“Did you sleep okay?” he asked.
She’d slept like a log. An orgasm was a very effective muscle relaxant. “Mmm-hmm.”
“Before we start the day, I’d like to clear the air about last night.”
She quickly finished dressing, then leaned over to put on her shoes. “Mitch, I’d prefer not to talk about it.”
“We need to.”
“Why? There’s really nothing to say. It was a mistake.”
“Another one.”
She remained bent over, her chest pressed to her legs, her gaze on her shoes. “Yes, all right, another mistake, but I hope you’re not leading up to another apology.”
“What if I am?”
“Then I would feel cheap.”
Grit scraped against the wood floor. The tips of his boots and his cane came into her range of vision. “Chantal, no.”
“Kissing you the other night was crazy enough, but I don’t do one-night stands, Mitch. I don’t have sex with strangers, or do partial sex, or whatever you want to call it. That’s just not me, regardless of the circumstances, and I can’t pretend that I’m cool with it.”
“The same goes for me. We’re working as a team, but I also consider you a woman in my care. You asked me to stop and I didn’t. I can’t excuse that.”
But he
had
stopped, she thought. Well, sort of.
“Although, you’re wrong about one thing,” he continued. “You and I are not strangers.”
“Yes, we are. Our paths might have crossed in the past, but to be realistic, we met as adults only two and a half days ago.”
“We’ve been getting to know each other pretty fast since then.”
“Only because we’ve been thrown together.” She frowned at her shoelaces. She wasn’t a girl, she was a mature woman. Why was she having trouble tying a simple bow? “We’re still from different worlds, Mitch. Once this crisis is over, whatever the outcome, you’ll go back to your life and I’ll stay in mine. I don’t want a…complication.”
“You mean a relationship.”
“That’s right.”
“Neither do I.”
“Then we understand each other.”
“Sure. We got it all straight yesterday.” He stroked her hair. “But I still can’t keep my hands off you,” he said softly. “Doesn’t make much sense, does it?”
Her laces blurred. Why did he have to sound like that, as if he cared? Next, she was going to start taking his attention personally again. She would build a whole make-believe world in her head where Major Mitchell Redinger loved her. Then, if she wasn’t careful, the old feelings would begin to unfold in that hidden corner of her heart where she’d tucked away her love for him a lifetime ago…
No! She was not going to go there. She’d worked too hard to rebuild her life the last time she’d fallen for him. “We can’t allow this…physical attraction to distract us,” she said. “We need to stick to business.”
“You want to focus on the mission.”
“Yes. Let’s call it that. You said you’re going to check on Bamford.”
“Right.”
“I want to ask him about my friends.”
“I have some questions for him, too.”
“Okay. We’d better get started.”
He placed his hand beneath her elbow to draw her to her feet. “For what it’s worth, Chantal, I wasn’t going to apologize about last night. Right or wrong, I enjoyed myself too much.”
She put her hand on his chest to steady herself. Or so she pretended. The truth was, she wanted to touch him. Her gaze fell on the sprinkling of black hair that showed at the neckline of his sweatshirt. The idea of seeing him naked popped into her head once again. “Saying that doesn’t help us focus on the mission, Mitch.”
“No. Neither would kissing you again, would it?”
“Definitely not.”
His grip on her elbow tightened. His chest rose and fell with a series of deep breaths. It was a full minute before he released her arm and turned for the door.
Chantal flexed her fingers and let her hand fall to her side. It took much longer than a minute before Chantal could convince herself she was relieved.
The bush was dripping wet from the previous day’s rain. The hems of their pants grew dark with moisture as they moved along the overgrown trail, but neither of them commented on it. In fact, Mitch was unusually quiet. Chantal placed her feet carefully to minimize the noise of her footsteps. She concentrated on her surroundings. Aside from the normal bird calls and rustles from what were probably squirrels or other small animals, the woods were silent.
She moved a pace closer to Mitch. “Have you heard anything over the walkie-talkie about a search for Bamford?”
“Knox put a man on it just before dawn.”
“Oh, no.”
“It sounded as if he was sticking close to the Aerie and its immediate surroundings, but we do need to stay alert.”
