Dear Reader,

We are delighted to present you with three brand-new stories proving that, from the battlefield to the home front, love can conquer all!

Merline Lovelace will take you into the jungles of passion with “A Military Affair,” the story of a U.S. Air Force sergeant whose recovery mission lands her in the arms of an ambitious photojournalist. After he’s captured the story of a lifetime, will he take her heart, too?

The determined army lieutenant in Lindsay McKenna’s “Comrades in Arms” believes a woman, especially one untrained in combat, can only be a detriment to his team. Until he faces the battle of his life—with her at his side.

In Candace Irvin’s “An Unconditional Surrender,” two passionate ex-lovers fight a mission side by side and learn in the flames of war what it means to be consumed by love.

We hope you enjoy this special collection of heroes and heroines who give their all for their country—including their hearts.

The Editors
Silhouette Books

MERLINE LOVELACE

A career air force officer, Merline Lovelace spent twenty-three years in uniform. She’s served at bases all over the world, including tours in Taiwan, Vietnam and at the Pentagon on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. She has produced one action-packed sizzler after another and now has over forty-five published novels. Merline lives with her husband in Oklahoma City, where she is working on her next novel.

LINDSAY MCKENNA

A homeopathic educator, Lindsay McKenna teaches at the Desert Institute of Classical Homeopathy in Phoenix, Arizona. When she isn’t teaching alternative medicine, she is writing books about love. She feels love is the single greatest healer in the world and hopes that her books touch her readers on those levels. Coming from an Eastern Cherokee medicine family, Lindsay was taught ceremony and healing ways from the age of nine. She creates flower and gem essences in accordance with nature and remains closely in touch with her Native American roots and upbringing.

CANDACE IRVIN

As the daughter of a librarian and a sailor, it’s no wonder Candace Irvin’s two greatest loves are reading and the sea. After spending several exciting years as a naval officer sailing around the world, she finally decided it was time to put down roots and give her other love a chance. To her delight, she soon learned that writing romance was as much fun as reading it. Candace believes her luckiest moment was the day she married her own dashing hero, a former army combat engineer with dimples to die for. The two now reside in Arkansas, happily raising three future heroes and one adorable heroine—who won’t be allowed to date until she’s forty, at least.

MERLINE LOVELACE

LINDSAY MCKENNA

CANDACE IRVIN

IN LOVE AND WAR

Contents

AN UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
Candace Irvin

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

AN UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER

Candace Irvin

For CJ Chase.

Thanks for all the incredible critiquing, CJ, but mostly for the wonderful friendship.

I wouldn’t want to travel this writing road without you.

Acknowledgments

As usual, my ideas fall well out of my range of experience and expertise. I’d like to thank the following folks for loaning me theirs. The cool stuff is theirs, the mistakes are all mine.

Lieutenant Commander Michael J. Walsh, USN (Ret.). Thanks, Michael, for planting the original idea and feeding me enough information to help it grow. Captain Norton A. Newcomb, U.S. Army (Ret.), Special Operations Intelligence. As usual, Tony, you know exactly what I need to know before even I do. Thanks for willingly sharing it when and where you can. SSG Frank M. Risso, U.S. Army (Ret.). Thanks for the fantastic crash course in army artillery. Special Agent Scot Folensbee, DSS. You’re a new friend, Scot, and a blisteringly awesome source. Thanks for all your help with the Diplomatic Security Service. Stay safe out there! Finally, a special thanks to my agent, Damaris Rowland, and my editor, Allison Lyons, for believing I could do it.

Dear Reader,

A year ago, a friend and I discussed a modern twist on an old-fashioned evil: slavery. I knew then, I had to write about it. Still, I wasn’t sure I could weave so heinous a crime into a romance novel. According to the U.S. Department of State’s 2002 Trafficking in Persons Report, annual victim estimates range from 700,000 to 4 million women, children and men, many of whom are bought, sold and transported for sexual exploitation. The latter became a main plot thread in “An Unconditional Surrender.”

In this story, Delta Force Captain Jack Gage is reunited with his former lover, U.S. Army Captain Danielle Stanton, when she’s thrust into the clutches of a black-market slave trader half a world away. Together, Jack and Dani must work through past problems to complete their present mission. And once Dani’s safe, Jack won’t settle for less than a future with her—and the complete, unconditional surrender of her heart.

For more information about trafficking persons, check out my Web site www.candaceirvin.com, and follow the hyperlinks.

Chapter 1

If the road to hell was paved with good intentions, Jack Gage figured he ought to be banging on the devil’s door any moment now. Despite his imminent welcome at those fiery gates, Jack condemned himself to remaining motionless in the southernmost corner of Rurik Teslenko’s dank, claustrophobic hovel. Not an easy task given the force with which the stocky bastard dragged his current “crop” of Croatian slaves into the room before shoving them up against the opposite wall. According to Rurik, the trio of terrified girls were fresh in from Sarajevo the night before. What kind of man preyed on women from the city of his birth, much less his own ethnic group?

Unfortunately, Jack knew the answer all too well. Rurik Teslenko was not the only Bosnian Croatian, much less the only man, lining his pockets through the kidnapping and selling of young women. Nor was Rurik’s impatient customer the only “peacekeeping” United Nations soldier out shopping for his personal, shamefully young, sex slave. Even if the Swede opted not to purchase a girl from this dark-haired collection, someone would. Jack could only hope he’d be able to accomplish his increasingly hairy mission before the next batch of salivating bastards showed up. For the moment, his relief eased out as the camouflaged giant across the room shifted his scowl from the girls to Rurik.

“I told you, I want a blonde.”

Rurik shrugged his shorter but equally burly camouflage-clad shoulders. “I had a blonde. Unfortunately, there were…complications.” Rurik dug his fingers into the snarled mane of the closest girl. The final, muted rays of day bled through the window behind them, highlighting the fresh surge of terror in the girl’s eyes as Rurik dragged her close. Eyes that had already been blackened by someone’s eager fist. Eyes that had seen sixteen, seventeen years tops. Old, by Rurik’s criteria.

Bile roiled through Jack’s gut, magnified by the soft whimper that escaped the girl’s swollen lips as Rurik thrust her otherwise pale face toward the Swede.

“For you, sixteen hundred markas.”

Eight hundred U.S. dollars. For a sixteen-year-old kid. As vile as the transaction was, Jack kept his trap shut. Too much depended on his silence. Too many lives.

American and Bosnian.

Dust kicked up as the Swede spat on the concrete floor.

The gold cross Rurik wore around his neck flashed along with his gaze as he shoved the girl back to the line. “Fine. Come back next week. I will have another blonde. Fourteen hundred markas for your trouble.”

Dark-blue eyes narrowed suspiciously. “No more than fifteen years—and a virgin?”

Rurik nodded. “I give you my word.”

Any man who knew the Bosnian slave-trader well enough to warrant a private showing at his country compound also knew that despite his unsavory profession, Rurik Teslenko was worth his word. Still, the Swede held Rurik’s gaze for a good ten seconds before he jerked an answering nod. A moment later, the Swede spun about and strode across the stifling room. The four Bosnian thugs flanking the entrance to the hovel stiffened as his scuffed combat boots reached the bullet-riddled door.

“Let him go.”

Jack eased out his breath as two of the flanking thugs followed the UN soldier out. One less customer along with two less goons in the room just might allow Jack to ease Rurik out of this scorched hovel and across the dilapidated dairy farm-turned-terrorist compound he’d arrived at less than an hour before. If Jack was really lucky, he and Rurik would return to their now cooling mugs of coffee in the main house along with their discussion concerning another illegal transaction Rurik had also expressed interest in. Weapons.

“How about a trade?”

Jack turned to his Bosnian contact, once again at the trembling line of girls, nudging them several steps forward, one by one. Jack had no idea if any of them spoke English. Not that they needed to. Rurik’s body language was universal enough.

“No thanks.”

His distaste must have shown because Rurik grinned, showing off a quarter of a century of non-existent dental work as he chuckled knowingly. “Ah, I see. You did not tell me in Mostar that you preferred boys, my friend.” That damned decaying grin widened. “Since you have joined us, however briefly, I suppose we can send someone into Sarajevo to accommodate you.”

The hell they would. “I like women just fine, Rurik. Women. Not boys.” Jack flicked his gaze to the nauseatingly battered trio, careful to keep the true extent of his disgust from showing through. “And not barely pubescent girls. Women.”

“Women, eh?” Another inch and that smarmy grin would split the man’s ears. Apprehension snapped along Jack’s spine as Rurik turned to the door once more, to the burly goon who served as his right hand. According to army intelligence reports, Youssef Ben Adnan had endured the siege of Sarajevo along with Rurik a decade before. Once again, Rurik opted for body language—unfortunately, this time in a private dialect only Youssef seemed able to translate. Until Youssef turned and left.

Damn. The cook.

Sullen, subdued and up to her dark, dour bun in her master’s illegal activities, the compound’s cook was not his type. But she was definitely a woman. Still, from the brief glimpse Jack had gotten of the kitchen earlier, she also appeared vital to keeping the rest of the slaves in line until they were sold. Surely even Rurik wouldn’t degrade the one woman he seemed to trust simply to ingratiate himself with some shady American artillery sergeant? But then, “Sgt. Jackson” wasn’t just any shady American artillery sergeant, was he? Not to Rurik. Jackson was the sergeant who’d saved the bastard’s life in Mostar by knocking him out of the way of an incoming bullet. Was Rurik looking to repay the debt now?

The odds grew as Rurik turned his back on the girls completely, motioning the remaining thug to take over as he crossed the room. The odds quadrupled as Rurik slapped him on the shoulder and nudged him toward the bullet-riddled door.

“Come, my friend, join me in the kitchen.”

Despite the dread congealing in the pit of his stomach, Jack allowed Rurik to guide him out of the hovel and down the grassy knoll. He forced himself to focus on the ancient farm, instead, once again cataloguing the dilapidated buildings as discreetly as he could. A cluster of four more bombed-out crofts lay to the left, two leveled to their permanently blood-stained foundations. The compound’s main but singed two-story thatched house lay directly ahead, backlit by a now fiery setting sun. A huge pocked and scorched concrete slab still divided into cattle stalls lay to the right. But it was the massive intact dairy barn to the left and slightly behind the house that captured Jack’s attention. And the armed thug standing guard.

What he’d give to knock that guard aside and slide those enormous double doors apart. But as Rurik turned to shove the significantly smaller door to the main house open and gesture him inside, Jack knew what he wouldn’t give. His integrity.

This might be his first assignment with Diplomatic Security, but it wasn’t his first time undercover. Hell, this wasn’t even his first time selling to Rurik. The fact that this particular cover had survived their last brush four years before had been too perfect to pass up. But while Jack had been forced to abuse his fair share of unsavory tactics during his previous career, he’d never come close to raping a woman. He wasn’t about to start now. If it came down to it, he’d accept a complimentary night with the taciturn cook—and hope to hell she didn’t spill the beans regarding his sudden case of erectile dysfunction the following morning.

But what if she did?

Adapt and overcome. The motto slammed through his brain as it had so often during his seven years with Delta Force. Rurik had yet to consider that like the Swede, he might have his own list of preferences. Jack considered voicing them as he and Rurik turned into the narrow hallway that led to the kitchen at the rear of the house. He changed his mind at the last moment, unwilling to allow the thug that far into his head, much less his heart. Despite the fact that eleven months had passed, it was still too blessed raw. Unfortunately, the insidious ache had already locked in by the time Jack stepped into the humid, oversized kitchen.

She locked in. For a split second, Jack was terrified he was hallucinating. Even as the wave of instant, blinding rage swept through him, along with the punch of sheer, gut-wrenching terror, he knew he wasn’t. This was no dream, it was a living, breathing nightmare. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, no!

That woman was not Dani.

But she was. He blinked, struggling to take in the matted, light-brown waves tangled halfway down her back, the deep purple bruise marring the curve of her left cheek. The shredded, once-white shirt with its sweat-stained tails tied now between her braless breasts—because the buttons and sleeves had been torn completely off. The matching sets of goddamned rusted shackles that were clamped about the cuffs of her jeans and slender wrists. It was her all right, Captain Danielle Stanton, U.S. Army. The woman he’d loved and then lost was in Bosnia. And she was Rurik Teslenko’s slave.

For the first time in his career Jack had no idea what to do, much less what to say. If he opened his mouth, God only knew what would come out. Given the fury still blistering through him, the bone-chilling terror, the odds were overwhelming it would be something that would get Dani killed. For her sake alone, he managed to slow his frantic gaze—but not before he spotted the mottled bruises roping Dani’s throat as she turned away to hide her own stunned reaction. She’d been choked. From the twin bloodred, almost black, splotches at the base of her neck, damned near to death. By whom? A split second later his stomach bottomed out. Ice-cold terror surged into its place. Sweet Mother in Heaven…had she been raped?

Acid seared though his gut once again, this time eating a path straight up to his heart. Before Jack could move—hell before he could think—Rurik flicked his gaze to his right-hand man. Youssef responded immediately by shoving Dani and her brimming pail of water toward the cook and the stove at the far side of the kitchen. The force caused her bare feet to tangle with the rusting links of her shackles, sending water sloshing over the rim of the plastic pail and onto the immaculate stone floor. The flat of Youssef’s hand swung up and out—

“Wait.”

Youssef, Rurik, Dani, hell, even the cook froze. Unlike the others, Dani didn’t turn to face him. Thank God. At least one of them was thinking clearly. Adapting. If he didn’t get his brain in gear within the next two seconds, they’d both end up dead. Given her military specialty, he could only assume that like him, Dani was undercover—or had been before Rurik and his bastards had gotten hold of her. And if he blew that cover…

Fortunately, Rurik had chalked up his stunned reaction to something else. Lust. Once again that decaying grin split wide. “You are…interested in this one then, yes?”

Interested? He’d been interested in General Stanton’s daughter since he’d been a green twenty-one-year-old cadet at West Point. Since Dani had been as young as the girls out in that croft at the time, he’d wisely nailed his mouth shut. Admitting the extent of that interest to General Stanton a decade later had damned near ended his career. Admitting that interest still existed now to Rurik could well end Dani’s life.

Somehow, Jack managed to hook his elbow on the island counter. “Personally, I like redheads, especially if they come with green eyes.” He stared at the light-brown waves for several moments, then shrugged. “The length of her hair might be a plus, though…if it didn’t look like a family of rats had moved in.”

“Agreed. But it can be combed, even dyed. Besides, she speaks English. You would be able to understand her.”

“You trying to drive your own price down or what?”

Rurik laughed at that. Loudly. Figured. Somehow, none of the goons he’d met this evening seemed the type to engage in bedroom chatter. Not that he and Dani had engaged in much conversation themselves the one and only night they’d spent in the same bed. Maybe if they had—

Don’t go there, buddy. Not here and not now.

Rurik flicked his gaze to Youssef once again—and, again, Youssef lurched forward. But this time the thug wrapped his fist around Dani’s hair, using the bulk of her matted mane to drag her back to the island, directly in front of him. Both Rurik and Youssef ignored the sloshing bucket as it hit the floor, focusing on him, instead. Dani did not. She kept her gaze welded to the shackles at her feet as if she still didn’t quite trust herself to look at him. He knew the feeling.

Given what they both knew he’d have to do to pull this off, he wasn’t sure he trusted himself. Jack pushed off the counter, risking his cover more than he’d ever thought possible as he slid the fingers of his right hand about Dani’s painfully slender neck, directly over the bruises. Using his thumb, he nudged her chin up, frowning as she finally met his gaze.

“She stinks.”

The criticism earned him another grin—from Rurik and his deadly sidekick. “We may not have running water restored yet, Jackson, but we do have baths. I will send the other girls up with water for the tub.” Rurik waved his hand. “And, no, before you mention it, her eyes are not green.”

True. But neither were they basic brown like his. Instead, they were the most incredible shade of soft blue he’d ever seen. That first year after his dad’s death, not much had succeeded in burning though the fog of his grief. But these eyes had. Even then, he’d noticed the color shifted depending on Dani’s moods. It wasn’t until this past year—their first undercover assignment together—that he’d discovered just how dark and stormy her eyes could turn when Dani was aroused…or royally pissed. They were storming now. And she was definitely not aroused.

Rurik chuckled. “I do not think she likes you.”

No bombshell there. “You said she speaks English. Where’s she from?” To Jack’s surprise, silence greeted the question.

Son of a gun. For all the evidence of abuse marring her body, Dani Stanton hadn’t even given up her nationality. If only her father could see her now. Jack masked the surge of fierce pride and swung his gaze to the men in time to catch Rurik’s shrug.

“Based on her accent…Canada, perhaps. Though she may be American. You all sound the same to me.”

Jack ignored the dig. “Did you at least catch her name?”

Again, silence. But this time, he swore Youssef flushed.

Jack covered the second surge of pride with a taunting chuckle as he returned to Dani. “Damn, Rurik. This must be some woman if neither of you have been able to get so much as a name out of her, despite your impressive—” he managed to smooth his thumb casually down her battered neck “—persuasion.”

Youssef growled a string of base Arabic and stepped toward him. Right then, Jack knew whose hands had left these marks on Dani’s throat. Who would pay. Unlike the pride, Jack embraced the rage. He released Dani and stepped forward as well, not stopping until he was squarely within Youssef’s personal space.

“Enough!” Rurik jerked his chin toward Dani. “You want the woman or not?”

He kept his gaze fused to Youssef’s. “How much?”

“Four hundred. But I keep her when you leave.”

The amount slapped Jack back to reality, as did the rest. There’d be time for vengeance later. Right now his only concern was getting Dani out of Rurik’s possession and into his—and there was only one way to accomplish that. That bullet in Mostar notwithstanding, Rurik was first and foremost a businessman. Though there was a chance the debt would help with the price. He hoped. Jack forced a snort and took his first step away from her. “I hope that’s four hundred markas, not dollars.”

“Dollars. For that, the woman will be at your sole disposal for the duration of your stay.”

“Four hundred dollars?” He shook his head and took another step. “Christ, Rurik, it’s not as if she was beauty-pageant material, even before your buddy Youssef got ahold of her.”

Dani stiffened. From the renewed steel in her gaze, she was ticked. Good. But if she didn’t pick up on his unspoken request soon and get downright pissed, they’d be in deep kimchi. He only had three hundred bucks on him. Given the beating Dani had already suffered, he couldn’t risk a trip to Sarajevo and a bank to collect the rest. And there was still his mission.

“Three hundred…and if I like her, I take her with me when I leave.” He’d already told Rurik he’d recently arrived for a mythical two-year rotation with a UN artillery unit. If he was lucky, Rurik would simply assume he preferred to keep the same sex toy around the entire time he was stuck in Bosnia. Relief flooded Jack as the bastard nodded.

“Six hundred, and maybe you take her if I am pleased with the other work you do for me.”

“Six hundred? You offered the Swede a virgin for seven.”

Rurik shrugged. “You wanted a woman, not a girl.”

“A woman, yes.” Jack stalked forward and grabbed the curve of Dani’s chin, using it to twist her face beneath the stark light shining down from the bulb at the ceiling. “A battered and bruised hag, no.” He jerked his fingers from her jaw and shoved them down the V of her shirt, determined to ignore the heat that gusted through him as Dani’s breasts filled his hand. He almost succeeded—until the memory slammed in.

Her, him. On his bed. That sultry, perfect late-August night. These same sky-colored eyes damned near smoke-blue with passion. These gently bowed lips, swollen and slick from his greedy kiss. Dani’s fingers sliding through his hair, down his neck, digging into his shoulders. Her husky moan swirling into his ears as she urged him up over her. Him—hot, hard and excruciatingly ready as he plunged deep inside her.

The memory shattered beneath Rurik’s crude chuckle.

