Hot & Bothered (A Hostile Operations Team Novel - Book 8) Page 5

  He took another step toward her until he was nearly pressing her into the wall. “When? Fucking when, Emily?”

  “Don’t yell at me!”

  He stepped back, his nostrils flaring. He flexed his hands at his sides as if trying to work off some tension.

  Emily’s body quivered with adrenaline. Her head swam, and the heat inside her abaya intensified. Her stomach churned as bile rose in her throat. She put a hand on the wall as the buzzing in her brain grew stronger. Why couldn’t she shake this feeling?

  Ryan’s expression changed. He didn’t look angry now. He looked… concerned.

  “Emily? What’s wrong?”

  “I… I… don’t… know…”

  He was the only thing she could see. Everything else faded until his face filled her vision. She felt his hands on her shoulders—and then she felt nothing at all.

  *

  “Emily!” Ryan caught her as she crumpled to the ground. Then he swung her up into his arms and whirled on the men standing there.

  “In here,” Ian Black said, pushing open a door and walking into a room.

  Ryan followed on his heels. It was an office, but there was a mattress on one wall. Ryan sank down and gently placed Emily upon it.

  “She needs water.”

  Ian pressed a cold bottle into his hand, and Ryan twisted off the cap before pouring some on his fingers and patting her face. Then he snatched the black head covering off and freed her hair. The golden mass was matted with sweat.

  He pressed his fingers to her jugular and took her pulse. It was strong, but too fast.

  “Take the abaya off,” Black said.

  Ryan wanted to growl at the man and tell him to go away, but he didn’t have time to worry about anyone else. Instead, he peeled the fabric up Emily’s body and then lifted her and brought it over her head. She was wearing a thin T-shirt, a pair of camouflage pants, and jump boots underneath. She had a waterskin strapped to her back, and she was armed with an HK45CT, which surprised him more than it should.

  He’d never thought of Emily as a warrior, no matter that she’d lived with the Freedom Force for three years or that she’d been in battle the night she’d killed Zaran. Of course she would be weapons trained, but she was supposed to be separate from this violence, innocent and happy as she went about her life. That was how he thought of her.

  Dammit, she wasn’t supposed to be here.

  Ryan removed the pistol and cleared the chamber before ejecting the clip. He set them on the table nearby before he proceeded to pat Emily down with more water. Someone shifted the fan that was in the room until it blew on her.

  Emily moaned and Ryan stilled.

  “Emily? What’s wrong, honey? What can I do?”

  She didn’t answer, and he patted more water on her skin.

  “What’s wrong with her? You fucking chewed her ass out, dickhead,” Ian Black said. “And I think you probably gave away more information about the two of you than you intended in the process.”

  “Shut up, Black,” Ryan growled. “If she hadn’t been here with you, you’d be dead.”

  Black snorted. “Really? Before you managed to torture her location out of me? This is why she couldn’t tell you, asshole. That whole alpha-gorilla thing you have going must have scared her shitless when she thought about it.”

  “Stay out of this, motherfucker. If not for you, she wouldn’t be here.”

  “Flash.”

  Ryan glanced up at his team commander. Matt wasn’t looking too happy at the moment, but then again, nobody was.

  “Emily made a decision to join him,” Matt said. “And she’s not the reason we’re here.”

  Ryan could only blink. Not the reason? Maybe not, but now that he had her in his sights, he wasn’t letting her out of them again.

  “We can’t leave her here. We can’t leave her with him.”

  Black rolled his eyes. “If you want to find out where those hostages are, you’d damn well better leave her here. She’s the one making contact, the one who’s going to find out their location for us.”

  Ryan couldn’t speak. Rage rolled through him. The kind of rage that made him want to smash something—or someone.

  He was pissed at Ian Black. At Emily. At himself for being so stupid as to get involved with her in the first place. He’d convinced himself she was this helpless little thing who needed his strength and his friendship.

  He’d let himself care, and that was the one thing he knew he shouldn’t have done. Because caring made you vulnerable to hurt.

