Enemy Mine (The Base Branch Series Book 1) (20 page)

T
hough Baine couldn’t see
the mug in his hand for the sloe of his home, he had no problem guiding it to his mouth and finishing the cold beer in one gulp. Now, if only Easton were here. He didn’t like being served. He did, however, like cold beer. And in order for him to get more he’d either need to turn on a light or trip over himself trying to find it in the buttoned down cave of his home.

He set the empty glass on the side table and slumped back in the chair. The squeak of leather sang through the hollow room, hitting the high ceiling before carrying up the grand mahogany staircase and batting around the wall of stained glass at the landing.

On second thought, thank goodness the butler wasn’t here. The man would worry him to death with lights and drink. He’d insist on feeding him like he weren’t a man capable of taking care of himself. Then he’d most assuredly insist on talking. As the closest thing Baine had to a father, he knew enough not to ask many questions about what Baine did or where he did it. But it sure didn’t slow the rattle of his old mouth. Thank goodness he had a lady friend to keep his mouth busy these days.

Before Ruth, Baine’s off-duty days had been brutal. With Magdalena gone away to school, it had just been he and Easton rattling about the old estate. And it didn’t matter how many times he dismissed the man to go about his life as he chose. His reply was always the same, “Ah-ah, your grandfather commissioned me to this house and to you, you ungrateful brute. So, until you burn the place to the ground, I’ll be about my duties.”

Now, if only Baine could be about his duties. He wouldn’t be sitting here in the dark, pissed at the world.

No, not the world. Only at himself.

After years of his father beating the same message into his skin, it had apparently only taken the man’s death for the directive to commence.
You’re such a failure. Whack. Nice doesn’t get you anywhere in this world son. Whack. Get mean. Whack. Don’t be a cunt. Whack. Take what you want. Whack. Fuck everyone else. Whack. You’re the son of Devereaux Kendrick. Whack.

The beer sloshed in his belly despite the fact that he hadn’t moved an inch. He scrubbed both hands over his face.
How dare you make him proud?

God he wanted to go back three or four months. To put his finger on the point where everything inside him went berserk and erase it from the pages of history. He didn’t want to be a monster. Never wanted to be anything like his father. But bloody tosh if he knew how to make things right.

Which was why he sat here with the drapes shut tight, instead of finishing the last barmy slime tied to his father. He’d never quit before completing a mission. But he’d pulled himself off the job after the shit with Rosanna. If he’d hurt that little girl he’d have been staring down a BritRail. At a hundred plus miles per hour he’d be a human pancake spread out on the front of the red train in no time at all.

“Fuck!”

A sound caught his ear. Not the echo of his own roar, but a tiny drawl of breath.

Baine was up with his Reeder in hand in a blink. He turned and swept left then right, sure the sound had come from behind him. Only black greeted his eyes. He pricked his ears for any whisper, but only the hum of household appliances filled the air. His shoulders should’ve relaxed. He should’ve returned to wallow in his self-loathing, but his feet carried him forward.

He moved through the living room and into the kitchen, clearing the space as he went. Well, the little bit he could see. At the back door he peered out the clear glass panes at the vacant gravel drive and the guest house which remained devoid of life with Mags at school and Easton at Ruth’s. Law occupied the east half of the main house’s upper floor, but wouldn’t come home tonight. He currently avoided Baine like the monstrosity he’d become was the latest flu epidemic.

Maybe the shit was catching.

Good thing he was alone. Alone. He’d never cared much about being alone. Usually liked it better. There were only a handful of people he could tolerate and he lived with all of them, except one. The one that made his solitary status lonely for the first time.

Sloan.

As if conjured by his thought, the scent of verbena wafted across his face, knotting his gut in desperate need. He should have gone to her straight away. Screw revenge. Screw justice. But wishes wasted effort on things that would never be. With a huff, Baine tucked his sidearm and headed for the fridge. Since he was already up…why not have another?

Jeez.
The light from the appliance was bright enough to call all the battle ships to shore. He squinted against the headache the illumination triggered and grabbed a bottle of…
son of a bitch.
All his Newk Browns were gone, leaving only Law’s Old Tom. He hated the stuff on principle. It had a cat on the label and he hated cats.
Screw it.
Baine grabbed a puss beer, twisted the top, and took a long pull.

