Last Spy Standing (16 page)

“We have to get to a spot where a chopper can land,” Megan educated him.

Mitch turned on the radio, dialed a channel he knew U.S. military in the region monitored, then sent a coded message that gave their rough location. He added a special code so the Colonel would be alerted. Then he turned the thing off. No sense in running down the battery.

“I’ll be carrying her.” He shot Megan a look. “She’s got a broken collarbone, and she’s lost too much blood.”

“I’m hurt, too,” the kid protested.

“I’m not carrying you, so you’ll just have to live with it. Grab that bag and let’s get going.”

“My jaw is broken.”

“I never said you had to carry the bag with your teeth.” Zak was a poster child for tough love. He needed some, and Mitch wasn’t about to coddle him. He started out heading northeast along the gorge, looking for a way across.

In the end, they didn’t need to cross. They found a flat rock ten miles down the way big enough for a chopper to land. He made another call on the radio and kept transmitting so the rescue team could track the signal to their exact location. Then they had nothing to do but wait.

Dusk was gathering by the time the extraction team arrived. The sound of the helicopter’s rotors reached them from the distance. Mitch tossed some wet leaves on the fire he’d started and sent the thick smoke upward, fanning it with a palm leaf. Soon the chopper came into view above the trees, and he kicked the fire apart, so the smoke wouldn’t be an impediment to landing.

He didn’t know the men who jumped out to help them aboard. They weren’t from his team. The Colonel must have requested assistance from whatever military unit was close and available.

“Thanks. I appreciate your help.” It felt odd to be on the other end of a rescue. He wasn’t used to it.

The rescue team knew better than to ask any questions that didn’t have to do with their physical well-being.

A medic had ridden along with the chopper. Zak demanded drugs until he was knocked out completely. Megan refused them.

“You need to go to a hospital, ma’am,” the medic told her as he left her side to talk to the pilot.

They’d strapped her to a stretcher to keep her broken collarbone from moving. Mitch sat next to her and took her hand.

She closed her eyes. Her face was drawn. He had no trouble guessing the path of her thoughts. She was thinking about Billy. She had sworn not to leave the jungle without him, had planned on him being with her when she headed out of here.

He squeezed her fingers. “Your brother would be proud of you.”

“I failed.” Even her voice sounded broken.

“Don Pedro’s game book has enough intel to clean up half the jungle. Because of Billy, and because you came for him, you’ll set back the drug and gun business at least a decade. This will save thousands of lives. Tens of thousands. This is why Billy took on the job.”

She nodded. Then she opened her amber eyes and looked at him. “I love you.”

He stared at her as she closed her eyes again. He loved her, too, but he was not the man she needed. He could be lost on any mission, just like her brother. No way would he risk putting her through that pain. He couldn’t stand the thought of her suffering like this because of him.

Minutes passed while he looked at her, bewildered. His feelings switched back and forth between elation and despair. By the time he gathered himself, she’d fallen asleep from the combination of blood loss and exhaustion.

She slept the whole three-hour chopper ride to a small rural hospital. Medical personnel were waiting to examine her and Zak. Mitch, too, but since the Colonel was also there waiting for him, he decided he could do the debriefing before they started poking at his heel.

“I’ll come back as soon as I can,” he told Megan before marching off with the Colonel.

But an hour later, he couldn’t find her. The CIA took care of their own, it seemed. They’d sent someone for her, and she’d already been taken away, back to the States.

Chapter Fourteen

Hopeville, Pennsylvania, three months later

Mitch sat in the small apartment he’d rented as a home base in between missions, and looked at the printouts of a spacious condo the Realtor had done her best to talk him into buying. He’d gotten the reward money for getting Zak out of the jungle in one piece. The little twerp was fine. And now he was thinking about starting up a business that taught jungle survival.

A nerve jumped in Mitch’s eyes every time he thought of the kid.

At first, he’d refused the reward money. Then the Colonel had stepped in, told him he was going to accept it because he had worked for every penny of it, and that was an order.

He didn’t want the money. He didn’t much want the condo, either. He wanted Megan.

Not searching her out was a daily battle. But in the end, he loved her enough to do what was best for her. He wasn’t it.

Hell of a thing. He was pretty sure she was the best thing that could ever happen to him.

Funny how fate could mess up so badly.

Since he’d last seen her, he’d been on another mission and back. His heel was as good as new. His heart was in tatters.

He’d almost messed up this last job. He was losing his focus.

He needed to talk to her, he decided. So he couldn’t talk himself out of it again, he grabbed his cell phone and called the Colonel.

“I need a leave of absence, sir. For personal reasons.”

“Everything all right?”

“Fine, sir. It’s time to visit some old friends. You wouldn’t know where Jamie Cassidy hangs out these days?”

