Wild Encounter (13 page)

“Clare, can I have a word?”

Everyone stopped dead and stared.

He ignored them all. “You can drive back with me in the Nissan.” His request was more of an order.

The flutter of her heart, so pleased at seeing the dogs again, stalled. Had she really thought she could put him off indefinitely? Obviously he wasn’t having it. Which was fine. She had quite a few things she wanted to say to him, now that her initial shock had worn off.

“Okay. I’ll see you back at camp,” she told the others.

They dragged their feet as they piled into the other vehicle, and only a grateful smile from Clare reassured Musai enough to get him in the jeep at all. The old rattle-trap reversed, swung around in a big circle, and drove off, insultingly loud after the tranquil silence of the past half hour.

She waited until the noise had faded into the distance, keeping her spine ramrod straight by sheer force of will. Just standing next to Simon made her skin tingle and her knees weak. She didn’t want this kind of reaction to him, but her body didn’t listen. This close, he seemed so much bigger than her memory of him. So much more alive than the images of him she carried in her mind. His nearness, the scent of him, the heat of him… Lord, they hit her all at once.

So much needed to be said, but she refused be the first to speak.

She just wasn’t that brave. Or that stupid.

“Pretty sure they’re out of earshot now,” he said with a smile.

More humor? Really? When she was in such an agony of emotion? She rounded on him, limbs tight. “So. You’re a secret agent, Simon?”

“Field operative, technically—”

“Or maybe I should call you Agent deVries.”

He raised his free hand. “Clare, stop—”

But she couldn’t. “Do you know how hard it’s been for me to get over that week?” she demanded.
To get over you
? “How incredibly traumatized I was? And the whole time you were
undercover
? What the hell, Simon?”

She shoved at his chest with both hands. Because pushing a man holding a high-powered shotgun was always a good idea.

“Step back, Clare,” he warned, bracing himself on strong legs.

“No. Hell, no
.
” She stalked a few paces away from him. “
You
do
not
get to tell me what to do.
I
am in charge here. Me. This is
my
world.” A world she loved and valued. And needed. Without him in it.

He pursued her. “Look, I know you’ve had a tough year—”

“You think?” She snorted.

She stalked in the opposite direction from the dogs…and Simon. She needed distance. His identity may have changed—his clothes, his hair, his freaking profession—but nothing about the magnetic pull he exuded had changed one little bit. She just couldn’t think standing this close to him. She was getting high on his smell.

Galling as that was.

It was beyond her how he could act so casual and unaffected. Surely, he must be wound tight as a spring at seeing her again, too—the woman who drugged him and left him for dead.

That last thought stopped her cold.

Good lord. She’d drugged a British intelligence officer. Which was probably against at least a dozen laws. Still, if he’d planned to have her arrested, he’d have done so months ago.

He’s a good guy
, her subconscious urged.
And he’s alive.
This was a good thing.

It wasn’t exactly the fantasy she’d entertained so often about him living a simple, honest life on a tropical beach, but it wasn’t too far off. Couldn’t she be even a little bit happy about that?

All the fight sucked out of her. “What an idiot I was not to have realized.”

And to have believed for a moment that he’d been so protective because of growing feelings for her.

A muscle below his eye twitched, but his body relaxed. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if anyone realized.”

He was lumping her in with everyone else?

Sure. Why should now be any different?

He lifted a hand to slide his sunglasses atop his head and she took in the full impact of his gray eyes—cautious, veiled, and uncompromising. They might as well have stripped her bare.

Something dark and powerful closed around her heart. He let go of his glasses and reached out to gently trace the worst of the scratches on her face. The ones from her terrified dash through the acacia. She flinched. The unexpected gentleness threw her, but nowhere near as much as his touch.

“You need a medic,” he said, dropping his fingers.

“I’ve survived worse.” She meant the time she nearly sliced her leg open on barbed wire in the Appalachians, but the half wince he failed to hide told her he was thinking about the farmhouse.

Well, that seemed only just. She’d never stopped thinking about it.

Silence stretched between them. A yellow throated longclaw did its best to ease the tension with a treetop aria. It wasn’t working.

“Is that what you wanted to talk to me about? To recommend a bandage?”

“I was on a mission, Clare. I had no choice. I had to see it through.”

The short speech sounded just a little too rehearsed. The thought that he’d had to prepare for this moment—that all that confidence didn’t literally run in his veins—satisfied her enormously, since her own tongue was still as good as tied in knots.

Of course he’d had to see it through, that wasn’t the question. He’d put both their lives at risk and he wouldn’t have done that lightly. If it was important enough for SIS to send him undercover, she totally understood he had to finish the mission.

It would be like her leaving her dogs half rescued. Unthinkable.

She nodded. Quick and tiny. “And did you? See it through?”

Did they hurt you when I left?

The unspoken question was the one she wanted answered more than anything. She’d so desperately needed to know he hadn’t come to any harm after she escaped. Because she’d left him unconscious and vulnerable. He appeared to be unscathed, but a shirt could hide a lot more scars than her bracelets. She unconsciously fiddled with them. His eyes followed the noise of their jangle. She slipped her hands behind her.

“I stayed undercover for a few more weeks. Gathering what we needed to take the biggest players down.”

So that explained the first few weeks. But what about the rest? Hadn’t he given her a single thought once it was over? Which begged the question, “Is it over?”

