Promises in the Dark (29 page)

“There’s no way you can convince Randy to come with us?” Zane asked, knowing full well that he’d never want to leave Olivia in that situation, but children …

Doc J shook his head, and then Zane’s phone began to ring, forcing him away from the meeting. Their plans were settled anyway.

“Hey, Dylan,” he said when he answered. Hell, he hadn’t been checked up on this much since he was twelve, and maybe not even then.

“Don’t tell me you’re not coming,” his brother warned.

“We’ll be there. Everything’s on track,” Zane assured him.

“Yeah, on track,” Dylan muttered, and Zane knew something else had happened, but stayed silent—it was better to wait his brother out than push.

“I had Gray check into the e-mail and IP that received your picture,” Dylan said after a moment’s hesitation. “It wasn’t encrypted. And was DMH for sure.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“They were able to trace you. They know your name. Where you live. How’s that for something you don’t know, brother?”

Fuck me
. He’d been hoping his files were more secure than that, but DMH seemed to be able to get into more and more places they shouldn’t be. “I’ll sort it out when I get home.”

“Okay, great, so you’re a one-man show now,” Dylan said tightly.

“You should get this, Dylan. You put everything on the line for Riley. Every damned thing,” he told his brother fiercely.

Dylan had no answer for that, could only say, “I’ll see you in Freetown, brother,” and cut the line.

Shit, he hadn’t wanted to argue with Dylan or dredge up any shit from the past. But Dylan and Riley
had
worked out, worked together doing dangerous jobs in dangerous places for dangerous people.

The fact that DMH had their sights set on him was problematic, something to be reported to his CO, Saint, for sure when he returned home. It wouldn’t be the first time a special operator’s face had been known to the enemy, and it wasn’t always the kiss of death to a career.

But the threat of death would hang over him a long time.

Shit, it had been a long day—thankfully, it was finally coming to a close. They’d take the kids out during the day, with Tristan driving and the rest of them hiding in the back so it would all seem to be an innocent trip to town.

Once in Freetown port, it would be easier to evade and escape.

The rain had begun again, danced along the rooftops, lighter than it had been in days … and the sun was out in tandem, a final show before dusk.

He heard laughter—a child’s, followed by Liv’s—and looked out to see Liv and some of the local children who hung out around the camp while their parents worked, dancing in a circle, holding hands, eyes raised to the sky as fat raindrops splattered their clothes.

Liv looked calm, very much at peace, as though the children’s chanting song had released something for her.

Her eyes met his and her smile grew wider. And then the children in the circle were urging her to move to the right, to keep dancing. He scanned the edges of the open compound where, despite everything, children played. Danced. Laughed. Because they didn’t know yet how bad things could get … or maybe because they did.

Resilient
. A word he’d heard his parents whisper about him in the beginning, when they didn’t know he was listening. But he’d had to stay sharp, to know what they were planning—to keep him, take him back … ship him to another family even.

Getting comfortable, even moderately so, took years. He wondered if he was simply meant to be alone.

With his SEAL team, he could work together for the common bond of survival. He’d recognized that necessity early on and learned it well. But apart from that, he could never see sharing his life with anyone else. How could he tell Liv everything, explain it all?

No, sharing his life with anyone had been, up to this point, unthinkable. But with Liv, he saw something in her that he both recognized and feared … and that was the possibility of having something completely normal. Love. A relationship.

Whether or not she saw the same thing in him, it was too soon to tell. But he wanted her to with a fierceness he’d never felt before. It made him restless, like he was burning with fever, and he welcomed the sensation because he knew it was real.

If she could love herself, she could love Zane back. Which was crazy, since she’d known him all of three days. But he’d learned more about her in that time than she’d told people she’d known for years.

When it’s right, it’s right, Olivia
, Mom would say, knowing that falling in love meant revealing—and reconciling—the past.

Zane was trying to do that too—together, they could help each other. She was sure of it.

She saw him watching the dancing group for a while, his arms crossed, a small smile on his face. When she motioned to him, he didn’t hesitate, walked into the circle.

She heard the tinkling laughter of the children falling all around her, falling the way she was—falling, spinning, so familiar … except this time she had a safe place to land.

She reached out a hand to Zane and he took it, pulled her away from the circle in order to dance just with her.

The children re-formed the circle around them, continued to sing while Zane moved with her as if they were alone.

He smiled. “It’s nice to see you playing.”

“I was always all work and no play.” Play was dangerous—once upon a time, it had gotten her kidnapped and almost killed.

“I was the opposite,” Zane said. “Or at least I put up a damned good front.”

“It’s amazing, the things we do to fool ourselves.” Her voice was soft, her grip on his hand wasn’t. “Having someone else know, it feels good. It lifts the burden.”

He gave her a brief smile, but his eyes were far away. It reminded her that neither of them was healed.

“What happens when we’re home and things are normal?” she asked.

“I’m willing to take that risk to get halfway to normal,” he told her. “Because when being here like this starts to feel that way, it’s a problem.”

“Yeah, a problem,” she echoed, with his lips on hers, and she knew he’d been called worse.

Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if they stayed, if she could convince him to give her one more week. Month. Year.

But she realized that didn’t matter. She and Zane were like little kids, standing out in the rain and dancing, recapturing joy they’d lost during their childhoods.

Right now Olivia felt more alive than she had in a long time. Maybe confession really was good for the soul—certainly, she felt as if she’d done that more times over the last days with Zane than she had in forever.