Red-hot rage blistered though Jack, incinerating his body’s instinctive reaction to Dani’s flesh after all these months. He tucked his free hand behind his back and clenched his fingers to keep from shaking with renewed fury. To keep from throttling them. God as his witness, Rurik and his goon would pay for tainting what until then had been his most precious, private memory. But most of all, the men would pay for what they’d done to the one woman who for a brief night had been the very center of his world. Jack allowed the barest breath of his roiling disgust to show through as he ordered his hand to fondle Dani’s breasts in front of the bastards.

“Hell, she’s already sagging.”

She spat in his face.

Thank God. Jack wrenched his hand from her shirt and backhanded the good side of her jaw. A fraction of his strength, the smack was ninety percent noise and show. Fortunately Dani had worked undercover long enough to know it was coming. She rolled with it, allowing the illusion of force to send her slamming into the whitewashed wall. The solid whack to the back of her skull left no doubt in Jack’s mind, that groan was real. He stalked forward grabbed her hair, using it to pin her as Youssef had done. Unlike Youssef, he sealed his lips to her ear as he seized the shackles at her wrists, spinning her with him—toward the island counter and away from the men as he asked, “You okay?”

“Finish it.”

For a split second he was afraid the cook had caught on. But the woman turned to the stove and busied herself with a large iron pot. His breathing still raw and much too shallow, he wrenched Dani around with him once more as he faced Rurik.

The yellow grin split wide. “Three hundred to keep a hag that it appears you, too, will have to persuade?”

Jack shot his own grin toward Youssef. “Unlike your lackey, I’m up to the task.” He was rewarded with another Arabic curse.

Rurik ignored it. “Three hundred it is.”

“And if I like her, I take her when I leave.”

“Agreed.”

“Done.” Jack shoved Dani to the bucket. “Go bathe, woman. Then wait for me in my room.” He forced himself to turn away and shift the Beretta at his hip to tug his wallet from his camouflaged pocket. Pulling out the three largest bills, he tossed them to Youssef, earning another scowl as the man caught them. “Now, you two ready to discuss why you brought me here?”

Another of those blasted, decaying grins. “Tomorrow.”

“Dammit, Rurik, I—”

The man tsked softly. “You Americans. Everything must always be your way, in your time. Our business can wait, my friend. Tonight is for pleasure.” Rurik clapped him on the back, chuckling as Dani wrenched the bucket off the floor and stalked across the kitchen, slamming the wooden door smartly behind her. “Though I do not think your new slave appears pleased with the change to her sleeping arrangements.”

Now there was an understatement. He might not have a clue as to what Dani was doing trapped on this bombed-out dairy farm in eastern Bosnia, much less how he was going to get her off safely, but Jack did know one thing. No matter how many times he’d relived that sultry summer night in his mind this past year, she sure as hell hadn’t. Nor did she ever intend to repeat it. In fact, he was the last man Danielle Stanton ever intended to sleep with again. She’d told him so herself.

Chapter 2

She was naked. Clean, but naked. God help her, it was a state she’d give just about anything to fix, especially now, and not because of Youssef and the rest of Rurik’s leering, groping goons. Because of him. U.S. Army Captain Jack Gage. Or had Jack made the major’s list? She didn’t know. She’d refused to look. Not that Jack would refuse to look—at her. If given the chance.

Dani grabbed Zorah’s hands, furious with herself as the plea tumbled out. “Leave my clothes. A robe, a towel, a blanket.” Something to preserve her shredded dignity. “Please.”

“I cannot.” Zorah shook her head sadly as she tugged her fingers free. Without missing a beat, the woman nudged Dani down into the tepid water until her shoulders were flush with the back of the claw-footed tub. Only then did Zorah splay the bulk of her hair over the edge of the weathered porcelain and step behind her to work the snarls free. “I am sorry, but Youssef says you must go to the man as you were born.”

Youssef. One more reason to hate the bastard. As for the other one? She might owe Jack for sparing her another round with Rurik’s henchman, but gratitude would never absolve Jack of his own debt. Much less, his betrayal. She still couldn’t believe he was here. When she’d walked out on the man eleven months before, she’d known she’d see him again. She’d just never expected it would be in Bosnia, a day after she’d been kidnapped outside a women’s clinic in Sarajevo. Then again, given Jack’s relationship with her father, she shouldn’t be surprised. Who else would Daddy send in to clean up after her? After all, according to the all-knowing General Stanton, Jack Gage was the best. At everything.

Dani winced as Zorah’s comb hit a particularly large snarl. Yeah, she might have been incarcerated at Miss Porter’s School for Girls by the time Jack arrived, but she’d been old enough to realize Daddy had gotten what he’d always wanted. A ready-made son. So what if her father had inherited a twenty-one-year-old Jack by default after a war buddy died in a car crash? Jack was the boy her father had taken under his wing when he was still a colonel and Jack a cadet at West Point. Jack was the boy her father had had over for weekend dinners and Army football tailgate parties, while she was stuck a hundred miles away. And, of course, Jack was the boy her father had tapped to follow in his hallowed Delta Force footsteps. His daughter, on the other hand, had to slink off to a civilian college and claw her way to an ROTC scholarship without Daddy Dearest’s unfailing support, much less more than a cursory acknowledgement on commissioning day.

But the humiliation hadn’t ended there, had it? Years later, she’d had the honor of standing on the wrong side of a barely cracked door in the Army’s Special Operations Command headquarters at Ft. Bragg while her brand-new SOCOM general of a father had the nerve to discuss her with her brand-new special ops lover. A lover fresh from the first mission they’d completed together. Hell, fresh from their smoldering bed.

Even now the memory of the devil’s bargain her father and lover had struck had the power to burn through her. She’d been a fool to hope her father could ever change. More so to think his naturalized progeny would be any different. Her patience with Zorah’s rhythmic combing expired, Dani sat up. She stepped out of the tub as Zorah set the comb on the chipped vanity. Neither of them bothered to drain the water. With the ancient well out behind the barn the only source of clean water for miles, the rest of the girls would be shuttled through the bathroom before anyone dared to pull the chain on the rubber stopper. To think, up until last night she’d actually thought her life stunk.

Lina.

Don’t. Dani shoved the guilt aside and clung fiercely to hope instead. Until she had proof to the contrary, Lina was alive. Probably inside the dairy barn. Why else had Rurik posted a guard at the doors? Maybe Jack knew something. Maybe Youssef had bragged. Either way, Jack would be able to help her find a way to keep the other girls from falling victim to the same fate. The piercing hope purged the impending indignity of padding down the hall, past God only knew who, with nothing but a collection of purple bruises to conceal herself.

She blew out her breath. “I’m ready.”

To her surprise, Zorah touched her arm.

Dani blinked, stunned to see the bleached towel in the woman’s outstretched hand. “Are you sure? Youssef will—”

“—not know. Not if you lay the towel out to dry before the sergeant—before he…” Pity filled the woman’s dark-brown eyes, softening the lines a decade of war and not-quite-peace had etched into her forehead and about her otherwise attractive mouth. “Return the towel when I come for you in the morning.”

“I will. If anyone complains, I’ll tell Youssef I insisted.” A glimpse in the mirror assured her she needed a nice fat bruise on the right side of her jaw to balance out the lump on her left, anyway. Jack’s hand had left the barest splotch of red. While her jaw was grateful, her cover might not be. They might have fared better if he’d struck harder. Dani wrapped the towel around her torso and tucked the end between her breasts, then dragged her hair in front of her shoulders to cover the rest of her exposed flesh. What she could. “Thank you, Zorah.”

Dani padded down the hall alone, reaching the door at the end far too quickly. Sergeant Jackson’s door. Evidently Jack had revived an uncompromised cover he’d used in and around Sarajevo and after the Bosnian civil war—that of an artillery sergeant of low morals. Given Rurik’s collection of ethnically diverse thugs, it made sense. Sergeant Jackson had been known to steal weapons and ammo from NATO bunkers and then funnel the goods to all three sides within the Bosnian conflict: Croatian, Serb and ethnic Muslim. If the money was good, Jackson didn’t care who bought. And no one would question the shady sergeant’s interest in female slaves. Not with a shameful number of UN peacekeepers up to their tarnished blue helmets in the practice.

A practice she was supposed to be investigating—not joining, especially on the unfortunate end.

I told you so.

Dani slapped the phantom recrimination aside and shoved the bedroom door open. Before she could step over the threshold, an iron hand whipped out, locking about her wrist and jerking her inside the room, straight into a brown, T-shirt-clad chest. Before she could protest, Jack’s hungry mouth crashed on to hers, swallowing her gasp as his tongue invaded her mouth. He consumed her second, deeper gasp as he ripped the towel away. He dumped the towel at his combat boots and replaced it with his hard, muscular arms. She was dimly aware of his body shifting as well, as if he was subtly using his length and bulk to shield her now-naked flesh from…who? Rurik?

The coarse chuckle behind Jack confirmed it.

Jack ignored it, appearing to lose himself to lust as he raked the fingers of his right hand through the length of her damp hair to knead and cup her breasts. The pad of his thumb scraped her nipple. To her utter humiliation, it stiffened. She responded by jerking her right knee up as she slammed her hands into the man’s granite chest—for Rurik’s amused benefit, as well as her hijacked pride. Unfortunately, Jack had eight inches of towering height and a much thicker set of muscles on her. He used every one of them to his advantage, too.

She was pinned. All her futile resistance had done was settle her intimately between Jack’s thighs as he sealed her back against the wall. The chill sent goosebumps rippling down her body—until Jack shifted again, this time bracing his forearm to the wall above her head so he could gain deeper access to her mouth. Just like that, the months seared away. The numbing loneliness and constant heartache that had dogged her since, followed. They were back on Jack’s bed, tangled up in his dark-blue sheets, sweat slicking their bodies as they fed the frantic need within each other. She could hear his hoarse encouragement, feel him driving in and out—feel herself clamping around him as she’d tried to keep from splintering into a million pieces because it was just too damned soon. He’d felt too damned right.

The memory had burned in so completely, she clutched Jack’s shoulders as he tore his mouth from hers, instinctively protesting as he scraped his lips and scruffed jaw across her cheeks—until she felt his ragged breath in her ear.

“Dani…he’s gone.”

The fantasy evaporated as quickly as it had flashed to life. Unfortunately, the traitorous desire didn’t. Unspent passion continued to race through her veins at double-time, every drop still headed low, to her core, as she struggled to regain control over her errant lungs. It didn’t help that Jack’s breathing was as harsh and unsteady as hers. Or that his biceps were rigid with restraint as he pushed off the wall. Off her.

Despite the curtain of hair concealing her breasts, the chill returned. The goosebumps followed. A disloyal flush seared them off as Jack’s still-smoking stare followed the tide to her waist, then lower. The jerk. She didn’t care if he’d spent the past year so deep undercover that an eighth of an inch of ankle peeking out from beneath a burka would’ve turned him on. Because of some bastard’s jollies, she was the one standing here, stark-naked and exposed, beneath her ex-lover’s stare, not him.

Somehow, she managed to infuse the steady cool her skin and nerves lacked into her voice. “May I have my towel?”

Jack’s gaze snapped up, his confusion at her anger unmistakable as he blinked off his own remaining passion. What had he expected? Open-armed gratitude? Or was he honestly waiting for her to part another set of limbs?

“Well? I had to beg for that scrap of cloth. May I have it back…or do you plan on making me beg too, master?” She’d never know where she found the nerve to casually rake her hair behind her shoulders, much less stand there as her nipples puckered beneath his dark, riveted stare, but it worked.

The unflappable Jack Gage actually blushed. He stunned her again by peeling off the T-shirt to his camouflage fatigues, thrusting it into her hands as he spun away to lock the door. She wasn’t about to turn it down. She donned the shirt in two seconds, disconcerted to discover Jack’s lingering warmth and subtle musk had enveloped her as well. At least the differences in their heights allowed the hem of his shirt to skirt the upper portion of her suddenly pathetically weak thighs. Now if she could just scrounge up a pair of—

“Here.”

Dani snatched the ball of gray from mid-air, donning the running shorts as Jack crossed the room to switch on a small AM radio. As luck would have it, one of Sarajevo’s more modern and erotic sevdalinkas filled the room as he stepped away from the dresser. The folk song’s refrain of unrequited passion grated across her nerves as Jack turned to stuff a spare uniform into the duffel bag at the foot of the bed. A twin bed. Great.

Could this case get any worse?

She should have known better than to ask. Definitely not before she risked her first real look at Jack since he’d strolled into that kitchen half an hour ago. Eleven months might have passed since she’d located her spine, locked it into place and walked out on this man, but he hadn’t changed a bit. He was still as gorgeous as ever. Jack’s thick black hair was still cropped on the army-long side, lightly tapered at the sides and back of his head. The morning-after scruff covering his strong cheeks and square jaw added just the right touch of rogue his singleton Delta assignments usually required. And his body…

Despite her attempts to prevent it, her breath bled out. Without his T-shirt, it was toe-curlingly obvious every inch of Jack’s torso was still honed to perfection. He closed the duffel and straightened. She heeded the warning, bracing herself as Jack turned and caught her gaze. It was a good call. Damned if his eyes didn’t still remind her of deep molasses. And damned if they didn’t still have the power to suck her right in, to make her wish she could spend her entire life right here, just like this, lost in this dark, sweet craving.

But the longer Jack’s densely lashed gaze held hers, the more she was forced to admit the preceding months had wrought changes in him. There were fine lines at the corners of his eyes now, as well as beside his lips. Last winter, when Jack had turned thirty-one, his temples hadn’t contained a hint of silver. They did now. But there was something else too, something she couldn’t put her finger on. Whatever it was, it was consuming him. She was certain of that when he stepped forward, then faltered to a halt.

She stiffened as it slammed into her. Fear. Jack was afraid of something. Had something happened after she left the kitchen? Lina. Or was it one of the other girls? Apprehension surged into panic as he took another step, then stopped.

“Dani?”

She swallowed carefully. “Yes?”

“Did they—” He broke off and this time, he swallowed. Hard. “Were you—” She swore she could feel him choking on the rest. On the terror. He reached out and trailed his thumb down her cheek, the pain in his eyes deepening to agony as he reached the marks Youssef had left on her neck. She knew what he was trying to ask, what he needed to know. He closed his eyes. This time, he didn’t even attempt to voice the words. But she could hear them. His heart was screaming them.

Had she been raped?

“No.”

His lashes flew open.

She stared into the shock and the disbelief—the blinding hope—and reached up to squeeze the hand still cupping the curve of her neck. “I swear, no one touched me. Not like that.”

“How? Why?” For the second time in over a decade, Captain Cool flushed. Amazing. He cleared his throat. “I don’t understand. I know these men. You’re not as young as Rurik and Youssef prefer, but you’re not—”

“—exactly a sagging hag, either?” The sarcasm dripped out before she could stop it. Regret slapped into her as the tide spreading up his neck deepened to scarlet. She had no right to throw what had transpired in that kitchen in his face. She’d worked undercover long enough to realize Jack had had to establish up front he was as much of an asshole as the rest of Rurik’s goons. It was the only way to protect both their covers. If she was lucky, it would also protect her from Youssef’s rutting interest. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. I realize how you’ve scripted this—us—and so far, it’s working.”

Especially that kiss. Rurik had to have bought it. She had. That was the problem. Eleven months and one hell of a betrayal later, and Jack still had the power to affect her. Fortunately, there’d been enough adrenaline flowing through both their veins at the time for her to blame a hundred kisses on.

“Dani, I—”

She stiffened as he reached for her, deliberately ignoring the hurt washing into those dark pools as she quickly stepped out of his reach. She covered her body’s infuriating need to crawl right back into those rock-solid arms with a shrug. “Really, I’m fine. Other than the fact that my cheek still hurts and my neck—” Just like that, the desperation ripped in. The sudden, overwhelmingly primal need for air. She closed her eyes instinctively, dragging her breath in slow and deep as she struggled to convince herself that she still could. Through the entire agonizing draw, she could still feel Youssef’s thumbs clamping down on her windpipe, still see the bastard’s satanic grin as he squeezed off what he’d hoped was her final breath. It was the last thing she remembered before blacking out.

She opened her eyes as Jack growled.

“I swear, I’ll kill that son-of-a-bitch if he so much as touches you again.” The fury throbbing within his voice was dangerous. Almost as dangerous as that kiss had been. It seduced her. Promised an unconditional love and support that would never be there. Not for her. Not from him. She’d discovered that the hard way. But at least the memory of the shame had succeeded in erasing the terror of this morning.

“Yeah, well. Take a number.” She took another step, increasing the distance between them along with her resolve as she forced a smile. Pleased with the result, she even managed a shrug. “At least you bought me before the jerk made good on his promise to complete the job. Daddy should be thrilled. Hell, he might even put you up for another medal.”

She wasn’t sure what she’d expected. Denial? Anger? After all, she’d never confronted Jack or her father about what she’d overheard. Frankly, she’d been too ashamed. But what she hadn’t expected was this pregnant silence. Even through the final, lingering notes of a Kalesijski Svuci ballad, she could hear it. Oh, God. Had something happened to her dad? “Jack…what’s wrong?”

“Your father. He doesn’t know you’re missing. As far as I know, no one at SOCOM does.”

She sucked in her breath as the panic crashed in. It didn’t make sense. Her father wasn’t some dime-a-dozen Pentagon general. He was the Special Operations Command’s commanding general. If her father didn’t know she was missing, who the hell did? How had Jack even known where to look for her? She reversed her progress, closing the distance to ensure their conversation stayed beneath the grating folk song that kicked in next. “I don’t understand. I thought that’s why you were here—to track me down when my transmitter didn’t go live.”

“Nope. But I did send a text message to my own contact though my cell phone when Rurik headed downstairs to settle a scuffle between his men, just in case. Hamid’s a Bosnian foreign service national investigator. He’s a good man. I dealt with him in Mostar after the war. Hamid’s probably already passed the update to your commander. You still with Executive Support?”

Bemused, she grabbed the set of dog tags off his duffel as she nodded. They matched the fictitious Sgt. Jackson.

“Good. That’ll make it easier to consolidate our backup.”

“Fine by me.” The cell phone Jack carried was bound to be encrypted. It wouldn’t even arouse suspicion. A shady artillery sergeant with a secure phone in his possession and a 9 mm Beretta strapped to his hip was one thing; an International Red Cross worker with either was another. But if Jack hadn’t been sent in after her, what was he even doing back in Bosnia?

As he had more than a few times during the husband-and-wife murder-for-hire case they’d worked together in the States eleven months earlier, Jack read her mind. “Weapons.”

Damn. “Rurik’s buying?”

He nodded. “Word on the street is the man’s attempting to coordinate an all-out attack on the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo. Unfortunately, he hasn’t ordered anything yet. When he does, I’ll have a better idea of what he’s already got. Together with his wish list, we should gain some insight into his plans.”

Dani sucked in her breath. This was big. Very big. And very dangerous. No wonder her father had sent Jack. It didn’t matter if the man was disarming a bomb with five seconds left on the clock or stalking his way through the sleazy underbelly of the terrorist world that thrived on constructing them, Jack Gage was always cool. Always in control. She might have spilled half that bucket of water when she’d spotted him in the kitchen, but what she’d lost in liquid, she’d gained in hope. With Jack on the job, she was all but on her way back to Ft. Bragg.

The bucket. The water well. She fused her stare to Jack’s. “The barn.” Like Rurik’s plans, it was huge. Large enough to hold a tank if need be—or worse. And it was under armed guard.

He nodded. “I know. I saw the patrol on the way into the house. Did you get a look inside?”

“No. But I might be able to the next time I’m sent for water. Maybe in the morning.” Zorah had already informed her that as Sgt. Jackson’s personal slave, Dani was expected to serve his every desire from tonight on. That meant she didn’t dare leave the room until sunrise at least. Not with every man waiting to see how long Jack would keep her abed. Among this rutting crowd, if she left the room early, it would be a direct reflection on Jack’s manhood. From the way Jack had shifted his stare from the claustrophobic twin bed to the blaring radio, she knew he was thinking the same thing. He was also remembering.