She curled her fingers around the strap of the gun she carried. She continued to doubt whether she would be able to pull the trigger, but it did make a good club. “I had hoped that Al would have shown up by now.”
“I haven’t seen any sign of your deputy or any reinforcements he might have brought. Either they’re here and they’re getting into position, or your friend decided I was a crank after all.”
“I hope that’s not the case.”
“I’ll have to try contacting someone else.”
“With extra men looking around, it would be more risky.”
“Since Bamford’s neutralized, they’ve got one less. We can chart their movements.”
“We never discussed what we’ll do if help doesn’t come.”
“That’s right. We didn’t.” He pushed his way past a low-hanging branch and held it aside for her. “As I recall, you wanted to last night, but we got distracted.”
Heat rose in her cheeks. Distracted? That was one way to put it. “How many men do you think Bamford’s cabin could hold?”
“What did you have in mind?”
“Since we managed to capture him, it stands to reason that between the two of us we could get more.”
“You want to take more prisoners?”
“Why not?”
His mouth twitched. “We’re fresh out of flashlights. The next guy might not go down as easily as Bamford did.”
She swatted him across the chest. “Don’t laugh at me. I’m serious.”
He let go of the branch and caught her hand. His face sobered. “We might be able to take a few more, but I’m concerned that Knox could start retaliating against the hostages if he thinks someone’s picking off his men.”
“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“If we make a move, it has to be decisive. We’ll need to go after Knox himself.”
“How?”
“I’d have to infiltrate the Aerie.”
He’d said it with the same matter-of-fact tone he always used when he discussed strategy. As if it would be simple. Easy. The very idea made her stomach roll. “That would be dangerous.”
“There’s still a day and a half left before Knox’s deadline. That’s plenty of time for help to show up.” He lifted her knuckles to his mouth. “And I wasn’t laughing at you, Chantal. I admire your courage.”
“I’m not brave.”
“You are. You’ve got a lot of your father in you.”
She tugged her hand free from his grasp. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s a compliment. You have the same analytical mind as the general. Even though you’ve had no military training, you have a quick grasp of what needs to be done. You have a sense of fairness, but you’re no pushover. You would have made an excellent officer.”
“Mitch—”
“Which makes your dislike of the army all the more difficult for me to understand.”
“It’s not important.”
“It is to me. The army’s my life. It’s where I live and who I am. I’d like to know why you hate that.”
“Maybe ‘hate’ was too strong a word.”
“Your feelings
are
strong. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have eloped with a man like Daryl. You said he was the antithesis of everything military. That must have been one powerful aversion you were acting on.”
For a man as bright as Mitch, she was surprised he hadn’t figured out that explanation on his own. One of the main reasons she’d chosen Daryl was because she’d been reacting against everything that was
Mitch
. She’d chosen his total opposite, a man she’d believed was a laid-back, romantic dreamer, someone who wasn’t concerned with his career or worried about doing the honorable thing. By marrying Daryl she’d thought she’d be safe from getting her heart broken again.
In a way, it had worked. Most of her heart had still belonged to Mitch.
She stepped back. “We’ve talked about me more than enough. I want to know about you. Why do you love the army?”
He lifted one eyebrow. It was clear that he knew she was avoiding his question, but he let it pass. “Maybe ‘love’ is too strong a word,” he said, echoing what she’d told him.
“You said it was your life.”
“It is. I think I was born to be a soldier. Did you know that my father was one as well?”
She nodded. “He was a sergeant, wasn’t he?”
“That’s right.” Mitch turned. They resumed walking along the trail. He kept his voice pitched low so it wouldn’t carry far. “He served in ’Nam. It was all his stories of the incompetent shake-and-bake officers he’d met there that made me decide I could do better.”
“He must have been proud of you. You’re a good leader.”
“I have good men.”
She smiled at the way he’d immediately deflected her compliment. “Are they all as devoted to the life as you are?”
“Most of them. Some more than others.”
“I’m surprised you would tolerate anything less than total loyalty.”
“No one could doubt their loyalty. I meant the dynamic of the team’s been changing since a few of the men got married. They never let their home life interfere with their duty, though.”
