His face lowered closer until he whispered against her ear, "Don't talk. Just listen. Okay?"
She nodded against his wonderful, warm, American hand.
"Are you all right?"
She nodded again.
His hand clenched, twitched, then slid free. "Soon, I'm going to get you out of this hellhole. I promise. I'm here to give you instructions so you can be ready."
Not now? No! Agonizing regret poured acid over her relief. Followed by stark reality and reason. He was giving her hope rather than making her wait in ignorance. She needed to be grateful for that. He trusted her with information about a possible escape when she hadn't even been willing to share with her dearest friends her pregnancy and plans to run.
Oh, Blake. Her eyes blinked against the pitch dark, the side of his face a near indiscernible blur.
"Hang on just a little longer, not more than a couple of days. Hopefully this will go fast and easy. But there's a chance we may have to set explosives and mouse-hole in. If you hear the whippoorwill call I used to make when we went hiking, I want you all to flatten against the south wall. Okay? The south wall. Hang in there. Help is on the way."
Big help. Serious help. Wipe-these-bastards-off-the-face-of-the-earth help.
"Thank you," she mouthed, the words a mere brush of air.
"Are you really okay?"
No. Hell, no, she wanted to cry and vent and finally let down and grieve over what had happened to her. Except she couldn't. If he knew, he would scoop her up now and ruin the plan. The temptation to leave immediately was agonizingly strong, but not strong enough to risk his life.
"I'm all right," she dared to whisper, prayed she was convincing.
A shudder ripped through him just before he pulled her close. Fast. Too fast for her to think or react to hide the telling bulge. And then her torso was flush against his.
Would he guess? She was only three months along, and he was a bachelor with no experience about pregnant women. Maybe he wouldn't notice. Maybe he would have forgotten what she felt like before. Maybe she could will him not to know if she just kept quiet.
He stilled against her.
His heart pounded so hard she could feel it against her own, so loud she feared its echoing bounce through the cell would wake the others. A shudder that could only be realization raced through him.
"Oh, God, Sydney." His hoarse whisper stroked her ear into her hair. "Is there any possibility it could be..." Mine.
The lone word stayed unspoken but easily understood.
He had to know the chances were next to nil given she wasn't showing much and they hadn't been together in four months. Four long months ago—their last time together followed by a fight in bed about her decision to leave for Rubistan when he wanted her to quit, to get married and start a family with him. He wanted a baby of his own so damned much.
She couldn't lie to him. "No."
The truth burned her throat. She couldn't even allow herself to dream what it would be like to carry his child instead.
She heard the catch in his throat. A quiet primal groan from his soul sounded as he accepted what had happened to her in this place.
His arms slid under her.
"Blake? Wait."
"Shut up," he growled low.
"But—"
"You're out of here. Now."
"What about Kayla and Phillip? I can't leave them behind." Hope mingled with fear, panic.
He hesitated. "All right. We'll take them, too."
"Are the rest of your guys outside?"
No answer, just the slow lift as he hefted her from the cot.
Of course they weren't. Why would they have sent a whole group to give an advance warning when one person could slide in more easily?
A sneaking suspicion niggled. Did they even know he was here at all? Had he gone commando to check on her?
Her vision adjusted until she could see determination glint in Blake's hazel eyes peering from his painted face. The strength of his will almost persuaded her to let him try. His training could haul her as well as her friends out. He had military survival skills beyond her imagination. He'd told her before that whatever a SEAL wanted for weapons or training, a SEAL got.
The darkness of his job that unsettled her more than once would save her. God, she longed to get out. Now. Her teeth chattered as an innate need for survival rocked her, trying to hold back the words that would send immediate rescue away.
No one would fault her for leaving instead of waiting.
But she would fault herself. It would be more dangerous for him to try solo. She couldn't do that to Blake when he'd done nothing more than selflessly risk his life for her and two people he'd never met.
Her teeth chattered again. The urge to run swelled. Deep inside her, scared, flighty Sydney who let her big sister fight her battles and keep track of her forgotten lunch box still lived.
She just needed to be stifled for a few minutes longer.
"Blake. Stop. This isn't right."
