Still Mine (7 page)

Did it really matter that much? She wasn’t free to return to her life anyway. Whoever had started this chain of events was still out there. It would be interesting to discover if the people she was being taken to meet could tell her just who wanted to kidnap her and, more importantly, why. Information was the only path to getting what she wanted. But she suddenly understood just how simple it was to take privacy for granted. All the little things you missed once they were gone. Even the right to go to the bathroom without four people knowing you needed to relieve your bladder.

“Seventy-nine Tango Bravo, inbound. Touchdown pending.” An hour after sunset, Nolan’s voice finally broke the silence. Landing instructions came over the radio but he reached for a switch on the dash of the aircraft. It cut the link to her headphones, leaving her in silence as he spoke to their landing site.

The aircraft crested another rise in the landscape and landing-field lighting shone upwards like a campfire. Jo stared at it just as a desert traveler might gaze at a mirage. Nolan angled the helicopter and descended by steady degrees. They bumped against the ground only once before he cut the main rotor.

Determined to discover just where she was, Jo exited from the aircraft seconds after it hit the ground. She left her headphones on the front seat as she ducked beneath the spinning blades of the helicopter, raising her head once she’d cleared them.

Ground crews came forward and began to service the aircrafts. They were quick and efficient. The occupants of the other two helicopters disembarked and were making their way across the asphalt landing pad. The ease with which they did it suggested that they knew the area well. That made the immediate servicing of the helicopters more interesting, because the task wasn’t going to be left until later. It was on par with a fire station—the engine was always ready for the next alarm. Maintenance was performed before anyone put their feet up and took a break.

A familiar grasp settled around her left biceps. Jo narrowed her eyes at the giant. Military personnel surrounded them. “Just where do you think I’m going to run off to?” Meeting his stare, she refused to give quarter. A brief flicker of an emotion crossed his eyes before the grip on her arm was released.

“Point taken.” He extended a hand towards a row of buildings. “This way.”

Keeping step with the man of her own volition seemed almost a luxury. The pace he used because of his longer legs made her double her strides, but she gladly put forth the effort. Nolan’s promise of a little information later glimmered like a prize. At the moment the chill in the air cut right through her clothing, making her grateful for the hurried pace. Her breath was actually forming little white clouds in front of her lips.

She considered the building in front of them. It wasn’t much to look at, the bare basics. Even the windows set into the concrete block front were small. The place had been built for utilization, not beauty.

The door was pulled open and Jo entered, grateful to note that while it wasn’t what a person would consider warm, at least it wasn’t freezing.

“There’s coffee on your right. Stay inside.” Nolan shot her a hard look. “There are no civilians here. You won’t make it two hundred yards if you make a break for it, and then I’ll have to lock you down.”

“Like I’m not already.”

Durant narrowed his eyes slightly. “Don’t look the gift horse in the mouth. Trust me, there’s room for your comfort level to slide downhill. I suggest you don’t go there.”

“You’re such a prince.”

After one stern glare, he made his way down a corridor that ended with a closed door. He went through that door and Jo found herself alone. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up, sending a tingle across her skin. She suddenly understood what it must have felt like to be a Christian in the Roman Coliseum, awaiting the lions. Each second swelled up into a mini-eternity. You became aware of every breath.

Releasing a sigh of frustration, she turned towards the coffee. Even if there weren’t any of Nolan’s men on duty to stop her, the weather would. Without warmer clothing it would be very shortsighted to leave the shelter of this building. In fact, she had only the clothing on her back. Her duffle bag wasn’t in sight. That left her with nothing but the option to wait for the lions.

At least the coffee was hot. No weak brew, either. Lacing her fingers around a Styrofoam cup, she lifted it to her face and inhaled. There were two sofas in the room, but after so many hours in the helicopter, Jo simply milled around as she sipped at her coffee. The hot beverage helped chase the chill from her hands. Tension slowly twisted inside her as her feet kept up a steady pacing. Her neck was a solid knot.

Men like Nolan Durant and his team were not dispatched at the drop of a hat. Something very serious was going on. As much as she might like to hope it was a case of mistaken identity, Jolene knew she wouldn’t be that lucky. The attempt to kidnap her had been carefully plotted. She knew a professional crime when she saw it.

Her pacing brought her back around to face the hallway and she stopped for a moment. A man stood there watching her.

She shook her head as she looked at him. A hard shiver moved down her spine as her eyes delivered the sight of his face to her brain. One second became an hour as shock gripped her so tight, black spots danced across her vision. Drawing a harsh breath, she heard it hiss through her own clenched teeth.

“Paul?” It couldn’t be!
He was dead
. Her husband, and she’d buried him, for Christ’s sake! But there he stood, alive. She shivered again, her brain struggling to accept what her eyes showed her. It was like trying to shove a square peg into a round hole, the pieces just didn’t match.

One eyebrow arched while a single corner of his mouth lifted in the slightest of grins. The gesture was deeply imbedded in her memory. While the features were far rougher than her memories recalled, his eyes held the truth to his identity. There hadn’t been a single night in the last six years she hadn’t laid down to sleep and seen him in her dreams. No woman alive ever forgot the eyes of her first true love. Her knees trembled as she forgot to breathe.

“Hello, Jolene.”

His voice washed over her ears, awakening emotions that had faded through long years of absence. Images of his funeral with all its military correctness collided with the remembered pain of hundreds of nights of silent tears. The picture of prime condition and health Paul Benate now made was a sacrilege to the memories her heart had so carefully stored.

Those moments had sustained her through countless obstacles. She’d broken every mold she’d ever fit into in her quest to become something this man would have been proud of. And he stood there and said “hello”?