And when the dark fell and the children went to their parents, she found herself walking inside the tent, more quickly this time, with less panic than she’d felt in years … maybe ever, despite the fact that Zane wasn’t already in the tent.

The rain began to intensify again. She was worn out, and had finally realized it, as if the past days of running and stress had caught up with her in these moments.

Spending time with Julia hadn’t made things any easier. She was a brave woman, and Olivia wanted to help her, wished she could.

She lit the two oil lamps as the darkness seeped across the sky, and kept the door opened halfway for a breeze. She was about to lay back on the cot and close her eyes when a movement at the door caught her eye, and then Zane’s broad shoulders filled the space.

He waited, half in the tent and half out, his hair wrapped in a bandanna, shirt off, feet bare and pants hanging low on his hips. His eyes glowed, a blue like the Caribbean Sea with black-rimmed irises, the knife strapped to his left arm and the rifle slung with a loose band around his chest.

He looked wild. Feral. Amazing.

His eyes took her in and she felt naked sitting inside in the dark, so much so she needed to check to make sure she’d actually put clothes on. A slow smile slid across his face, the now familiar one that turned her inside out, and she wondered if he could read her mind.

In the freedom of the dark, her body felt heavy, ripe with lust. She wanted him to join her on the cot, but he didn’t. Instead, he remained leaning against the doorjamb as the rain continued its steady drum, a low rumble of thunder accompanying it.

“Come finish the dance,” she said, her voice a husky whisper, and she wondered how it was possible to want someone so much without breaking in two from the need.

He came to her then, stripping, so that by the time he was on her, he was naked. And more than ready to dance. “I’m not finishing anything, Liv. Not even close. You should know by now that this is just the start.”

“Can I borrow some paper?” Vivi asked, and he handed her the pad on the table next to him.

She flipped through looking for a blank sheet and then stopped.

“Is that your brother?” she asked, and he looked down at the paper where he’d been drawing as he thought about any and all options.

He’d come up with surprisingly few, given how skilled he was at getting people out of dangerous situations, but it was a hell of a lot different when family was involved. Reason went out the window.

He could bite back his worry if necessary, if he thought Noah would send him out—but realistically, his boss would send Mace or Gray or both, and that was only if he was assured they could take out some of DMH in the process.

It could also get Zane in a shitload of trouble with his own CO for taking on a black ops job, and Zane loved the Navy, loved his job.

Cael couldn’t take it away from him. “This is Zane, the youngest.”

“The one who’s in trouble?” she asked softly, and he nodded, then flipped the page.

“This is Dylan, my older brother.”

“He looks like you.”

“Zane’s adopted,” he said. “He came to live with us when he was twelve.”

“Are they in the military too?”

“Zane still is. Dylan was. Now he does private work.”

“Was your father in the military?”

“He was. Then he got out and he and my mom traveled the world in search of adventure and treasure, in that order. After Dylan and I were born, they took us along. They slowed down a little after Zane came along, but never grew out of that wanderlust.”

“You traveled out there.” She made a sweeping motion with her hands. “I traveled in here.” A tap on the side of her head with two fingers. “My dad didn’t like to leave the house, and in the end, he left me a with a lot more debt than I thought. And then having someplace to live seemed more important than traveling.” She turned the conversation back around to him pretty quickly as though she was happy to be the one doing the interrogating this time around. “Your parents must be so worried with the three of you having such dangerous jobs.

“My parents died when I was still in high school. Dylan had graduated, and he enlisted so he could send money home to us. Our parents led an expensive life, ran themselves into debt. No life insurance. Dylan never told me that, but I eventually found out.” Cael shook his head. “I drifted between keeping Zane in line and wondering if I belonged in the Army, because that’s where generations of the men in my family ended up. In the end, I decided I did.”

“Are you happy?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know any other way now. It’s ingrained in me. Gives me a sense of purpose.”

“You like helping people.”

“I’m good at it,” he corrected.

She shifted, avoided his eyes; the conversation reminded them both that this was supposed to be a mission, not anything more. And yet, he couldn’t deny that there was much more going on between them.

They had chemistry. That’s what Gray would call it. Mace would tell him he was horny and to get over himself. Dylan … well, Dylan straddled a moral line—the same one he had when he was in Delta. You couldn’t depend on the military to draw that line for you—you had to do so for yourself, know how far you’d go.

Dylan’s line had always been more fluid than Cael’s—right now Cael was angry but grateful for that.

There was nothing left to do now but give in—let Vivi help him fight, the way she wanted the same from him.

The rest would figure itself out.

He played with the ends of her hair, the blue tips on blond hair looking better on her than he could’ve imagined. Different, like her, but she wasn’t some flighty thing the way he thought she’d be.

She wasn’t anything like he’d thought she’d be. She was scared, yes, but she was still fighting for a new kind of life than what she’d had, and seeking comfort.

Now he’d seek it from her as well.

“You’re really worried about Zane, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, I am.” He put his arms behind his head. “I’m always worried about him.”

“He’s in danger?”

“He’s in love. Same thing.”

“Why is it so hard? Love.”

“The good stuff always is, I guess.” He watched as she traced invisible patterns on his chest with her forefinger. Suddenly, she was no longer involved in their conversation, and he watched in fascination as she began to murmur to herself. He caught numbers until she pushed away from him absentmindedly, naked, and grabbed the pad, turned to a blank page and began to work some kind of equation, which no doubt only made sense to her.