Still no answer. But no movement, either.
"You have to go. Without me."
His breaths grew heavier, louder even though she knew holding her would in no way test Blake's stamina.
"They don't...hurt me anymore." He didn't have to know about the slaps or punches, nothing compared to the humiliation of the first days at Ammar al-Khayr's mercy. Specifics were better left unspoken. She sensed too much information would snap what control Blake had left over his rage. "Do you understand? But I want them—" him "—to pay. I don't want them to be free to do this to someone else. They need to be stopped, and that won't happen if you take me now. You have to leave me behind."
Pain pulsed from him in an agony that rivaled her own. She hated that she'd brought him to this. For months before their breakup she'd seen the darkness swallowing his soul and blamed it on his profession.
This time, she could only blame herself.
He tucked her tighter until the corded muscles in his arms bit into her flesh. Then his grip loosened, gentled into the man who'd won her heart on a crowded Virginia Beach by giving away two hundred dollars' worth of raffle tickets to a tired mother.
Blake lowered her back to her bed as gently as any piece of spun glass. Because she was pregnant or because she was simply herself, she didn't know. Either way, his tenderness after so much violence touched her with reminders of all the things that had drawn her to Blake before the rest pulled them apart.
His lips pressed to her forehead. "I'll be back for you. Never doubt it." His vow caressed her skin. "And I won't ever let anyone hurt you again."
Her spine met the unrelenting cot, Blake's arms sliding from beneath her. She clamped her jaw shut until her teeth hurt from holding back the urge to call for him.
As silently as he appeared, he slipped away. Leaving behind a churning mix of hope and tears.
Music blasting around him, Drew stood with his officers, keeping track of the impromptu Ranger party, and waited for Yasmine to start pumping out the tears in the argument with her sister.
Something that never happened.
Damn but the woman had grit and fire, pulling no punches when it came to battle. Drew chuckled low like most of the rest of the room. That little pageant piece of history on Major Hyatt would rain more hell on the flight surgeon's head than anything else Yasmine could have tossed out there. Hyatt would no doubt have a crown painted on her helmet by sunrise.
Steam all but blew from Major Hyatt's ears, yet Yasmine stood down her sister from seven inches less height. His Sheba had regal down to a fine art.
His Sheba? Shit. Where the hell were LifeSavers when a guy needed them?
Doc Hyatt pulled back her shoulders with a long-suffering breath, plastered a smile on her face before turning back to the clump of fliers standing nearby with goofy-ass grins on their faces.
"All right, gentlemen, I want to clarify something straight out of the gate here. You have exactly one hour to razz me about the pageant gig. And after that, if anyone touches my tiara, I can guarantee his annual physical will include a most uncomfortable and cold-handed hernia exam."
The group of flight-suit-clad warriors groaned. More than one covered his groin as coughs echoed even from the Rangers.
"That's right, flyboys," Hyatt crooned. "Turn and cough. Just turn your head and cough."
Apparently fighting dirty ran in the genes for these women. Doc Hyatt would be just fine. Yasmine, however, he wasn't so certain about. Her smile didn't come close to reaching her brown eyes as she turned with a snooty little sniff and strode away unnoticed by everyone—except Special Agent Keagan keeping watch.
Drew waved him away and started after her himself.
Huh?
His boots kept moving toward her, anyway, dragging his body right along. Hell, he didn't know why except that a monosyllabic fella like Keagan wouldn't be much help to Yasmine. And he simply couldn't walk away, not with hellish images from his shift in the command center still hammering in the back of his mind, of the stoning, of just how few rights a Rubistanian woman had around here.
No way was he letting her walk anywhere unprotected.
Tracking Yasmine down the hall, Drew followed, kept enough distance so she wouldn't hear him and turn until they were well away from the crowd. She stopped in front of her closet-room, twisted the knob and disappeared inside.
Okay, safe and set for the night. He only needed to call for a guard. Let her cry her eyes out in her pillow or whatever it was women did to vent frustrations. Personally, he preferred a trip to the gym or shooting range. But, oh well. To each his own.
And still his feet wouldn't carry him away.
