Mission Made For Two (18 page)

Jake dug her compact out of the backpack and handed it to her.
She flipped it over, pushed down on the bottom and slid it out of place.  Beneath that was a
small button.  She pushed it and
put the bottom back in place. 

S
he handed it back to Jake to put in the backpack
.  “They’ll be able to lock onto it no matter where we go from here.  We
need to get going
.  I’m ready.”

Jake tightened his grip on her and held her back against him.
“Slow down
,
Super Woman.”

She looked at him like he’d grown two heads. 

“We don’t have to go
quite yet. 
Rest a few more minutes.
Let the aspirin kick in.”

Sierra relaxed marginally,
but she didn’t lay her head
against him.
 
“Since when are you mister nice guy?
  I won’t slow you down.”

Jake grinned.  “I’m tired, too, so I have ulterior motives.”  He gave a little tug and her elbow slipped, landing her head against his chest.  “Indulge me.”

He rubbed
her back.  Her muscles were still tense, but
she didn’t try to
rise
away from him
.

“I won’t have you feeling sorry for me, Harding.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Just because I’m
a
woman doesn’t mean I’m not as capable as you.”

“Sierra, I don’t doubt your abilities because you’re a woman.”

“Then why?
Why do you make me feel like you don’t trust me to watch your back?”

“It’s not that simple and it’s not you I don’t trust
,” Jake said the words, then regretted them.  Sierra would never let that slide and he wasn’t sure
he really wanted to dig up the past.

“Then what?” she prodded.

Jake sighed. 
He wasn’t going to be able to dodge her
forever
.  “It’s me
.”

Sierra stiffened.  Jake held onto
her to keep her from straightening
.
   

Sierra was too weak to fight him.  She relaxed in his arms and waited.

“I had a partner when I worked for the FBI.
”  His voice was low. 

She kept quiet, afraid that if she interrupted he’d change his mind about telling her.

“She was
a good agent
.
”

Something in his tone told her that she had been more than
j
ust his partner in work.  They’d had a relationship. Jealousy surged through her before she could stop it. 

Jake continued.  “We were working a case in Los Angeles
.  Dealing with a group we suspected of racketeering
.”

At his words, Sierra had flashes of recollection of news stories about the event.  She clenched her teeth. She knew what came next.

“Katherine got a tip that a certain Senator was involved and while I was meeting with some of the local authorities,
s
he decided to confront him.  He was more desperate than she thought.” 

Jake
tense
d
beneath her cheek.  “We never did know all the details since the Senator was killed by the very people he was working with before we found out, but Katherine perished in a warehouse fire.
  I tried…” His voice broke.

Sierra pulled free of his hold and sat
up. She needed to see his face.  “You tried what, Jake?”

“I tried to save her.  She’d called me o
n the way to meet the Senator
to tell me where she was going.  I was furious she’d left without me.  I told her to hold tight until I got there.”  He shook his head. “She didn’t of course.  She was sure she could handle him.  He happened to be meeting with one of the unsavory criminals he was doing business with.”

“Jake you don’t have to tell me anymore,” she said and touched his cheek.

A sad smile curved the side of his mouth.  “I’ve come this far, you might as well hear it all.  Hear how I failed her.”

“Jake…”

“By the time I got to the Senator’s house, all I had
was
a distraught housekeeper’s ramblings about them taking her away.  We’d found a warehouse in the Senator’s name, so I took a chance and headed there.  It was blazing.
”  He took a deep breath.  “I tried to get her.”

“It was too late,” Sierra finished for him.  She’d wanted to know all this, yet now she almost wished she hadn’t pushed him to reveal it.  The pain in his eyes pulled at her.  “How can you think that you failed her, though, Jake?  She did it to herself.”

He chuckled humor
lessly.  “We
had a fight the night before.  She accused me of being so driven I was ignoring her and our relationship.
”

Sierra licked her dry lips.  “You and she…you were lovers.”  She’d intended to let that go.  Chalk it up to her fever, but her walls weren’t as firmly in place as they normally were.

Jake’s blue eyes locked on her face and he nodded.  “She was the only woman who’d made me t
hink about something long term.”

Sierra tried not to show an
y reaction to his words.  They shouldn’t have bothered her at all.  She and Ja
ke
were
a chemistry thing.  Otherwise, they
rubbed each other completely the wrong way. 

“Anyway, we fought. I accused her of being impulsive and of not thinking about the case the way she should have been.  She
accused me of being so focused
I didn’t give a damn about her or anything else except the mission.”

Sierra remembered her words to him two nights ago.  No wonder he’d snapped.

Jake ran a hand over his face.  “Our involvement clouded both of our judgments.  I should have known what she would do, trying to prove something to me.”
 
Jake touched her cheek with his finger.  “You remind me a lot of her.”

For some reason that statement didn’t
sit well
.
  She frowned. 
“Oh, in what way?”

“She had something to prove and so do you.  And she could be reckless sometimes.”

Sierra bristled at that.  “I am not reckless.”

