Hidden Away (43 page)

“I’m scared, Garrett. I feel ... alone. I mean, before I was alone, but I had Marcus, and I always knew that if I really needed someone, he’d be there, no questions asked. This past week I’ve had to come to grips with the fact that I have no one. I have no idea what I want to do. I just feel numb and terrified all at the same time.”

He pulled her into his arms and held her tightly against him.

“I’m terrified too,” he admitted. “I’m scared shitless you won’t forgive me and I’ll have to go back home without you after I promised my mother I was bringing you back with me. She can’t wait to meet you, you know. I’m pretty sure she’s already planning our wedding.”

Sarah smiled against him and shook her head.

He tucked a finger beneath her chin and prodded her upward so he could stare into her eyes. “I love you, Sarah. I think I fell in love with you when I looked into those eyes and saw your determination not to be scared. I know I hurt you, honey. I can only promise I won’t hurt you again. Not like that. But I have to be honest with you. I don’t regret what happened, only that you had to be involved. It’s who I am. I have a very strong sense of justice.”

“Who are you really, Garrett? You didn’t work for my brother obviously. Do you work for the CIA? Will I even ever see you?”

He palmed her cheek and stroked gently over her face. “We do contract work for the government. We also work in the private sector too. I work for myself. Me and my brothers. We do things like hostage and fugitive recovery. As for whether you’ll ever see me? You’re going to be seeing a damn lot of me. So much of me you’re going to want me to take a mission just so I’ll leave you alone. My work is important to me, Sarah. It’s part of who I am. But you’re the
most
important thing to me.”

He poked his finger at her for emphasis and she felt some of the ice around her heart crack and start to melt.

“You’ll always come first. You and our children. Is there risk involved in my work? Hell, yes, and I know it’s a lot to ask you to take on. But for every mission I take, the goal is going to be the same. Coming home to you. Always.”

She leaned forward, resting her forehead against his chin. “You make it sound so ... easy.”

He tugged her back into his arms and hugged her so tight she could barely breathe. “I love you. I think you love me. What could be simpler? Everything else we’ll work out. Together.”

She raised her head back up and took a deep breath as she drowned in those intense blue eyes. “I do love you, Garrett. Even when I hated you for lying to me, I loved you. I want to be with you. I just feel so overwhelmed. Like I’ll never get my life together. I feel like it’s spiraled out of control.”

He touched her cheek, and she was shocked to see a wash of emotion in his eyes. They glistened with unshed tears and when he spoke, his voice broke.

“Right now, the first step is saying you’ll try,” he said. “Come home with me. Let’s work on our relationship together. You can decide what you want to do there. If you want to talk to someone about the rape, we’ll find you a damn good counselor. If you want to go back to work in your current field, you can do that. Or you can study to become a teacher. We have a great university just thirty minutes away. The thing is, you have choices, Sarah. You have all the choices in the world. All I ask is that you let me be part of them. Let’s tackle the problems together.”

She curled her arms around his neck and hugged him. Not content with any part of her not touching him, she crawled into his lap and burrowed into his chest until they were smashed together like two lovebugs.

“There’s still Stanley,” she sighed.

He tensed and pulled slightly away. He tipped up her chin until their gazes met again. “Stanley won’t ever be a problem for you again.”

She frowned at the conviction in his voice. Then her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What did you do?”

“Let’s just say that me, Rio and my brother Donovan took care of the little asshole. He might have fallen down a flight of stairs. Twice. Or at least that’s the story, and I’m sticking to it.”

She laughed helplessly, appalled that she found such satisfaction in the image but at the same time desperately wishing she could have witnessed it all. Then she squeezed him tight again.

“I love you, Garrett. I do. I want us to be together. You make me not so ... afraid. You make me think that things really will work out.”

“They will, honey. They will. I want to take you home. You’re going to love my family and they’re going to love you. I have some things to work out too. For instance, right now, I live with my two brothers and my oldest brother’s wife. It’s kind of crowded,” he said ruefully. “Sam—that’s my oldest brother—has started construction on a complex for the entire family. It’s impressive, really. We’ll have all the facilities we need. A private airstrip, a helicopter pad, training facilities, a gun range and most important, we’ll all have our own house. That’s where you come in. I have the decorating sense of a mule.”

Sarah smiled and felt her heart lighten with every beat. “I should warn you I have girly tastes. I won’t allow my living room to be decorated in camo. Oh, and Patches.” She glanced anxiously up at him. “She’s back with me. Can we bring her home too?”

He smiled. “Yeah, you and Patches are a package deal. For you I can put up with a cat.”

“And girly? You don’t mind your house being girly?” she asked with a grin.

He pretended disappointment. “I suppose I can live with girly.”

“You need to get used to it for all the daughters you’ll have.”

His eyes lit up with such joy that it took her breath away. “Did I tell you I have a new niece? She’s beautiful. Not as beautiful as our daughters will be, but she’s cute as a button.”

She squeezed him again, unable to contain her excitement. “All week long I’ve thought of the future with such dread. You’ve made me think it will be filled with wonderful things.”

He slid his hand into her hair and gently ran his fingers through the strands. “I’m making you a solemn promise. For as long as we both live, I’m going to spend every day giving you wonderful things. You will never doubt for one moment that you are as loved as a woman will ever be.”

She smiled and wiped at her damp cheeks in irritation. “I love you.”

“And I love you. Think we can go home now?”