  He stood and glared at Black. “You don’t fucking care who you put in danger, do you? She had a life in DC, a life away from all this shit—and you brought her back into it. What did you promise her?”

  Black didn’t look the least bit apologetic. “A chance to clear her name.”

  Ryan took a step toward him, ready to pummel the man for lying to her. If it were possible, Mendez would have done it. Ian Black had lied for reasons of his own, but Ryan wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

  “Ryan.”

  Emily’s voice was soft and shaky, but her eyes were open. She gazed up at him with glassy brown eyes, and he sank down on the mattress beside her, pushing her hair back off her forehead with a tender gesture. Too late, he realized what he was doing and dropped his hand away.

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly.

  Her apology kicked him in the gut. “He lied to you, Emily. He can’t do what he said. You need to go home and go back to school.”

  She moved her head from side to side on the pillow. Telling him no. Rejecting him.

  He stiffened.

  “You and Victoria want to cocoon me in Bubble Wrap and keep me from living my own life. This is something I need to do. I’m not leaving until it’s finished.”

  “It’s not safe here for you. You know that.”

  “It’s not safe for you either. For any of us.”

  Ryan got to his feet. She was a stranger to him in so many ways. The woman he thought he’d known—the soft, sweet, sometimes confused woman—was nowhere in evidence. This woman was determined and stubborn.

  But so was he. He turned to Ian Black and Matt, who’d come into the room with them.

  “We need to call Mendez and get her on the next transport out of here. She can’t stay.”

  Matt didn’t look happy. He also didn’t look like he agreed, and that was enough to make Ryan nearly burst a blood vessel.

  “Can’t do nothing about it, mon ami,” he said, his Cajun accent thickening for a second. “She’s here and she doesn’t want to go. Our mission is to extract the hostages, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

  Emily was sitting up now and holding a hand to her stomach. She didn’t look as green as she had a few minutes ago, but she didn’t look well either.

  “She’s sick. She needs medical attention.”

  “Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” Emily said, her eyes blazing hot. “I’m not sick. It’s just something that comes and goes. I got too hot. I’ll be fine in a little while.”

  Matt frowned as he looked at her. Then his gaze landed on Ryan again. “You heard her, Flash. Now let’s get down to the business we came here for, which is finding those hostages.”

  Ryan felt like he’d landed in an alternative universe. After two months of worrying about Emily, wondering where she was and if she was safe, he’d found her again. But she wasn’t the same person. She didn’t want his opinion. She didn’t want to tell him her problems or listen to his advice the way she once had.

  Two months ago, she’d come to him and said she had to be with him, just once. Said he was the brightest spot in her life. Then she’d snuck out of his apartment while he’d slept and she’d left the country with Ian Black. He’d felt betrayed, angry, confused.

  He’d gotten a handle on those feelings in the past two months. But the lid had snapped off today, and everything was churning in his gut right now.

  He’d told himself on the lo
ng flight here that he would find her again. That once he had Ian Black in his sights, he was getting an answer no matter what he had to do to get it.

  But he hadn’t expected to walk into Black’s compound and find her with little effort. Hell, until a few minutes ago, he’d even let himself believe she wasn’t here willingly. He’d believed she’d get on a plane as soon as he found her and go back to DC gratefully.

  She didn’t look grateful at the moment. She looked upset and miserable.

  “I was just telling Ian that my contact didn’t come to the rendezvous today,” she said to Matt. She didn’t look at Ryan, and it stung. “He’s not ready to divulge that info yet. Not without more incentive.”

  “You aren’t going out there again,” Ryan said. “It’s too dangerous.”

  All three of them looked at him. Matt’s jaw was set in a hard line. Emily looked furious. Black was the only one with the hint of a grin on his face. Ryan wanted to wipe it away with a solid punch.

  “I make the personnel decisions around here,” Black said. “And I say she goes. Unless, of course, she decides she’d rather not. Emily?”

