She swalowed hard to ease her constricted vocal cords. “What the hel do you want?” she asked him in a biting tone that had Stacie’s thin eyebrows lifting.
Caleb’s mouth tightened, and he flicked a glance toward Stacie. “Is there someplace private we can talk?”
“No,” she said, not sure if she could keep her cool without Stacie there to back her up, and she did not want this man to see her lose that frail composure. She detested the fact that he already knew just how weak she could be.
She could see something close to pity in his dark eyes, and she had to look away. She didn’t want his pity. She wanted nothing from him but his absence.
“It’s important,” he told her. “I’m under orders to speak with you.”
If listening was the quickest way to get him to leave, then that’s what she’d do. “Start talking. I’m a busy woman.”
“Privately,” he added.
“Lana? Do you know this man?” asked Stacie in an uneasy tone.
Stacie’s hand was on the phone, and Lana didn’t need two guesses to figure out she was ready to cal for help. The last thing she needed was to have Stacie panic and cal the police. It was best—fastest—if Lana sucked it up and got rid of Caleb quietly without any interference.
Lana gave Caleb a hard stare. “Stay right there,” she ordered as she took Stacie by the arm and led her back to the storeroom at the back of the office.
The smal room contained several shelves of office supplies and their photocopier. It was stuffy and cramped, but Lana shut the door anyway.
“Who is he?” asked Stacie.
“He’s the soldier who puled me out of that cave in Armenia.”
Stacie’s eyes lit with a bad case of hero worship. “You didn’t tel me he was so handsome.”
“I wasn’t exactly thinking about that at the time.” She’d been too busy writhing in pain.
Stacie’s mouth turned down in a pained frown. “Sorry. That was insensitive of me.”
Lana waved the remark away. “Don’t worry about it. Handsome or not, I’l get rid of him soon enough.”
“He saved your life and you act like you don’t want to see him? I don’t get it.”
Lana hadn’t told anyone that he was also the man who had witnessed her torture and done little to stop it. He’d been undercover, trying to figure out which elementary school the terrorist group was planning to attack. He couldn’t break cover to save her or any of the other Americans with her. If he’d done that, hundreds of children could have died.
She understood that his hands were tied, and if he’d been able to ask her if she was wiling to suffer to save those kids, she would have agreed without hesitation. But that didn’t mean she wanted to see him again and relive that horror and pain.
Her life was finaly getting better. Not good, but tolerable. She couldn’t handle any setbacks right now—couldn’t stand to be reminded of everything those three days had cost her.
“It’s complicated,” said Lana, nearly choking on the understatement.
“Why is he here?”
“I have no idea, but I’m sure he’l tel me as soon as we’re alone.” That thought was enough to make her skin grow cold with apprehension. She did not want to be alone with him. That would have been too much like being back in that hospital bed, drowning in pain and fear with him at her side as her only lifeline. She couldn’t go back to that dark place. Not ever.
“He doesn’t look like he wants to be here,” said Stacie.
“That’s because he’s not an idiot.”
“Do you want me to get rid of him for you?”
“If I thought you could, I would let you, but I don’t think that’s going to work. I’l let him have his say and then he’l leave.”
“I have a couple of errands to run,” offered Stacie. “If you’re sure you want to be alone with him.”
Lana didn’t want to, but she guessed from the stubborn set of Caleb’s jaw that he wasn’t going to go away until he’d had his say. The sooner she got rid of him, the better.
“You go ahead,” she told Stacie. “I’l be fine.”
Lana led Stacie out of the storage room. Caleb was stil there, right where she’d left him. He looked at her with a solemn expression, and Lana had to turn away. She didn’t know how she was going to get through the next five minutes, but she knew she would. Her recovery had taught her that lesson over and over again.
Stacie made a hasty exit out the front door, and Lana went straight for some coffee. There was no way she was going to be able to face this man without the support of caffeine. She poured a cup and turned to go back to her desk, nearly running right into the wal of his chest. “Damn it! Don’t go sneaking up on me like that.”
“Sorry, ma’am.” He backed away a step, but she stil felt overwhelmed. The man knew how to take up space in a room.
Lana cringed at being caled ma’am again. That was what people caled her mother, and she didn’t want anyone treating her like her mother. “It’s Lana.”
“Lana,” he repeated, and to her amazement, that was much worse. Hearing that deep voice saying her name flooded her with bleak memories of torment and terror. She was thrown back to those horrible days in the hospital where there was only pain and the sound of his voice speaking her name. She could feel the tearing agony of her body trying to rip away her sanity. She could smel the hospital stink, her own blood, and the warmth of his skin. She could see only blackness—a hungry mouth waiting to swalow her whole.
