Hearing Monica laugh felt even better. And right now he didn't even care who made her laugh, as long as those dark circles faded from beneath her eyes.
Gardner pushed back from the table, secured his M-4, as lethal as the Army Ranger's M-16 but smaller, more compact. "Time for me to turn in. Just wanted to say hi to Monica." He ground down on his chewing gum, jaw clenching. "It'll be good for Sydney to have you here—after."
She just nodded. Sunlight through the wall of windows glinted on her unblinking eyes.
While Gardner strode away, Jack waited for the I-told-you-so about being there for Sydney. But it didn't come. Monica picked up her spoon again and started eating the crappy goat stew.
Likely exhaustion stemmed her smart comeback. But a part of him insisted it was something a helluva lot more daunting.
That maybe she didn't even care enough about him anymore to fight.
Shoveling food into her mouth even though grief killed her taste buds, Monica wished she didn't care so much. About her sister. About Jack. Even about Blake Gardner walking away with pain radiating from him in waves her doctor spirit couldn't miss.
God, but exhaustion made a person maudlin. That had to be the reason for the sense of impending doom when she should be rejoicing over how soon she would be seeing her sister.
From the sleeve of his flight suit, Jack whipped out a pack of Kool-Aid. "Are you okay?"
"Better than Sydney."
"You know, Mon..." He paused, reaching for her water bottle and tipping her favorite flavor inside. Green bloomed within the bottle. "This isn't a 'whose pain is worse' game."
He passed her the drink, waited until she sipped before releasing her gaze.
Why did he have to be so nice right now with the Kool-Aid, like those foot-rubbing moments? "I know. Sorry for snapping. I do better when I don't think about it."
"That, I can understand." He propped his beard-peppered cheek on one fist. "Hashing through what-ifs is fine if it brings about a decisive plan of action. But talking just for the negligible benefits of an emotional catharsis? Hell, what good is that?"
The words bubbled in spite of her. "I just get so damned mad." She stopped short. "Ah, hell. There goes your theory about staying quiet. Guess I can't help but discuss it. Woman thing." She tipped back her water bottle.
Lime exploded along senses she'd thought numb seconds before. Kind of like a dose of Jack did.
"At least you're speaking to me. Hell, Mon, I'll discuss those damned doilies my grandma loves to spread all over the house if it will keep you talking. And you have every right to want to tear Ammar al-Khayr apart yourself."
"I don't mean him." Her fingers fiddled with the fork, flipped it, bent a twisted tine back into shape. "Although I wouldn't turn down the chance to plant a land mine under his feet."
The fork clattered to the table. Monica's shaking hands fell to her lap. "Her. I get angry at my sister, which is the dumbest damned thing. But she shouldn't have been here at all, Jack. Blake warned her what could happen and she just insisted it was her job, risks and all." Her fingers twisted, twined, tore the napkin into bits she wadded in her fist. "You're probably laughing right now thinking how you gave me the same warning."
"I would never laugh at you."
"But you're thinking it."
"I'm not so entrenched in the Dark Ages I can't see the difference." A half smile kicked up. "Don't get me wrong. I still don't want you here, but I understand that you're trained to protect yourself."
"I'm not reckless, Jack." She pitched her shredded napkin on her tray.
"Hearing you say that doesn't stop me from worrying."
Intensity hummed under his lazy demeanor, threatening to swallow her whole in a luscious lime haze of thoughtfulness mixed with dogged determination to get his way.
Her eyes fell to the straightened fork, shifted to the torn napkin. Well, hell. She'd cleaned up one mess, only to make another. The story of her life. "How could she not understand how precious her life is?"
He rested his hand beside hers: Not over it. Not touching. But there. Close. She didn't move, except for a twitch of her pointer finger, an involuntary movement toward him as her instincts overrode her intellect.
Finally he had time with her and he wasn't pressing his case as she would have expected. She told herself it had more to do with exhaustion than the fact he felt sorry for her—the woman who'd punted him out of her life.