  Her face was red as she lifted her chin. “I’m going. I’ll try again tomorrow. I’ll keep trying until we have an answer.”

  Black went over to his desk and fired up the combat-hardened laptop sitting there. “We’re working with satellite imagery to try to find where they might be, but so far we don’t have anything concrete to go on. There are some native tribes in the area that camp out in different locations—the Freedom Force could be with one of them, but we can’t go blasting our way into every camp to look. If we do that and we have it wrong, the word will spread. We won’t have a chance of getting those people back alive if that happens.”

  “Agreed,” Matt said.

  But Ryan couldn’t get on board with the conversation. He was too invested in the fact that Emily had run away in the night and now she was ignoring him. It just didn’t compute.

  “So what was all that in my apartment?” he said. “Lies? Why bother? Why come to me with your bullshit about wanting to be with me?”

  “Jesus,” Ian Black said.

  “Flash, not here, dude,” Matt added. “Not now. I already have to tell the colonel—don’t add fuel to the fire.”

  Emily dropped her gaze from his as she fiddled with the edge of the abaya lying on the mattress. He waited for her to look at him, but she didn’t. And he suddenly knew he’d be waiting for a long fucking time. Whatever had happened between them in DC was over.

  “Yeah, all right, I get it.” He turned toward Matt. “Unless you need me for this, I’m going to go find my bunk or something.”

  Matt looked sympathetic, which didn’t help soothe the bruised feeling in Ryan’s chest.

  “Go ahead. Tell the guys we’ll meet in an hour.”

  “Copy that.”

  He didn’t mean to look at her again, but like Lot’s wife, he couldn’t help himself. He didn’t turn into a pillar of salt, but his heart felt like stone as he walked away.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  EMILY WANTED TO GO UP to her room and hide after Ryan stormed out, but she didn’t let herself do it. Instead, she listened to Ian and Matt discuss the Freedom Force and the possible scenarios in which they’d use the hostages.

  “Will they make an example of them, Emily?”

  She looked up to find the two men staring at her. As soon as she’d felt stable enough, she’d gone over to sit in a chair instead of on the mattress—Ian had a mattress in his office because he slept there. While it was a pretty sparse setup without any personal touches, it still felt too intimate to lie on his bed.

  She cleared her throat. She felt much better than she had, at least physically. Her heart, however, still felt as if someone had stomped on it pretty hard. She could still hear the anger in Ryan’s voice, still see the disillusionment on his face. He’d been furious with her, and then he’d been disgusted.

  But she couldn’t let that affect her. She had a job to do. People’s lives depended on it.

  “They don’t have scruples, if that’s what you’re asking. Up until now, executing hostages and broadcasting it hasn’t been their style. Bombs in public places, suicide missions—yes. But beheading people on camera is new territory. I don’t think they would shrink from it necessarily. On the other hand, they may not want to be identified with the groups who are currently using that tactic.”

  “So we may have some time yet,” Matt said.

  “A little bit, yes. Just because they may not want to film an execution doesn’t mean they won’t kill the hostages and leave their bodies to be found somewhere as a message.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.” Matt put a hand to his forehead and rubbed. “Will they kill a pregnant woman?”

  Emily blinked. “I… Yes, I’m pretty sure they would. Are you telling me one of the hostages is pregnant?”

  Matt nodded. “Linda Cooper. She’s thirty-one, married, and fifteen weeks pregnant. She was only supposed to be on the dig for the first two weeks, then she was returning to Italy where she teaches in the military adult education program at Aviano Air Base. Her husband is an Air Force major.”

  “Oh, God,” Emily breathed. “If they figure that out…”

  Ian and Matt looked grim. “Yeah,” Matt said. “We have to get her out of there. We have to get them all out of there.”

  Emily put her hand to her belly automatically. That poor woman was pregnant and no doubt scared out of her mind. And then there was the deprivation she was likely suffering at the hands of the Freedom Force. The hostages were probably getting food and water because the terrorists couldn’t demand things if they were dead, but it certainly wasn’t the kind of regular nutrition a pregnant woman would need.