“Wouldn’t have pegged you for a pussy beer drinker.”

B
aine’s beer
spewed from his mouth. Most of it. The rest he coughed and sputtered on for a few seconds. It gave her more time to look at him in the light. His blue eyes hollowed into his sockets and were punctuated with shadowed circles. The center of his cheeks sank in shallow pools of despair. The demons she’d released had flown with the fury of hell on the African wind and settled in the soul of her beloved.

After pulling a steady breath, he abandoned the beer to the counter and stepped toward her around the refrigerator door. When the door closed they were plunged again into total darkness. Though she knew Baine hadn’t left the dark in many weeks, if not months.

“Sloan.”

Pain. The word, her name, on his lips sounded like a plea for help, a broken wail.
Oh God.
She hurt for him.

She also cursed her feeble body for taking so long to heal. So long to get to him.

“I’m here.” She reached out her hand and her fingers met his wrist. They walked to his palm and curled around his immense hand. He squeezed hers in return and the longing to be encased in his arms and wrap him in return jumped eagerly in her chest. When Baine didn’t pull her close a sense of dread crept into her psyche.

“I…how are you?” He stumbled over the words.

“I’ll be cleared for duty in two more weeks.”

Their words sounded so cold and distant. She needed to see him. To gauge his reactions, so she knew how to advance. “You do have lights in London, don’t you?” She tried for lighthearted and failed miserably, if the silence across from her was any indication.

The dread turned into a bold bitch, forgoing the gentle creep for an all out attack on her nerves. It hacked and trampled over her zen in a matter of seconds. So much for subtlety. Sloan squared her shoulders and kicked her fear square in the ass.

“Turn on a light.”

“I can’t.” He inhaled like he was going to say more, but didn’t.

Sloan yanked her hand away and moved to the wall, feeling around for a switch. She hit metal and a pan clattered to the floor, shattering the silence.

“Unless both your hands fell off in the last two seconds, I suggest you turn on a light now, or I’ll rip this place apart looking for the damn switch.”

His shoes scuffed the hard ground and before she could tell which way he was going, he was on top of her. The sun may as well have risen in the kitchen because its overhead light had the same blinding effect. Sloan blinked Baine into focus and wanted to weep at the haunted features that stared back at her.

“What happened, Baine?”

When he met her gaze a tiny bit of the horror in his eyes faded. He clamped his arms around her shoulders and buried his face in her hair. She wrapped her arms around his middle and held on for dear life. One hand fisted in his shirt while the other latched onto the muscles of his back. His warmth seeped into her bones and she molded to his body.

But all too soon he pulled away. She fought to hold him, but he took her arms in his hands and disentangled her. Her gaze zeroed in on his massive hands cradling her wrists. The size difference seemed comical, but she couldn’t laugh. She couldn’t bring her gaze to meet Baine’s for fear of what she’d see. Detachment. Rejection.

Well, screw fear.

If she’d learned anything in her life, it was that fear only controlled you as far as you let it. Sloan raised her gaze to Baine’s in challenge.

He dropped her hands and straightened. “I think you need to leave.”

Sloan laughed. “Not a fucking chance.”

That earned her a double brow raise before they knit together in an expression of pure determination. “I’m no good for you. You deserve better than me. Better than what I am.”

“I know you, and I know I deserve you.”

His head shook, and his hair, longer now, bobbed about his forehead. “No.”

“What happened while I was…away?”

“Away,” he scoffed. “Try
fighting for your life
. I should’ve been there for you. With you.”

She stepped closer to him and placed her hand over his heart. “But I saddled you with my baggage, making you promise things I shouldn’t have. And from what I’ve heard you’ve done a hell of a clean-up job.”

He turned away and stalked to the window.

“I’m here for you. I’m not going away. No matter what comes out of your mouth. You’re stuck with me, Baine. Like it or not.” But her words didn’t move him. “Look at me, damn it.” Her voice rose. “What happened?”

He gripped the sink and pinched it between his palms. His forearms bulged. Veins rose like ripcords across his heavy muscles. Baine hung his head between his shoulders and his teeth bared as a growl of anguish tore through his chest.

Sloan went to him and cloaked his back with her body. Heat and rage radiated off him in waves so powerful she wondered if he’d break the counter. Still she hung on, willing him to expel his demons. To give voice to the pain and lessen its power over him.

