously reclusive billionaire in the middle of the night to see his daughter when she and everyone else would be asleep? How did he get here? Where is security? Why would he expect—

Unless it was something important. Something that couldn’t wait even the few hours until daylight. What could have happened? Something awful? Again?

She was a network war correspondent, after all; assuming the worst was a pretty safe bet in her line of work.

She couldn’t find a robe—it was California, in the summertime, for God’s sake—but did unearth a light beach cover-up that would have to do. She shrugged it on and tied it loosely at her side, then, with a glance at her sweetly snoring child, slipped out into the silent corridor. The stone tiles were cold on her bare feet as she half ran, half tiptoed down its shadowy length and into the kitchen. Warm yellow light from above the vast commercial stove lit her way across the breakfast dining area, the table already set up for the early-risers’ breakfast.

The moon had set behind the high mountain to the west; the patio was dark, the pool area out of sight on the level below the low stone wall that enclosed the patio. The sliding glass door slid easily when Yancy tugged on it; she fully expected security alarms to sound.

No alarms went off. Outside, the world was silent. She could hear the beating of her own heart.

There were lights set into the stone wall, providing just enough illumination so she could navigate across the patio without crashing into umbrella tables and lounge chairs. Hugging her cover-up around her, she made her way down the wide stone steps that curved in a half circle to the pool deck. There, unlike the cool tile inside the house, the paving stones seemed to hold and give back the heat of the day. They felt warm beneath her bare feet. Or maybe, she thought, they were only warm in contrast to the chill that had settled over her entire body.

What am I doing?

The pool deck seemed deserted, gently lit and surrounded by shadowy shapes of the granite boulders and native shrubs that would give the pool its unique and beautifully natural setting in the daylight.

I shouldn’t be here.

“Hunt?” she called softly into the night, and one of the shadows separated itself from the rest and moved, soundless as a wraith, into the light. Yancy thought the earth was moving, then realized it was her own body rocking to the thumping of her heart.

Why? What is this? Why am I...what? Afraid? Nervous?

Excited?

Oh, no. Please, no.

She stood silently, not moving, determined not to speak first—although of course she already had, by calling his name.

He was still wearing the full beard, but that was all that remained of the Afghan elder. He was dressed in army-style fatigues, but in dark colors that made him all but invisible in darkness. His head was bare, his dark hair short, as always. His smile flashed, a fleeting reminder of the charm he had once employed to such devastating effect.

“Wasn’t sure you’d come,” he said.

Brilliant, Grainger.

He’d wondered what he’d say to her, how he’d explain his being here, where he had no good excuse for being. He’d accomplished his mission, done what he’d needed to do, which didn’t require visiting either his daughter or her adoptive mother. He didn’t know himself why he was here. So naturally that was the first thing she asked him.

“What are you doing here?”

She was wearing some sort of wrap that crisscrossed her body and tied at one side. It had long sleeves but came only to midthigh; her legs and feet were bare, leaving him to wonder if the rest of her was, too, under the wrap. Her hair was tousled, as it nearly always was, but this time there was the certain knowledge that she’d just come from her bed. Memory, physical and raw, slammed him in the gut. He tried again to summon the smile that had gotten him through some sticky moments in his life. “Seeing you, obviously.”

“It’s three in the morning.”

“That never bothered you before.”

In the long moment of silence that followed, he thought,
Don’t go there, man. What the hell are you doing?

It wasn’t what he’d meant to say, not what he’d come for.

Wasn’t it?

He waited out the silence, staying where he was, not smiling now. Finally she gave a small laugh with zero humor in it.

“This isn’t a tent or a Quonset on a military base. It’s the villa of a billionaire recluse who happens to be my grandfather. I fully expected a gazillion alarms to go off when I opened that sliding door. I don’t know why they didn’t, actually. Did you—”

He shook his head and moved toward her, one slow step at a time. “I didn’t disarm it, if that’s what you’re asking. Didn’t have to. Security here is designed to be invisible—and silent. But it’s state-of-the-art and highly effective—trust me, I know.” His smile went crooked. “I gave it my best shot and didn’t get within a quarter mile of this place.”

“You did what? You mean you—”

“Checked out the security—yes.” He was close to her now, an arm’s length away.
Too close. Stay where you are, soldier.