  What if she was sick? Suffering from heat exhaustion and morning sickness? She would be miserable. Puking, fainting, tired all the time…

  A cold chill rolled down Emily’s spine. Those things sounded remarkably similar to how she’d been feeling lately.

  Except that she couldn’t be pregnant. It wasn’t possible. She’d wanted to be once, back when she still cared about Zaran. Before he’d become a monster. Once he’d changed, she’d been more than thankful she couldn’t get pregnant, even if it did infuriate him.

  A wave of nausea swelled in her throat, and she swallowed it down again. No, she wasn’t pregnant. Linda Cooper was.

  But… when was her last period? Not since before she’d arrived in Acamar two months ago. Emily chewed her lip and thought back to the last time. It was about two weeks before she’d left DC.

  Two weeks before she’d spent the night with Ryan. A fresh chill slid over her skin.

  No. There was just no way. No freaking way.

  It had been a while, yes—but there was the stress of travel and getting acclimated to the heat. Those things messed up a woman’s natural cycle. She’d been through that before.

  Her period should happen any day now. Any day.

  And if it doesn’t?

  It will.

  Besides, it wasn’t like she could walk down to the corner drugstore and buy a pregnancy test. Which was fine because she wasn’t pregnant. Her period was coming.

  “All right,” Ian was saying. “Get your guys settled and let me work my contacts for a while. If I get anything, I’ll let you know.”

  “We’re going to get them out of there,” Matt said. “So long as we all work together.”

  Ian looked up and met the other man’s gaze. “That’s my intention. I wouldn’t have passed the information along the chain if it wasn’t.”

  “The guys don’t trust you.”

  Ian grinned. “I know. But you do.”

  Matt didn’t say anything at first. Then he stuck out his hand. Ian clasped it, and they stood there looking at one another for a long moment.

  “The jury’s still out, mon ami. But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt until you prove me wrong.”

  Ian shrugged. “I’
m on your side this time—but I won’t be every time. That much is true.”

  Matt started to walk away, but then he stopped and frowned at Emily. She had to drag her thoughts back from the depths of her distraction.

  “I don’t pretend to know what’s going on with you and Flash,” he said, “but clearly there’s more here than any of us knew about. You need to talk to him when you’re both calmer. This can’t get in the way of the mission.”

  “It’s not going to.”

  His frown didn’t abate, and she knew he wasn’t appeased. “Flash is one of the most easygoing guys I know. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this pissed before, and that worries me. If he’s distracted during a mission, that’s not good for any of us. And if I have to remove him from the op, that’s not good for him. You get what I’m saying?”

  Emily swallowed. If he had to remove Ryan from the mission, he’d get sent back to DC—and the wrath of Mendez. He could lose his job over her. His career. The fewer issues he had with her being here, the better. “I get it.”

  Matt nodded. “Good. Talk to y’all later.”

  Once he was gone, Ian sat back and ran his hands through his hair before settling them on top of his head and staring at her.

  “You didn’t mention a romantic entanglement with a HOT operator. I could have made sure he wasn’t on the team.”

  Emily’s face was warm. “I didn’t think it was anyone’s business but mine and Ryan’s.”

  “Maybe not, but he’s here now, and you have to work with him. Are you going to be able to do that?”

  Emily sniffed as if it was nothing when in truth her stomach was still churning, and not just from nausea. “Of course I am. It was just a brief fling.”

  She got to her feet and picked up the abaya, her fingers trembling from the lie. “If there’s nothing else, I have some things to do.”

  Ian’s eyes narrowed. “Nope, nothing else.”

  *

  Ryan was lying on a bunk in the room he was sharing with Fiddler when Matt appeared in the doorway. He’d known his team commander would visit him, but he’d hoped it would take a bit longer. He was still processing everything that had happened with Emily, and he was still pretty pissed about it. His first instinct was to go find her and throw her over his shoulder like a caveman. Then he’d take her to the airstrip and load her onto a C-17 headed for Germany.