Hard to Hold Read online

  As if it was that simple to forget.

  “Sometimes, I could swear I remember things from that night … things that I can’t tell if they happened or not,” she said, and his gut clenched. “I mean, I remember hiding. Seeing you above me holding your weapon and you were so still and sometimes I can convince myself that happened in the car after the team found us initially. Other times, I know we were outside and that we weren’t alone.”

  He’d really hoped he’d never have to tell her about the rest of that night, when the team had gotten a mile away before being warned by Max of the soldiers’ approach. The new group of rebel soldiers were backup, headed to meet the soldiers the SEAL team had just left behind.

  Too many to take on and still complete their mission of getting Isabelle out of the country alive. Rules of the game—no unnecessary risks.

  Do not engage. I repeat, do not engage. Max’s voice echoed in his ear.

  They’d been forced to ditch the ancient Land Rover after cutting out part of the backseat to use as a board to carry Isabelle. They’d strapped her down and he and Nick stayed in between Saint and Chris and Mark for cover. The night had grown stickier, and Isabelle’s breathing wasn’t easy.

  “We had to take a different route out of Djibouti, because you were with us,” he said finally.

  “Why? What did that matter?”

  “You weren’t in any shape to take a nice, long swim in the Indian Ocean,” he said. Getting to a different LZ was supposed to take an extra two hours. They’d gotten behind, and dawn wouldn’t be their friend unless they were already on a helo headed out.

  “You passed out. We had to ditch the car—the LZ was miles away. Rebels were coming fast from that direction.”

  If he closed his eyes, he could still see the scene clearly, could smell the lingering smoke in the air, on his clothes—Isabelle on the ground in between him and Nick, huddled in the rough shadows of the brush, waiting in total silence, weapons readied as the soldiers passed, and all of them praying she wouldn’t wake up or moan in her sleep and draw attention to their position.

  “You carried me again,” she said slowly, as if it was all coming back to her as she sat there in his bedroom, in the dark.

  He had—over six miles of rough terrain, nonstop, with his men flanking him, praying that with every step he wasn’t doing irreversible damage to her. “The LZ was taking fire,” he said. “We had to backtrack.”

  Caught literally between two opposing rebel forces, the helo had made a death-wish landing, barely touching the ground to allow the five SEALs and Isabelle on before the iron bird took off again.

  She’d mercifully remained unconscious through the entire ordeal. “We took off under pretty heavy fire. By the time the sun came up, we were on safe passage.”

  “I remember waking up when we were in the air. Chris was checking me.”

  He remembered that too. He’d been hovering until Chris told him to sit the fuck down and give her some air.

  “Where did you go after that?” she asked.

  He leaned his head back against the pillows, feeling strangely exposed even though his body was still covered. “I came back here. Back to training,” he said.

  “I was in the hospital for a month.”

  “I know. I came to see you.” There was no reason not to tell her. Not anymore.

  “I never … saw you there.” Her voice was quiet with a slight catch, as if she was trying not to cry.

  “But I was,” he said. “As often as I could be. Sometimes it was every night.”

  When she spoke again, it was apparent she hadn’t been able to hold back the tears. “Doctors make the worst patients.”

  “Worse than me?”

  “I’d say we’re a tie.”

  “No way. I never tie—I win.”

  She laughed even as she cried, threw back her head to expose a beautiful column of neck, and he shifted under the sheet. He wanted to invite her inside, under the covers. But he had as much to lose by doing that as she did.

  “Go back to bed now, Isabelle.”

  “Only if you’re sure you’re all right,” she said.

  When he didn’t answer, she padded softly to the door. He ignored his own disappointment that she’d followed his order so readily, and left well enough alone.

  The truck Clutch had borrowed from a farmer a few miles east bounced over the ruts in the road. If the shocks weren’t completely shot, they would be soon and Sarah put her hand up on the ceiling of the car so she wouldn’t bounce completely up from her seat.

  They hadn’t had the luxury of lingering together long—she and Clutch had quickly dressed and gotten into the truck and moving toward their ultimate target.

  So much to think about, to sort through further, but now wasn’t the time.

  “Let’s concentrate on getting to Rafe—we’ll deal with the rest after that,” he told her.

  “He knew … Rafe knew I’d come through the back door of his house,” she said quietly, as if saying it out loud would make it more real. “I always came through the back door—up the back path.”

  “I know.”

  “He’s been to the States,” she continued. “He went there about a month after Isabelle’s rescue. He said he had to take care of a few things. He went back a few weeks ago too.”

  “Text that information to the first number on the screen,” he instructed her. “Then call the airport.”

  The betrayal—any betrayal—hung heavily in her heart, even though Rafe had twisted her trust in a far more destructive way than she ever could have imagined. She picked out the letters carefully, stared at them before hitting SEND.

  “That’s information for the man who’s helping Isabelle.”

  Izzy.

  “I stole money from Izzy,” Sarah told him. It was within the first hours of meeting the doctor and Sarah found herself sneaking into Izzy’s tent that night while Izzy slept, to put it back. She’d closed the door and had only gotten a few steps away when Izzy’s voice rose up in the darkness behind her.