Another bed, another night. Two exceptionally eager lovers. They hadn’t parted until dawn then, either. Both of them exhausted from lack of sleep and four hours of near-constant exertion. The alarm had startled them out of the latest leg of their erotic marathon, forcing them to bring the night to a mind- and body-shattering end. A quick, mutual shower ensued, followed by what had to be a record donning of camouflage BDUs for both, then a soul-searing kiss at her car door—seconds before he’d promised a replacement for the makeshift meal they’d forgone as well as the now that we admit we’re attracted to one another, where do we go from here? conversation that should have followed.

If it had, they might have been able to save themselves the awkward tension pulsing between them now.

He cleared his throat. The terse, familiar sound snapped her back to the utter humiliation that had come after that steamy night. She turned, pacing the length of the tiny room even though she knew she’d be forced to turn around when she reached the door and head back to the bed. Back to Jack. She filled her lungs with air blessedly devoid of his unique musk and slowly retraced her steps until she reached the side of the bed. Despite their painful past, they had the present to deal with.

Rurik. For Jack’s undercover mission, as well as hers.

“I’m working the M.A.S.H. case. Two female sergeants from the 42nd Field Hospital disappeared a week ago. They’d been assigned to NATO for almost eight months. For the last six, the sergeants had taken to volunteering at a women’s health clinic in Sarajevo. The last time anyone saw them, it was dusk. They were en route to their barracks from the clinic on foot.”

His brow shot up. “At night? Not smart.”

She shrugged.

“What about you?”

“Apparently not so smart either.”

He grabbed her hand. “You went out alone at night in Sarajevo?” He would think the worst, wouldn’t he?

She jerked her fingers from his and stepped away, anxious to reclaim the distance she’d yielded. “I said not so smart—I didn’t say stupid.” Then again, maybe he and her father were right. She shoved Lina’s sobbing from her head and skirted Jack’s imposing torso, wrapping the metal chain to his dog tags around her left hand as she sank on to the mattress. “My cover’s with the International Red Cross. I stopped by the clinic yesterday on my day off and told the staff I wanted to help. Everyone seemed so sincerely committed to helping the women regain their dignity that by evening, I was reconsidering my initial suspicion that someone on staff was involved in the sergeants’ disappearance. Until it was time to go.”

The mattress sagged as Jack added his weight. “What happened?”

“Everyone pitched in, cleaning the exam rooms for the next day. By the time I finished, I was exhausted. I walked out with two locals without my purse.” Okay, so she was stupid. She’d also been subsisting on a thirty-six-hour jet lag followed by twelve hours of manual labor. Still, she should have known better. The screw-up had cost her. But not as much as she’d cost someone else. “A couple blocks away, one of the nurses noticed. They waited while I headed back. But when I rounded the last corner, Youssef slammed his fist into my jaw. Before I could recover, he’d stabbed a needle into my arm. That’s the last I remember.” Until she’d woken to Lina’s sobbing.

Jack shook his head. “I don’t understand. If Youssef struck you, how do you know someone on staff’s involved? Anyone could have injected you with that needle.”

“I recognized one of the girls from the clinic. She was treated a good six hours before I was kidnapped, yet we both ended up here.” Dani sighed. When she’d woken on the floor that morning she’d noticed her watch missing, so she’d decided to make a move for the emergency transmitter hidden in her shoe—until Lina’s struggle with Youssef changed her mind. In her lingering, drug-induced fog, she decided to take Youssef on instead. She’d never get those moments back now. She’d never know whether tripping the signal as she was supposed to would have made a difference. Would backup have arrived in time?

Dammit, don’t. She’d been so out of it, she’d been little more than a punching bag herself. There was no way of knowing if she’d even have been able to trip the transmitter.

But she hadn’t even tried, had she?

“Dani?”

She stiffened. Not from Jack’s touch on her arm, from the note in his voice. Like his fury toward Rurik on her behalf, his concern for her was far too seductive. She didn’t doubt it was real. It just hadn’t been enough. It still wasn’t.

“I’m fine.” She shifted from his touch, dragging in her breath as she tried to ignore the hurt in his dark eyes. All she succeeded in doing was filling her lungs with his scent. Lord, did she have it bad! Less than an hour in Jack’s company and here she was, wanting him again. She couldn’t help it. For the first time in almost a year, Jack was in the same room as her, close enough to touch—even if he was staring at her as if he was afraid she was about to break. There were so many questions she wanted to ask, so many things she needed to know. Unfortunately, not a single question crowding her heart concerned their respective missions. They had to do with him. With them.

Had he missed her? Had he wondered where she’d spent this past Christmas—and, more importantly, the day after? Or had Jack already found someone else to celebrate his birthday with by then? Had he been too busy torching those dark-blue sheets of his with her replacement to even care that she’d kept her vow?

The lack of oxygen from Youssef’s attempted strangulation must have affected her brain. Either that or her guilt over Lina’s death had affected her heart. Because she finally raised her head and stared directly into that dark, simmering gaze. Before she realized her intent, she opened her mouth and asked the one question she’d sworn she wouldn’t ask.

“How’s my dad?”

Chapter 3

S he didn’t know.

Jack stiffened as the realization socked in. He searched Dani’s gaze, praying he’d misheard. But when those soft blue eyes darkened to damp, pleading smoke, he knew he hadn’t. Dani had no idea that after she’d walked out on him eleven months ago, he’d finally scraped up the nerve to swallow that goddamned choking case of gratitude and do what he should have done years before. He’d walked out on her father.

It might have taken all his hopes and his dreams crashing down for him to realize she’d been right that last night they’d seen each other, but eventually, he’d accepted the truth. He had been standing between Dani and her father—for ten long years. Whether he’d wanted to be there or not. And now, incredibly, almost another full year later, half a blessed globe away, he was still standing between General Stanton and his daughter. The irony of it would have bitten him in the ass.

If it wasn’t already ripping through his chest.

“Jack?”

He swung his gaze to hers, the ache deepening as he watched the fear seep into her eyes. He’d do anything to erase it, he knew that now. Even lie. “Your dad’s fine.” He waited until the fear began to ebb, then changed the subject before she could question him further and he was forced to compound his lie. Now was not the time to come clean about her dad. And this sure as hell wasn’t the place. “How was it supposed to go down?”

She blinked at the sudden shift.

“Your kidnapping case? I’m assuming you had a plan. One my presence in that kitchen interfered with?”

Her gaze cleared. “Yes. My watch contained my tracking device. Unfortunately, it was missing when I woke this morning. I have no idea who took it, or when.”

“Maybe one of the other girls—”

“No.”

For a split second, her vehemence startled him—until he recalled the mottled bruises on the other girls’ faces. She was right. Those girls had had more to worry about lately than petty theft. He was about to confirm her assessment when he noticed the sudden glistening in Dani’s gaze. Her stark, distant gaze.

Just like that, the fear surged back into his gut. The cold, nauseating terror. Youssef. She’d sworn the bastard hadn’t raped her, but what about Rurik and the rest of his thugs? While Dani was older than Rurik’s perverted tastes, rape wasn’t about desire. It was about a twisted need for power. A need Rurik had nursed since the siege of Sarajevo years before. Jack sucked in his breath, his own blistering rage. God as his witness, if he could turn back time, he would—and this time, he’d make damned sure that bullet landed deep inside Rurik Teslenko’s brain. Jack stared at the bruises mottling Dani’s face and neck and forced the words past his bile. “Dani, I know you said Youssef didn’t touch you…like that. But something happened here. Something more than a vicious beating. I can see it in your eyes.”

Hell, he could see it in the way she’d wrapped the chain to his dog tags around her hand for the umpteenth time. Only this time, her knuckles turned white. Her fingertips followed. He swallowed the searing acid as it threatened to choke him.

“Dani…what happened?” When she didn’t answer, he stepped closer. The folk music he’d switched on to provide cover for their conversation grated through him. He’d have given anything to strangle that shrieking accordion long enough for him to gauge the whisper of her slow, studied breaths. To know if she needed him to pull her into his arms and hold her as tightly and as desperately as he’d ached to hold her since the moment he’d spotted her in that kitchen. Dammit, why wouldn’t she look at him? “Honey, you can tell me anything. You have to know that.”

She finally raised her gaze…and he damned near died.

“Can I?”

Those two tortured words ushered in a complete and profound understanding for her father he’d never thought he’d hold. “Yes.”

“I screwed up.”

“How?”

For several moments, he didn’t think she was going to answer. As he watched the emotions churning through her eyes, he wasn’t sure if she could. But then she sucked in her breath and spoke. “When I woke this morning, I was on the floor. Where, I can’t be sure, my brain was still fogged from whatever they injected me with. Anyway, the first thing I did was reach for my watch, but it was gone. I had a backup transmitter in my shoe, though. I should have gone for it. I might have made it.” She sucked in her breath again. This time it came out in a rush. “Dammit, I was trained to go for the alarm first—because there might not be another chance. I should have tried.”

“Why didn’t you?” But he knew. The blonde. The one the Swede had come for. The one Youssef had raped and murdered. Rurik’s complication. The tears welling in her eyes confirmed it.

“I heard a girl. The same girl from the clinic. Her name was Lina. She was sobbing on one of the beds, half naked.” His heart burned as Dani stopped to scrub the tears from her battered cheek. She swallowed hard. “Youssef was all over her. He was…raping her.”

“You went for her instead of the transmitter.”

She nodded dully. “Yes.”

“Dani—” He caved in to the need burning through him and reached for her, only to clench his fingers into a fist as she jerked away from his touch. From him.

“Dammit, did you listen to what I said? Because of me that SOS was never sent. Because of me, a young girl was beaten more severely than she ever would have been beaten. I was too drugged up to help. Youssef was livid with me for interrupting. If I hadn’t passed out, I have no doubt he would have strangled me to death. Instead, he turned his rage on her.”

Jack forced the latest wave of his own rage from his mind and his heart and locked it deep in his gut. Stored it. Nursed it. Youssef would pay for what he’d done and soon. But not now. For now, he had Dani to deal with. Her grief and her guilt. He ignored her subconscious retreat as he lowered himself to the bed. Somehow, he kept from reaching out as she wrapped the chain about her fingers once again. Though her fingers were bloodless now, he knew that chain was the only thing holding the rest of her together. “Dani, what happened to Lina? Where is she?”

She kept her gaze fused to his tags. “I don’t know. Rurik, Zorah, Youssef, none of them will tell me what happened. But I haven’t seen her since. The other girls are too terrified to talk to me. Youssef threatened to beat them if they did. I had hopes Lina was in the dairy barn. Maybe to keep her separate as she healed. But given why you’re here, it’s looking unlikely.”

She was right. But until they had evidence to the contrary, she couldn’t be sure. Neither could he.

“I’ll talk to Rurik tomorrow. I may be able to get him to tell me what happened to her. Either way, you and Lina may have spared the other girls from Youssef’s wrath. The bastard might have threatened to beat the remaining girls if they talked to you, but I don’t think he’ll dare because I also overheard Rurik ordering Youssef and the rest of the thugs to leave the girls alone. I got the feeling Rurik’s worried about something. He may need the money to pull off the embassy attempt.” Why else had Rurik accepted three hundred dollars? Dani was worth six, seven hundred to the man at least. “Dani, did you hear me?”

She nodded numbly. Still, she wouldn’t tear her gaze from his tags. And her fingers. They’d progressed beyond white. The tips were turning gray. Unwilling to jeopardize her circulation, he reached out, gently but insistently unraveling the chain. That done, he risked reaching for her again, sliding his arms around her shoulders to pull her close. It was a mistake.

She flinched. This time, the recoil wasn’t even subtle. The message was even clearer. Don’t touch. But at least his blunder allowed her to pull herself together. She drew in her breath and waited patiently, if stiffly, for him to release her. Though it cut deeply, he did, abandoning the bed as she pulled her knees up to tuck them beneath her chin. Her stare evaded his once again, sliding out across the room. Nothing had changed between them. Why had he even hoped it could?

Habit? After all these months—hell, after all these years—it wasn’t going to change. She wasn’t going to change. She didn’t want to. It was time he accepted it. Dani would never see him as anything but the usurper of her father’s affections. God knows he’d tried to change that view eleven months ago. Well, he’d failed. Hell, she didn’t even know he wasn’t with Delta anymore. From her question about her father, she had no idea he hadn’t even seen the man but once in the past six months. But that pointed to something even more startling. She hadn’t seen the man either.

The rift between Dani and her father was finally complete.

He might never have been able to capture this woman’s heart, but he did understand it. He understood her. After the chilling discovery he’d stumbled across last month through an old war buddy of her father’s, he understood Danielle Stanton better than she understood herself. If he confessed that he wasn’t with Delta, she’d demand to know the rest. What then? She was already hanging by a thread over Lina. There was no way he could bring himself to sever it. If he did, he might lose more than the promise of her heart this time.

He could lose her life.

He shoved his hand into the cargo pocket of his fatigues as he worked to ease the tightening in his chest as well as his growing private terror. Despite the accordion still wailing out from the tiny radio, he caught her sharp intake as he retrieved the open pack of Marlboros he’d brought along for the job.

“When did you start smoking?”

He tapped the base of the pack on his palm. “I don’t. Sgt. Jackson’s trying to quit.” And as far as Rurik was concerned, Sgt. Jackson had just finished one hell of a steamy romp. Might as well use the misconception to strengthen their covers. He shoved his hand in his pocket again, withdrawing the unopened pack. He flipped the cigarettes to Dani, pointing to the sealed cellophane wrapper as she caught it. “That one contains my emergency transmitter. I’ll talk to Rurik about your clothes. Maybe we’ll get lucky and your shoes and watch will show with them. Until then, hang on to those. If we get separated and things go south, open the pack and activate it. Hamid will hear the signal and send backup. He’s loitering less than a mile away with some distant relatives of his—a band of Roma gypsies.”

She tossed the pack back. “I can’t.”

Dammit, they’d already established whose mission had priority. As abhorrent as Rurik’s slave racket was, Dani’s case held three innocent young lives in the immediate balance, if they located the missing soldiers, five. His held hundreds, perhaps thousands. That meant she followed his orders until they figured out how to get out of this mess, not the other way around. He sighed.

“Relax, will you? I’m not defying Gage the Great. I’m being realistic.” She dropped her knees, revealing the T-shirt and shorts he’d loaned her. “Where exactly should I hide the pack? Between my breasts?” She was right. With her bra missing, the thin fabric of his shirt clung to every generous curve—right down to the nipples that stiffened beneath his errant stare.

His palms betrayed him, itching in memory. Unnerved, he tapped out a cigarette from the pack in his hands and retrieved his lighter before the rest of his body decided to follow the insurrection. The moment she gasped, he realized his error.

“You kept that?”

Talk about getting caught red-handed. His fingers tightened about the silver casing before he could stop them. He loosened them as he shrugged. “Why not? It comes in handy from time to time.” He flipped open the lighter she’d presented to him upon his graduation from West Point and lit the cigarette, then tucked the lighter firmly home. “Besides, I heard it was the thought that counts.”

And they both knew what she’d been thinking when she’d bought it, didn’t they? So had her father. He could still hear the man bellowing at her through the door of his study. Dani turned as beet-red as she had the moment she’d marched out—a barely seventeen-year-old slip of a girl, but the very picture of Betrayed Woman. At least this time she wasn’t glaring eternal hatred. “I’m just…surprised you still have it.”

So was he. Other than that sultry night a decade later, it was the only gift she’d ever given him. He’d thrown the thing in the trash a hundred times since, only to fish it right back out. Jack shoved the cigarette between his lips and punished himself for each retrieval with a deep, searing drag. He knew from experience it would be enough for the stench of tobacco smoke to cling to him for hours. If only Dani had been as experienced as she’d pretended to be the first time they’d kissed…with cigarettes and with men. Who knows? He might have ended up with her on graduation day instead of the lighter.

Right. He spun around to the dresser and settled the smoldering cigarette over the lip of the ashtray Rurik had dropped off. By the time he turned back to the bed, she was lost in the distant past, too. In the night they’d met and the day after. He doubted she’d ever forget that first weekend. Eleven months ago, he had thought she’d forgiven him, though. Worse, he actually thought she’d cared about him. But she hadn’t.

Though they’d parted in a torrid rush in his driveway, he hadn’t minded. Mainly because all the way in to Ft. Bragg, he’d reveled in the fact that despite that amazing shower, he could still smell Dani’s scent on him. He’d savored the fragrance all morning, along with the memory of her touch. They’d made plans for dinner that night, but he couldn’t wait. By noon, he’d decided to stop by Dani’s temporary office across post and surprise her with lunch. Unfortunately, another Stanton had opted to head down the hall for an impromptu chat. At the time, it had seemed prudent to forgo lunch with Captain Stanton and dine with the general. In retrospect, it had turned out to be a lousy decision. By the time evening rolled around, Dani had changed her mind about more than dinner. She’d decided to pass on him.

He still couldn’t believe she’d chalked up the hottest night of his life to a case of cold chemistry.

Adrenaline. Too bad he couldn’t lay claim to the hormone. Not then. Those erotic hours they’d spent together on his bed had been anything but a byproduct of the flush of a successfully completed mission. Not for him, anyway. He’d long since accepted that this heightened awareness and fiery rush that scorched through him whenever Danielle Stanton was around didn’t have a thing to do with some chemical pulsing through his blood. Well, he was just going to have to get over it, wasn’t he?

She obviously had. For a few blinding moments at that door, he’d actually believed differently—until he’d pulled away and watched as the adrenaline had worn off—in her. Hell, even now Dani’s body language screamed the truth. The woman he’d tried so hard to purge from his mind and his memories these past months would give anything to be anywhere but here with him. He was sure of it when he retrieved the lighter and pack of cigarettes and stepped up to set them on the nightstand beside her.

As she had when he’d tried to hold her earlier, she flinched. Suddenly, he was sick of it. Of them. The past, the present. This entire mission. She wasn’t supposed to be part of his present anymore. And he sure as hell wasn’t supposed to be hanging around on the fringes of this woman’s life fantasizing about a future. He’d gotten out of the Army to get away from Dani and her overbearing father. Yet here he was, right back where it had all started a decade before, trapped.

Well, he’d had enough. “You ready to turn in?”

She jerked her gaze to his. Blinked. “Uh…sure.”

“Good.” He grabbed the strap to his duffel, hefting the bag from the bed and dumping it on the floor with more force than he’d intended. The duffel skidded to a stop beside the dresser. He ignored the startled brow that arched in his direction and headed across the room, the hollow thumps of his combat boots counting off the paces to his pending incarceration.

He slapped the light switch and darkness flooded the room. His night vision adjusted to the shadows and sliver of moonlight bleeding in from the single bare window as he returned to the bed to remove his boots and socks. He dumped them atop his duffel and withdrew his 9 mm from the holster at his hip, chambering a round before extending it butt first toward Dani who until that moment, once again appeared to be doing her damnedest to look anywhere but at him.

“Tuck this under the pillow.”

There wasn’t much left to do while she complied but loosen his holster and belt and start in on the buttons beneath. He took a deep breath as Dani stood to yank the quilt to the foot of the bed, then he tugged his trousers down as well, skivvies and all. He dumped the fatigues on top of his boots before he could change his mind and stepped up to the mattress.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

He glanced across the bed. Despite the shadows, there was enough moonlight for him to make out the shock in her face. That, he’d anticipated. But not the suspicion. And, dammit, it burned. Especially when she’d made it crystal clear through every one of those emasculating cringes that she meant what she said when they’d parted a year ago. She felt nothing for him. He snagged the sheet from her hand and snapped it to the foot of the bed. “What’s it look like? I’m getting into bed. So are you.”

“Not like that you’re not.”

