Anything, Anywhere, Anytime (13 page)

"Hurt me?"

Anger blew away his frustration, gelling into a cold-core call to protect. "Assaulted you? Sexually."

Her eyes widened with her gasp. "No! No."

Tension unwound inside him. His arm fell back to his side.

"But thank you for your concern for my well-being."

Her smile kinked that tension right back to an overwound spring.

"I'd be concerned about anyone. It's all a part of my job description to protect." He barked the words gruffer than he intended, but for the best.

She winced. "I realize that."

He'd hurt her feelings, and he ignored remorse. Now maybe she would back off. He could have some peace of mind and overlook the fact that he'd started searching for her every time he stepped away from his room.

Or a meeting.

Or another bowl of goat slop.

She relaxed against a metal beam. "I think you must have been very young when you had your daughter.

How old is she again?"

"Twenty-one."

She smiled. "So I am older."

"By only two years. Now this conversation is over." Why didn't he tell her he was a grandfather?

"Men in my country have many wives."

The W-word.

A curse in his vocabulary he'd given up long before becoming a grandfather and a conversation he knew damned well to avoid. "So I hear around the water cooler."

"My mother was my father's fourth wife. Some say being the first wife is the most honored and important position. My mother always said being the last was best because it meant my father wanted no one else after having her."

He refrained from making a comment about monogamous marriages since that would lead him deeper into a discussion he wanted finished. "Well, rest assured, I can control myself, and having had one wife, I now have absolutely no intentions of taking another."

Yasmine studied him silently. Wind tugged at her silly scarf, revealing a hint of silken black hair. And just that fast, the attraction blindsided him again.

She tightened her scarf against the tearing gusts. "You loved her that much?"

Hell, no. But he knew an out when he saw one, so he kept his yap zipped and let her think what she wanted. Damned persistent woman would, anyway.

"How tragic for you." A frown ribbed her brow. Then she smiled. Man, did the woman ever know how to smile, creasing dimples in her smooth skin. "But also fortuitous for our situation. There are no worries now since I never want to marry, either. Once I am in the United States, I will be my own woman. No relatives to claim me and what is mine as their own."

Her mouth snapped shut abruptly. What was she talking about? He needed to listen but he couldn't stop looking at her smile lighting her brown eyes. It had been a long time since he'd seen anyone smile without reservation.

Her energy was contagious.

"Which brings me to why we are having this conversation."

"Well, thank you, Lord, at least the woman has a reason for tormenting the hell out of me."

"I torment you?" Her dimples deepened with an old-as-time Eve feminine confidence.

Contagious like a rash. "I don't have time to play tour guide for you."

There. That sounded logical.

Yasmine-Eve just kept smiling her sage womanly smile. "These feelings you have for me are not a problem since I am not after a green card. I don't need a tour guide, either, only your protection until I leave here."

Great. He had the hots for her and she didn't give a damn about more than the M-16 over his shoulder.

"This is supposed to reassure me how, Sheba?"

Eve evaporated into something more like a miffed kid with a rejected gift. "I thought you might be concerned that I would take advantage of your...reaction to my closeness."

Back to that reaction issue again. Damn. And just when he thought his fly buttons might get a reprieve from being strained to the limit around this woman.

Girl, he reminded himself. She was just a girl. Nineteen damned years younger than him and a refugee under his command. Must be some midlife crisis when he no-shit thought he wasn't upset about the grandparent thing. Other than regretting he'd never felt like a parent first.

Some men combated middle age with a sports car. Others, with women. Damn but he hated being so cliche as to lust after a nymphet, and would have sworn he wasn't the type.

He wasn't a monk, but he chose his lovers selectively. Mature women his age, women focused on their careers and in search of companionship with mutual physical release tossed into the mix.

Yasmine's hands fluttered up to her scarf again, resecuring the drape over her shoulder with butterfly grace. Still he could see the tip of her widow's peak, just a hint. More than enough since he was long past the adolescent days of ogling overt displays.

