No Stranger to Danger (8 page)

"We had normal spiffs, but not one thing ever happened to throw up any red flags. You don’t get to abandon me and then appear out of the blue and pull me from my life without explaining yourself. And before you think you can somehow keep me in the dark over what is happening here," she made a circle with her finger in the air, "you will be telling me exactly what in the hell is going on."

Logan shifted behind her. "I already told you."

"You call that little three sentence brief you gave me an explanation?"

His stare narrowed. "It's complicated. You're just going to have to trust me on some of this."

Mara scoffed and shook her head. "God, Logan. You really don’t get it do you? I
don’t
trust you."

"I gave you every reason to trust me."

"You never gave me shit besides a heartache."

A wave of regret hit Mara as she felt the hardness of his chest against her back stiffen even more. There was a heavy, long silence between them.

For a little more than two and a half years, he had given her love like no other. It had been tender, sweet, and full of life. And then he had left on his mission—and he took part of her with him. That missing part had never returned. Not even when she had at last accepted he was gone from her life for good.

Or so she had thought.

A burning hurt and anger swelled, and Mara looked out over the barren dunes and to the lights of the village in the distance.

"I couldn’t give you the things you deserved," he said. His voice dipped into a deep, smooth pitch. "I tried. I told you before, and I will tell you again, I'm sorry it didn’t work out. You didn’t fit into my life because of my job, and I didn’t fit into yours. I never should have married you and led you to believe we would settle down, that we would have a nice little house with a picket fence and family to raise. That's just not me. That was never meant for me, and you know it."

Mara whipped her head around. "Oh, bullshit. It could have been. Don’t think I haven’t seen other soldiers do it. Don’t think other men just as damaged as you haven’t. You just didn’t want it."

"There is a reason I had the job that I did, and it's because I don’t have a family. I have no liabilities to compromise me." Something hitched in his stare, and he looked away.

Mara looked away, too, with a gasp.
That
stung deeply. Maybe there was a good reason they had never had this discussion. "So that’s what I was to you? A liability."

Logan clenched his jaw. "My leaving you was always for your protection, Mara. Nothing else. And you wouldn’t have become a liability now if I'd not done something incredibly stupid. It was my mistake, and that is why you are here. I'm not going to let you get hurt because of my mistake."

"Not get hurt?" she scoffed. "You're doing exceedingly well keeping me from getting hurt.
What
did you do? How did they get a photo of me and find out who I was to you in the first place?"

His stare fixed to her lips as she spoke, but fell when she stopped, and he swallowed hard, glancing all around them, prompting Mara to fix an impatient stare on him.

"I had it with me," Logan said.

Mara's back stiffened, and she looked sharply at her ex-husband. "What? The picture?
You
had a picture of
me
with you? Why?" she asked, shocked.

Her loud question garnered the attention of all the
Tuareg
traders, and the men with them turned on their camels to face Mara and Logan. Mara blanched and dipped her head, remaining silent until they turned back around.

"It doesn’t matter," Logan hissed near her ear.

"Yes, it does," she hissed back, just as vehemently. "You divorced me to keep me out of this life you've made for yourself, remember? There's no reason you should have had my photo."

"Well, I did," he snapped. "And when Conyers found the information I had been collecting on him, he found the photo, too."

Mara let out a loud huff and crossed her arms, shaking her head. "What did you do, Logan? Where is your team, your commander, your government backup? When shit goes wrong they usually send in someone. I'm really surprised an agent in a black suit didn’t come pick me up before that asshole broke into my home."

"Did he hurt you?"

Mara snorted. "Wow, you sound like you care. A spoken concern from the man who carried my photo around five years after a divorce. I'm starting to feel special." Another long silence followed, Mara looked over at him again and narrowed her stare. "You don’t belong to the military anymore, do you?"

His eyes flared. "I don’t work for
anyone
anymore if you want to be real technical about it."

Mara looked ahead, the desolate looking village coming in clear view with each rough, joggling step of the beast under them. The buildings were made of either dried mud or painted tin. Some shelter looked to have been put together with old pieces of wood and debris.