“Dani—”

“Don’t ‘Dani’ me, buster. You’re naked.”

“Nice of you to notice.” The words snapped out before he could stop them. They caused her suspicion to sharpen.

Her frown followed. “It’s kind of hard to miss.”

“Really?” He turned away to grab the ashtray from the dresser. Ashes from the still-smoldering cigarette puffed up as he slapped the tin on the nightstand. “And here I thought you needed a hit of adrenaline to notice what I was wearing…or wasn’t.” For the first time that night he wasn’t offended when she stiffened; he was pleased. Unfortunately Dani had crossed her arms in her pique. Moonlight glinted off the fabric of his shirt as it strained to contain her pair of extremely generous breasts. A split second later, something else stiffened.

Great. He needed an erection right now like he needed a second terrorist sleeper cell answering to Rurik’s own band of thugs. Jack forced himself to ignore his body’s reaction, praying Dani would have the tact to follow suit. Then again, this was General Ramrod-and-Ruthless Stanton’s daughter.

“If you think I’m crawling in bed with you like that—”

“Don’t flatter yourself, sweetheart. It’s a reflex reaction, nothing more.” That was no lie. “Any woman could have caused it.” But that was. It was also a low blow. One Dani didn’t deserve. Not given the day she’d had. She was perilously close to breaking. He could see it in her eyes. In the tears that were held just barely at bay. He sighed. “I’m sorry. That was out of line. Look I’m not crazy about bunking down with you either, let alone in the buff. We don’t have a choice. That door may be locked, but all it takes is a skeleton key. I wouldn’t put it past Rurik or Youssef not to waltz in here during the night to check up on us. Would you?”

Silence. But he knew he’d made his point and made it well, because the tension began to ebb from her body. She finally dropped her arms. “You’re right, I wouldn’t put it past either of them. Given the conversation around here today, both of those bastards think rape is a spectator sport. Rurik probably only left when he did because he needs you.” She sighed. “I was out of line, too. I suppose I should be grateful. The Army could have sent in a stranger. At least we’ve slept together before.”

The moment that last statement left her mouth, she regretted it. He could tell from the way she flushed—dark enough for the tide to show despite the shadows. He knew what she was thinking, because he was thinking it too. They might have shared a bed for four hours but, technically, they hadn’t actually slept. They’d been too busy doing something else. Lots of something else. In lots of ways. And every blessed one of them had been incredibly good.

He purged the flood of memories before his body could react to those as well, then clipped the lighter and pack of Marlboros from the nightstand. He crushed the first cigarette into the ashtray and took his time lighting the next, praying she’d use the delay wisely. It would have worked—if the raucous notes of the latest folk song hadn’t died out then, leaving just enough dead air for him to make out the swish of fabric followed by two soft plops as his shirt and shorts hit the floor. He cursed the sultry ballad that filled the room as the bed dipped.

Dammit, get it over with.

He dumped the smoldering cigarette into the ashtray and braced himself. By the time he turned, Dani was hugging the opposite edge of that painfully narrow bed, her back to him, quilt pulled firmly to her neck. He snagged the corners of the covers and crawled in, cursing every inch of his oversized, hulking body as he struggled to maintain the microscopic buffer of air between them. Air that was growing hotter by the second. He closed his eyes and forced himself to relax. Everywhere.

Eventually, he felt her relief ease out as his body managed to behave. An eternity later, he felt her yawn as exhaustion scored its first and probably only victory of the night. In this room, anyway. From the moment he’d accepted Rurik’s invitation, he’d known he’d be facing a long, sleepless night. But when Dani finally succumbed to sleep—and her warm, silky length gradually eased closer until it was searing completely into his—he also knew it had just gotten a hell of a lot longer.

Chapter 4

The bedcovers were missing.

Even with the sleep-induced mist fogging her brain, Dani was sure. She could feel a cool breeze drifting across her body. Jack must have opened the window when he’d gotten up to turn off the radio. Except for their breathing, the room was quiet. The mist cleared from her brain, only to leave a more disturbing discovery behind. She’d rolled during the night. Even though she’d yet to open her eyes, she was certain. She could feel one of Jack’s hands cradling her breasts. That wouldn’t have been so humiliating…if her fingers weren’t knitted together and tucked snuggly between the man’s thighs. His muscular, upper thighs. In fact, her hands were all but fused to Jack’s—

Maybe he was still asleep. It was possible. They were here, weren’t they? Trapped together on a case she’d never have volunteered for if she’d known the man lying two inches away, completely nude, would be on the same continent as her. She held fast to the belief that fate owed her one and opened her eyes. Unfortunately, fate had decided to leer back. Again.

Not only had Jack’s lashes parted, revealing dark, knowing pools, but the rest of his body was rapidly waking to the predawn light. Within seconds, the flesh brushing her fingers grew hot and hard. Very hard. Her nipples stiffened in response, pressing directly into his palm. And that made Jack’s flesh harden even more. His gaze merged with hers as the air between them smoldered. Ignited. Memories seared in. Another room, another bed. Hopes, dreams. The heady promise of what could have been. Someone’s breath caught, then rushed out.

Whose, she couldn’t be sure.

In the end it didn’t matter, because the half rasp, half groan that followed jolted both of them from the trance. The length of Jack’s erection singed her fingers as she jerked her hands from his thighs. A split second later, he pulled his hand from her breast, turned and jackknifed off the bed, snagging his fatigue trousers as he shifted away to don them. She grabbed the reprieve, swinging her legs off the bed and reaching down to snatch his T-shirt and shorts from the floor. By the time Jack had finished buttoning his trousers and turned to retrieve the pack of cigarettes from the nightstand, she’d donned both.

He tapped out a cigarette and exchanged the pack for the lighter she’d never have imagined he’d actually have the nerve to use. But he had. Based on the number of scratches marring the silver casing, more than once. Either that or he’d taken to carrying the lighter with him years before. Both options unnerved her more than she cared to admit. So much so, she took perverse satisfaction in the distaste he didn’t bother hiding as he purged the initial drag from his lungs. She hoped he choked on the filthy smoke. God knows she had.

Jack braced his right hand above the open window as he turned away, no doubt to keep that stifling smoke swirling inside the room instead of out. Despite the broad back obscuring her view, she knew he wasn’t studying the shadowy hills or even the darkened dairy barn off to the right. He was studying the lighter. The engraving. Thanks for the lesson.

Like her father, he probably still assumed those words and that lighter were meant to get back at him for the stunt he’d pulled the day after they’d met years ago. They were. But they’d also meant more. To her, anyway. Of course she’d had to mature a bit before she’d understood her own unconscious dig.

When she’d first met Jack Gage, she’d been a kid. Sixteen years old, newly expelled from Miss Porter’s Prison for Proper Ladies and downright desperate for her father’s attention—good or bad. Getting caught with a pack of Lynette Cove’s cigarettes and condoms on the eve of one of West Point’s stuffy spring banquets—specifically, one her father had to attend—had finally earned her the latter. It had also earned her Jack, West Point formal, dress gray uniform and all. Though Cadet Gage had tried to hide it at the time, Jack had been as dismayed as she when his mentor had asked him to play junior jailer for the night. To their surprise, they’d actually hit it off. Or so she’d thought.

Her polite, but too-proper escort had loosened considerably after he’d discovered that she, too, studied jujitsu. By the time Jack had taken her into his arms on that dance floor, her first serious crush was already budding. The next day, it was in full bloom. A late-afternoon movie with a handsome, though still very serious twenty-one-year-old Jack would have turned any girl’s head—much less the intimate dinner for two at a quiet, out-of-the-way sidewalk café in nearby Highland Falls. So when Jack had excused himself and slipped inside the café for a moment, she hadn’t suspected a thing. Not even when he’d pulled out a pack of Marlboros over coffee. She’d been so full of herself, not to mention too terrified to let him know she wasn’t the fallen—or rather, mature—girl her father had accused her of, she’d accepted the cigarette Jack had casually lit for her and inhaled.

She’d nearly lost her dinner on his boots. Even after she was breathing again, she hadn’t suspected a thing. Jack was that good, that concerned, that contrite. And she’d been that dumb. It wasn’t until he brought her home and she’d snuck downstairs to listen in at her father’s study that she’d discovered the truth. The betrayal. The debrief. Jack wasn’t interested in her. He’d simply been tasked with a mission. Colonel Stanton wanted to know if his daughter smoked, so Cadet Gage had set out to uncover the truth. Mission accomplished. In return, Cadet Gage had earned the gratitude of one of Delta’s most respected senior officers. She, however, had received nothing but yet another wave of her father’s cold, distant fury…and a broken heart.

Dani waited as Jack tapped the line of ashes from the dwindling cigarette out the window. With no one around but her, he didn’t bother with a second drag. Nor did he face her. He simply braced his hand above the frame once again, though this time he actually stared out the window. Silently. Tired of waiting, and definitely tired of avoiding that muscular back and the memories it stoked, Dani turned to the bed. Big mistake.

She’d rather face the man’s sleek back than their rumpled sheets. Though white instead of blue, the covers spilling over the foot reminded her of another bed. Another silent, predawn morning. Of her burning need. Not so much for sex. That had been well-sated by then. No, by then she’d been consumed by a searing need to ask Jack if those steamy hours they’d just spent together had been about more than blistering sex. Did he care about her? For her? Did they have a future outside the bedroom?

Before she could scrape up her nerve, the alarm had gone off. Jack had suggested they meet after work for the conversation they’d skipped hours before, along with a fresh pizza to replace the cold one still sitting in his oven. She’d agreed, hoping she’d get the answer to her question. She’d gotten it, too, sooner than she’d expected. It just wasn’t the one she’d been praying for. But it was one she should have expected.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Well, she wasn’t going for thrice. Dani stepped up to the dresser and switched on the radio. The bawdy sevdalinka that filled the room was easier on her nerves than Jack’s slow, studied breathing. In deference to the thin walls and open window, she nudged the volume down and turned to shake out the quilt before smoothing it over the mattress. She retrieved Jack’s Beretta next and fluffed the pillow. The bed made, there was nothing left to do but clear the round Jack had chambered the night before. He finally deigned to turn around as she thumbed the 9 mm’s safety and released the magazine onto the bed.

“I want you to carry the extra pack of cigarettes.”

She jerked back on the slide, tracking the ejected round’s trajectory from the top of the barrel down to the quilt. “We’ve been through this. Unless my fashion ensemble changes, that pack will stick out like a transvestite in a wet T-shirt contest.”

“I don’t care.”

“Well, I do. Frankly, I’ve got enough—”

“Dammit, woman, look at me.”

She slapped the slide home. “Why? Because you’ve decided it’s time for eye contact, oh Great Delta Master?” His answering growl skirted beneath the fractious folk song. Barely.

She didn’t care. Nor did she comply. The three hundred bucks the man had shelled out had obviously gone to his head. Either that or he was still pissed because she’d managed to cut through his lies and beat him to the punch—chalking up the night they’d shared to pure emotionless sex before he could. Adrenaline hadn’t driven her into bed with him a year ago. It had driven him. Whether he’d admitted it or not. Jack might have been twenty-one the first time she’d overheard his Benedict Arnold routine, but he’d been thirty-one the second. She might’ve been able to chalk up the first betrayal to youthful indiscretion, but not the second. There was no way he could have cared about her and then blithely said what he had to her father.

She plucked the bullet from the quilt, ignoring his sigh as she snapped the round into the top of the magazine.

“Dani…will you please look at me?”

She slammed the magazine home as she finally complied. “Why? So you can order me to do something that could very well get me killed? Rurik may like them young, but Youssef doesn’t much care. He may not have raped me yesterday, but neither did he keep his hands to himself. Those filthy paws were all over me and I don’t just mean my neck. His friends aren’t any better. Do you understand what I’m saying or must I spell it out for you?”

From the way Jack’s jaw locked as his gaze shifted past her shoulder, he’d caught the image vividly enough. Or maybe not. She had the distinct impression there was more to that frozen stare than the sight of Youssef’s hands on her body, copping a feel. He continued to stare at the wall as his fingers closed over the smoldering cigarette. They didn’t stop until he’d crushed it, glowing ember and all. He didn’t even flinch.

“Jack?”

He wrenched his gaze back to hers. “No. You don’t have to spell it out.”

“Good. Then maybe you can see why—”

“You need to carry the transmitter.” He pitched the pulverized cigarette to the floor and closed the distance, his gaze burning more fiercely than the flame on that stupid lighter as he locked his fingers to her shoulders. “You have to listen to me. Rurik and I are supposed to finalize our deal today. I may have to leave the farm with him. Not only will I probably not know when, I may not even know where I’m going, much less how long I’ll be gone. In other words, I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to watch your back. If you don’t carry that transmitter, Hamid won’t be able to watch it either, however distantly.”

“And what happens when Youssef corners me by the well and shoves his hands up my shirt and finds cigarettes tucked in my shorts? You think he’s going to wait until Sgt. Jackson returns before he opens the pack and steals a ‘sample’ from there, too?”

Jack closed his eyes.

Dammit, he had to stop doing that. Jack didn’t care for her any more than he cared for Lina and the rest of those girls. She was just another component to his increasingly complicated mission. She wished he’d stop making her feel like she was more. He jerked his hand from her shoulder and shoved it into his pocket. The unopened pack of Marlboros surfaced with it. He grabbed the Beretta and shoved the barrel into the waist of his fatigues, then pushed the cigarettes into her palm.

“You can’t order me to carry this and you know it.”

He plowed his fingers into her tangled hair, forcing her head and her gaze up until she was drowning in those dark, unnerving pools. “I’m not ordering you. I’m begging.”

Good God, he was. Why? Stranger still, whatever had been in his mind’s eye when she’d shoved Youssef’s behavior in his face was back. For the second time, she had the feeling he was holding out on her. But as she opened her mouth to question him, someone pounded on their door, then bellowed through the wood.

Rurik.

The doorknob twisted through a wider range of motion than it should have as Rurik pounded on the door again. The bastard was using his key! She jerked her gaze to Jack’s, shoving the pack of cigarettes into his hands as his swift nod confirmed her suspicion. The door swung open with the next series of thumps.

The man feigned surprise. “Excuse me. The lock must be broken.” Nope, no Academy Award nominations there. Rurik Teslenko’s acting was as rotten as his teeth.

She didn’t bother disguising the glare she shot Rurik. In deference to their covers, she turned a meeker glance on Jack. “I’ll help Zorah with the water as you ordered.” She headed for the door before Jack could pretend to change his mind.

“Dani?”

Damn. She stopped, turned slowly back. Waited. Relief washed through her as Jack nodded his permission—until he tossed the pack of cigarettes toward her.

“You forgot these.”

She caught the pack instinctively—and promptly tossed it back. “Thank you, Sergeant. But I’m trying to quit, too.” She crossed the room, careful to give Rurik the respectful berth he believed his due from the inferior sex. She needn’t have bothered. Rurik had latched on to the fact that Jack knew her name.

His decaying grin settled on Jack with grudging admiration. “You do persuade better than Youssef, my friend. You will have to tell us exactly how you accomplish this.”

Dani ignored Jack’s dry response as she snagged the bath towel Zorah had loaned her off the back of the chair and stepped out into the darkened hallway. Jack might not be a criminal, but he could be an arrogant bastard all the same. No wonder Delta had assigned him this mission. The man fit in far too easily. She hurried to the kitchen. If she was lucky, she could forge an inroad with Zorah, convince the woman that despite the rare trust Rurik had placed in her, she didn’t fit in. Dani reached the dimly lit kitchen less than a minute later.

Unfortunately, Zorah wasn’t there. The back door was slightly ajar, too. Odd. The day before the door had been locked whenever the kitchen was empty—from the outside. She’d checked. Not that she’d had any plans to escape, even before Jack’s arrival. But Zorah didn’t know that. Nor did it seem in the woman’s nature to be so careless. Especially with the radio droning faintly from the guest room above. Dani folded the bath towel and crossed the freshly swept tiles to lay it on the kitchen island, even more intrigued when she spotted the empty pails beside the stove. Zorah couldn’t have gone for water, not with all four pails accounted for. Rurik would be bellowing for his breakfast soon. So why wasn’t the woman busy making it?

Dani grabbed the opportunity to find out. She hooked a pail over her arm and retrieved the spare kerosene lantern from the shelf above, lighting the lamp with a match as she stepped out onto the path to head for the water pump behind the barn. Ten steps across the cold gravel, she realized how great her opportunity was. The sun might be below the horizon, but there was enough of a glow bleeding up that she should have noticed someone guarding the dairy barn. So far, no one.

Ten more steps confirmed her excitement. The armed thug she’d noted the day before was definitely missing. And there was still no sign of Zorah. Another thirty paces and she was at the man’s post—and definitely alone. She glanced at the house. Though the windows on the western side were open to take advantage of the breeze, none of the rooms were lit. Jack had even turned out the light in theirs. Nor was she able to detect any motion within. She spun around to the front of the barn. To those massive sliding doors and the iron links looped about the handles. To that gleaming padlock. Do it.

She dropped the pail onto the grass and stared at the lamp for all of two seconds before extinguishing the flame. While she could have used the flame to peer inside, it also served as a beacon. She set the lamp down beside the pail and tiptoed over the remaining gravel, wincing with every crunch that echoed across the grass. The double doors had been hung from a single rail running across the top. She tried the padlock just in case. As expected, it refused to budge. She tried the left door next. That did budge, but by less than three inches. There wasn’t enough give in the chain for more. She jerked the chain in her frustration—and the door moved. At the bottom.

The track at the top had allowed the twin slabs to move away from the barn by a good eight inches at the base. More than enough room for her face. She shot over to the far left only to freeze as she noted the haphazard line of nail heads embedded down the door’s frame. Unlike the rusted heads on the wooden doors themselves, these nails were new. She tucked the discovery in her brain, slipping her fingers beneath the bottom edge of the slab as she dropped to her knees. She ignored the splinters stabbing into her fingers as she wrenched the door away from the frame and wedged her face into the opening. Damn. Nothing but dank shadows. She should have risked the lamp.

Five more seconds of squinting and she blew out her breath and sucked up her disappointment—and stiffened.

She purged her lungs and closed her eyes, focusing all her senses on her next breath. Her next sniff. Her stomach lurched as the unmistakable, acrid mix of diesel and gunpowder seared into her lungs along with the stench of old manure and moldy straw. She jerked her eyes open and stared in vain. She couldn’t see a blessed thing. But she did hear something. Crying? She closed her eyes again, this time tuning in to sound instead of scent. There…just beneath the buzzing of nocturnal insects. Someone was definitely crying. Or rather, trying not to. Lina?

No, that didn’t make sense. The muffled sniffs and hiccups weren’t coming from inside the barn, but outside. Near the back, near the well. Lina had been beaten much too severely to take on the task of hauling water a day later. It had to be one of the other girls. One of Rurik’s thugs must have decided to ignore the moratorium on rape. Her gut told her she’d located the missing guard as well. Dani shoved the barn door against its frame and stood to scoop up the lamp and pail. Jack might not be able to risk interfering, but she sure as hell could. And this time, she wasn’t drugged. She stalked around the side of the barn, picking up steam as she rounded the final corner only to jerk to a stunned stop two feet from the heated couple.

The bearded guard froze along with the woman in his arms.

“Zorah?”

The woman’s inky hair might be tumbling down her back in disarray, her blouse and the scarf around her shoulders twisted and disheveled, but they hadn’t gotten that way against her will. Dani blinked as the guard jerked his arms from Zorah’s shoulders as if he’d just realized he’d been cradling the woman to his chest like a lover he adored and not some mere vessel for sexual release. By the time the guard sucked in his breath, almost all the blood in his face had drained down past his beard, leaving his normally swarthy complexion pale and waxy as the silence strung out. The thug was truly terrified—of her. A mere woman.