Age taught a man to appreciate the understated nuances of pleasure. The sensuality in the glide of a woman's hands as she touched silk. The beauty in the subtle suggestion of her hair begging to be revealed.

Good God, he was in a shitload of trouble here.

No, it wasn't a simple midlife crisis. More like temporary insanity and he intended to recapture his grip on reality. Starting now.

He leaned down, nose to nose, and stared straight into her eyes while ignoring the silken hint of hair inches above. "Little girl, do you not realize I am a colonel in the United States Army? I have served combat in more conflicts than you have years. I have stared down the barrel of enemy rifles and pulled my own to shoot before being shot. I am the man in charge of your fate and yet you keep right on with this campaign of yours that you have to know is guaranteed to... Piss. Me. Off."

Yasmine stared back, unflinching as he unleashed tones that made even hardened warriors wet their pants.

Damn, but he could use her cool under fire in his regiment.

She blinked slowly, a glimpse of Eve returning with wisdom beyond the young woman's years. "So why have you never called for one of those military police persons to take me back to my quarters?"

Huh?

He stood with his boots planted and his brain on stun. He wondered for a second if his M-16 had slid from his shoulder and shot him in the foot. Because sure as hell,
pop,
he was busted. And busted meant dead in his world.

This woman was dangerous for more reasons than he ever could have guessed.

She backed away toward the gaping hangar opening, taking all the air with her. "No need to call for them now. I will leave."

With a sweep of her arms, she twirled toward the tarmac with more of that subtle grace he didn't want to appreciate but now couldn't deny. She stepped out of the dim enclosure. Sunlight glinted on retreating daisies, declaring him almost in the homestretch.

Then Yasmine paused, glanced over her shoulder, a glimpse of vulnerability teasing through her poise.

"Although I have to confess I am pleased you can not quite subdue your reaction to me. It would be a very sad thing for me to think only one of us was suffering from this attraction."

Waiting for Jack before his flight, Monica felt as transparent as a teenager loitering by the quarterback's locker.

Or worse yet, like her mother. Ruled by hormones and lacking in common sense when it came to men.

The life-support area bustled with activity from Rodeo and Tag picking up equipment before flight. A small back office that opened onto the flight line, the room was now jam-packed full of helmets and gear for the fliers.

Guilt stung Monica yet again. She should be focused on Sydney. Yet what was wrong with needing to see Jack before he took off to drop the SEALs? She just wanted an update without others listening in. For all his insistence that he intended to stay close to her, time alone together had sure been scarce since she'd thrown herself at him a day and a half ago.

Monica fingered the survival vests hanging from hooks alongside shelves of helmets. Rodeo smiled, nodded, but didn't initiate conversation as he and seasoned loadmaster Tag preflighted their helmets and NVGs.

Thank God. She wasn't up to crew dog ribbing tonight.

Of course their silent acceptance of her presence said a lot for her and Jack's inability to keep things low-key. Yes, she wanted him, but there had to be more to a relationship than attraction. She knew that.

Apparently, Jack knew it now, too, since he seemed to be keeping his distance. She should be relieved.

Instead, frustration kicked through her.

The door swung open seconds before Jack entered from the corridor. The room seemed to fill with broad shoulders stretching a tan flight suit to the limit beneath the body armor they'd all begun wearing since the shooting.

Her hormones went on full alert as they always did around this man. At least her armored vest provided better coverage to her reaction than those pageant Band-Aids used to mask her reaction to the cold. Except now her reaction had more to do with something hot. Very hot. Her breasts definitely weighed heavy and needy and in
need of closer contact with Jack right this moment.

His eyes found her. Held. He angled his dark head toward Rodeo and Tag without looking away. "Go on ahead without me, guys. I'll catch up in a minute."

The copilot and loadmaster pushed through the second door outside to the waiting truck, leaving her alone with Jack and an airman deep in paperwork at the desk.