His eyes shuttered. “We’re nearly there, now.”

Nearly
? “We?”

“There’s a whole department working on this one.”

She digested that. “Is… Your partner, she’s on the case, too?”

He glanced away. “She is. That’s why we’re here.”

Her gut flipped as understanding streamed in. A dull ache spread outward from her sternum. “So you’re here to finish the job, then. I thought the British embassy sent you.”

Stupid, stupid, fool. Did she really think he’d come for her?

She turned away and took a deep breath. She was no more special to him now than she had been in the farmhouse. He was just doing his job. Then, and now.

“Yes, the embassy arranged an escort with MI6. Our taskforce was the obvious choice since we need to tie up some final evidence for the case.”

Evidence. Of course.

She ran her hands up and down her arms.

He misunderstood the gesture. “The sun’s going down. We should get back.”

But the goose bumps on her arms weren’t the kind a warm vehicle could do anything about. This chill was bone deep. Nonetheless, she slid in through the door he held open for her. She didn’t want to drag this out.
Apologize and let it go
, she told herself firmly. After all, that’s what he seemed to have done.

But courage seemed to be hemorrhaging out of her.

“What kind of evidence?” she stalled, hating her own weakness.

He shook his head. “Sorry, I can’t talk about that.”

Naturally. “As long as your orders don’t affect the project.”

“They won’t,” he assured her.

“Good.” Not that there was anything she could do about it.

He started the SUV and they headed back through the park.

Come on, Delaney. Man up!
There was something she needed to know, could she not even ask a simple question? She turned in the luxury leather seat. “The last time I saw you—”

Her words caught him too unaware to mask his wince, though he covered it quickly. “You did well to escape the way you did. I’m just sorry you had to…” His deep voice trailed off.

Drug me? Leave me lying there out cold and vulnerable? Betray me right after we’d made love?
Clare silently completed the litany, acutely ashamed for sticking that needle in his arm.

“I only did it to get away. I never would have— That’s not something I would ever do under less than life-threatening circumstances.” She was babbling. “Obviously.”

His face shut down. Like ice over a winter lake. “Obviously.”

Clare blinked. Okay, so he wouldn’t accept her apology. Would it really change anything if he did? Even so, it hurt. And also explained why he hadn’t tried to find her before now. They drove on in silence as she wrestled feelings back to the far recesses of her heart, along with hopes she hadn’t realized she harbored.

She swallowed. “What happened to the other men? Boots, Jo, Zimbabwe?” It seemed safer to talk about them.

His puzzled glance reminded her he’d never heard her nicknames for her captors. But he knew who she meant. “Mbuutu and Corby got away. Dyson and Sergeant are in custody, arraigned for court at the end of the year. Refused bail. You may need to testify at their trial since your kidnapping is one of the secondary charges.”

Her brows rose. So did her temper. “The worst week of my life only rates a ‘secondary?’ The primary charge must be a doozy.” She imagined being cross-examined about the finer details of her time in the farmhouse. Boots’ violence towards her. Simon’s contrasting concern. And that last day…

He glanced sideways. “I can’t discuss the details with you.”

Right.

His eyes cut back to the bush track ahead.

She steeled herself. “Will they want to ask about the…about my escape?”

He cleared his throat. “What happened between you and me will have no bearing in court because I was a plant, but you will need to speak to my colleagues about it again.”

Again? “I haven’t spoken to them at all.”

“In Lusaka.”

“No. That was just Republic Police and my—” Suddenly, she remembered the pushy translator who’d accompanied her U.S. State Department representative at the Lusaka police station where she’d given her statement about the abduction. The man’s overly zealous focus now made so much more sense. “The interpreter. He was MI6?”

Simon nodded.

It explained so much. Not the least the State Department guy’s annoyance when his interpreter had gone rogue with questions of his own.

“I’m not sure what I can add,” she said. “I told the police what I know.”

“I’ve read the report. You need to tell them everything.” He looked at her meaningfully. “
Every
thing, Clare. Including our last day.”

She’d hugged the memories of their beautiful, exhausting hours together close to her heart these past months. And to her chest.
Secret
. The same way she’d hoarded the vials of drugs. One had been to survive the ordeal. The other to survive the empty months that followed.

“Don’t worry,” he said, steering onto the narrow track leading back to camp. “I’ve already told them the worst of it. You’ll just need to corroborate my story.”

Pain hardened like a spike in her spine. Was that how he thought of their time together? She cloaked her hurt in anger. “The
worst
of it?”

His snort was ugly. “I’m sure you’re not going to tell me it was a highlight. It’s the most unprofessional thing I’ve ever done. As my superiors have delighted in reminding me ever since.”

She curled her fingers tighter into her fist. She could hardly tell him their hours together had been both the best and worst day of her life. Not when he so clearly regretted it. She stared at him, seeing him for the first time. And how delusional she’d been.

Obviously, this was the real Simon. Closed. Hostile. Sarcastic.

Boy, the harsh light of reality certainly wasn’t flattering. For either of them.

He pulled on the brake in camp and her hand went straight for the door handle. “Well. If you’re wondering about
my
worst moment, I’d be struggling to pick between the attempted rape by a vicious sadist, or the moment I thought my dogs had been slaughtered.”

She marched away, slamming the door behind her.