It would be laughable if she didn’t know what this jerk did for a living, or at least, what he turned a blind eye to. The guard tensed as Dani opened her mouth. She didn’t blame him. If she screamed and Rurik deigned to investigate, which would be worse? Getting caught raping the man’s off-limits cook…or making love to a woman as if she was an equal?

Dani closed her mouth and waited instead. His shirt still hanging half out of his trousers, the guard finally took a step forward, his gaze wary and fixed to hers. And then it wasn’t. Even before that dark stare jerked past her shoulder and turned frantic, she heard it too. Or rather, him. Youssef. The bastard was bellowing for Zorah, demanding his breakfast like the royal advisor he thought he was. And he was dangerously close.

Dani weighed their collective options against her case as well as Jack’s and made a split-second decision. She shoved the empty pail into Zorah’s hands. “Get dressed. Fix your hair. Then fill this.” She turned to the guard. “Get back to your post—and shove your damned shirt back in your pants. I’ll stall him.” She whirled about before either of them could argue and struck out around the side of the barn, the cold lantern all that stood between her and the smack that would undoubtedly follow.

If they were lucky.

Two steps later, she slammed into Youssef’s iron chest, deliberately swinging the lantern up into the side of the barn with enough force to shatter the glass. Kerosene splashed into his eyes. A second later, the thug’s eyes slammed shut as his fist slammed into her. White-hot pain exploded in her jaw. It ripped into her scalp next as Youssef grabbed a fistful of her hair and used it to pull her close. Her ears still ringing and vision still fuzzed from his punch, she couldn’t make out his features clearly, but she could damned sure smell his putrid breath as he vented his twisted opinion of her and every other woman born since Mohammed. She could have handled that. Hell, she was handling it. Until the moment he mentioned Lina’s name—and promised her the same sadistic fate.

That was when she lost it.

She jerked her right knee up in the classic move her self-defense instructor had taught her when she was eight years old, slamming it squarely into the bastard’s groin. Satisfaction seared through her as Youssef doubled over and bellowed like a bull who’d just been gelded. Unfortunately, he’d hauled the bulk of her hair with him as he hit his own knees. He shifted his grip as he staggered to his feet and used her hair to slam her head into the side of the barn. By the second whack, her eyes were watering. By the third, she’d decided that Jack was right after all.

She should have taken the damned cigarettes.

Chapter 5

The second Jack saw Dani’s head hit the side of the barn, he knew—Youssef Ben Adnan was going to die. Now. He didn’t even bother drawing his 9 mm from his holster as he raced out of the compound’s kitchen leaving Rurik Teslenko eating gravel. Hell, he didn’t even bother retrieving his switchblade or the knives concealed within his jump boots as he tore down the thirty-yard path separating his hands from the bastard who’d dared to strike the one woman he’d never been able to get out of his heart. He simply reached his target and wrapped his fingers around the bastard’s throat and let his rage carry him through.

Within seconds, Youssef’s skull had followed Dani’s fate.

Rurik and his remaining goons were wise enough not to try and stop him as he yanked the dazed thug around, slamming Youssef’s shoulders against the barn as he sealed his thumbs to the man’s windpipe, mirroring the precise grip the bastard had used on Dani’s far-too-slender neck the day before. Only, Jack made sure he clamped down harder as he checked that same slender neck and its owner over. The sun had risen above the foothills beyond, affording him enough light to be sure. Despite her latest beating, Dani appeared fine. Youssef, however, did not.

Jack jerked his attention to the gasping, choking bastard as the thug’s hands clawed at the backs of his. A moment later those dark, shifty eyes began to bulge. Another moment, and Dani’s fingers dug into his biceps.

“Sergeant, please, I’m—”

“Stay out of this, woman!” Jack caught Rurik’s stern agreement. He wasn’t surprised. Nor did he attribute Rurik’s comment to a latent need to protect women. As far as every man here knew, Youssef had touched his personal property. Property he’d purchased fair and square the night before. It was his right to settle this—if he could. And he would.

However, Jack had caught the underlying warning in Dani’s voice. She was right. Now was not the time. There was more at stake here than his heart or his rage, or even Dani’s battered head and face. He did, however, wait until the very last second. Until he could feel the frantic fury in Youssef’s writhing body ratchet to absolute terror. He crushed his thumbs all the way down into the man’s windpipe for a single, piercingly satisfying moment—and then released the pressure, slamming the man’s limp, wheezing body against the side of the barn as he stepped away.

Youssef immediately twisted to his side and retched.

The show over, Rurik rounded up the members of his motley crew with a jerk of his chin and ordered them to the house. The goons marched off with Zorah, clearly unnerved, in tow. Moments later, the bearded guard Rurik had pegged as C’emal, shouldered his AK-47 and peeled off to resume his post as the group passed the front of the barn. Rurik’s gaze returned to the still-heaving man at their boots and lingered. He finally dismissed his fallen stooge with a disgusted shrug.

“Are you coming, Sergeant?”

“You go on ahead—and take this piece of crap with you. I need some fresh air before we leave.”

Rurik held his gaze, then nodded. “Agreed.”

Not that he had a choice. Not if Rurik expected him to live up to the bargain they’d struck up in that bedroom. Rurik snapped his fingers twice as he turned onto the gravel path. Like any master with a well-trained mutt, Rurik didn’t wait to see if it obeyed as he followed the others back to the house.

The mutt wiped his mouth as he stood.

“Youssef?” The bastard stopped, nursing his bloody lip with the back of his hand as he waited none-too-patiently for Jack to finish. Jack did, deliberately keeping his voice soft, “Unlike some cowards I’ve met, I’m not fond of sleeping with little girls or damaged goods. In other words, you even think about touching my woman again and I’ll do more than bash your head in. I’ll break your neck. Koji se razume?”

Oh yeah, Youssef understood. The spurt of bloodred fury rivaling the ripening sunrise beyond the barn proved it. Jack waited until Youssef stalked off before he risked facing Dani. The moment he spied her swollen bottom lip, he knew the decision had been wise. Especially as he reached out to wipe the trickle of blood from the corner of Dani’s mouth with his thumb.

“Where’s the well?” Christ, his voice was hoarse.

She pulled away, jerking her chin toward the rear of the barn. “It’s back there.”

“Let’s go.” He splayed his fingers over the small of her back before she could argue and nudged her along. One of the plastic pails from the kitchen lay upended on the dewy grass beside the hand pump. He scooped it up, dropped it beneath the iron spout and filled it. He stripped off his T-shirt and leaned down to soak up enough freezing water to soothe her cut.

His heart burned as he stood. Her soft blue eyes were so damned big, they filled her face as she stared up at him. And her body. The woman was just too slender, too blessed tiny for his peace of mind on this particular mission. Especially given what he’d discovered the month before. Dressed in his spare tee-shirt and shorts, her hair tangled and devoid of makeup save the newest bruise discoloring her bottom lip, Dani looked chillingly similar to her mother in the crime scene photos he’d gotten ahold of. So much so, his hand shook as he carefully washed the remaining blood from her lip. He hadn’t been careful enough because she winced. “Sorry.”

“It’s o-okay.”

“The hell it is.” He’d meant what he said to Youssef, he’d kill the bastard if he so much as thought about touching her again. He rinsed the end of his shirt and pressed it to her lips again. “Hold this.” He relinquished the makeshift compress and threaded his fingers into the tangles on her scalp so he could probe the skin beneath. No bleeding. By some miracle, there were no lumps either. But the skin was scarlet. It had to hurt like hell. He smoothed her hair into place. “What in God’s name possessed you to kick him in the bal—”

“I didn’t kick him. I kneed him.”

“Semantics. Why?”

Her eyes glistened as he tucked her hair behind her ears. She swung her gaze past his arm to stare out at the foothills. He took a moment to scan the opposite direction. The massive barn hid them from the house and they were far enough from the guard’s post to speak freely, if quietly. Still, he’d have expected C’emal to shift to roving patrol mode by now. This far back, Jack had a clear, straight shot up both sides of the barn. C’emal was oddly absent, affording them complete privacy.

He shifted his attention to Dani. She was still staring past his arm, her eyes still glistening with unshed tears. “Dani? Why did you kick him at all?”

“She’s dead.”

“Lina? Are you sure?”

Her nod was jerky, curt. The tears barely contained now. “Yeah. He threw it in my face after he slapped me. That’s why I lost it. I know, I shouldn’t have. But when Youssef told me she died during the night, still sobbing, he was glad.”

“He’s a sick bastard, honey.”

“Trust me, I know.”

“Then you also have to consider that he may be lying. Rurik didn’t mention anything about a girl dying during the night—and we did discuss the remaining girls, though briefly. I found out they’re being kept under lock and key in one of the stone crofts. Rurik and his sister have the only keys.”

She gaped up at him. “His sister?”

He nodded. “Zorah. Unfortunately, he mistook my question about the girls for interest. He’s trying to convince me to take one of the girls off his hands in exchange for verifying a weapons transaction in a couple hours.” He shook his head as her eyes lit up. “That’s all I know. He wants me to inspect something. I have no idea what.”

“I do.”

Hope surged. “You got a look inside the barn?”

She shook her head. “It was too dark. But I did get the distinct impression of size—and the stench of diesel and gunpowder. Plus, the entire left side of the barn has new nail heads and recent hammer indentations in the wood. As if they had to remove part of the frame and then reconstruct it because something very large wouldn’t quite fit through those doors.”

He cursed softly, viciously.

She nodded.

Somehow Rurik Teslenko had gotten his hands on a tank, or worse, a goddamned self-propelled howitzer. He’d stake his newly minted DSS shield on it. Based on the fact that Rurik’s compound was twenty miles out of Sarajevo—well within range of the U.S. embassy—the worst-case scenario was most likely. A tank would have to be driven straight down Alipaina Street to get close enough to knock on the embassy’s door. Even from there, it would take all day to pound it down. But one 8-inch shell from a howitzer would accomplish the same job in under a minute. Two, three more shells and the entire embassy would be leveled.

“Jack?”

He raked his fingers through his hair and dug them into the base of his neck. Neither helped the knot already throbbing at the base of his skull. “It’s not enough. I can’t risk mobilizing Hamid and the rest of the team yet.” They both knew if he moved on Rurik without enough hard evidence to hang a conviction on, the man would just slip away and spawn a new terrorist cell. One that this time, Diplomatic Security might not be able to locate until it was too late. If it hadn’t been spawned already.

“Dani, I have to go though with the meet.” Which also meant he was going to have to leave her behind. Unless he could get her to agree to a change in her own plans.

“No.”

“I haven’t even suggested it yet.”

“Don’t. I am not taking off across that field. I don’t care who you have on the other side. I managed to forge a connection with Zorah. I have to see it through. I owe it to the sergeants I came in after, whether or not they’re alive, and I owe it to Lina.” She held out his damp shirt. “Don’t ask me to leave.”

He balled up the shirt to cover his frustration—until the rest sank in. “What do you mean you forged a connection? You were out here ten minutes before Youssef cornered you.”

“Youssef didn’t corner me. I deliberately ran into him.” She tapped her swollen lip. “That’s why I ended up with this. I heard crying and thought it was one of the girls so I headed back here. I practically caught Zorah and that bearded guard going at it on this very spot. Before any of us had a chance to recover, I heard Youssef and decided to head him off.”

She’d risked her own neck for one of Rurik’s thugs?

A fresh wave of fury crashed into him, this one directed at her decision. A decision beyond foolish. He clamped down on to the shirt, ignoring the water that dribbled onto his boots.

“You weren’t there. It was a good call. They owe me.”

“Like Lynette owed you?”

Her eyes darkened as she glared up at him. He didn’t care. Dani might be damned good at her job, but she could be far too trusting. He’d seen it himself through the years. The first, the weekend they’d met. She’d admitted it herself in the café after she’d recovered from that cigarette and finally confessed the pack of Virginia Slims and condoms discovered under her mattress weren’t hers. She hadn’t even known her best friend had stashed them there until the headmaster had hauled her into her office. Lynette never had come forward.

“I was sixteen, Jack. Stupid. I trusted you, didn’t I?”

He frowned. This wasn’t the time or the place to continue this. Besides, he’d apologized for that.

“What, the guilt not sitting well?”

He checked the barn. She might be on the money about the guard’s sympathies because C’emal was still completely out of sight. More importantly, still out of range of their voices. Why not? In deference to her father, they’d danced around the memory of that weekend for ten years. Maybe now was the time.

She was staring at him, her smooth brows arching when he glanced down. God help him, her arms were crossed. Rurik had better produce the woman’s bra soon—before he went insane. Jack sucked in the cool morning air, hoping to purge the unwelcome, but not unexpected, rush of desire searing through him. “Like you said, you were sixteen. Someone had to get to the bottom of what happened. You wouldn’t talk to your father.”

“So what was your excuse the second time?”

Second time? “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Whatever.” She shrugged sharply and stepped past him, clearly intent on returning to the main house. Oh, no. She was not dropping a cryptic comment like that and walking off on him. He had enough to occupy his brain today. He slapped his shirt over his shoulder and snagged her arm, ignoring the warm silk that replaced the damp, clammy cloth.

“Explain.”

She stunned him by wrenching her arm from him. The low growl and whisper she ground out next were just as fierce. “Let’s get one thing clear right now, Captain. You don’t outrank me and you sure as hell don’t own me. So unless someone’s watching, keep your goddamned hands to yourself.”

Instinct forced him to do the opposite. This time, he locked both his hands to her arms.

“I’m warning you—”

“Fine, warn me. But while you’re at it, do me the courtesy of explaining. I don’t know what you’re so fired up about, but I’d like to be filled in now. Before this mission ends and you sneak right back out of my life without so much as a goodbye.”

Jesus! What was with him today? He did not need this woman knowing he’d hung around Ft. Bragg for an entire month following that blissful night before he’d found the strength to murder his empty hope and put his plans back in motion. Not when she had accepted an assignment that sent her to the opposite end of the globe the very next day—and didn’t even bother to inform him. Eventually, he’d come to accept that when Danielle Stanton said, Thanks for the sex. It was great, but it’s over and I’m outta here, she meant it. Especially when she stared at his dog tags as if she’d dearly love to use them to strangle him with.

“Are you going to release me?”

“No.” There wasn’t a blessed thing she could do about it either and she knew it. Not given the crowd up in that house.

“Jack…this isn’t fair.”

He had to laugh at that. Curtly. “Fair? Don’t talk to me about fair, lady.” He leaned low so he could grate the rest directly into her ear. Not because he was afraid C’emal would remember who he worked for any time soon, but because he still didn’t even want to admit it to himself. “You’re not the one who twisted your life into a pretzel only to find out afterwards that while you thought you had something great going, the other person had been driven by nothing more than a mix of good old-fashioned lust and surging adrenaline.”

She flinched.

He dropped his stare to her throat as he dragged his mouth away from her ear, maintaining his hold on her arms as he stared down at the pulse now thundering at the base of her neck.

“Go to hell.”

“Been there, done that, sweetheart. You ought to know, you’re wearing the T-shirt.”

“Screw—”

He anticipated that one, tightening his grip just enough to cut the rest off. “Done that, too, honey. Again, with you. At least I was honest about it the morning after.” The smoke in her gaze grew so dark and so thick, he should have choked on it.

“Honest? Oh, that’s rich. Even for you. You’re the one who slept with me to further your precious career.”

“I did what?” He stiffened as the accusation ripped through his gut like a fragmentation grenade. She glared at him as he struggled to stanch the shock. The fury.

The absolute confusion.

“Oh, kill the innocent routine. It didn’t work the first time and it won’t work now. I was there. Again. Outside your office this time. I heard it all.” She flicked her gaze at the barn. “I hope you’re keeping a better lookout this time because frankly, for a Delta operative, your stealth skills suck. Or maybe I’m just better at my job than you and my father think.”

She had been there.

And the shrapnel was still pinging around inside him.

He released her arms, slowly, deliberately, knowing she wouldn’t stalk off. Not now. Not even when he turned away to stare out over the gradually warming hills to try and absorb the blow. The shock. The goddamned irony of it. Dani was wrong. She hadn’t heard it all that day. She couldn’t have. If she had, they might still be standing here, but it wouldn’t be like this.

Eleven months. He’d wasted eleven long months. Hell, he’d changed his career. Yeah, he’d have switched it anyway. But she might have been at his side while he’d done it but for that overbearing, meddling man. He might finally understand why the general had treated his daughter the way he had her entire life, but he couldn’t forgive it. It had caused too much damage. To Dani and to them. Jack reached for the pack of Marlboros inside his cargo pocket, tapping out a cigarette before he remembered he didn’t even smoke. He shoved the pack home and hooked his T-shirt around the back of his neck, gripping the damp ends hard to disguise the trembling in his fingers as he turned.

“You misunderstood what you heard.”

The fire cooled in her gaze. Shadows replaced it. Pain. Resignation. And a host of uglier emotions he’d give every last one of his concealed weapons to ease. But the most insidious was doubt. He watched it invade that soft gaze before she turned away from him to stare at the barn beyond. To hide. He knew then that not only had Dani heard her father tell him she never belonged in the Army and never would, but that she’d also heard the deliberate, resounding silence that followed—his.

At the time, he hadn’t argued with the man. Too much had been at risk. So he’d said nothing. Talk about a minefield of a conversation. He’d just finished confessing his professional and personal intentions to the one man who had the power to destroy both. With the Army short of special operators, as his commanding general, all Ramrod-and-Ruthless would have had to do was not support his request to resign from Delta and then blackball his invitation to join Diplomatic Security. The man had enough buddies in the Army and the State Department to pull it off. Then where would he and Dani be? She wasn’t the only soldier her father had trapped beneath his iron thumb during the past thirty years. Nor was he. He was just the one willing to risk it all to get out.

She was worth it. Not that she’d believe him if he told her. The acid of her father’s subtle but continuous undermining had finally eaten its way into her confidence. He’d watched Dani stand up to the man for years. It was one of the reasons she’d managed to steal his heart as a sixteen-year-old kid. But it wasn’t until this mission, until Lina’s death that she’d finally succumbed to it. And she had succumbed. It was in the way she’d bowed her head. The silent quake of her shoulders. In each hoarse rasp as the warming air around them ripped in and out of her lungs.

“Dani?”

She ignored him. He couldn’t blame her. He was too busy cursing himself. He was the one who’d screwed this up. Screwed them up. Adrenaline. What should she have said? I heard my lover agree with my father that I was incompetent?

“Danielle.”

She flinched. Again, he couldn’t blame her. He’d used her given name only once before in ten years—during a four-hour stretch in his bed and in his shower.

“Please, honey. Just look at me.” She did. His fingers shook as he smoothed them across her bruised cheek, then her perfect one, erasing the tears from her flesh. More than anything, he wanted to ease them from her heart. “I didn’t agree with your father. I just didn’t…disagree.”

He watched her suck in her breath, her pride. “That I know. What I don’t is why you even discussed me with him at all?”

In the terse moments that followed, he came perilously close to giving her the truth. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Not with that fresh bruise on her face and the memory of her head slamming into that wall. Not with Youssef in the house up on that rise, nursing the hatred he’d seen burning in the bastard’s eyes, more determined than ever to dog Dani’s every step, waiting until she was alone, distracted, before he pounced. The hell with his mission, it was too critical to her life that she remain completely focused—lest she end up dead. All he could do was give her as much as he could and pray she still cared enough to stick around when this was over and listen to the rest.

“Well?”

He sucked in his own breath. “Your father got in earlier than I did that morning, Dani. He’d driven by my house. He recognized your car. You and me, standing—kissing—beside it.”

Her lashes flew wide as she blanched.

He knew the feeling. He’d felt it himself. His surprise had quickly deepened to shock, however—over the depth of her father’s. That any man, even him, had dared to sleep with the general’s little girl. The man’s initial, barely suppressed fury hadn’t even made sense. She’d been twenty-six at the time. Old enough to make her own decisions regarding where she spent the night and with whom. Jack shrugged. “At first, I was hoping to keep the peace. At least until I’d had a chance to talk to you.”