Jack moved toward her with a loose-hipped strut, the black M-9 pistol in his web belt bringing gunslinger images to a Texas girl's mind. The weapon also engendered insidious reminders of danger when even noncombatant medical personnel like herself needed to be armed—at Jack's insistence.

He stopped in front of her, crowding her space just by being him. "You should be in bed."

She wasn't so far gone with her feelings that she couldn't scavenge a face-saving excuse for waiting for him. A valid one at that. "I wanted to make sure everything's okay. I heard you moved up the flight."

"Because of bad weather. Heavy winds expected later tonight. Only a couple hours change." He checked out his helmet and survival vest from the airman behind the desk.

"I thought there might be signs of moving the hostages."

"Nope," he answered without even sparing her a glance. He shrugged into the webbed survival vest. He unhooked his pistol belt and transferred his M-9 to the side holster in the vest, before shifting his attention to preflighting his helmet. His hands skimmed the oxygen hose, searching for breaks or cracks, then checked for frays along the communications cord wrapped neatly around the hose.

"Jack''" she prompted, unsure whether to be worried or pissed.

He tugged the gray helmet over his head. "The possibility of the hostages being moved is always a concern, but not so much now that we're over here since we can be in the air and there before they clear the perimeter."

Crossing to the counter with the oxygen regulator check machine, Jack worked the metal bayonet snaps into the catch until the oxygen mask fit securely around his mouth.

Well, that sure as hell was one way to avoid talking.

He plugged in the regulator hose and adjusted the setting up to 30,000 to check air pressure forced through the hose. Then cranked it back down again.

She waited. He'd have to take the thing off sometime, damn it. Which he did. Only to disappear seconds later into a closet designated for testing his NVGs.

Finally he stepped out. "Monica, I don't have time for this tonight."

A valid—and obvious—excuse to dodge her.

What more did she expect? She'd set the limits and made the appointment with a divorce attorney.

Now wasn't the time to discuss more, anyway. Jack's mission was dangerous enough without a big confrontation before takeoff. She swallowed back the need to ask him if he was as confused as she was by a simple kiss when they'd done so much more in the past.

Much more. Her body reacted with a will of its own.

Yep, the Kevlar vest definitely served her well tonight.

Following him to the door, she watched him walk out into the night, not that Jack ever simply walked.

Heavy combat boots ate the distance between him and the humming truck with a lazy arrogance and assurance she once would have found annoying. Yet now she knew enough about these zipper-suited sky gods she treated—knew enough about Jack— to understand that unshakable self-assurance allowed him to place his body in the line of antiaircraft fire in only an aluminum can.

Her stomach pitched. "Jack!"

He glanced back without answering, and though he looked powerfully alive right now, her job left her all too aware of mortality.

"Be careful."

"Piece of cake, babe." He vaulted onto the truck bed with the rest of his crew and the sixteen waiting SEALs.

Backing into the room as the dark soaked up the moving truck, she reminded herself that tonight he would be flying too high for antiaircraft fire to reach him. A reassurance, if it weren't for the fact she also knew his flight involved a no-lights takeoff and landing with night-vision goggles.

A flight skill only about ten percent of fliers in the squadron were qualified to perform. More medals.

More risk.

As if flying in Rubistanian airspace alone didn't provide enough cause for caution. Too many fanatics hauling shoulder-held missile launchers crept around this stretch of the Middle East, as a recent downing of one of their planes could attest.

Sure the crew had returned home alive. Eventually. After being "detained" in Rubistan until diplomatic channels cleared. Even straightforward humanitarian flights were fraught with danger.

This was not a straightforward flight.

Nodding to the airman, she strode into the hall. Night stretched out long and empty in front of her like the quiet corridor leading to her room. No matter what history she and Jack shared, or how little future they might hope to share, she knew she wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight.

She rounded the corner toward the stairs. Hairs at the base of her scalp pulled tighter on her braid. The sense of being watched tingled over her. Too strong to ignore.

Pivoting, she scanned. Looked. Found no one.