“It’s good to see you.” Paul stepped forward. She followed him with her gaze, half expecting him to transform into a wraith, a figment of her overactive, overstressed imagination, rather than accept the flesh-and-blood reality.

Had he really said it was good to see her?

The man remained in front of her, probing her with his black gaze that was full of life and health. Not a single line of tension marred his face. He wasn’t surprised to see her at all.

She blinked and he remained. Her eyes narrowed as she stared. When she had married Paul Benate, he’d been just twenty-five years old and still a youth. The coat hid some of his form, but it was apparent Paul was now mature. His body was tight with the sort of muscles that only dedicated training put on a person.

He also looked like he was in his element. A ripple of authority rising off him that annoyed the hell out of her. It was the same sort of feeling she got anytime she had to work with FBI or CIA agents. They reeked of their shadowy world, where dishonesty was acceptable as long as it was for the good of the operation.

Some women considered that exciting but she had never been one of them.

“Was I just too much of a burden?” Her voice was coated with sarcasm. The question slipped out of discovering her grief had been in vain. She had mourned him bitterly while he had simply been laying his head somewhere besides her bed, without her knowledge.

“Too helpless, too young.” He moved again, coming closer. A prickle of awareness rippled over her skin. She’d forgotten how much larger he was than herself.

“My clearance level didn’t allow for a spouse that couldn’t defend herself.”

The calm, logical tone that delivered that answer tore the last shred of control Jo had. The coffee slipped from her grasp a split second before she delivered a solid punch to his chin. His reflexes were sharp, just as the condition of his body had told her they would be.

But she was faster.

Jolene jumped back out of his range. “You lying bastard.” She sent him a fuming glare before digging deep enough to find some self-control to stop before she ended up behind bars for assault. “Stinking, lying dirtbag.” She rounded on her heel and shoved through the doors that led back outside. They swung out fast, the hinges squealing in protest. Just where she was going was irrelevant. Anywhere would be preferable to sharing a room with a man who held her heart in so little regard. Her love had been a burden to him.

Too weak
.

And she had been faithful to him. It sucked.

It hurt.

Pain tore through her, replacing the anguish she’d cradled since his funeral. Self-directed anger fueled her pace as she fell into a run, moving her body as she tried to keep up with her racing thoughts. She never would have believed that anything could hurt more than the moment when she’d left his casket and returned to her base housing to begin “getting on” with her life without him.

Boy had she been wrong.

Rejection stung a whole lot worse.

Raising his hand up to his jaw, Paul fingered his smarting flesh. Damn, Jo had developed a wicked right cross. She’d stood there cool as new snow and uttered that question. But it was her response to his reply that held him captive at the moment.

Her face had transformed into pure rage. The flames rising up in her eyes. There was no mistake about it, she was furious.

His little Jonnie should have dissolved into tears in the face of a callous remark like that. The person who stormed out the door was much more than the girl he’d married. All the surveillance intel he’d prowled through hadn’t sunk in or prepared him for the woman he’d just encountered.

A jacket was thrust out beside him and Paul looked at it in confusion. Nolan cocked his head to the side before giving him a harassed look.

“It’s about forty degrees out there tonight.”

The annoyance in the giant’s tone broke through Paul’s amazement over his wife’s transformation. Pulling the jacket from Nolan’s grasp, he gave him a slight nod of agreement.

“Which way did she head?”

“North.”

He was already striding towards the door when the direction came sailing out of Nolan’s mouth. The man ran the post security.

Clad in only jeans and a sweater, Jolene would be feeling the effect of the night’s chill very soon. He could have sent Nolan to fetch her but that idea was rejected as fast as it formed.

She’d actually hit him.

Sure, he deserved it, but amazement filled him as he scanned the tarmac. A fuel technician lifted a hand and pointed towards the edge of the landing zone. The lights didn’t penetrate far enough to illuminate his target, but that would change when he closed the distance between them. A dry chuckle passed his lips as he left the ground crews and the lights behind. A rustle hinted at where Jonnie was, and he increased his pace.

Just where she was headed was a mystery. Jo didn’t know and she didn’t care. Any man who got in her way was going to discover she was finished being polite. The bright lights of the landing area only infuriated her further. Turning away from the illumination, she headed for the darkness that lay just beyond, to lick her wounds in private.

And she was bleeding. Pain ran through her like a live current. A heavy layer of humiliation laced it and she let her temper flame as high as it wanted. All the little inspirational ideas that helped her make it through tough emotional extremes didn’t even come close to easing her dilemma tonight. There was no talking herself into seeing the glass as half full instead of half empty.

Being positive was completely out of the question. She wanted to cuss, spit and all-out brawl, but most of all she just wanted to reject every living thing—exactly like she’d been rejected—so that she could stop hurting and feel nothing at all.

Forcing her body to a grueling pace, she sought any measure of solitude among the pine trees that surrounded the landing pad. A double-high, double-chain-link fence abruptly ended her expedition. Raising her gaze up, she surveyed the wall. It was twenty feet high with curls of razor wire along its top. A stark white plastic sign declared the danger from electrical shock if someone was foolish enough to touch it.

She was almost in the mood to risk it.

“Don’t even think about it.”

A slight tensing of her shoulders was the only thing Jo allowed
him
to see.
He
shouldn’t have followed her up here. But he had and she would be damned if she would let Paul see her bleed. Not tonight, not ever. Just wait until she got into a bar with Tait again. She was going to seduce the man before he realized his fly was open. And she was going to make damn sure the man remembered her the next morning.