She kissed him, warm and sweet, letting her lips melt over his. She breathed a sigh into his mouth and let herself go limp against him. “I can’t wait.”

He tucked her firmly against him, and they sat there on the steps until the sky shimmered in gold and pink and the sun was a fiery half orb on the horizon. It was the first of many more to come. In the years ahead, they often returned to Isle de Bijoux. Though they enjoyed sunsets in a multitude of places, none was ever quite so beautiful as the ones here, where it all began.

KEEP READING FOR A SPECIAL PREVIEW OF PAMELA CLAREʹS NEXT I-TEAM NOVEL

BREAKING POINT

COMING MAY 2011 FROM BERKLEY SENSATION!

ZAC
took his arm from around Natalie’s shoulders, unlocked the door to their hotel room, and drew out his Glock, motioning for her to stand just inside the door. He quickly cleared the room, checking beneath the bed and behind the shower curtain, then nodded to her that all was well.

She set down his gear bag, shut the door, locked it, and slipped the door guard into place. Then she took a few steps backward and sat on the bed, once again motionless, her gaze fixed on the door as if she expected all the demons in hell to charge through it any minute now. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, her face was pale, a haunted look in her eyes.

Something inside him hurt to see her like this, the girl whose smiles had made his teenage heart pound harder, now battered and terrified. Again, he found himself wanting to comfort her but not knowing what to say or do. His years in WitSec had been spent shielding criminals, people who’d turned state’s witness to save their own hides—drug dealers, thugs, counterfeiters. After a meth dealer he’d protected had taken advantage of a new identity to start a life of crime with a clean slate, Zac had left WitSec and gone to work apprehending fugitives, a job that had suited him better. He had no experience protecting the innocent or comforting the victims of crimes.

God only knew what they’d done to her. In the five days it had taken him to reach her, they could have ...

Zac reined in his imagination, sickened by the images it conjured. He holstered the Glock and knelt down in front of her. “Hey, there’s a shower in the next room with your name on it—hot water, towels, soap.”

She shifted her gaze from the door to him, then nodded. “You won’t go anywhere will you? I ... I don’t want to be left alone.”

He’d planned on slipping down to the little shop he’d seen in the lobby to buy them both some personal supplies and get her something decent to wear. But he would have room service bring what they needed instead. He took her hand, squeezed it. “I’ll be right here.”

Natalie willed herself to stand; even the appeal of a shower was not enough to break through the strange numbness that had taken hold of her. For the past twenty-four hours all she’d done is run. Now she could barely move.

She walked into the bathroom, flicked on the light, then shut the door behind her and began to undress, letting her clothes fall to the floor. She heard Zac’s voice on the other side of the door, the deep sound of it reassuring. He was probably calling to let his commanding officer know where they were so that someone could come pick them up and drive them back across the border.

Deliberately avoiding the mirror—she was afraid of what she might find there—she turned on the shower, stepped beneath the spray, and let it carry away a week’s worth of sweat, dirt, and fear. She shampooed her hair twice, massaged in conditioner, then scrubbed with a soapy washcloth till her skin was pink—wanting to be clean again, needing to feel clean. Then she rinsed her hair and her body, watching the bubbles swirl down the drain.

The thought hit her, putting a lump in her throat—but close on its heels came another. So many people
weren’t
going home.

Tears spilled down her face. How many had died on that bus? Twenty-five? Thirty? All of them journalists, all of them there because they wanted to make the world a better and safer place. Killed without mercy. Shot down.

Screams. Flying glass. Blood.

The bathroom seemed to dissolve, and she was on the bus again. She didn’t hear Zac’s knock at the door, didn’t hear him call her name, didn’t know he was there until he turned off the water and wrapped a towel around her, murmuring reassurances, lifting her into his arms, carrying her to the bed.

He sat down beside her, held her, kissed her hair, his words reaching her, bringing her back to the present. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Let it out.”

She couldn’t have stopped crying if she’d tried, her body shaking as she sobbed out the past week’s horror, her face pressed against Zac’s chest, the strength of his embrace a sanctuary. How much time passed she couldn’t say. Slowly, her tears subsided, leaving her feeling drained—and ashamed.

She sniffed. “I’m sorry.”

“You have no reason to be sorry.” He handed her a tissue, his gaze soft. “If you want to talk about it, I’m here.”

Natalie shook her head. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was to talk about it. But then the words came on their own, slowly at first, then tumbling out of her, bringing a fresh wave of tears. “Why didn’t they kill me? Why didn’t they kill me, Zac?”

The question haunted her. She needed an answer.

He drew her into his arms, stroked her hair. “I don’t know, sweetheart.”

“All those people ...” Grief tightened its grip on her heart—and some other emotion, as well.
Guilt.

“It’s not your fault that they died and you lived.” Had he read her mind?

She drew back, saw a wet stain on his shirt. “I got your T-shirt wet.”

“Tears are probably the best thing this shirt has ever known.” He stood and drew the shirt over his head, the bandage she’d made for his shoulder still in place. “You should try to get some sleep while you can.”

“When are they coming to get us?”

He frowned. “When is
who
coming to get us?”

“The other Marshals or the State Department or whoever you’re working for. The good guys.”

He ran a hand over his unshaven jaw, looked down at the floor. “No one is coming to get us.”

She felt a little spike of adrenaline. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not working for anyone.” He met her gaze. “I didn’t come here for the U.S. Marshal Service, and I didn’t come here for the State Department. I came for you, Natalie.”