"Promise me as soon as this is over you will be back out of my life and you won't have any more pictures of me lying around to get me into trouble."

Logan nodded. "Fair."

"So, what happened?" she asked, a bit softer. Mara turned to look at him from under her lashes.

He sighed and relaxed against her a bit. "A year ago my handler called me up for a job."

"What is a handler?"

Logan scowled. "Are you going to let me tell you what happened?"

Mara sat back and held up her hands, but at the same time tensed at the warmth of Logan seeping into her back once more, the steel of his thighs against hers. "Okay, continue."

"I was supposed to work with him in Brazil setting up a compound to lure terrorists in with the promise of Brazilian identities and a free trip into the US. These were men working for a level one target named
Sha
Amud
. Our objective was to eventually capture
Sha
. Then shit went really wrong. A team of Special Forces guys descended on the compound and were either killed, taken hostage, or sent on the run with Conyers's men hunting them down. That was when I realized I wasn’t working for who I thought I was. I always knew Conyers was in the game for himself, but I didn’t know then what kind of monster he is. I just thought he cared more for his advancement in the CIA."

"CIA," Mara blurted. "You were CIA?" She slapped herself in the forehead and groaned. "
Nooo
,"
droned from her lips. "This just became so much worse."

"So, after Brazil I tracked Conyers, collecting all the intel I could—until last Sunday. You don't need to know everything. It's probably best if you don’t. Bottom line, Conyers completely fucked my career, and I wanted to return the favor. Now, here we are."

"So, wouldn’t it have been enough to have left Brazil and reported on your handler to the CIA director?"

"Sure. If I was after turning him over to the United States government and wanting to get my own ass tossed in prison for the rest of my life, not to mention I have no idea who is to be trusted anymore."

Mara turned to him, wide-eyed. "Why would they send you to prison?"

"Because I helped someone who was aiding some pretty big fish."

"So who are you turning Conyers over to now?"

"I had a growing list, starting with Satan, but the more I learned, the deeper it got. I had no idea Conyers was playing such a big role and what he was doing was so dangerous. He is working with some big names like Joseph
Sierkoff
, the Russian Prime Minister, too. There are also some terrorists you wouldn’t know of. Whatever it is he is planning, it's bad. I won't know what that is unless I can get this injected chip out of my side and unscramble what was on the original microchip."

Mara paused a long moment. "And they want me why?"

"Because the day Conyers found out I was on to him, I stole the microchip he wants back so badly. He knew he could use you to get it. He also doesn’t know if I have told anyone as of yet or who I've told if I have. He wanted to use you, and still could, to stop me before I can get the information into the right hands. Whatever is on that chip is nothing good."

Mara shivered at his words. "Good Lord, Logan. I would like to kill you myself right now. Why couldn’t you have made life simple for yourself? Stayed a Green Beret, never gone Delta or
CIA.
" She cast her stare over the desert.

Did that mean she still mattered in some way to him? Enough that this Conyers could use her against him? A hot tingle raced over her skin.

"Because for once in my life I'd found something I was good at. I was wanted."

A tight knot began to thicken in the back of Mara's throat. "You had a home before that, and you were very much wanted there." She crossed her arms, holding herself, holding the pain at bay.

It had taken a long time to get over what Logan had done. She looked at him from the corner of her eye. Seeing him—all hard muscle and cold anger, blond hair raked back from his face, a beard just a few shades darker and just a little longer than a shadow covering his jaw, a M-9 strapped to his thigh—she wasn’t entirely sure she had ever been
over
him.

Chapter Eight

0700 hours, Tuesday

Nouakchott, Mauritania

Logan checked the little room in the roughly fashioned inn as he and Mara walked inside. It had been thirteen long hours on the road from
Zouérat
to Nouakchott, and he needed a damn rest.

Mara stopped by his side and turned her head upward over her shoulder with a gusty sigh. "I'm pooped. I'm going to take a shower," she said, starting for the bathroom left of the bed.

"Good luck with that." Logan's gaze fell to her shapely ass as she turned inside the bathroom door. "While you're doing whatever you need to do, I'm
gonna
see about the next flight out of here."