“I wasn’t aware you two were close friends. You never did an op together.”

“No, sir.” He wasn’t about to elaborate.

A moment of silence passed. “Why don’t you come into my office to sign the paperwork for that leave. I’ll dig out his file.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Now he would have to do it. Now he was committed. When he got back from his leave, the Colonel would expect a full report on Jamie and how he was recovering.

Mitch ran his fingers through his hair. If he happened to see Megan while he visited Jamie…

He stood up and headed for the door, caught himself at the last second and glanced down, wincing at the state of his clothing. Brooding home alone all week didn’t do much for a person’s image. The Colonel would chew him out if he saw him like this.

He padded up the stairs. He could afford enough time for a shower. He added a shave, too. If the Colonel thought something was wrong with him, the man would get on his case and insist on answers. Mitch didn’t have any of those.

All he knew was that he was in love with Megan Cassidy and a relationship between them was impossible. A solution was brewing in the back of his head. But it was probably too drastic. He needed to speak to her before he made any big life changes. Leaving the SDDU wasn’t a move he entertained lightly. But he would do it for her, if she thought she could accept him.

He reached the base an hour and a half later. The Colonel’s secretary announced his arrival.

“Colonel.” He stopped in his tracks when he realized the Colonel already had a visitor. A man about Mitch’s age sat in a wheelchair. He had amber eyes and blondish hair in a familiar shade.

“Jamie Cassidy. Mitch Mendoza.” The Colonel made the introductions. “Jamie stopped in to discuss something with me this morning. He wanted to see you, too.”

They sized each other up. Jamie’s handshake had plenty of steel in it.

“You were there when my brother died,” he said in a tone void of emotion. But his eyes held tempered steel.

Oh, hell. If Jamie Cassidy blamed him for Billy’s death, then Megan probably did, too. “Billy was too far gone to make it out. He died a hero’s death.”

“That’s what my sister says,” Jamie allowed, but his countenance didn’t soften any.

Mitch’s heart drummed faster. “Is she here?”

The Colonel answered that. “She’s in the next room, going over your report of the op to see if she can add anything. I asked for her help. The materials you two brought back are of some significance. Further ops are being planned.”

The words
I want in
were on the tip of Mitch’s tongue, but he couldn’t say them, not until he talked to Megan, not until his future was decided.

“Sir?” He glanced toward the door.

The Colonel nodded. “Go ahead, soldier.”

Jamie scowled at him. He wasn’t as sure about what had gone down at Don Pedro’s as Megan was, apparently. Either that, or he resented Mitch asking about his sister. The man knew the life, what the unit meant, the kind of work they did. He probably would have been happier if none of his teammates met Megan at all.

Mitch understood that, even agreed. But he couldn’t help himself when it came to Megan Cassidy.

He walked down the hall and knocked on the door the secretary pointed to.

“Come in.”

Just hearing her voice made his heart beat faster.

She looked exactly the same as the first time they’d met. The no-nonsense ponytail was gone, and long, blond waves tumbled down to cover the scar on her neck. She had on a smattering of makeup she didn’t need. Her flirty dress ended an inch above her knees. He swallowed as he stared. He’d never seen her in a dress.

Wow. All right. Okay.

She looked elegant and poised, too beautiful to behold. Way out of his league. What had he been thinking? If she blamed him… Hell, he blamed himself half the time. He’d spent a couple of sleepless nights thinking about what he could have done differently.

Almost as many nights as he’d spent thinking of her, with him, and nothing else but tangled sheets.

She glanced up from the stack of papers she’d been reading.

“Mitch!” She flew to him and wrapped her arms around him.

She smelled like some exotic jungle flower.

He’d thought she’d give him a cool reception, so he was stunned by the entirely different welcome. For a second, he couldn’t respond.

She pulled away, a shadow coming into her eyes. Took a step back, a more businesslike look settling onto her face. “They’re putting together an op to go back in the jungle. Are you going?”

“No.”

She looked disappointed. “I am.”

“A joint mission with the CIA?”

“I begged the Colonel to put me on the team. With Jamie’s help.”

His head was spinning. “I’m quitting the team.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I want to marry you and I never want to see you in the kind of pain I saw when you lost your brother.”

Her amber eyes went wide. “You’re trying to guarantee that you won’t die on me?”

Now that she put it that way, it sure sounded stupid.

“I’m buying a house. A condo, actually.” Maybe that would help. “I’m trying to—”

“You want to marry me?” Her eyes narrowed. “When we were in the chopper and I said I loved you, you didn’t say anything back.”

“I needed a little time to recover. I needed to figure out a way I could make our relationship work.”

“And your way is to quit?”

That did sound bad. He wasn’t a quitter. A woman like Megan wouldn’t want a quitter for a husband.

“Do you want to quit?” she asked.