He moved closer. She didn’t back away.

“Is that why you’re here? To check out the security?” The snort she added was pure disbelief. He didn’t answer, and after a moment, she said, “What about Afghanistan? Are you—” And her voice became thin and breathless. She looked almost fearful.

He shook his head, frowning as he gazed at her. Appraising. Wondering.
What if I touched her?
“No. I’m going back. Catching a ride out of Edwards Air Force Base later this morning.”

She let out a breath he felt rather than heard. “You won’t be seeing Laila?”

“It would only be for a few minutes. I don’t think she’d understand. Just disappoint her again.”
Don’t touch her, you idiot.
He watched his hand lift and move and lightly touch her arm. “I just wanted to tell you—” he cleared his throat and pulled his hand back “—you’re safe here. You and Laila.”

“I never doubted that.” She cleared her throat. “But thank you.”

It was a whisper. And her eyes hadn’t left his face.

She didn’t know what could have happened to her voice. She hadn’t meant to whisper; it had just come out that way. Her mind flashed on those moments in her Quonset, the first time he’d come to her, remembering she’d been powerless to resist. Remembering she hadn’t wanted to.

He’s too close
, she thought.
Step away.

She stayed where she was and thought,
I can’t let him touch me again
.

Oh, how I want him to touch me again!

Where had this yearning come from? Seeing him again in Afghanistan after believing him dead all those years, she’d been able to resist the attraction she still felt for him. But this was different. What had changed?

Was it the way he’d held her, that day in the car, just after the bombing?

In the past their relationship—if it could even be called that—had been so simple. And unreal, in a way. A fantasy she’d never let herself examine too closely, knowing it could end in a heartbeat. And it had.

Seeing him again in Kabul, evidently back from the dead, had been a shock. Probably she’d been cocooned by the shock, her emotions numbed. Only her instinctive fear of losing her child had risen to the level of conscious thought. And there’d been the anger, too. Such contradictory feelings, the joy that he was alive mixed with the rage and sense of abandonment that came with realizing he hadn’t died but had deliberately left her to believe he had.

But now both the shock and the anger had worn off; Hunt Grainger was alive, back in her life, and God help her, she couldn’t get him out of her mind.

Worse, now she
remembered
.

Her body remembered. What his body felt like, heavy and solid on hers, hot and hard, pulsing with strength and need, slick with sweat. His mouth hungry, demanding, lips a satiny contrast with the roughness of beard, his tongue now a caress so exquisite it stopped her breath and brought tears to her eyes...and then all at once urgent, dominating, taking her beyond thought. His hands... Oh, God, his hands. Taking her to unbearable heights, then gentling her back to earth. His voice, a wordless croon that drowned all other sound. His scent, so often carrying reminders of the brutality he sought to scrub from his soul by immersing himself in her body.

They had been wonderful, those times. And terrible. And she’d thought she’d put them behind her forever.

But they were still with her, vividly, achingly real.

And after the bombing, he’d held her. Just held her.

And he was
here
.

“Yankee...” He breathed her name.

Don’t
, she wanted to say. She said nothing.

How had he come to be so close? She didn’t recall him moving, but now if she tilted her head forward slightly it would almost...
almost
...rest on his chest. Oh, how she remembered resting her head on his chest, feeling it rise and fall with receding passion, hearing his heartbeat thump against her ear.

She felt a tug and release at the side of her waist.
Don’t
, she knew she
should
say. Instead, she stood, not breathing, as her wrap fell open. Then she uttered a soft gasp when his hands slid inside to enfold her waist. The best she could summon by way of protest was to lift her own hands to lie flat against his chest.

Protest?
If so, then how was it that, instead of pushing him away, her hands slipped around him at the same moment his came around her, and her face lifted as if of its own volition to meet the descent of his? How was it that his mouth found hers so unerringly and her lips were parted and waiting?

His beard, though expected, was a shock, the physical kind that raced through all the nerves in her body with shivers and tingles of sensation. A moan formed deep in her throat. She felt his hands push under her shift, flatten against her back, then move downward with the sureness of familiarity to cup her bottom inside her panties. Skin on skin. He pressed her hard against him and the moan in her throat became a growl. She opened her mouth to him and was instantly overwhelmed.