  “What did you need it for?” Izzy had asked.

  “My family.”

  Isabelle had handed her back the bills. “I understand family.”

  And from that, the two women, both of whom were used to being alone, both uncomfortable with sitting down and talking, sharing the way women usually did, formed a bond.

  Their friendship was different, words often unspoken, as they weren’t necessary. At night, they’d sit around the fire and drink bottles of warm Tusker lager—both women dusty, Izzy often still in surgical scrubs.

  It had been nice.

  “She sounds like a good woman,” Clutch said.

  “Isabelle seemed so happy,” she said finally. “Like if she didn’t have to go back to her old life … I mean, she’s the daughter of a rich woman, had this whole high-powered life back in the States, but she didn’t want any of it at all. I didn’t understand that.”

  “Some people are happy living here,” he said.

  “Are you one of them?”

  “Most of the time, I’m just happy to be living.”

  She wasn’t sure why his words shook her to her core.

  She made the call while he maneuvered the stolen truck through the back roads. “Bujumbura Airport’s closed. Rafe doesn’t have his own plane—he never learned how to fly.”

  “He knows how to fly.”

  There was so much she didn’t know about either man. “We’d better get there soon—the city still has a curfew,” she said, peered up at the night sky.

  “We’ll be there in ten minutes, so we’ve already broken curfew.”

  “Your phone’s ringing again. Are you sure you don’t have to get it?”

  She held it out to him—he glanced at the number on the ID and took the silver phone from her, flipped it open and held it to his ear without saying a word.

  “Catch me if you can,” was all he said seconds later. He clicked the phone closed with a smile, but the satisfactio
n of his expression was short-lived, as gunshots shattered the glass of the back window.

  The truck swerved as he pushed her head down.

  “What the hell’s going on, Clutch?”

  “Help me lose them.”

  She’d never, ever heard any trace of panic in his voice, until now. “Take the next hard left and the first quick right—don’t miss it.”

  She held her breath, waited as Clutch did exactly what she’d told him and they heard the other car breeze past them on the other road. “Keep going—floor it—we’ll take the longer way to the airport.”

  His hands gripped the wheel and sweat formed on his brow. She held her gun and looked back even though the jungle closed off behind them, the most effective camouflage for their car there was.

  “Who are those men? Who’s tracking you?” she asked.

  “No one you want to know about. You’re going to have to trust me on that one.”

  Who are those men?

  Would Sarah believe him if he told her that he’d been chased by ghosts for years? Probably. She was probably one of the few who would get it.

  “I do trust you, Clutch,” she said, turned back from watching their six. They’d lost the men, for now. “I know there’s more to the story than you’ve let on. I see how you’ve lived—like an island. Like me.”

  Would she understand what growing up in Witness Protection had been like? “I can’t do this now, Sarah.”

  “There might not be time left.”

  He took a deep breath and he started to tell her everything, as quickly as he could, as though ripping off a Band-Aid.

  “When I was seven, my mother turned state’s evidence against her husband, my father,” he started.

  Clutch’s dad was a major player in the world of organized crime. After the trial, Clutch and his mom moved around constantly, from the time he was seven until he was fourteen.

  “The marshals separated us then. I was getting into trouble in the public school system. They were worried I’d blow my cover. So they sent me to military school.” There, he had the normalcy, the discipline he’d craved. He’d been accepted, made friends using the carefully crafted background the federal marshals had given him.

  He’d been too young, too full of himself to understand that the rest of his life would always be a carefully crafted lie. And when the marshals put the gun in his hands at age fourteen and taught him to shoot, he’d been sure he’d never feel at risk again. By fifteen, he’d felt naked if he didn’t have a weapon strapped to his ankle. He’d graduated from the military academy at eighteen, having specialized in foreign languages and history and had gotten permission to join the military, and for ten blissful years, he’d trained, made rank, hadn’t had to worry about anything but his own ass and those of his teammates.

  “I would’ve stayed in forever,” he told her. She reached out and squeezed his arm.

  “The men who are after you, have they been sent by your father?” she asked.

  He shook his head hard. “No, not my father. Not the marshals. Witness Protection sold me out, into a group they’d created—they took highly trained men and women and made them mercs.”

  He turned quickly to see her face—she was shaking her head and he knew, just knew she’d heard the rumors. You didn’t grow up in this country and not hear about a group of government-funded war dogs who’d gone over the edge, so far that even the government couldn’t call them back.

  “You’re part of that group,” she whispered. “Masuka.”

  Ghosts.

  He nodded, waited for her to pull away from him or demand to get out of the car, but she didn’t do either of those things. Instead, she put a cool hand on the back of his neck and stopped asking him any more questions.

  He’d lost his freedom and he’d lost Fay, the woman he’d planned a life with and the only person who knew who Clutch really was. Until now.

  Bobby Juniper, we want you back.

  It was with a sinking feeling of despair that he realized they might actually get their way.