He just wanted a few more minutes with her to reassure himself. To blast away the image of her face superimposing itself over that of the condemned woman earlier. Yasmine was getting to him, no question, and at the moment he couldn't recall a single reason why he should leave.
He surrendered and knocked.
"The door is unlocked as ordered."
Twisting the knob, he swung the door open to find her sitting on the edge of her bed, scarf in her lap. Gleaming black hair streamed down her back.
Lust rolled over him like an M-l tank charging across a fiat stretch of undefended desert.
Yasmine stared up at Colonel Cullen filling her doorway. Finally he was with her. Of his own will. Alone. Now, when she looked foolish and felt far too open.
She could almost hear her mother whispering in her ear. Watch out what you wish for, sugar. You might just get it.
Yasmine considered covering her hair, even if she couldn't quickly twist it into a knot again. But of course seeing a woman's bare head was nothing special to this American man. She twined her favorite rose scarf around her fingers.
She resorted to sarcasm, better than crying. "Well, this is certainly a change, you following me."
He hooked his hands on his gun belt, standing in the open doorway, half in, half out. "Would you rather I call Keagan?''
"You know better and I find it spiteful on your part that you would make me say it."
Laughter rumbled in his broad chest.
"I would prefer that you not laugh at me."
He shook his head. "I'm not laughing at you, but you do amuse me, lady."
Lady? Not little girl. Something warm unfurled inside her like the scarf loosening around her slackened grip. "How do I amuse you?" she asked.
So she could figure out how to do it again.
He stepped farther inside, leaving the door open in a respectful gesture of propriety that touched and stirred her all at once.
"Well, Sheba, I expected to find you bawling your eyes out and instead you're spitting fire."
"Spitting fire? That is not an attractive image."
His eyes made a subtle shift from light blue to intense gray, deep gray, draw-a-woman-in-and-make-everything-else-fade gray. "I disagree."
Her breath caught somewhere between her lungs and her throat, right around that tender spot at the base of her neck where her pulse throbbed faster. Louder in the already small room growing smaller by the heartbeat.
He knelt in front of her on one knee, forearm resting on his other bent knee. "Thing is, I know some of us spit fire because tears are just too damn silly looking. And I'm thinking you don't like looking silly."
"You would be right there."
"It's safe to say neither you nor your sister came across looking anything less than fighting mad."
Shame still burned her face over behaving like such a brat. "We have never gotten along. She resents our mother and I never could stop feeling defensive because Monica hurt her." She held up a hand to forestall the answer she already knew. "I know. I know. Our mother hurt Monica, as well, and it is not my place to solve their issues."
She glanced up through her lashes and found the corners of his blue-gray eyes crinkled with intensity as he listened. Really listened to her when most men would have no use for what her mother would have called "chick issues."
Yasmine searched deeper in those beautiful eyes until she found genuine caring wrapped around a pragmatic soul.
She let herself indulge in the warmth of safety, being free to talk with another person and to share a piece of herself. "I have eleven other sisters here from my father's other wives. It should not matter to me so much that this one sister hates my guts."
"Eleven sisters? No brothers?"
"No brothers," she confirmed. "Apparently my father did not produce that Y chromosome when making a baby."
Drew coughed on a laugh. She liked that, making this rugged man find the laughter he buried too deep.
Yasmine draped her scarf over her knees, the gift from her father draping comfort over her battered nerves, as well. "We were spoiled, all of us. Sons are undoubtedly prized in my culture, but my father never made mention of disappointment in front of us. He called us his treasures. I think, though, that perhaps he adored all of the attention from a houseful of females." She smoothed wrinkles from the silk. "I am sure you think it is a strange practice for a man to have four wives."
"I guess it's more important what you think of the practice."
Oh, she could get to like this man who not only listened but also valued her opinion. "I believe Monica would tell you I am selfish. And she would be right." Yasmine looked up from her scarf. "I could not share a man with anyone else."
For a weak moment she let herself dive into those beautiful eyes of his and even permitted him a peek into herself. Quiet fell between them, stretched with only the low thrum of the bass beat from the music below.
Or was that her heart?
He glanced away, down, connection easing yet not breaking. "You still miss your father."