She just stood there, those huge eyes filling her face. Those damned bruises on her cheek and jaw, the marks on her neck, the tears still dampening the ivory skin that was left. He brushed at them again, this time with his right thumb, trying to brush the salt away before it slid down to burn the split in her lip. Before he realized what he was doing, he’d leaned down and dried the rest with his mouth. He heard the catch in her throat, felt her soft, swift exhale bathe the stubble on his cheek and jaw. When she didn’t pull away, he took a chance and trailed his mouth to hers. He forced his lips to hover. To wait.

Relief, hope and desire blistered through him all at once as he finally tasted her bittersweet sigh. The years fell away as he reached out and slowly slipped his tongue into the tentative warmth of her mouth. He was twenty-one again, responding to a thank-you kiss he’d known was innocent the moment he’d tasted it, well aware he had no business accepting it, much less in that café for all of West Point to see. For her father to see. It was a miracle the man hadn’t. Though he wouldn’t touch these lips with his for another ten years, he’d never forgotten that brief, mesmerizing caress.

That kiss, like this one, was why he’d really gone Delta.

Dani was so wrong. He hadn’t forged a relationship with her father through the years and then slept with her to further his career. He’d chosen his career track and his mentor to stay close to her. He slowly lifted his head, determined to tell her.

“Good God, Sergeant—aren’t you done yet?”

They stiffened together as the shout reverberated across the grass and around the side of the barn—and she finally spoke.

“Rurik.”

Jack nodded. As much as he wanted to force her down the hill to link up with Hamid, it was too late. He couldn’t see Rurik yet, but the man was bound to be headed straight for them. He tugged on his damp shirt as he rushed through the rest. “It’s time. We’ve got a drive ahead of us, into the mountains. I may not be back until dinner. Don’t worry about Youssef, he’s coming with us. If Rurik changes his mind, I’ll refuse to go.”

She smoothed the collar of his T-shirt as he crammed the damp hem into the waist of his fatigues. “Is that wise?”

He checked the sides of the barn, the path. Still no sign of Rurik. “Don’t worry, Rurik won’t call my bluff. He’s desperate for whatever I’m supposed to inspect. Think about it. I’ve written my own game plan twice now. Playing basketball with Youssef’s head this morning and last night, with you. He never should have let you go for three hundred dollars. Not even to a man who saved his life. It’s just not in his nature. Not when you’re worth two, three times that amount to these goons.”

To him, she was priceless.

Deep down, he’d always known that.

He checked the barn again. Rurik was on this end of the gravel path now. Jack tipped her chin, captured her stare. “I asked for your clothes. Rurik says he doesn’t remember a watch but he promised to produce your shoes. Zorah should have them. Swear to me you’ll go for the transmitter this time if you need to.” Relief seared through him when she nodded. “Good. I left a leather belt under the bottom of the dresser along with my cell phone in case someone searches my duffel while I’m gone. Flip the belt over. There’s a small, razor-sharp knife sheathed in at the buckle.” God willing, she wouldn’t need that either.

He shot off another furtive glance. Rurik had sauntered halfway down the length of the barn and he wasn’t even close to being done. Damn. He cupped his hand to Dani’s neck and dragged her body to his as he had eleven months earlier, standing beside the door to her car. But this time, he was forced to twist his torso to shield her from Rurik’s stare as he lowered his mouth. He put everything he’d ever felt for this woman into a brief, searing kiss. The way her pulse thundered beneath his thumb, the way her eyes darkened as he lifted his head, gave him hope that someday she might feel the same.

“Honey…we need to talk.”

She licked the split at her lip as she nodded slowly, cautiously. “I agree.”

Before he could kiss her again, Rurik’s rotting grin fouled his peripheral view. Jack forced himself to release Dani as he turned to face it. She’d agreed to talk. If everything went down as he hoped today, they might even get the chance.

Chapter 6

Jack was late.

Dani finished scrubbing the last of the earthen bowls and stacked it to the right of the sink with the others as the reality of the hour locked in. Jack had promised to return by dinner. The Spartan dinner of leek stew and bread had ended an hour ago. The sun would be setting soon. So where was he?

Was he safe? Had the arms deal soured? Or had Youssef decided to try and even the score from this morning? Yes, Jack was extremely good at what he did. But she’d also learned firsthand that Youssef turned downright rabid when thwarted. So had Lina. Once Jack completed his part of the arms deal, would Rurik bother to keep Youssef leashed? Dani purged the terror from her heart, but before she could concentrate on the next set of questions, the source of most of them appeared beside her.

“We need water. Come.”

Zorah ignored the thugs nursing their coffee at the island and passed an empty pail over as they left the kitchen. As with most of the chores they’d accomplished together, they headed down the path silently. While Dani had begun to suspect sometime during the dinner preparations that Zorah might be ready to open up to her, she didn’t push. She’d already plied the woman with questions the day before. Zorah would decide to answer or not.

She was surprised at the soft smile Zorah sent C’emal as they reached the front of the barn, though. Especially when the guard nodded. The exchange had been subtle, but it was telling. Had anyone but her witnessed it, there would be hell to pay. Dani waited until they were out of C’emal’s earshot before she voiced her concerns. “Was that wise?”

Zorah simply shrugged as they rounded the dairy barn. Dani dropped her pail into place as they reached the well. She was about to lift the handle on the pump when Zorah spoke, so softly she’d almost missed it.

“Lina is dead.”

Regret shafted through her as she jerked the iron handle up and down several times. Water splashed into the pail and up over the sides, soaking the toe of her left shoe. She shifted her foot—and the emergency transmitter—out of range. “I know. Youssef…told me.” Dani sucked in her breath as Zorah reached out, smoothing her callused fingers down the side of her mouth.

“I am so sorry.”

She shrugged, uncomfortable accepting compassion from a woman whose life wasn’t much better than those of the girls locked up in that hovel awaiting their new masters. Zorah might not be raped regularly, but she lived in fear just the same. Dani had seen the faint bruise at the base of her jaw during the light of day, the old burn marks on the woman’s arms when she’d pushed up her sleeves to scrub her brother’s clothes. C’emal hadn’t put those marks there, Rurik had. “You didn’t hit me, Zorah. And you didn’t kill Lina.”

“But I stood by and did nothing.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. She certainly couldn’t bring herself to pass judgment. She hadn’t survived four years of starvation and a daily barrage of shelling and sniper attacks during the siege of Sarajevo with nothing but a rosary to cling to in an attempt to keep the horror at bay. Zorah had. She finished filling her bucket and hefted it away from the pump’s spout. Even now, given what was left of the Bosnian culture, what options did Zorah really have?

“C’emal says I should leave with him.”

Water sloshed over the rim as the bucket hit the ground. She captured Zorah’s now-terrified stare. “When?”

“Tonight.”

“Why?” But she knew why. She’d seen the answer this morning. Love had won over constant fear and familial loyalty. It also complicated things. Jack’s mission as well as hers. God willing, it wouldn’t compromise them. Dani scanned the path. It was empty. By the time she turned back, Zorah had picked up her own bucket and tucked it beneath the spout. “Zorah?”

The woman finished filling her bucket, her heavy sigh merging with the cooling evening air as she faced her. “I do not know where the women soldiers are. Rurik does not share this with me. Nor does C’emal know. He only guards the doors. I am sorry. But I can give you something for what you tried to do for Lina. For the courage you have given me.”

Despite her searing disappointment, hope surged—for the other girls trapped down in that croft. “The key?”

Zorah nodded.

It was better than nothing. Especially if Jack returned in time to cover for her and maybe even coordinate with Hamid. If Zorah and C’emal were leaving, she might be able to release the girls at the same time. Make it seem as if the lovers had liberated them, thereby preserving both their covers. But when she picked up her pail and held out her hand, Zorah shook her head. “I must give the key to you later, just before we leave. Rurik will return soon. He will want to check on the girls with me before Isha Du’a. I must have the key then.”

Stunned, Dani dropped the bucket. The contents splashed over the rim, soaking her shoes and the calves of her jeans. She stared out at the hills and the fiery sun that had just set. She gaped at the bearded guard next. The one making his way to them via the path. With every confident step C’emal took, another piece of the puzzle fell neatly into place. Rurik, placing his sister off limits from sexual advances even though he didn’t give a rat’s ass about her. Zorah and C’emal’s shock at being interrupted after sunrise; their obvious freedom to steal a few minutes at midday, then late afternoon and now, just past sunset, even though Rurik’s men were still in that house.

It didn’t matter. The thugs were occupied. Just as Rurik and his goons would be occupied later tonight with Isha Du’a. The evening prayer. Despite the fact that Rurik, an ethnic Bosnian Croatian, had been baptized Catholic like his sister, the man would not be clutching a rosary. She’d bet the emergency transmitter in her shoe he’d be secreted in his room along with his men, kneeling on an Islamic prayer rug instead.

“Rurik’s Muslim.”

Jack jerked his hand from the radio, leaving the volume on that earsplitting accordion where it was as he whirled about to face Dani, hoping he’d misheard her. Praying. Either that, or she was severely mistaken. Frankly, he’d take either option. Her steady gaze as she stared up at him strangled his hope.

“Yes, I’m sure. Zorah confirmed it. That crucifix hanging from his neck is as phony as the dog tags on yours, at least to him. He converted during the siege of Sarajevo. Rurik’s as much a Catholic as you are an artillery sergeant.” Jack followed her revelation with a curse that would have stunned an Army priest as she sank onto the edge of the bed. “I know. It changes things, doesn’t it? At the very least, the level of the game.”

She didn’t know the half of it—yet. “This is no game.”

“He’s got the rounds, then?”

“I think so.”

She blinked up at him. “You think? I thought that’s why Rurik brought you along. So you could inspect them.”

“So did I. All he had me do was check the charges.”

“How many?”

“Nine.” He nodded, agreeing with the sentiment behind her own blue curse. Nine bags of pre-measured gunpowder. Just enough to lob an 8-inch shell smack into the embassy courtyard in downtown Sarajevo. But that wasn’t all. “Dani, the warhead was there. He just wouldn’t let me near it.”

“But that doesn’t make sense.”

“It does if you recognize the guy who sold it to him.”

Her brow shot up.

“Farid Vlaldosta. He’s a former army artillery officer from Azerbaijan. I recognized him from a mug book a few years back. Farid’s dirty as hell and very well-connected.” Jack fell silent as the accordion shrieked out its final, wailing notes. Stark, dead air filled the room as he pushed off the dresser and paced his way around Dani’s shoes. The beginning notes of a less raucous, more romantic sevdalinka filled the room as he reached the window. Despite the cooler breeze outside, he kept the window shut and turned to lean against the frame.

Dani twisted around to face him, shifting her legs over the foot of the bed as he sighed. She didn’t respond. She didn’t have to. They were thinking the same thing. Why Azerbaijan?

If Rurik needed howitzer ammo, he could have gotten the shells from any number of black-market weapons dealers. Why go all the way east, past half a dozen NATO countries including Turkey? Hell, Rurik could have gotten the shells right here, from some UN peacekeeper in Bosnia…unless he hadn’t been after conventional rounds, but something a lot deadlier. A special version of the 8-inch shell that’d been removed from the U.S. inventory years before—say around 1991—but hadn’t been removed from the inventory of some of America’s lesser-known allies.

From the chill that’d slipped into Dani’s gaze when she finally lifted her gaze, he knew she’d made the same connection. Her question confirmed it. “You sure there were only nine?”

“Yup.” Just enough powder for one single lob. That’s all Rurik and his thugs would need.

“You suspect Farid of selling Rurik a chemical warhead…or a nuclear one, don’t you?”

He nodded. The former—a chemical round—would take out a couple thousand citizens along with the embassy. But a nuke? That, as she’d so succinctly put it, raised the game to a whole new level. With a one-kiloton yield, the round would not only obliterate the embassy but pretty much everything else within the city limits, including Sarajevo’s half a million citizens. Most of which, interestingly enough, were Muslim. However, without getting a look at the round itself and the color-coded band around the base, he had no idea how twisted the man’s interpretation of Islam was. Nor did he have proof.

Suspicion wasn’t enough. They still needed hard proof. They needed the warhead itself, conventional, chemical or nuclear. Otherwise, Rurik would do a couple years for possession of the howitzer—if that was even in the barn—and the powder. When he got out, he’d set up camp elsewhere and finish the job if another terrorist cell didn’t already have the warhead. Today’s transaction could have been a feint. Rurik could be a decoy.

Christ. Jack raked his hands through his hair. It didn’t help. Tension had been eating a hole through his gut since he’d been forced to leave Dani behind that morning. Worrying about her dodging some thug’s hands all day hadn’t helped. Neither had sitting next to Rurik in the front of a rusted truck, faking small talk during a five-hour ride home while Youssef baby-sat nine bags of gunpowder and a possible unconventional warhead in the rear. He never should have stopped that bullet in Mostar. Except if he hadn’t, he—and DSS—wouldn’t have had this in with Rurik and he knew it. Jack paced his way to the door, his boots muffled by the lively folk song that kicked in. He took advantage of the noise level and paced back to the bed. Back to Dani. “I’ve got to get in there.”

To his surprise, she cursed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’ve just been so stunned, I forgot to tell you. What time is it?”

He glanced at his watch. “Eight-ten, local. Why?”

“Because we’re already scheduled to go in. About seventy minutes from now. Just before Rurik and his thugs retreat to their rooms for Isha Du’a. Once Rurik checks the slaves, Zorah will slip two keys under the door—one for the lock on the croft where the girls are being held.” She tipped her head toward the window. “And one for that padlock down there on the barn.”

“Why the hell would she risk that?”

“Because she won’t be sticking around to suffer the consequences. Neither will C’emal. The keys are a parting gift.” Her lips curved briefly. “I told you it would pay off.”

She had. “I’ll be damned. I’ve got to call Hamid.”

Adrenaline surged into his blood as he turned to the dresser and the cell phone he’d left secreted beneath in case she needed it. Dani snagged his hand, her fingers threading into his as he turned back. She shook her head.

“I took care of it. Hamid will be waiting for our signal. The transmitter in your pack of cigarettes or the one in my shoe. If either goes active, he’ll descend on the barn with everything you guys have—including the chopper you stashed in his cousin’s tent. They’ll be here in five, ten minutes tops.”

Relief seared through him, displacing the adrenaline—and yet, not. The mix ended up tumbling though his gut—right into the waiting tension. Trapped in this room for the next hour, there was no way to expend any of it. He dropped his gaze to their hands. Not smart. Their fingers were still linked.

And he was still clutching on to the urge he’d been trying to suppress since the moment he’d walked into that kitchen. The one that made him want to haul this woman into his arms and kiss her—without an audience present. The urge that made him want to finish that kiss up here, right now. He tugged his fingers from hers and shoved his hands into his pockets—and hit metal. He grabbed the insignia and jerked his hand out. Dani wasn’t the only one who’d forgotten to mention something.

“What’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “Another gift. While you were adding a piece to my puzzle, I managed to locate one of yours. Here.” He laid the flat-black U.S. Army Specialist Fourth-Class insignia with its missing clasp into the center of her palm, waiting as she turned the tiny shield over. She stiffened as she read the numbers scratched into the back—42.

The female sergeants Dani was tracking had been attached to the 42nd Field Hospital before they’d disappeared.

Jack nodded as her gaze shot up. “The prong was stuck into one of the bags of powder. I didn’t see money change hands. Rurik must have handed over the girls along with the down payment. I’m guessing one of your sergeants hoped someone would understand her coded SOS. I’ve got someone tailing Farid. They’ll locate the hole he crawled out of. If the girls are there, we’ll find them.” But they both knew it wouldn’t happen—couldn’t—until they took Rurik down. Not unless they wanted Rurik warned.

His chest began to burn as Dani dropped her gaze to the insignia and closed her left hand over it. She smoothed the fingers of her right across her bottom lip. The swelling had gone down and the split was healing, but it was still visible. So was the one in her heart. When she wouldn’t raise her gaze, he lowered himself to his knees and took her hands in his.

“We’ll get them back.” Nothing. “Honey?” He slipped a hand to her neck, hooked his thumb beneath her jaw and nudged it up.

It was a mistake. Her lips parted.

And, God help him, he stared. Touched. Caressed. Her lips were smooth beneath his thumb, warm. Her breath swirled between them, deep into his lungs. He closed his eyes against the scent. Fought the urge that crept up on him whenever he was in the same room with this woman. He opened his eyes and stared into the soft blue invitation. No. This was not smart. Not now. He didn’t give a damn if the door was locked with the chair wedged beneath the knob. He had too much tension coiled in his gut, too much raw adrenaline pulsing through his veins. So did she.

If they acted on it, they’d both be guilty of doing exactly what he’d blamed her for doing eleven months ago—using the rush to experience an incredibly enhanced sexual release. But, Lord, he wanted to. So did she. He tensed as she lifted her fingers, sliding them across his lips. “Dani, we need to talk.”

She leaned close, her warm whisper filling his ear. “I don’t want to talk…do you?”

No. “Yes.” They might not get another chance. She was right. The fact that Rurik was Muslim changed everything. Especially if the man’s benefactor was who he now suspected it was. C’emal’s cooperation and Isha Du’a notwithstanding, there was a high probability that when they walked into that barn tonight, they wouldn’t be walking back out. She threaded her fingers into his hair as she pulled away—not far enough. He was staring directly into that mesmerizing gaze. “I don’t suppose you’d consider—”

“No. I am not leaving. This is bigger than anyone thought and you know it. You need backup. On site. Now, regardless of how the rest of tonight plays out, the fact is we’ve got seventy minutes to kill. How do you really want to spend them?”

“Inside you.”

Oh, that was smooth. About as subtle as that cat-in-heat accordion grating down from the dresser.

She laughed anyway. “I like the way you think, soldier. Now get rid of those boots and that uniform along with the pistol you’ve got tucked at the small of your back.” She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his ear once again, the promise in her voice throbbing just beneath the music. “I’m much more interested in the gun you’ve got tucked inside your front.”

He might not be in the Army anymore, but he remembered how to follow orders. He was off his knees, Beretta in hand and round chambered before she could draw her next breath. He tossed the pistol on the rickety nightstand. It had the grace not to go off. He grinned down at her T-shirt—his T-shirt—as she blinked. “Seventy minutes, huh? Race you.”

Her smile spread. “You’re on.”

He tore his shirt off as he headed across the room. By the time he’d hit the light switch and made it back to the bed, she was minus his shirt, her shoes and her jeans, looking too damned gorgeous in the moonlight in a plain white bra and matching panties. She was also ahead…but only because of the knotted laces on his jump boots. When she reached back to unhook her bra, he knew he had to do something, and quick. He shoved his trousers down and made his move, snaking his right arm around her slender waist as her bra fell away. He dragged her forward as he sat down on the bed, swirling his tongue around the plump nipple that filled his view. He absorbed the first, heady taste and instinctively reached for seconds.

She gasped…and he groaned. It had been too damned long since they’d done this. But it all flashed back in an instant. He gave his lips, teeth and tongue free rein as he sent his fingers down to yank at the laces on his boots—sucking, licking, and nipping greedily, taking up the rhythm he’d learned drove her insane during those hours on his bed.

She moaned as she lost her grip on her panties. “That’s cheating.”

He grinned as he kicked off his boots and peeled off his socks. Completely naked, he slid his hands up her thighs, teasing his fingers beneath the elastic as he stood. “You complaining?”

“Hell, no.”

“Good, ’cause I won.”

“Really?”

Oh, no. He knew that look. Then he remembered.