“No. But I can live with it,” he tried to explain. “I can’t live without you.”

“You won’t have to. I’m going with you.”

“Where?”

She looked at him as if he was slow in the head. “Back to the jungle. I’m coming over to Colonel Wilson’s team in six months.”

“You can’t.” He wasn’t sure he could handle seeing her getting shot again.

“Watch me.” She was all cold steel on the inside. And all hot curves on the outside. A combination that would keep him fascinated for the rest of his life. Then a thought popped into his head and stole his breath. “Why wait six months?”

His gaze fell to her midriff. How much could a man trust an old condom he found on the bottom of a drug dealer’s duffel bag?

Her belly was flat, but you could never tell. His heart jumped up into his throat. Spots swum in front of his eyes.

She pulled a folder from her bag on the floor and handed it to him.

His hands shook as he opened it, expecting ultrasound pictures. He blinked hard when he saw the photo of a familiar one-year-old instead.
Cindy.
The world spun with him.

“What are you doing with my sister’s file?”

“Finding her.”

He couldn’t allow his hopes to rise. That part of his heart was dead, even if Megan had awakened the rest. “I spent years chasing down every lead. I searched hard. There was nothing to find.”

“But have you ever searched with all the tools of the CIA at your full disposal?” she asked.

“And you’re giving them to me for the next six months?” Hell, with something like that, he could do miracles.

“For the next six months. That’s when the Colonel is shipping a team back to the jungle. He’ll need that long to process all the information we brought in and devise a strategy.”

Of course she would. But she wasn’t going without him. No way.

“We’ll do this together.” Because when the chips were down, the truth was he’d rather have her at his back than anyone else he knew. “And when we come back we get married?”

“Jeez, don’t be so pushy.” But she grinned. “Maybe.”

His heart leaped.

“And while we’re waiting for that deployment, we’ll find your sister. I’m going to do everything in my power to help.” She smiled at him.

He stepped closer. “I love you, you know that.”

When she stepped into his arms, he wrapped himself around her. Kissed her with all the need of the three long months they’d been apart. He was never going to let her go again. There wasn’t another like her on the planet.

She pressed against him, smiled against his lips as she brushed against his hardness. His body was more than ready for her.

“And what might that be?” She teased him between kisses.

“I’m very happy to see you.”

“It’s either that or you had a run in with a banana spider.” She laughed at him, then jumped and wrapped her legs around his waist.

He caught her, got lost in her.
She was his.
He didn’t deserve her, but as long as God saw it fit in His generosity to bring the two of them together, he would do whatever it took to make her happy and keep her safe.

He didn’t know how long they’d been kissing when someone cleared his throat behind them. They jumped apart, suddenly mindful of where they were.

“There are rules about fraternization in the SDDU rule book, soldiers,” the Colonel said with a hard voice. But his eyes were dancing with mirth.

“The SDDU has no rule book, sir,” Mitch retorted as the tips of his ears turned red.

“Impertinent, the lot of them.” The Colonel turned to Jamie who was right behind him. “Are you sure you want to rejoin a team like this?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jamie, you can’t be serious.” Megan ran to him, crouching next to the wheelchair and searching her brother’s face.

“This man has more experience than any ten others put together,” the Colonel told them in a no-nonsense tone. “He’ll be an operations coordinator at our Texas office.”

Mitch wrinkled his forehead. “We don’t have a Texas office.”

“It’s on a need to know basis. We started up operations in South Texas six months ago. Too many of our international ops uncover terror plots with links to sleeper cells and the like in the U.S. We needed to add another office here. Texas Headquarters will investigate drug and gun smuggling as well as human trafficking from Central and South America as it relates to suspected terror activity.”

“If it’s top secret…” The puzzle pieces were falling into place in Mitch’s mind.

“You’re being transferred there effective immediately. Megan will begin working there when she starts with us in six months,” the Colonel responded. “You are both experts on South American ops.”

“Jamie?” Megan still sounded unsure, but a change was slowly coming over her. It seemed she was beginning to understand that this was exactly what her brother needed to get his life back on track.

The Colonel knew, Mitch thought. The Colonel knew and he saw to it. No wonder his men would walk through fire for him.

“There are still things I can contribute.” The harsh lines softened on Jamie’s face. “I can coordinate missions and play wedding coordinator at the same time. I’m good at multitasking. From the looks of you two when we walked in, the sooner we hold that wedding, the better.”

“She hasn’t said yes, yet,” Mitch put in, just to make sure Jamie knew he’d asked. Jamie Cassidy wasn’t a man he wanted to tangle with, wheelchair or no wheelchair.

All eyes moved to her.

The Colonel raised an eyebrow. “My soldiers are not known for being wishy-washy.”

“Megan?” Jamie watched her closely.