Her smile faded. That was one of the reasons she disliked the army. Her father had always put his duty before his family. She understood it was part of the responsibility he’d assumed when he’d chosen to serve his country, but he’d been blind to the effect it had had on his wife and daughter. “Was that how it was when you were married, Mitch?”
He walked a few paces in silence.
She should let the subject drop. She shouldn’t be making it more personal. She certainly shouldn’t be asking about his love life, or his former love life. Yet she persisted anyway. “I answered all your questions last night,” she said. “It would be fair if you reciprocate in kind.”
“Reciprocate in kind,” he repeated. “You’re getting polite again.”
“Well?”
“Dianne understood my job. She supported me a hundred percent.”
“What about her? Did you support her in what she wanted?”
“Every chance I got. She was a ceramic artist, and she did amazing work. Two years after we’d settled at Bragg we pooled our savings so she could open her own gallery. Our careers and our personalities balanced each other, so if you’re trying to ask about my marriage, it was good. Each year with her seemed better than the one before.”
If Chantal felt a twinge of jealousy, it was overpowered by sadness for Mitch. He’d managed to find the kind of love that she’d once sought, and she was glad that he’d been happy, even if it hadn’t lasted. “You must miss her.”
“I do. I had taken my men on a training exercise when I’d heard she’d been in an accident. By the time I reached the hospital, she was gone.”
“Mitch. I’m so sorry.”
“It was…a bad time.”
“Losing someone you love is never easy. It leaves a hole.”
“Yeah.” His steps slowed. “I tracked down the bastard who’d hit her. He’d been drunk. He’d thought he’d hit a deer. So I gave him more of a chance than he gave her and I used my fists instead of a two-ton pickup truck. I knew dozens of ways to kill a man, but I wanted him to suffer first.”
She thought of the bouts of violence that Mitch had displayed over the past few days. They had been brief and to the purpose. She had trouble picturing him out of control. “Grief can make us do things we otherwise wouldn’t.”
“That’s right. You would know.”
“Yes, and we both remember what I did, but we’re talking about you. I know you didn’t kill him.”
“Why are you so sure?”
She thought about that. She was the one who’d claimed they were strangers, yet she was positive he couldn’t have used his combat skills to murder anyone. Why? “Because of your honor,” she said. “The code you live by. You wouldn’t have violated that, regardless of the provocation.”
“I came damn close. Then I thought about a mission that was coming up. I couldn’t let my men down. And once it was over, there was always the next mission, or a new guy to train. After a while, it did get easier.”
“You filled the void in your heart with your work.”
“That’s right. It became my life.”
“The army became your sanctuary.”
He stopped at the edge of a stream and looked at her over his shoulder. “That’s a strange choice of word.”
Perhaps to him. She’d chosen it because that was how she thought of the Aerie. A sanctuary not of physical safety, but emotional safety. In his own way, Mitch had done the same thing that she had. “Does it fit?”
The roar of the helicopter took them both by surprise. It had been flying low, so they didn’t hear it approach until it was almost overhead. The helicopter passed so close to the treetops that the backwash from the blades knocked down a shower of water droplets.
Chantal tipped her head back, her heart soaring. “Mitch, they’ve come!” she cried. “They’re…”
The words died on her lips. The fuselage she glimpsed through the trees was solid, dull black with no markings. It wasn’t help. It was Knox.
Mitch grabbed her by the waist and spun her beneath the nearest tree. He swung his gun to his shoulder and sighted on the helicopter. Before he could fire, it disappeared, dragging the noise of its engine behind.
“They’re heading for the lake!” he yelled. He turned to follow. “Stay there, and keep under cover!”
Remaining behind wasn’t an option as far as she was concerned. She grasped her own gun to keep it from banging into her hip and ran after Mitch.
He moved quickly, in spite of his bad ankle. He used a gait that was part hop, part vault, employing his cane to propel him forward. By the time she caught up to him, she could see the gleam of water beyond the trees.
He scowled when he saw her but didn’t waste time arguing. He motioned her behind him and continued forward. As they drew closer to the shore, she noticed the lake wasn’t empty. A small, yellow plane was taxiing toward a bay a few miles to the east, its fat pontoons bobbing on the water.