No Stranger to Danger (11 page)

Chapter Eleven

1900 hours, Thursday

Caracas, Venezuela

Mara sat beside Logan in the terminal outside gate six, elbow on chair arm, head in her palm, and tapping her foot for as long as she could stand it.

She watched him, her eyes narrowed to slits and cut to the side—though she could have been a thousand miles away by the attention he'd shown her since his return the previous evening.

After his little
chat
with
MacKall
in the alley, the men had come back inside and acted as though they hadn't just punched one another.
MacKall
had taken a flight early this morning, after contacting Butler, leaving them to clear his apartment.

One concession, she had found the man with his little vendor’s cart.

Logan scanned the area, turning his head to look between her shoulder and the chair-back. A slight discoloration and swelling at the bottom corner of his mouth hinted at what
Connar
had given him in return.

Why do men have to act so barbaric sometimes?
she mused. Really, the idea of her and
MacKall
was completely laughable. That was not to say she didn’t find the other man attractive, but he was more like a brother than anything.

Mara sighed and groaned, stretching forward and gaining an exasperated look from Logan.

"I'm going to the restroom," she said on a yawn.

That got his attention, and Logan sat forward to block her.

 
She didn't like the idea of wandering off on her own any more than he did, but there was no way he was accompanying her into the restroom, or even waiting outside the door like she was a child.

They had been here for hours with no sign of anyone sneaking up on them.

"
Shoo
," she said, waving him away as she started from her seat.

He grabbed her arm. "You can't wait thirty more minutes and go on the plane?"

Mara balanced on the edge of the hard plastic airport chair—having a flashback of their time in Paris almost two days ago—and pursed her lips at him, shaking her head. "Nope." She didn't
need
to go. She just needed to be away from him, to stretch her legs and feel normal for a moment.

Logan sighed and glanced to the restroom across the large, busy hallway. "There and straight back. If you are gone more than five minutes, I'm coming in after you."

Mara groaned at him. "Whatever," she said and rolled her eyes, pushing the rest of the way from the seat.

She looked around as she crossed the hall, dodging between people and nearly stepping on a man squatting in the floor by an outlet charging his iPhone.

"Sorry," Mara called over her shoulder as she pushed the door open.

She scrunched her nose at the smell of urine and cheep gel air freshener as she walked in and looked around. Mara glanced under the stalls for feet as the door banged closed behind her, and when she was satisfied no one was there but her, she went to the counter and lifted the long strap of her purse over her head.
 

Mara stepped up to the counter and tossed the new purse on the dulled brown granite, making sure the strap didn't fall over onto the wet puddle left around the other sink.

She sighed hard and reached to finger the puffiness around her eyes. At least on the first six-hour flight before their layover in Houston she would finally get the chance to sleep, as she really hadn't since she had been taken from her home two days before. She momentarily tried to remember what day it was, but couldn’t.

Last night would have been an easy night to sleep, knowing she was protected by not one but two former Special Forces
badasses
—but then there was that conversation that she'd overheard and Logan's words kept playing over and over in her mind. His deep, sexy voice rousing feelings she never thought to feel for him again.

"Damn you, Logan
Cahil
," she whispered aloud.

Mara plucked the new powder from her purse and opened it to touch up around her eyes. She leaned in toward the mirror to have a better look. When she was done touching up, she tossed the powder back in and reached behind her head to pull the elastic band from her hair and started finger combing the mess into a neater, high ponytail. Mara wrapped the band around her hair and gave it a pull to tighten it, brushing her fingers at her bangs before she reached into her purse for the travel-sized hairspray she had picked up with the other essentials she had gone without for several days.

"Thought I'd never find you alone again, sweetheart."

She let out a tiny scream, her stare darting back to the mirror, to the reflection of the man behind her. Her fingers stilled in her bag over the small can.

"You," she said, recognizing the man from her home. The man who had drugged her and taken her to Bishkek. Her heart picked up rhythm as he came flush with her back and began to reach around her, his nose going into her hair as he reached for her hands. "No!" Mara cried and popped the cap off the hairspray with her thumb and brought it out of her purse as she whirled between him and the counter.

She closed her eyes and pressed the little plastic nozzle.

"Fucking bit—" The man backed a step away from the plume of sticky mist, bringing a hand to his eyes and howling. While she had the chance, Mara brought her knee up into his balls.

"Not this time, asshole," she said.

He gasped and clutched for her, but Mara grabbed her bag from the counter and slammed it into his face. She darted around him to escape, but came crashing into the first bathroom stall.

Mara screamed at the heavy impact of his body against hers and fell over the toilet with a loud cry.

Her attacker flailed to grasp her, pushing her further and further into the stall as he wiped angrily at reddened eyes. He snarled at her, his fingers biting into her arm.