Jake arched an eyebrow.  “Are you telling me that you had your plans fully thought out before you got Diaz to invite you back to his home?”

She shrugged.  “
Maybe not completely, but I knew you were here.  I knew you would watch my back.”

Jake shook his head. 
“Except I didn’t.”
  He looked toward her side. “You’re hurt.”

“That wasn’t your fault.”

“I swore I wouldn’t be responsible for another partner.”

“Or another woman,” Sierra said quietly.

The blue in his eyes deepe
ned.  “Especially another woman
I
’m involved with.
”

“But I’m not your ex, Harding.”

“You’re right. You are better trained, quicker thinking.” 
J
ake pulled her into his arms.  “You think you’re so good at hiding your feelings, Sierra.  And you are.  But I’m learning your expressions.”  He gazed into her eyes and Sierra’s heart pounded a bit harder.  “Katherine never got under my skin the way you do.”  His thumb rubbed over her c
heek.  “You make me half crazy. 
Which is even worse.
”

When his lips touched hers, Sierra felt a jolt all the way to her toes. This kiss was different than any of the ones they’d shared so far. 
A mix of gentleness and hunger.
  Sierra wrapped her arms around his neck, not sure what to make of all the jumbled emotions churning inside
her chest.
This was new territory for her.

Now was not the time for mus
hy sentiments. 
Especially,
when she wasn’t in top form.
  The fever wa
s the cause of all this sappiness
. 

She pulled away from Jake’s kiss.
  “Shouldn’t we be going now?”

Jake stared at her for another few seconds,
then
nodded. 
“Yeah.
  Dia
z will have people on the move soon, if not already.”
  He reached into his pack and pulled out one of his black tee shirts.  “You should put this
on so you won’t be so noticeable
.”
  Jake stood. “I’ll be waiting for you past that tree.”

~***~

Sierra plopped down on the soft ground, too tired to walk another step.  Thank goodness Jake had decided to make camp for the night.  She’d be damned if she’d ask him to stop.

Jake pulled something from his duffel bag a
n
d
dropped it
in her lap. 
“Drink some water and take some more aspirin,” Jake said.

“What are you going to do?” 

“Lay some booby traps,
then
find
us
a place to sleep
.”
  She realized he had infra red goggles.

Sierra attempted a smile.  “Don’t suppose you need any help.”

Jake arched an eyebrow.  “I have it covered.  Just sit and rest a
while.”

Nightfall wasn’t far off and a gray
-green
light hung in the forest.  Jake slipped off and was out of sight within second
s. 

Sierra sighed,
dug out water and medicine, swallowed a couple pills
, and dropped everything back inside the ba
g.  She spotted a protein bar.  The very thought of food
made her grimace.  Yet, she wouldn’t get her strength back without food.

She rummaged around a bit more
through several pairs of underwear and tee shirts.  She
found
at least a dozen of the bars,
packets of water purifier
and a small flashlight
.  Jake had been prepared for this.  He’d probably suspected that getting off the island wouldn’t be as easy as catching a flight.

And somehow, Sierra admitted, she’d known he would be prepared.  He was just that kind of man, so she hadn’t really made a contingency plan.  Jake had been her contingency plan.

Grabbing the flashlight and
a bar
, she broke off half and folded the rest
back in the wrapper
. 
It tasted like sawdust.
She’d always hated the things, but it was better than eating bugs from the forest.

She stiffened at something rust
ling beside her
.  Hopefully
,
it was just Jake returning, but the light had faded to the point she couldn’t see much past her nose.

“Jake,” she whispered. 

Nothing.
 

Then a thought more chilling than one
of Diaz’s men sneaking up
popped into her head. 

Snake.

This place was more than likely teeming with the sneaky buggers.

“Jake?” she whispered again and struggled to her feet.  Fighting off a wave of
dizziness, she
turned on the flashlight and pointed the light at the ground.

The light reflected off a pair of beady li
ttle eyes.  “Shit.”  Sierra really wasn’t up for this. Alrea
dy her
h
eart rate had sped up and
her palms were slick with perspiration.

A twig snapped.  “Sierra, it’s just me.”

She swallowed, knowing what she was going to have to do.  “Ja
ke?  There’s…a snake.”

“Where?”
  The sound of his voice eased some of her anxiety. 
Something that should have alarmed her.
At the moment she was too focused on the snake. 

“Right in front of me in the flashlight beam.”

Jake came up behind her, his chest touching her back.
  He leaned down and picked up a stick.  She swallowed as he used the stick to lif
t the snake
and toss it to the side.

“Couldn’t you have killed it?” she asked as he turned back toward her.

Jake threw the stick on the ground.  “It wasn’t poisonous.  T
here aren’t any in the Dominican Republic
.”

Sierra shivered.  She didn’t care whether it was poisonous. 

“Are you finally going to admit you’re scared of snakes?”
h
e asked, his voice teasing. 

She closed her eyes.  Her defenses were too shattered to keep them in place.  “I’m terrified of them.  Happy?” she asked and shined the tiny beam of the flashlight on the ground around her feet, just to be sure nothing else had slithered up.