A hand clamped around her arm. "Come with me," the guard ordered in guttural English. A flutter twinged in her stomach. Nerves. Again. Stronger until she realized...
Oh, God. Not nerves. The baby moved.
Before she could wrap her mind around the landmark moment in her pregnancy, the guard tugged her again, dragging her toward the center of the compound until they stopped in front of a stark, cement, one-story building beside her barracks cell.
Like all the other buildings.
Inside, down the hall they walked. His knock elicited a brusque command. The voice. Too familiar. She fought the urge to run.
The door swung wide, bringing her face-to-face with her worst nightmare. Her baby's father.
Ammar al-Khayr sat behind a desk like any businessman on a lunch break, plate in front of him. His dusty khakis and loose, linen shirt rippled with gusts from the fan in front of a window, the same fan wafting spices into the air, gagging her. She remembered too well the smell of them on his breath inches from her face, over her.
She forced herself to blink and breathe evenly. He was just a man. Quite ordinary in appearance actually, average height and weight.
Deceptively so.
God, but he was strong. Fearfully strong even when he had to be nearing fifty. Fanaticism defied age. He might harm her, but he wouldn't win. She just had to stay alive a little while longer.
His gaze roved her, but not sexually—it had never been sexual. She knew without question he hated her simply because of what she represented. He didn't lust after her, in fact, found her disgusting, to be used. Abused.
Still he continued to evaluate her while she struggled not to fidget in spite of the creepy feeling spidering up her spine. Had she somehow given Blake away? Or had they been found out? Bile burned hot in the back of her throat. The stifling heat, stench, and memories wreaked havoc on her already queasy stomach.
"Have a seat, please, Ms. Hyatt. It seems we have a problem on our hands and since you are the senior member of your group, I decided to bring it to your attention first."
He definitely knew something. And between Blake and the baby, she carried two colossal secrets that could cost her life. Or worse—theirs.
Jack hated dreams because there were no secrets.
Dreams attacked with a no-holds-barred approach while a guy's defenses were down. Everybody had to catch some Z's eventually and dreams' agendas were patient. Even as he tried to wrestle himself out of the nightmare of the moment, he wasn't having a helluva lot of luck.
This particular one had its claws in deep, submerging him in a skyful of blood and wives with life-and-death stakes. His dad kept chanting over Jack's headset about how a man kicks ass for his woman.
Jack understood he'd screwed up that lesson. He turned over control of the jet to Rodeo so he could crawl down into the cargo hold and ask his brother Tony for absolution.
And crap, but his dreams always seemed to enjoy digging those claws deeper with irony and humor as if to pay him back for his own smart-ass ways. Because then damned if Tony didn't deny forgiveness with a resounding rendition of "Don't Be Cruel" before hopping into Grandma Korba's Pinto and driving off the back load ramp into a wide-open sky.
Shit, he was trying with Monica. This time he had his uniform and M-9 and military airplane. He was doing his best to kick ass and take names, to save her sister. Keep Monica safe. He wouldn't screw it up again.
He had himself reined in. Always, slow and easy. No losing control like some reckless college kid who was so horny that half the time he forgot to walk across the room for a condom when making love to his wife even though they had both decided to put off kids until after graduation.
Hell, no. He held it together with Monica.
But still she was standing beside him with blood all over her uniform and he knew it was hers. Except he couldn't find where she was bleeding from. And if he couldn't figure out what she needed from him, then he would lose her. He would have failed again.
He didn't have much longer left. The load ramp was shutting, cranking up, almost there, soon would shut off all the light and he wouldn't be able to see where the blood was coming from. Closing. Darker.
Thunk.
Thunk. Thunk Thunk.
Jack jolted awake, Monica's legs heavy in his lap, the room dark from her blackened window.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
The door. Someone was knocking on Monica's door.
Her legs stirred against him. She flung an arm over her face. "Jack?"