"K," she said as she shut the door.

Logan sat down on the bed and began to flip through a folder with Arabic scrolling on the cover. On the inside were listings of numbers to local amenities, first in Arabic and secondarily in French, as Nouakchott had once been under French control and a majority of the population of Mauritania spoke French.

He ran his finger down the worn list. The word
aéroport
stuck out, and he reached for the phone on the bedside table to dial the numbers, unsure
which
airport he was calling.

After three rings, "Hello, thank you for calling
Aéroport
de Nouakchott
. How may I assist you?" a French-speaking woman asked.

"
Avez-vous
un
vol
pour Caracas?"
Logan asked in her language.

"Hold please." The line went to static temporarily. "Yes, we do. Air France flight three-sixty-eight departs at ten-thirty-five this evening and arrives at CDG in Paris at five-thirty-five tomorrow morning with a five-hour layover. You would get to your destination at, um, let me see … two in the evening on Wednesday. Would you like to book this flight, sir?"

"
Oui
," he said.

It took about twenty minutes, but he arranged a flight for Mr. and Mrs. Hines.

He wouldn’t doubt Conyers was on his trail by now, but only news of a plane crashing in the desert was going to lead him in the right direction, and for now, the only people who knew of the plane were the nomads who had dropped them off in
Zouérat
. He and Mara had since stolen a car and made the thirteen-hour drive from
Zouérat
to Nouakchott, which gave Conyers time to catch up, but not enough time to stop him before they got on the plane.

Logan rose from the bed and went to the window to push the curtain aside. The morning sun touched the city below their second-story room and softened the stone buildings. Brightly dressed people milled through the streets, some in hijab fashion, some not. Nouakchott was a big place, the biggest city in Mauritania, with a population close to a million. For being in the Sahara, the city could be considered civilized compared to other places in Mauritania.

Still, they were in a place heavily influence by extremists, and the sooner he had them out of here, the better. Mara didn’t know the danger they were truly in, and the more danger they could get into trying to leave the country without passports. His only hope was in finding a bribable crook—and in his line of business, he had gotten particularly good at finding crooks.

On some days, a crook could be one's best friend.

"Mara," he called. Logan dropped the curtain and walked to the bathroom door. He twisted the worn handle and stuck his head inside the steam-fogged bathroom. "Stay in the room. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Mara growled at him and stuck her head out of the shower to give him a dirty look. She kept her body covered with the plastic curtain. "Privacy, if you don’t mind."

Logan raked his stare down the dark silhouette of her figure and shifted against the door. Oh, he minded. Suddenly, the room was far too small, and the need to escape it—to escape being near the one woman who had ever held his heart—ratcheted up into his chest and tightened painfully.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

Logan cast his stare away, silently cursing himself for thinking he could handle being near Mara. "Just out to the street. You're going to need something else to wear."

Mara scowled as he shut the door.

God, she hates me
, Logan thought.

She had every right to.

"Well, pick something decent," she called.

It would be decent, but she wasn't going to like it.

They both needed a disguise to get to Caracas, and the fashion of Mauritania had never seemed so alluring.

****

Logan stepped back inside the room a half-hour later with clothing tossed over his arm. He reached behind to close the door, then stopped short as he looked up to find Mara turning from the bed. She was wearing a short peach-colored slip, her panties and bra visible through the thin material.

"Well don't stare." She started forward and grabbed the clothing from him. "It's not like you haven't seen me undressed more than this before. What did you find?"

She let the dull, long garment fall to the floor and made a face. "Uh." She cocked her head at him.

"That should keep you out of notice." Logan stepped around her, uncomfortable at the reminder she was presenting him with. "Just until we are in Caracas."

He stepped behind her and then tossed a black scarf over her shoulder.

Mara plucked it up by her fingers, studying it with an O shape to her mouth.

"Don’t forget the hijab," he taunted.

She sighed and balled the dress and scarf together. "Did you get a flight?"