She grinned—because this time, she had him. He ought to know…because he’d made up the rule eleven months ago. During their heated rush up his stairs, she’d confessed she needed to go to her SUV and grab something from her rucksack. He’d been so aroused, the euphemism hadn’t registered at first. Until he remembered that his ruck was in his closet—along with the stash of condoms some soldiers carried to keep the barrel of their M-16 dry in the rain. Unwilling to wait the minute it would take her, he’d scooped her up in his arms and insisted during the detour to his closet that providing protection was the man’s job. And now that protection was across the room, in his duffel bag.

“Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

Not only did she move, her panties were dangling from the tip of her index finger as he turned. She nodded to the packet in his hand. “Did I forget to mention I’m safe right now?”

“What?”

Her grin gleamed in the moonlight.

“You cheated.”

She shrugged. “You complaining?”

“Hell, no.” Not with those lush curves beckoning to him. But he did intend to even the score. He stalked across the room as she laughed, backing her up to the wall, trapping her there as he lowered his head and captured her mouth. Her lips were as soft as they’d been out behind that barn this morning, as hungry as he’d dared to hope. She drew him in quickly, thoroughly, feeding off him. Meeting him as easily and squarely as she had that night in his bedroom. She didn’t give an inch. He didn’t want her to. And then they were both demanding more.

Hotter, deeper. Harder.

He grabbed the panties from her hand and flung them somewhere over his shoulder. The condom followed. He dragged his hands up her waist, cupping her breasts, squeezing, pinching and pulling her nipples as her hands seared down his chest. A second later, his stomach bottomed out as she stretched up to bite the side of his neck and suck hard. Adrenaline, abstinence and the truth in his heart slammed into him at the exact same moment, rocketing him straight up to the edge of the abyss. He growled and plowed his fingers into her hair, tugging her head back to the wall as he struggled for sanity, for control—for air. When he finally found it, it was short and ragged, coming in and out as rapidly as hers as he stared into those fathomless eyes, now smoke-blue with passion. Like that first time in his kitchen, they were going way too fast. He didn’t care.

She hiked her right leg against his restlessly, and he took the hint, grabbing her bottom and lifting her up to his level. His hoarse groan rivaled that blaring music as her fingers raked down his back and around to his groin. He lost his air again as she wrapped her hand around his erection and pulled—firm, hot, guiding. And then his entire world was wet. And tight.

Sweet heaven, he did not remember Dani being this tight.

He shuddered right along with her, into her, gripping her gorgeous bottom with his left palm as he slammed his right into the wall above her, bracing both of them as the brunt of their need rocked through them. He was piercingly aware of her legs hiking higher, locking around his hips, drawing him in deeper, holding him right there, as he pounded into her liquid heat again and again. He tried to slow down, but he couldn’t. She moaned into his neck, he groaned right back into hers. It was fast and it was furious—and, dammit, he was almost there.

No! Not yet.

But it was too late. It had truly been too long. It was her scream that did it. He caught it in the nick of time and swallowed it whole, praying it would help drag the moment out, at least a bit. But it didn’t. The moment her short nails ripped into his shoulders, down his back, and dug into his naked ass—one last racking shudder—and it was over. He was still gasping for air when she pressed her forehead into his sweat-slicked neck and sighed. He was pretty sure that was satisfaction. But still. He tipped her chin and stared into those huge eyes.

“I’m sor—”

Her fingers came up, pressed to his lips. She glanced at the Beretta he’d dumped on the nightstand. “If you apologize for that, I’ll put a hole in you before Rurik can.”

His lips twitched, but he could still feel the heat creeping up his neck. “Dammit, Dani, I didn’t even get you to the bed.”

She stared past his arm again, her beautiful, sated smile quirking. “Nice bed. Bit narrow, though.” Her gaze skimmed to his thighs, then up, stopping at the juncture of them. “Nice—ah—gun, too. The caliber’s as impressive as I remember.”

The caliber increased. He dropped his forehead to hers, confessing the truth as he shifted his hands to cradle her bottom in his right. “Yeah, well, it’s been a while since I’ve been out on the range. Eleven months to be exact. My grip’s rusty, not to mention my trigger was a bit…quick. But that’s nothing a little practice can’t cure, I swear.”

She snagged his left wrist and tugged it close, turning it until she could read the dial on his watch in the moonlight. “We still have fifty-six minutes. Care to reload and fire again?”

He didn’t wait for her to ask twice. He just wrapped both arms around her and swung her about to the bed. If they had fifty-six more minutes to kill, he intended to murder each and every one of them slowly this time, sweetly. Because if they did make it out of that barn alive, he wanted to make damned sure she came back for more.

Chapter 7

They still had nineteen minutes to go.

Dani glanced across the room. Despite those minutes, Jack was already dressed, boots, fatigues, concealed weapons and all. He slipped his Beretta into the waist of his trousers as he turned to stare out the window at the barn below. He retrieved the open pack of cigarettes and tapped one out, the flame from the silver lighter she’d given him all those years ago flashing to life for a brief moment as he lit the end. The tip of the cigarette glowed as he tucked the lighter home and braced his hand against the top of the window frame. It wasn’t until she finished wrapping his belt around her waist twice and watched him take his second, searing drag on the cigarette and then saw his hand tremble before he anchored it firmly back on the frame, that she realized what was really going on.

Jack Gage, a man legendary among even the Shadow Warriors of Delta for his calm, cool composure, no matter what the risk, what the job, let alone the nonexistent odds, was nervous. Scared. Because of her. That’s when it hit her. Actually, when it punched into her fist-first, straight into her heart.

She loved him.

Even as the mind-numbing aftershocks continued to pummel into her, she knew it was true. Finally. For ten long years she’d managed to convince herself that what she felt for the man standing across this darkened room with his back to her, staring out that window, was infatuation. Even during this past year, ever since that murder-for-hire case had forced them to pose as man and wife, she’d still managed to avoid the truth, chalking up this familiar feeling in her heart to a searing case of lust. It was both. And neither. It was love.

And maybe, just maybe, he’d hung around so long, not because of her father…but because he was in love with her, too. Oh, God, she hoped so. Prayed so. The mere thought made her knees tremble, her stomach churn. But she had to know. Tonight. Now. Before they walked out of here and into that barn. She needed to know if Jack loved her, too. She crossed the floor silently as the smoke from his third drag filled his lungs and then the room, reaching out to close her hand over his as he brought the cigarette back for a fourth.

“You don’t smoke.”

He stood there for a moment, silent amid the music still blaring out across the room. Still staring out the window at the barn. At C’emal, who was doing his best not to pace as the man waited for his lover to finish her chores so he and Zorah could leave…and she and Jack could begin.

He finally sighed and turned. “We have to talk.”

She nodded. He was right, they did. He opened his mouth, but instead of words coming out, his sigh filled the space between them. She waited as he shook his head and crossed the room, recognizing the distance he was putting between them for what it was and not some concern about his status as a guest who cleaned up after himself as he stopped at the nightstand to grind the cigarette out in the ashtray. He retrieved his Beretta, released the clip and checked it before slapping it home. Then he just stood there and stared at it.

Maybe she should say it first? God knows she’d made this hard enough on him as it was. She stepped out to follow him, only to halt as he finally spoke.

“Dani…if I don’t make it toni—”

“No.” She shook her head as she stepped out again, grabbing his hands as she reached him, clamping his fingers into the cold steel of the Beretta’s barrel. “Don’t start like that. Start any other way. Just don’t start like that.”

“Dammit, just listen to me.”

She dropped her hands. Swallowed hard. “Okay.”

He sucked in his breath. “If something happens to me tonight, I want you to promise me—” He broke off. Drew in another breath, this one deeper. “I need you to promise me…”

What, dammit? That she’d remember he loved her? That she’d move on, find someone else? Bull. She’d do neither. Nor could she do this. She could not stand here and look into that expression on this man’s face. She’d rather go another round with Youssef than stare into that torture. She opened her mouth, took a deep breath, and said it for them.

“Jack, I—l—”

“Promise me you’ll talk to your father.”

What?

She blinked. Waited through an entire verse of that god-awful folk song until, finally, somehow, she managed to speak. “Tell me you didn’t just ask me what I think you did.”

But he nodded.

She stood there, for what seemed like eons as she struggled to absorb the blow. The heart-wrenching disappointment. The iron fist of truth. Memories slammed into her. The past, the present. A future she was so stupid to believe could ever be. Just like that, she was sixteen and yet twenty-six, standing in front of both those doors at the exact same time. Listening to both those men. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to slug the man standing in front of her for daring to make her dream. But most of all, she just wanted to curl up into a ball. In the end, she just did what she’d always done. She turned away. Only this time, he knew she was there—and he stopped her.

She whirled around, wrenching her arm from his. “Don’t.”

“I have to. honey, you don’t understand—”

“Oh, I understand. You’re still doing his dirty work.”

She could make out the fire smoldering within his gaze, despite the dark. “Wrong, I’m trying to help.”

“Well, guess what? We don’t need help. I don’t need it. Neither does he. Hell, he doesn’t even love me. I’ve known that from the time I was twelve. One day, the man just shut down. I guess I must have used him up because all I’ve gotten from good ol’ Daddy Dearest since is ice-cold silence. You, on the other hand, got to become the surrogate son. The Chosen One. You got to go fishing with my father, have dinner at his house any damned day you wanted, gather his professional pearls of wisdom. And, of course, you got to hear firsthand how I never belonged in his man’s Army and how I never would.” With that she spun around. But again, Jack grabbed her. This time, with both arms. And this time, when he twirled her around, she couldn’t break loose.

Damn him. Damn the both of them. She renewed her struggle with a vengeance.

“Stop. Dani, just listen to me for once instead of shutting down. And quit running away. The two of you are so alike it’s not even funny. There are things you don’t know. Things I didn’t know, let alone understand until last month. Until this week—this case. But I know now. I understand. But that’s not enough. You need to understand. All I want you to do is promise me you’ll talk to him. Ask him about your mother.”

Her mother?

Just like that, the fury she’d held on to for so long with this man—that she’d been using to shield herself from him—just shattered. Rippling fear replaced it. She couldn’t explain, let alone understand the chill that slithered down her spine before snaking into her belly—simply because he’d mentioned her mother. And when the frustration bled out of Jack’s gaze, and the fear slid into him, she wasn’t sure she wanted to explain it. She had no idea what to say, so she just said the obvious. “Jack, my mother was killed when I was three. I barely remember her.”

“I know.”

He did. She’d told him in that café. She’d described her one and only memory of her mom. A hug. And then she told him how her mom got into her car and came home in a box. “Then what are you trying not to say? Please, I want you to be the one to tell me, not my dad. What do you suddenly understand?” Instead of answering, he released her wrists. He cupped her face, the torture locking back into his gaze as he smoothed his fingers over the bruises he’d gently kissed one by one on that bed not more than twenty minutes ago. “Jack, please. You started this, now finish it. Tell me what my mother’s murder has to do with my father and me.”

“Everything.”

She opened her mouth—and froze instead. So did he.

The door! She hadn’t so much as heard the tentative knock over the music, as felt it. And then she saw them. The keys. Whether she wanted it to be or not, their conversation was over.

Because it was time.

The howitzer was in the barn. She could sense it.

They both could. Dani waited until Jack slid the door shut before she risked turning on his red-filtered mini Maglite. A moment later, he slipped the flashlight from her hand and snagged her elbow, drawing her along with him as he took off across the moldy straw. Even without the red illuminating their path, the acrid stench of gunpowder and diesel would have led them right to the roughly 25-foot-by-10-foot artillery piece. Though slightly narrower in girth than a tank, the howitzer’s massive, towering gun barrel hung over the front of the tracked wheels by another ten feet, forcing Rurik to run the rear scooped stabilizer almost flush with the back of the barn.

Dani stopped with Jack as he swept the scarlet wash in front of the metal beast and pointed. “There. To the left of the gun barrel, at the base of that narrow door.”

She saw them. Nine bags of pre-measured gunpowder, the size and shape of one-pound coffee cans. But it was the two-by-four-foot wooden crate behind the pyramid that held their attention.

“Here.”

She took the flashlight from Jack’s hand as he hunkered down, bathing the oversized bullet with red as Jack removed the lid. Unfortunately, she couldn’t make out the colored band near the base of the round. Jack flicked his gaze to hers. The tension that’d been winding through her gut ever since that unfinished conversation in the bedroom five minutes earlier fisted tighter as he shook his head.

“I can’t tell, either. We need white light.”

Great. She wasted precious seconds unscrewing the filter from the flashlight, then flashed the Mag again. A split second was all it took for both of them to blanch—and curse.

“It’s a nuke.”

Jack nodded as he stood. He took the flashlight from her and quickly reattached the filter before pressing the lighter as well as his switchblade into her palms. He kept his Swiss Army knife for himself. “Go see if you can crack the track’s control panel open and disable the battery. I’ll take the warhead.”

“You sure you know how?”

“In theory, yeah. In practice?” His grin flashed amid the red light washing the scruff covering his cheeks and jaw. “We’re about to find out, aren’t we?”

Or not.

They must have heard it—or rather them—at the same moment because he grabbed her arm, hauling her with him as he spun around. A split second later, light flooded the barn, blinding them. By the time they’d blinked off the effects, Rurik stood ten feet away, just under the howitzer’s barrel, the phony cross still hanging around his neck. Youssef stood several feet to the right, Zorah in his arms…and a Makarov pistol to the woman’s head. One look at the agony in her brown eyes and Dani no longer wondered where C’emal was. It didn’t matter. The guard was dead.

While her heart and nerves were still screaming in concert, Jack had already reverted back to cool. He reached down and casually shifted his hand behind him, retrieving the switchblade from her fingers. She clamped down on the lighter as he tucked the blade into his back pocket and spoke, “I guess this means Isha Du’a has been canceled for the night, eh?”

Rurik laughed. Youssef scowled.

Zorah all but fainted. “I am sorry, Dani. I tried to warn you with the knock. They—” She received a vicious knock of her own for her efforts, compliments of the pummel master himself.

Dani stepped forward without thinking—only to run smack into Jack’s torso as he shifted to block her path. She took the hint and pulled herself together. Jack, meanwhile, capitalized on her mistake, slipping the sealed pack of cigarettes into her fingers. She hadn’t even realized he’d palmed it from his pocket. He shifted again, covering her movements as he nodded to Youssef. “I see you’re still hiding behind a woman’s skirt.”

The man stiffened. “Neist!”

“Silence!” Rurik smoothed out his scowl as he faced Jack. “And you, my friend, be careful. I do not need you anymore.”

“You never did.”

That decaying grin spread wider. “Very good. Correct, as well. But when you stumbled across my path, I could not turn down the opportunity. I should thank you. Your sacrifice will ensure my name is exalted all the more long after you and I—and naturally, all of Sarajevo—have passed from this earth.”

“But why, brother? Why kill so many? Your own people now?” Dani winced as the pummel master rewarded Zorah’s impertinence with a harder whack. They wore matching split lips now.

“Dammit, leave her alone!”

Rurik ignored his sister—herself too, continuing to focus on Jack. “You know why.”

Jack kept his gaze on Rurik as he nodded, but he answered Zorah. “Your brother hopes to unite the Muslim world. He thinks if he murders half a million Muslims and makes it look like a Catholic Croat and an American soldier are to blame, that ought to do the trick. Maybe even kick off World War Three.” They both even knew why the man had been careful to keep up his slave trade until the bitter end—so he wouldn’t arouse suspicion.

For an insanely calculating monster, Rurik’s shrug was remarkably sheepish. “A lofty goal, yes.”

But one that might come to pass…since Dani couldn’t seem to get the pack open. The irony of fumbling around with a pack of cigarettes six inches from Jack while trying to look cool about it bit into her. But this time, he wasn’t about to lean over and snag it from her hands and help her out. Relief seared though her as she finally located the tail of the plastic strip embedded in the cellophane. She peeled it off and wrenched the pack open, shoving her right fingers into the box to feel around for the switch as Jack shifted to maintain his block on Rurik’s view. She was almost there when—

“You stupid, bitch!” Youssef dragged Zorah with him by her braid as he vaulted towards her. Before Dani could blink, he had his free hand locked to her wrist. “What are you doing?”

She blushed as Jack turned and settled his cool gaze on the pack and lighter in her hands. She went with her jangled nerves, used them to make her stammer real. “I—I need a s-smoke.” She welcomed the downright amused brow that followed. The one that asked, Now? It succeeded in firing the temperature in her neck to roasting—and let him know that, no, she had not had a chance to throw the switch. “Sorry. I guess I’m a little nervous.”

“Hell, Rurik. Let her have one. I could use one myself. ’Specially since it’ll be the last smoke and all.” He pointed his chin toward the far side of the howitzer. “We should probably take it over there, though. Away from the powder.”

Rurik’s grin should have startled her, but it didn’t. He really should have melted that cross down and capped those teeth a long time ago. “A last cigarette to go with the last screw? To repay the debt for a careless bullet in Mostar?”

Jack held the man’s gaze. “You gonna have another chance?”

His grin actually split wider. “Why not? It will take ten minutes to ready the weapon. I have always said you should take your pleasure when and where you can. The when is now and the where must be within my sight, not the shadows. But first, your pistol if you will…and that blade you like to carry.” Rurik waited as Jack tossed his Beretta and switchblade over. The man pocketed both, then waved Youssef off. “Remember, my friend, the smoke and pleasure only. For old time’s sake. Your last supper, if you will. You and I both know an accidental fire will prevent nothing. Farid assures me the warhead will still explode. The damage may not be as great, true—” He shrugged. “But the end result will be the same. My goal will be met.”

Jack nodded as he slipped a cigarette from the pack along with the silver lighter from her hands. He nudged her toward the center of the barn, beneath the howitzer’s massive barrel, careful to keep his body between Rurik and Youssef as he stopped to light the cigarette. The scarlet tip glowed as he inhaled deeply, holding the smoke in his lungs long enough for her to locate the emergency transmitter and throw the switch.

Rurik was wrong. They didn’t have ten minutes. They now had five. She hoped. Dani forced herself not to cough as Jack’s smoky breath filled the air between them as he bent to fondle her bottom while he pretended to kiss and nuzzle her neck.

“If we have to, we torch the straw.”

She knew what he was asking. Was she with him? It was 500,000 innocent residents of Sarajevo—Muslim and scattered Christians alike—or it was the five of them. This barn. And, if they were lucky, 100,000 of those citizens. Rurik was right, a fire would engulf the warhead along with the bags of gunpowder and ignite both. A split second later, there’d be nothing but a five-mile-wide crater where the barn should be. But enough of Sarajevo and her citizens would be safe to make it worth it.

“Okay.” She clenched her fingers around the lighter, hiding it as Jack tugged her T-shirt out of her jeans. She couldn’t help it, she flinched. Surely, he didn’t actually intend to—

His breath filled her ear. “Relax. Work with me, honey.” A moment later, smoke filled her lungs as he brought the cigarette to her mouth. Piercingly aware of their audience, she let him slip the end between her lips. She’d never know how she managed not to wheeze and choke as the smoke seared into her mouth and lungs, then out. But she did. Jack leaned down to capture the remaining puff along with her grimace with his mouth.

The kiss was pure ash at first, nasty and stifling, but then it was all Jack. Dark, heady and very smooth. Just as he had on that narrow bed he took his sweet time, delving deep inside her mouth as the howitzer’s diesel engine fired to life behind them—his slow, languid kiss matching the sluggish churn of the track’s internal hydraulic system as it turned over and warmed the pressurized oil needed to raise and aim the massive barrel. She was dimly aware of Jack switching the cigarette to his left hand as he worked her belt with his right.

No, not her belt. His. The knife concealed within. She forced herself to do as he’d asked, dragging her hands to his waist as Jack deepened the kiss and groaned loud enough for the Bosnian bastard now leering two feet away to hear.

“I should have charged you more, I think.”

Jack ignored Rurik, working the buckle loose as they continued to kiss. Her fingers finally cooperated with her brain and she managed to unbuckle his as well. She started in on the buttons beneath, praying he’d hurry up and get to that damned knife before she got to him. They reached their respective prizes at the same moment. His buttons now undone, she held his pants up for him as Jack slid the knife from its sheath with his right hand, still kissing and caressing her with his left.

