Bile burned the back of his throat as a hole threatened to crack open his chest. What had she been through during her three days of captivity? Jamming the fear to the back of his brain, he focused on using his training to help her. He wouldn’t be any good to her if he didn’t hold it together.
His eyes flicked to other screens, images of the rest of the rooms, one in particular. Chains hung from the ceiling. Knives glinted in a line on a nearby table. A battery with cables lay too damn close on the floor. The semiconscious man being carried between two guards appeared alive.
Jose forced himself to assess the young man medically. Pararescue training included extensive schooling as a medic and no doubt those skills were needed for this mission. The wide screen filled again with Stella’s image, the time stamp at the bottom showing the footage had come in late yesterday afternoon.
“Hello?” She waved her hand in front of one of the bad guy surveillance cameras. “Your guards are due back in a half hour anyway to bring that watery soup you call supper… Oh yeah, and you call it breakfast, but no actual lunch because we shouldn’t eat enough to have any energy. Instead of your sunrise/sunset buffet, I’d rather have a bucket of water and antibiotics.”
Mr. Smith froze that frame, leaving the smaller images running in both past and real time now, offering two Stellas to watch in addition to the full screen close-up of her pale face with keen green eyes. “Notice, she told us the guard’s schedule—or at least the part we can expect. Sunrise and sunset. We can infiltrate at that moment, when we know where the guards will be. It’s better to face the certainty. You’ll be going in just before dusk as they take her supper tonight.”>It would be hot as hell over her black pants, top, and bulletproof vest. But a little dehydration was a small price to pay for an extra layer of anonymity.
“Need help?”
She turned and there were those coffee dark eyes again. Static-like awareness snapped when she looked back at the intense gaze that had held hers earlier as he’d lifted his face mask. Except now he was more than eyes and a wet suit. He was a lean, honed man in a pair of fitted swim trunks he must have worn under the diving gear. He was glistening bronze with a body trained for survival anyplace, anytime.
The boat rocked under her feet from a rogue wave. At least she thought it was a wave.
“Uh, no, I’m good. Thanks. You should get dressed. We need to haul butt out of here.” And his current state of undress definitely didn’t qualify as “low profile.”
“I meant, do you need help with the cut on your temple?” He gestured to the left side of her face, almost touching. “You brought along two PJs for a reason, ma’am.”
Her skin hummed with a sting that her brain must have pushed aside earlier for survival’s sake. She tapped the side of her forehead gingerly.
“Ouch!” Her fingertips were stained with blood as murky red as her hair.
“A bullet must have grazed you,” he said with a flat Midwestern accent. A no-accent really, just pure masculine rumble. “Could have been much worse. This was your lucky day, ma’am.”
“Stella.” For right now she could be more than Miss Lucky Smith.
“They call me Cuervo.”
Call him.
Call signs.
No real name from him for now. Understandable and a reality check to get her professional groove back on. “Do I need stitches?”
He tugged a small kit from his gear, a waterproof pack of some sort. “Antiseptic and butterfly bandages should hold you until we can get someplace where I’ll have time to treat you more fully.”
We.
Her brain hitched on the word, the answer to who she would be partnering with as they escaped into the crowd. She wasn’t saying good-bye to him—to Cuervo—at the dock. Irrational relief flooded her, followed by a bolt of excitement.
“Thanks, Cuervo. Blood dripping down my face would definitely draw undue attention at an inopportune time.” She forced a smile.
Still, his face, those eyes, they held her, and while she wasn’t a mystical person, she couldn’t miss the connection. Attraction? Sure, but she understood how to compartmentalize on the job. This was something that felt elemental. Before she could stop the thought, the words soul mate flashed through her head.
And God, that was crazy and irrational when she was always, always logical. Her brothers called her a female version of Spock from Star Trek.
Still, as those fingers cleaned her wound, smoothed ointment over her temple, and stretched butterfly bandages along her skin, she couldn’t stop thinking about spending the rest of the day with him as they melded into the port city and made their way back to the embassy.
Damn it, she could not waste the time or emotional energy on romance or even a fling. Right now, she could only focus on working with the Mr. Smiths and Mr. Browns of her profession. She needed to make peace with her past, then move on with her life. Then, and only then, she would find Mr. Right and shift from the field to a desk job so she could settle down into that real family dream she’d missed out on.
Yet those brown eyes drew her into a molten heat and she had the inescapable sense that Mr. Right had arrived ahead of schedule.
Chapter 1
East Africa: Six Months Later
Five years, eight months, and twenty-nine days sober.