Mara squeaked at the harshness of his grasp, a burst of adrenaline kicking in, and she lifted the ceramic back of the toilet, whirling around swinging. She caught the man in the side of the face.

He tumbled backward.

Her eyes went wide as she brought the tank lid up to shield herself. "Oh, shit," she breathed as he fell to the tiled floor with a gargled sound, a trickle of blood dripping from his forehead.

Open-mouthed, Mara stood there a moment before springing back into action. She turned to gently set the tank cover back in its spot. Absentmindedly, she ran her hands over her hair, then almost as suddenly grimaced and wiped her hands on her jeans. She started to step over the man, but thought better and went back to wipe down the lid to erase her fingerprints. She wadded toilet paper from the dispenser and rubbed the ceramic back, tossing the paper into the toilet when she was done and then flushed.

As she took a leaping step over her assailant, then turned back with the thought of hauling him into the stall, her stare flicked between the prone man and the toilet. Judging by his size, she would have about as much luck lugging him into that stall as she would erasing the past six days. She simply was not budging him off the floor. He was as big as Logan.

Logan…

Mara looked toward the door, praying no one would enter.

She needed to get Logan.

Mara shook her hands and took a deep breath before she bent to pick her purse up from the dirty tile near a strip of toilet paper and stuffed the scattered belongings back in. She tossed the strap over her shoulder and stepped back out into the terminal as though nothing had happened. Her step was quick as she hurried back to where Logan surveyed the lobby around their terminal.

As she approached, his look turned to concern. The airport staff might not know yet, but Logan could tell something had happened. He stood and took a few steps to meet her.

"He is in the restroom," Mara whispered, glancing around them. "The man who took me from my house."

Logan's gaze lifted to the doors not far from them. "I've been watching the door the whole time." He looked back down on her, scanning her for any sign of injury, a flicker of barely restrained fury pooled in his dark blue eyes.

Mara's mind raced back to her entry into the restroom. The man had to have been right behind her because the door never opened again.

She gasped, remembering the man charging his phone, the same one she had almost stepped on.

Logan wouldn’t have seen him crouched in the floor for all the legs moving past, the rolling suitcases.

"He was by the door when I walked in," Mara said, lightly slapping a hand to her forehead. It wasn’t until then she realized her hands were shaking—and that she'd never washed them.

Logan took her hand in his and reached for her other hand, taking them both between his warm palms and rubbing gently. His jaw clenched.

"Stay here, I'll be right back." He started for the women's restroom, but Mara trapped his arm in her fingers.

She looked up to him and shook her head. "I think I killed him."

Logan's eyes flared with alarm, and he turned to put his arm around her shoulders, leading her further into the lobby area outside the gate, to the large windows overlooking the tarmac where she could see suitcases being carted to the plane.

Mara quickly went over what had happened, and Logan frowned, keeping his stare from the restroom as an airport security guard passed them, walking up to the ticket agent counter.

"I doubt you killed him. He's probably unconscious. Try to look normal. We're past the hard part. All we have to do now is get on the plane and hope no one goes into that restroom before then."

Mara shook her head and glanced to the security guard as he flirted harmlessly with the ticket agent before moving on. He left the waiting area and walked past the restroom whistling. The man shoved his hands into his pockets before he entered the coffee shop.

Mara took a deep breath and chanced a look at Logan. He looked hot in the new jeans and black tee, his clean-shaven face making him look younger than his thirty-four years. The nick on his chin he had gotten in Iraq still showed, slanting just under the right side. He turned dark-blue eyes on her, and for a brief moment, she saw a hint of emotion hidden away behind all his hard, cold armor.

Her mind flickered to the conversation she had overheard, and she glanced away, blinking back the regret weighing on her.

She wished she hadn't heard what she had.

God, she wished she didn't know.

‘
Cause damn it, it made it all the harder to hate him.

A ding sounded in the boarding area. "Now boarding all seats on United flight 1045, Caracas to Houston, gate six," the female ticket agent's voice said over the intercom. Mara watched the woman as she replaced the phone and stepped up to begin taking tickets.

"That's us," Logan said and slid his hand down her back to just above the line of her jeans, his hand warm to her skin even through the red and black plaid over-shirt she wore over her white tee.

Mara started forward and got in line behind two old men dressed in island shirts, large, green tropical leaves covering the material. When it was her turn, she slipped her ticket from her purse and handed it to the ticket agent, smiling and trying to look as normal as she could—as though she hadn’t been stolen from her home by a spy and taken to a terrorist's villa in another country to be tortured, only to be saved by her ex-husband. Crashed in a plane in the middle of the Sahara and hitched a ride on camels, flown to Caracas to meet up with an old friend, and then attacked in the bathroom by the same man who had kidnapped her.