His left? Then where was the cigarette?

And then she smelled it.

“Fire!” The shout ripped out across the barn as Youssef jerked the Makarov from behind Zorah’s disheveled back. That was as far as the thug got. A split second later, the blade that’d been in her belt speared the man directly above his left eye—piercing Youssef’s skull to plunge deep into his brain. He didn’t even scream. He simply fell, any thud masked by the howitzer’s engine still growling behind them. She spun around to help Jack take out Rurik. She didn’t get the chance.

Neither did Jack.

They stiffened together as the shot reverberated through the barn, displacing the track’s rhythmic rumble for a brief, deafening moment, then Rurik joined his henchman, falling face first into the straw. Before Dani could blink, Jack shot across the barn and reached Zorah, the Makarov still pointed straight out from her heaving chest, hanging above the flames.

The flames.

Jack grabbed the pistol and the woman’s shawl. By the time he’d joined Dani at the fire, she’d stripped off her T-shirt. Together they thrashed the flames spreading across the concrete floor, devouring scattered ancient straw, mold and all. A pair of bare, swarthy arms joined them, shirt in hand. Then another pair and another. And another. She jerked her gaze up, half-expecting to discover C’emal alive. No such luck. But she did welcome the squad of half-dressed American soldiers turned fire-stompers beating out the remaining flames alongside an ethnic Muslim she didn’t recognize. Hamid and the cavalry had arrived.

And the fire was out. It was over.

Jack buttoned his pants as she stood. From the look that flashed between him and Hamid as he buckled his belt, Jack was going to have explain his state of undress eventually. She did not want to be around when he did. Jack captured her gaze and stripped off his T-shirt, tossing it to her along with a devilish wink before he turned to link up with Hamid. The men headed across the barn to check the warhead and seal the crate so they could get it and the bags of gunpowder under lock and key. Anywhere but here.

Someone must have been assigned to kill the howitzer, because the roar of diesel engine died out. Adrenaline still simmering though her veins, Dani dropped Jack’s singed T-shirt and donned his fresh one as she headed across the barn. She found Zorah slumped on a pile of straw. “Are you okay?”

“C’emal. After all our plans. He is…” Dani’s heart broke as the woman’s tears slipped free, finishing for her.

“I know.” She did. It had taken her eleven years to find Jack, even though he’d been right in front of her face the entire time, or at least near her side. She could have lost him just as easily tonight. She wrapped her arms around Zorah, holding her tightly as the woman’s sobs broke free. “I’m so sorry.”

“Dani?”

She raised her head. But Jack was looking at Zorah, not her. Hamid stood beside him.

Jack smiled. “One of the guys located our friend. He’s got a nasty knife sticking out of his chest, but the medic thinks he’ll make it. Anyone want to hitch a chopper into Sarajevo?”

Zorah blinked up at Jack for a full two seconds. On the third, it sank in. She shot to her feet and threw herself into Jack’s arms. By the time Hamid led her out of the barn, everyone was teary, including Jack. Dani turned to follow Zorah to check on C’emal and thank him when Jack stopped her. His smile faded as he snagged her hand with one of his and cupped her cheek with the other.

“What’s wrong?”

“You should probably hitch a ride, too. I just got off the phone with the embassy. They’ve got a guest.” Even before he squeezed her hand and nodded, she knew. “It’s your father.”

Chapter 8

Across an empty, darkened ballroom with his back to her, he should have looked like any other soldier in Army Greens. But he didn’t. She’d recognize that stiff, unyielding stance anywhere. Even here, in Bosnia. Jack was right. Ol’ Ramrod-and-Ruthless himself had flown halfway around the world just to track her down. Amazing. Hell, she couldn’t even get the man to drive a hundred miles to visit her at boarding school. Maybe she should shower first. At least change into the uniform the marine escort had offered. Oh, hell. She stepped into the room before she chickened out, wincing as her tennis shoes squeaked.

That was all it took. He spun around. But he didn’t say a word. It was too dark to make out more than the flash of triple stars running across his shoulders—and those didn’t reveal any clue as to his mood. She locked her spine to attention and marched forward, stopping five feet away, just shy of a pair of hardwood chairs left beside the French doors.

“Sir.”

He returned her nod. “Danielle.”

The seconds ticked out the silence—just like whenever they got together. It was usually like this too, with him in uniform and her feeling like a basic trainee washout. Before long they were into a minute, then two. Screw it. She was tired. Jack was on his way, if not already here. Not exactly eager for the scene she was now enduring she’d disobeyed the general’s implied orders and headed to the hospital with Zorah. While she was there, she’d even made a call to her command and spent an hour or so coordinating Farid’s takedown. Okay, two hours. All right, so the sergeants she’d gone in after were already tucked in their unit’s welcoming arms, safe and sound. But from the black leather bag blending into the dark beside the chairs, it looked as if her father hadn’t even unpacked, much less settled in.

Another minute of silence and she’d truly had enough.

She cleared her throat. “Well, general, it’s…been a long day.” Now there was an understatement. “I’d like to find a shower and a cot before it gets any longer.” Nothing. Fine, she’d had enough anyway. She executed an about face and stepped out—

“Turn on the light.”

She stopped, stared at the French doors now to her left. She leaned over and twisted the dimmer switch beside them, wincing as light from half a dozen chandeliers flooded the room. She took a deep breath and turned…and nearly gasped out loud.

“You look like hell,” he informed her.

Yeah? Well, he didn’t look so great either. His Greens might be crisper than they’d ever been, the silver that passed for hair cropped shorter than usual, but the jagged lines tracking across his forehead and down his cheeks were anything but. They were fresh, too. She’d swear the man had aged eleven years in the past eleven months. And he’d been crying. Though his steel-blue eyes were bone-dry now, they were bloodshot and puffy. Only two things made this man look like that. Tears and Scotch. She’d never known him to indulge in either one except on the anniversary of her mother’s death.

No, her mother’s exceptionally brutal murder.

During the chopper flight, she’d figured out what Jack had been trying not to tell her. He’d been right about that, too. It did help her understand. She just didn’t think it could change anything. Hell, look at them. The way her dad’s gaze was fused to the bruises on her face, they were both thinking it.

So say it. She drew in her breath.

“Mom wasn’t just murdered. She was raped, too.”

His eyes weren’t dry anymore. They were glistening. He didn’t cry though. But that wasn’t new. He never did when he knew she was looking. His heavy sigh flooded the room instead.

“Jack told you.”

“No.” Not in so many words. “He tried really hard not to.” Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how hard. “But this was…a difficult case.” Lina. No, even as hurt and angry as she was with her father, he didn’t need to hear that. She swallowed the pain and regret and chose her words carefully, knowing if they were ever going to get past this, ever heal, it would have to start now. “Jack did push it though. He pushed me to talk to you. I think—I hope—it was because he cared too much to walk away. I’m also thinking…hoping…that someone else came here…is here…because he cares, too.”

Relief swamped her, displacing the biting fear as her father nodded. “He does care.”

Just say it. “We’re not just talking about Jack, are we?”

“No, we’re not.” But then that damned awkward silence settled back in and they weren’t talking about anything anymore. As usual, neither of them seemed able to cross it. She swore her father was as relieved as she when the marine who’d shown her in entered the ballroom. The sergeant apologized for the interruption and greeted her father first, then held up a slip of paper in his gloved hand.

“A message, ma’am. From Special Agent Gage.”

Special Agent who? What? For the first time since she’d entered the room, she was truly glad her father was standing in it. While she was busy gaping, he retrieved the sheet and dismissed the sergeant. “I take it you didn’t know.”

She shifted her gape to him.

“Guess not.”

She blinked. “Jack left Delta?” Duh! How many special agents had she met in Special Forces? But…why? More importantly, “When?”

“Couple months back.”

“How many?”

“Nine. But he put in his request earlier.”

Even before she asked, she knew. But she still asked. She had to be sure. She swallowed hard. “How much earlier?”

“The day after you two wrapped up the murder-for-hire assignment. I’d stopped by his office to ask him to lunch. To see if—” He broke off, ran a hand down the silver at the side of his head. “That’s not true. I wasn’t interested in lunch. I was interested in answers. I saw you two out by your car that morning. I wanted to know his intentions.” It was one thing to hear from Jack that her father had seen that steamy kiss. It was quite another to stand in front of the man and look into those steel-blue eyes while she heard it from him.

She flushed. “And—ah—what were those intentions?”

His gaze turned so desolate she almost took the question back. Especially when her father turned slightly to retrieve his hat from one of the chairs and stare at the gold leaves embroidered along the brim. “Jack asked for permission to marry you. I told him…” He traced his fingers around the edge, then dragged his stare to hers. “I told him he could have it—”

“If he got me out of the Army.”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

She nodded. It was all she could give him.

He took it. “If it helps, I’ve finally admitted that I’m the one who drove him out. I think he’s always known it would come down to you or me. And I’ve always known you would win.”

“This isn’t a contest, dammit. And Jack’s no prize.” It wasn’t until it came out that she realized how bald it sounded. But it succeeded in lightening the moment and, frankly, they both needed it. Though slight, they shared their first smile in years. “You ever tell him I said that, I’ll shoot you.”

“Coming from an expert shot, I’ll take that seriously.”

“You’d better.”

Her father’s smile faded as, once again, the silence settled in. The seconds ticked off until she couldn’t handle it anymore. She had to know. “What happened?”

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “You left. He’d gotten the invitation to work for the State Department the year before. I know, because we discussed it. He was flattered, but he wasn’t interested. We never said it, but we both knew why. I’ve always known. Even before he did. I’d been there myself with your mom. If I was the man you both deserved, I’d have pushed it. But I didn’t. I knew Jack would never make you choose between him and the Army. I guess I was holding out for someone who would.”

There wasn’t much she could say so she waited. He turned his hat in his hand and stared into it for a good minute. He finally sighed and met her gaze. “That day in his office, Jack told me he was going to take the job. After the way I’d seen you two kiss, not to mention his stated intentions, it didn’t take a genius to figure out he wasn’t getting out of the Army. He was getting away from me…so he could finally go after you.”

He dropped his stare again. This time, he kept it fused to his hat as he continued, “I’m sorry I’m not as brave as you. If I were, I’d have accepted your choice years ago. Logically, I know you’re not her. But the older you got, the more you started to look like her, and, well, the more confusing it got. And the more terrifying. At first, I didn’t tell you because you were too young. And then I couldn’t tell you because I’d never told you. But when I got word you were missing…possibly raped and murdered like her…and I didn’t even know you’d gone in, much less had a chance to say g-goodbye—” He broke off. The knot in his throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. He finally tore his gaze from his hat and met hers square on. “I’ll try harder, honey. I swear it. On your mother’s love.” Once again, the silence settled in. But this time something came with it.

Tears.

She watched, transfixed as they welled up in those stark blue eyes, until he’d hoarded so many, they finally spilled down. She swore she could feel every one of them searing into her heart. She stepped forward without thinking and reached out, capturing them as they continued to slide. Or she tried to. There were too many. So she stepped closer and slid her arms around his neck and pulled him close. He stood there for what seemed like eons, and then he snapped. When his arms came up to crush her to his chest, she started crying. She wasn’t sure how long they stood there, but eventually they both realized it’d been long enough. They pulled away at the same time.

He reached out, his hand shaking as he wiped the tears off her cheeks before she could. He cleared his throat, but his voice still came out hoarse. “The Army lost a good man because of me. Don’t you lose him.”

Somehow, she managed a smile. “Trust me. I have no intention of losing Jack. Not after I had to smoke another cigarette to keep him.”

His brow shot up. But then that damned heavy, awkward silence saturated the air again. Would they ever get rid of it for good? Maybe. Because he cleared his throat again. He was trying. He even spoke, “You’ve got somewhere to be, don’t you?”

Yes. But Jack would understand. “No, I’ll just—”

“Link up with your old man tomorrow?” He shrugged off her surprise. “It’s late. Long flight. Man’s gotta sleep.”

Her heart lurched. He really was trying. Dammit, then so could she. “A man’s gotta eat, too.”

“Lunch?” He looked so uncertain, the tears threatened.

She nodded slowly. Smiled. “I’d like that.” His answering smile was slower and a bit stiff as she turned to leave, or maybe just rusty. She figured she’d find out soon enough.

“Just a minute, young lady.” Startled to hear the general’s voice and not her dad’s again, she whirled around. He’d donned his hat and snapped to attention. He wasn’t her dad anymore. He was General Ramrod-and-Ruthless Stanton in the flesh. Especially when he popped the sharpest, crispest salute she’d ever received. “I’ve been briefed. Outstanding work today, Captain.”

Damn him. He just had to send her to Jack in tears, didn’t he? Again.

He’d waited so long, he was starting to worry. Jack stared at the silver lighter clenched in his hand. Worried, hell. Six hours earlier, trapped in a barn with Dani wrapped in his arms while he waited for the right moment to flick a cigarette into fifteen feet of straw separating them from nine bags of gunpowder and an 8-inch tactical nuclear round, he’d been worried. Right now, he was pretty much terrified.

So much so, his stomach roiled when he heard the knock. He tossed the lighter on the coffee table and strode across the guest suite’s carpet. His feet knew the way. They’d paced it out a hundred times already. He sucked up his panic and wrenched the door open. Dani was loitering on the other side, leaning against the wall, her loose hair still tangled, his T-shirt tucked into her jeans and his oversized belt. Soot still streaked across her right cheek, the purple bruise and split lip still marred her left. At least the marks on her neck had faded.

His heart burned as she smiled. “Hi. I’m sorry, I know it’s late. But it’s kind of important. I’m looking for a man who goes by the name Special Agent Jack Gage?”

“That would be me.”

“Hmmm…so I heard.” She cocked her brow toward the room behind him. “Mind if come in?”

He threw the door wide, making way as she stepped inside.

“This isn’t a bad time is it, Agent?”

He blinked.

Her gaze swept his dark-blue robe. “You look like you were getting ready for a shower…or bed.”

“Whichever comes first.” At the moment, he wasn’t sure he’d have company for either. Not when he spotted the note he’d sent via the marine as she retrieved it from her back pocket. The paper was still folded. The creases still sharp. Had she even opened it? Did she even want to? Every time he’d thought he’d gained ground with Danielle Stanton, her father got in his way, whether or not the man intended to. And she’d just spent half an hour with him.

His heart burned once more as she set the square of paper on the coffee table, right beside the lighter. And this burn wasn’t good. It seared in deeper as she pulled a wad of bills from her back pocket and carefully smoothed them. He stared at the stack as she held it out.

“Sorry about the twenties. The bank machine was out of hundreds. It’s all there, though.”

Christ. His heart blistered. “I don’t want your money.” He hadn’t wanted a goddamned thing from this woman for eleven years now—except one simple statement. He was so sure he’d have heard it from her up in that room of Rurik’s if they’d just had a little longer. But now? Staring at that stack of bills? He wasn’t sure of anything. Maybe it had been adrenaline after all.

“Take the money, Jack.”

“Dammit, Dani, I—”

“What? Three hundred’s enough for a lowly army captain, but not some lofty special agent?” She tsked her tongue as he blinked, gaped. “My, my, just what agency are you with?”

“State Department.”

“Diplomatic Security?”

He nodded.

“Mobile Security Detachment?”

He nodded again.

She frowned. Her low whistle filled the room, invading the bedroom beyond. “I hear they travel quite a bit. Never home. Understand the work’s pretty dicey on occasion, too.”

“It can be.”

“I guess you’re right then. Three hundred won’t cut it.” She sucked in her breath and squared her shoulders. He sucked in his own as that gorgeous gaze darkened with determination. “Unfortunately for me, I’ve decided that—special agent or not—I like what I see. So, how much is it going to take?”

Just like that, the burning in his heart eased.

“One word.” His heart swelled as her gaze softened and slid to the square of paper. His hope swelled.

“Which word would that be?”

“The right one.”

He stood there, his bare feet fused to the carpet as she slowly smoothed the bills and folded them before tucking the wad back into her pocket. His pounding heart timed the silent, excruciating seconds as she leaned down and picked up the note, unfolded it, then carefully smoothed that out, too. She took her sweet time reading the short statement and burning question he’d scrawled after. She took so long, he not only knew what her answer would be, he was certain she was enjoying every raw, bloody second of his torture. Christ, could this woman be cruel! He didn’t care. Especially when he knew what was behind it. She might understand his silence at Rurik’s, but she also intended to make him earn his forgiveness. Fine with him. He wasn’t about to give up now. But he would have to make her pay, too.

“Yes, I’ll marry you.”

His heart exploded with joy. He had no idea how he managed to stand there and calmly nod as he absorbed the sheer ecstasy that showered back down, but he did. Nor did he have any idea where he found the strength to slowly shake his head. But again, it was there. He used it. “Sorry, that’s four words.”

When her gaze widened slightly, he knew she knew he was on to her. “Oh.” She blinked. “Well, I guess the deal is off then.”

She spun around—and got precisely nowhere. His hands whipped out before he could stop them. He hauled her in close, locking her wrists together with one of his hands as he swung her around with the other. He leaned in closer, staring directly into her eyes. “As long as you’ve overpaid, give me the rest.”

“You’re cheating.”

“This isn’t a game anymore, Danielle.”

She nodded solemnly. “I know. I also know I shouldn’t have walked out eleven months ago. I should have decked you and maybe given you a chance to explain. But I shouldn’t have left.”

“No, you shouldn’t have. But I shouldn’t have waited so long to tell the old man off, either.”

“Why’d you finally do it?”

“Because once I got you alone, in my house and in my bed, I knew I’d never be able to let you go again. I should have said then, before we left for work, what I wrote in that note.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“’Cause I was scared, honey. We’ve known each other for so long. Hell, I’ve always known you were attracted to me. But what if that was it? What if you didn’t feel the same way deep inside your heart? What if it was just adrenaline?”

“You really think adrenaline can cause what happened on your bed and in your shower? Beside my car? What happened against that wall tonight? What happens between us whenever we’re this close?” She dragged her gaze down to his mouth and dragged her husky whisper even lower. “What’s happening between us right now?”

“Hell, no. But I need to know what you think. What you feel. Dammit, Danielle, I need to hear the words.”

“Come closer.”

He leaned in until the tips of their lashes meshed. He was so close her very breath was turning him on. He could feel the soft, cool suction against his lips as hers parted, inhaled, and then the warm, slow wash as she exhaled. He felt each and every excruciatingly slow breath that followed, every single sensation as she shifted to scrape her lips across the individual hairs that formed the scruff on his cheek—until she stopped, and then finally, mercifully, filled his ear with her throaty whisper.

“I love you too, Jack.”

The burn returned. This time, not just to his heart. The ache spread out, searing through every single inch of his body as he turned his head and leaned down to sweep her up in his arms. He carried her into the bedroom, right up to the bed he’d turned down almost an hour before, claiming her lips as he laid her out and sank into her curves. He delved deep inside her mouth, capturing the sigh from her heart and dragging it into his own, savoring it for so long that when he finally poured it back into her, it had turned into a hoarse, needy groan.

He didn’t care.

It might have taken him eleven years and he might have had to cheat a bit along the way, but every blessed moment had been worth it. Because he’d finally won the most precious prize of all. The complete, unconditional surrender of Danielle Stanton’s heart. He intended on treasuring it and her for the rest of his life.

IN LOVE AND WAR
Copyright © 2003 by Harlequin Books S.A.

ISBN: 978-1-4268-6271-7

The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:

A MILITARY AFFAIR
Copyright © 2003 by Merline Lovelace

COMRADES IN ARMS
Copyright © 2003 by Eileen Nauman

AN UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER
Copyright © 2003 by Candace Phillips Irvin

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

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Table of Contents

AN UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8