After what seemed like an eternity he freed the counter and stood, but she didn’t let him go. Sloan hugged him until her weak muscles shook. His hands wrapped around hers and she braced her heart for a cool dismissal that didn’t come.

“To get what I wanted I became the monster I’ve always hated and feared. I hated it because it hurt people. I feared it, not because it hurt me, but because it was in me. In my blood.”

His head shook and one hand left hers to scrub over his face, but he didn’t pull away. He drew in a deep breath and continued, “We never talked about birth control…”

Out of left field, because she’d never thought about having children, a smile spread Sloan’s lips at the possibility of one day being pregnant with Baine’s child.

Only to be wiped away.

“…because I had a vasectomy shortly after I found out about my father’s legacy. I never wanted to give a child my tainted blood. My ruined name.”

She couldn’t think about children when the man she wanted to share them with hurt so deeply. “Oh, Baine. You are not your father. You are not a monster.”

He stepped from her grasp and turned to face her. “I tortured people to get names that weren’t in the book.”

“You collected information to stop an illegal ring of gun smugglers, drug dealers, murderers, and rapists.”

Baine took her face in his hands and bent so their gazes were level. “I used a little girl to get information out of her father when he didn’t crack after I’d beat him to hell and back, cut off three of his fingers, pulled six teeth, and cut off his blasted ear.”

His gaze searched her face, but her expression didn’t falter. She’d heard and seen plenty worse than that. Heck, she’d done some of each on various missions. Sometimes the greater good outweighed the welfare of the scum of the earth.

“Did you hurt the girl to get your information?”

“No. But—"

“Did she see her father battered and bloody?”

His jaw worked for a minute before he answered. “No.”

“Was she afraid of you?”

“No. How the hell did you know all that? Law called you, didn’t he?”

She smiled. “I know what’s in here.” Under her hand and the solid breadth of his chest, Baine’s heart knocked frantically against her touch. His lids shut. The skin at the corners of his eyes wrinkled with the fierceness of his denial. A denial of the truth in her words. “Besides, Yannick Bakou was elected by his people last month. Only a month after he’d come out of hiding without a scratch. You did that. You made the world think he was dead to trick your father when it would have been a hell of a lot easier and safer for you to have put a bullet in Bakou’s head.”

When his features refused to lighten, she continued. “Did you torture people to line your own pockets?”

He clamped his lips together in defiance, but she waited for his gaze to return. When it did, she needled him with her amber stare until finally he spoke. “No.”

“Did you enjoy hurting those people? The murderers? The rapists?”

“No.”

“Are you your father?”

“No.”

“Are you a monster?”

The hard lines of his face softened and he lowered his head. His lips attacked her mouth in firm strokes. Sloan’s nerves washed from her body on a wave of love and arousal. They would get through this. Together.

Her tongue invaded his mouth and she kissed him with matched fervor. Her need became a pant of desire, but she pulled back, needing him to answer her last question. Baine pulled a ragged breath into his chest then her against it. He pillowed her cheek against his frame.

“Answer the question, Baine.”

“Only if you answer one for me.”

She comforted him with steady brushes of her hand over his back. “Fine, but mine first.”

Her head bobbed with his breath. “No, I’m not a monster.”

She crushed him in an embrace. “You don’t believe it yet, but you will in time. Two weeks and three days, to be precise.”

His thumb turned her chin up to meet his gaze. One bushy brow rose in question.

“I’m cleared in two weeks and we have one more mission left to wrap up the disaster that was our childhood.” He shook his head. The man had to have a headache he did it so much. “It’s done. The mission is set. We’re going to finish this thing. Then you’ll see you’re no monster because we’ll lay the last of the real ones to rest together.”

“I love you,” he said.

“And I you, Baine McCord.” She stood on tiptoes, stretching out her body, and kissed him on the forehead. Her lips trailed down his cheek, across his stubble, to his ear. “Now the only question is, how are we going to fill the two hours until go time?”

“Not the only question,” he growled. Baine set her at arm’s length from him and gave her a hard stare, searching her face. He took a deep breath then dropped before her onto one knee.

“Sia Kolat. Sloan Harris. The love I don’t deserve. Will you marry me?”