Lana felt a familiar wave of panic head toward her. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t go back there and live in that nightmare for even one more second. She was forced to relive it every night, but it was broad daylight, and she was supposed to be safe in the light. She couldn’t let the fear invade her days, too. She wouldn’t have anything left if that happened.
Her coffee was stripped from her hands before she could spil it on herself. A warm hand grasped her elbow, steadying her. “Sit down,” he said, easing her into a chair.
Lana sat, unable to do anything else. She clawed at the memories, fighting them back, trying desperately to force her body to remember she was safe. In her office. With plenty of light. Nothing could hurt her here.
“Please . . . please leave.” She was begging him. There was no pride in her words, no dignity, but she didn’t care. She needed him to leave and take al those memories with him.
“I can’t.” His voice sounded strained, thick. “I swear to you that if I wasn’t under orders to be here, I’d turn around and never bother you again. But I can’t do that.”
Lana found the strength to pul herself out of that spiraling void of the past. She opened her eyes, realizing that she’d started crying and her face was wet with tears. Those tears were just one more reason to hate Caleb Stone.
Lana wished she had the energy to hate him, because hating him would have made things a whole lot easier. She liked to think that if he hadn’t been such a noble freaking hero, she would have hated him for what he’d done.
“Just say what you want and get out,” she told him, angrily swiping the wetness from her cheeks.
Caleb’s mouth hardened into a grim line. “I’m afraid it’s not going to be that simple.”
“You’ve got three minutes to simplify it, and then I’m caling the police.”
His voice was gentle, almost apologetic. “My boss thinks you might be in danger.”
Panic tightened her insides until she could barely breathe. This was al supposed to be over. “Why?”
“There’s been some chatter, conversations we’ve intercepted that have happened between some very bad people. Your name was mentioned. More than once.”
Had someone figured out what she’d seen in Armenia? Had they found the slit in her hood and realized what it meant? “What did they say?”
“Nothing incriminating, or we’d have already taken action. My boss was stil concerned. He sent me here to see if you’d remembered anything new or could think of a reason why someone would want to hurt you.”
“There never was a reason for them to hurt me. People like them don’t need one. Do they?”
Caleb’s jaw tightened, and a violent light glinted in his dark eyes. “You’re right. They don’t.”
She hated asking, but she had to know. “Do you think I’m in danger?”
He stared right into her eyes. “If I did, no one would have had to force me to come here. They wouldn’t have been able to stop me.”
“So I am safe.” Please, God, let him say yes.
“Until I am sure, I’m sticking close enough to protect you, just in case.”
Her knees went a little weak, and she was glad she was already sitting. She gathered her anger, because it was so much more comfortable than the fear that was crawling around in her gut. “I don’t want you here, and I’m not interested in your protection. Besides, since when do average civilians get personal military bodyguards?”
“You’re special.”
“Why?”
“My boss thinks you’re hiding something.”
They didn’t know. She was stil safe. Her family was safe. “He and his men interrogated me for five days after I woke up. I’l tel you what I told them. I didn’t hear anything of military value in Armenia, because I don’t speak the language. I couldn’t have seen anything, because there was a hood over my head.” She uttered the lie like a politician, smoothly and without a blink. “I can’t help you, so please. Get. The. Fuck. Out.”
He was leaning his big body over her, hovering in a way that made her feel crowded and shielded al at once. “You’re not going to make this easy on me, are you?”
She looked up at him, unable to see his expression with the bright fluorescent lights shining behind his head. “Can you think of a single reason why I should?”
“No, ma’am. Not one. But that doesn’t change the fact that I was ordered to come here, protect you, and convince you to cooperate or stay here until you do.”
“You’re going to have a long, boring road to retirement, then. I don’t have anything to say to you, and I never wil.”
CHAPTER TWO
Forget the bulet in the gut. Caleb was wiling to take a bulet in the bals if it meant he never had to see Lana cry again. Those tears had torn at his heart like rusted razor wire.
It was the kind of torture military training couldn’t teach a man to resist. It had taken every last scrap of wilpower he had to keep from puling her into his arms. And wouldn’t that have been a fun time for her? Who was he to think he could comfort a woman, when most of her problems could rightfuly be placed squarely on his shoulders?
Damn Monroe for his hand in this. He had to have known what it would do to Lana to be forced to face Caleb again. He had to have known what it would do to Caleb, too. The bastard.
Caleb puled a chair into the farthest corner of the office and tried to disappear—no smal feat for a man his size. He’d refused to leave, and she refused to acknowledge he was there. For now, the stalemate was the best he could hope for. Maybe once she got over the shock of seeing him, she’d be wiling to listen. Until then, Caleb would just have to be patient and keep his eyes open.