  CHAPTER

  16

  Isabelle didn’t remember the hallway outside of Jake’s room being so small. She’d edged toward the window because it was closer than the stairs, and as she stood in the near darkness, the shadows thrown by the trees outside made the hallway a dense jungle, a minefield of endless, hazy memories.

  Still, she listened to the shower running, thought about stripping off her T-shirt and joining him, but remained in place as the rain thumped against the wide window behind her.

  He’d risked his life more than once for her. He’d been at the hospital. He hadn’t left her when things got tough.

  And when he walked out of his bedroom, it might’ve been ten minutes or two hours later, she was still standing in the hallway, unable to turn back toward his room or go up to her own.

  He made the decision for her, covered the small distance between them in seconds with a look of steely determination in his eyes.

  Their bodies were inches apart, but he didn’t touch her, merely stood and watched and waited, until she reached out and ran her fingers through his shower-dampened hair. At first, he nuzzled his head down against her neck, rubbed his cheek against hers, like a lion attempting to woo his mate. Sweet, strong and dangerous, all at the same time.

  “You’re supposed to be in bed,” he murmured.

  “Not yet.” She tugged his hair, pulled his face up and let her forehead touch his, the way it had last night … the way it had that night in Africa. And then she shifted, put her mouth to his and allowed the heat between them take its course for as long as she could handle it.

  She pushed him against the wall while her mouth took his, let her hold his wrists for a few seconds, until he broke free from her grip and put his arms around her.

  For a second, a brief second, panic rose inside her throat, tightened her chest until Jake’s rough murmur of “It’s me, Isabelle. Just me.” brushed her ear. And yes, that contact was right. Necessary. She brought her arms up, around his shoulders, stood on tiptoes so she could kiss him harder, deeper.

  He kissed her back like he never wanted to stop.

  She could take it no further than this—didn’t think she could anyway, until his hand slid under her T-shirt. She’d run down the stairs in no more than that and her underwear and now the cool air wafted along the backs of her bare thighs.

  His fingers traced slow, lazy patterns along her side, the one that had been injured, as his mouth devoured hers. And slowly, so slowly, he shifted, danced his feet with hers until she was the one with her back pressed against the wall, with barely an inch between them.

  “Safe,” he murmured, kissed her cheek, her neck. “So safe. Promise.”

  She was trembling, almost uncontrollably, but she wasn’t ready to back down. Jake kept one hand light but steady against her side, the other moving around toward her hip, and he kissed her again, over and over, his tongue teasing hers, soft and sweet and hard and fast, kissed her until her nerves abated and all that was left between them was the scent of arousal and need.

  Soon, it was going to be too late to pull back, and he must have sensed her brief moment of hesitation because he stopped kissing her. She caught his wrist before his hands moved off her body completely.

  “Go ahead,” she murmured, put her hand over his and ran it up along her bare belly.

  Her skin burned, his hand a wash of cool relief as his palm traveled upward under her guidance. She nearly forgot to breathe as his fingers brushed the outer curve of her breast, and then she urged him further until his hand covered her breast completely. And when she lightened her grip, encouraged his fingers to play nimbly with her already taut nipple, he tugged lightly until she let out a small moan and opened her eyes.

  She hadn’t realized they’d been closed, found Jake watching her, lust and concern in equal heart-stopping parts. She caressed his hand as he rolled her nipple and brushed his thumb over the sensitive peak. The sensations burst thr
ough her, made her bolder, and suddenly the hallway seemed to break open wider, the big window giving view to the heavy downpour.

  Different. So different.

  His other hand remained on her hip until she reached for it, and in similar fashion trailed it down her belly. He stopped briefly before he reached the juncture of her thighs but she tugged. And he let his hand move between her legs to rub the silk square of fabric and his breath hitched, like hers.

  “Fuck, Isabelle.” Under heavy lids, Jake’s eyes were a darkened storm cloud color, ready to break along with the weather … along with her.

  With her hand covering his, he stroked her through the silk, finding a mutual rhythm.

  She found the strength to pull her hand away from his, leaving him in control. “Don’t stop, Jake,” she murmured.

  One finger slipped inside the fabric, touched her as a long, low Oh escaped her lips. His eyes never left hers.

  “More?”

  “Yes. More.”

  Rain pummeled the roof, slammed the windows as if it wanted in, the house shuddering in conjunction with her body. She was as wild and out of control as the storm and she bit his shoulder through his shirt as she came, harder and faster than she’d ever remembered an orgasm taking her.

  He didn’t stop, even as her knees buckled and her body sagged, his fingers kept a gentle pressure then built again and she responded in kind by coming again, contracting around his fingers.

  She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, his body bearing nearly all her weight. When she lifted her head from where she’d buried it against his shoulder, there were a few tears tracking her cheeks again, but he seemed to know they were from relief, not fear. And as his hands cupped her buttocks, hers pushed against his chest to separate their bodies a bit. Her hands played with the string ties on the front of his shorts, unknotting them carefully, assessing her readiness.

  She released the strings, her hand playing instead over the impossibly hard bulge. He groaned, let her do so for a few minutes before he spoke.