"Yeah." Logan pulled his black t-shirt over his head and tossed it on the back of a wooden ladder-back chair by a small table near the window. He reached down and took his weapon from the leg-holster around his thigh, setting it on the table by the bed before he unstrapped the holster and set it aside, too. "We leave tonight, so if you want to rest, better do that now."

"What is that?" Mara asked.

Logan looked up to find her staring in horror at his abdomen, just above his pants. He looked down on himself, to the red whelp around the area where he had injected the chip, and not far above were open wounds left from the battery, the frost-on-windowpane red branches stretching out over his side where
Taj
had touched the cables to his skin. The vine-like pattern spread halfway across his torso, over the Latin words
Sine
Missione
—Without Mercy—tattooed on his ribcage, wrapping around from the underside of his left pectoral, and disappearing on his side under his arm.

Logan looked away from her pained expression.

"That's what Conyers’s buddy
Taj
would have done to you, too." Logan reached down to where the microchip was. "And this is what Conyers wants back," he said, looking back up to her, not caring to explain the rest of his new scars since last she'd seen him. "If something happens to me, you have to cut that out and take it to
MacKall
yourself."

Mara blanched and pushed her hair from her face. "I don't even know where to find him."

A glimpse of her fear washed over her as she ran her fingertips over her lips and dropped her hand to her side, her other fist clutched around the bunched dress. Her stare raked over his torso, and damn his soul to hell, he wanted to touch her, to take her in his arms—to touch his lips to hers.

Logan walked over to Mara. He wasn't sure she wanted any comfort that came from him, but he stopped in front of her and brushed his hands over her dark hair. She instantly looked up at him, but quickly away as her eyes became teary. She looked anywhere but at him or the scars uncovered now.

Logan smoothed his hand over her hair, the strands like silk against his fingers, and he remembered lying in bed with her many nights and watching her, touching her soft skin as she slumbered. She would sigh in her sleep at his touch. Logan dropped his hands and clenched them into fists.

Those days were gone, despite how the memories stirred him to wish that they were not—to wish that he were someone different.

"I hope life has been good to you since I left," he murmured.

Mara snorted and stepped around him toward the bed. She went to the side opposite his weapon and holster, and tossed back the covers. "It was, until I got fired from my job. I would have had my house on the market by now, and hopefully would have had an offer, too. But I would guess my house has turned into a crime scene after I disappeared, after that mongrel kidnapped me." A fleeting glower crossed over her.

Logan frowned. "Why were you fired?"

Mara paused, started to speak, but then shook her head and rolled her eyes. "You don't want to know."

He frowned a moment.

Whatever it was clearly upset her.

Logan flipped off the light and went to the bed, too. He dropped down on top of the covers, reclining back and crossed his feet at the ankles, interlacing his fingers over his stomach. They lay in the quiet of the room, the only sounds coming from the street outside and the other inhabitants across the hall. A light glow from the daylight outside bled in past the curtains to cast muted shadows over them.

"Nothing has changed about you," Mara said quietly.

Logan turned his head to her and found her staring across his chest to the M-9 on the nightstand.

"Everything has changed. I'm not the same man you knew."

Mara lifted her stare to his eyes and shook her head against the pillow, tousling her dark hair. Seeing her in bed beside him sent a hot pang of desire bolting through his groin. Logan swallowed hard. He had no right to those feelings. No right to her.

His gaze ran down her arm where the thin strap of her slip had fallen off her shoulder and left her bra strap exposed, down the curve of her hip under the sheets.

"Well,
not
-the-same-man-that-you-used-to-be kept my picture around for some reason. I still want to know what madness drove you to do such a thing." She gave him a gentle smile. "We both know you knew better."

Logan looked back up her slowly. "I kept it to remind me how far gone I am." There was so much more he wanted to say, but couldn’t. "Goodnight, Mara." He turned his head back and stared at the ceiling.

Mara sighed gustily and flopped to her other side, bunched the pillow under her head and squirmed until she was comfortable.

"You're such an ass," she muttered.

Logan smiled at the ceiling.

It was nice to know he still got to her the same way she still got to him.

He tensed his jaw.

Yet, it hurt him that he could never let her know how he really felt about her.