Then his hands slid away with the moment. "Sleep deprivation has a way of making us all turn morbid without solving a thing."
He rose, waiting for her to join him, and she didn't argue. She'd accepted his presence just as he would have to accept they would be parting at her door in a few minutes.
Her hand fell on his arm. "Thank you, Jack."
He stopped, suddenly didn't look at all tired, that slumberous bedroom gaze of his having nothing to do with sleep.
She waited for the move. The Jack Korba push. Instead, he simply smiled. "Always glad to lend an ear."
"No. I mean for—'' she waved to encompass the room of soldiers and dust and focus on a mission "—for all of this."
"I don't want your gratitude. I would be here even if your sister wasn't one of the hostages."
"I know. And thank you for that, too."
Her eyes held his, then flicked away to settle beyond him on a cluster of uniforms encircling a female figure pushing a cart of water bottles. The woman moved with an odd familiarity. Incredulity niggled at Monica.
No. It couldn't be.
The slight figure ditched her cart and hustled toward the hall, turning sideways at the last second. Her very familiar face flashed in full view aided by the stark bulb overhead.
"What's wrong?" Jack's question barely penetrated.
She couldn't answer. Couldn't process what she was seeing.
"Mon, snap out of it."
She forced her mouth to move. "Oh, God. What is she doing here?"
"She who?" He glanced over his shoulder. "The water girl? She's probably drawing a beat on some other lonely bastard."
"It's my sister." She forced the words past numb lips.
His head swung back around fast enough for whiplash. "Monica, Sydney's still in the camp. I looked at satellite feed with Colonel Cullen in the mobile command center while we were airborne."
Shock shifted to anger. Of all the times for a family reunion. "No. Not Sydney. My other sister, Yasmine."
Her half sister from their mother's second marriage. A prickly, spoiled brat who'd resented every rare minute of their mother's annual visits to see the two children she'd abandoned.
Jack pivoted on his boot heel toward the woman darting around a corner, Colonel Cullen making tracks toward her with a battlefield march. Monica stifled a semi-hysterical bubble of laughter. She'd prayed so damned hard to see her sister soon, and apparently her prayers had taken a downward swoop for darker forces to answer, bringing Yasmine.
Not a Hyatt, but a sister all the same.
Chapter 5
Sydney Hyatt curled up on the cot, back flat against the cement wall in her cell. Her home for months, such as it was.
Three beds with thin mattresses for her and her fellow hostages were wedged in corners, a toilet in the other corner. Metal shelves leaned, creaky, their possessions on display for easy search. This place sucked, but at least it was familiar.
The first month of captivity, she and her two NGO co-workers had been shuffled to so many different locations, she no longer had any clue where they were. Other than the middle of the desert with an occasional tease of a salty gulf breeze.
Inconvenient for a woman who needed to escape. Soon.
Beyond their door, a staticky television jabbered while guards laughed. Across the cell, Kayla and Phillip sat cross-legged on a cot, silently playing cards. They'd all but rubbed the numbers off the deck.
Sydney battled to keep her eyes open, unwilling to surrender to the vulnerability of unconsciousness. Sporadic gunfire from what she guessed were night-training maneuvers often interrupted their sleep, but the weariness seemed tougher to contain lately.
Her body demanded rest. Her mind fought the lethargy of waning hope. Chill remaining from the desert night seeped through the pocked plaster, a relief from the sun creeping up the horizon. Beyond the welcome cooling, she appreciated the brief respite from watching over her shoulder.
Wind whistled through the lone window high on the wall while Jeeps roared out of sight below in opposing directions. Although "window" seemed a generous description for the thin rectangular opening near the ceiling that showed only the purity of a cloudless sky. A blessing perhaps that she didn't have to view the depravity of the terrorist training camp any more often than during her late-afternoon, twenty-minute walks.
Hitching the dingy sheet up to her waist in spite of the heat, she listened to the steady click of Kayla and Phillip snapping down spades. The shoosh of shuffling cards. More clicks. Monotony offered a temporary liberation.
She needed to tell them about her plans soon, but she couldn't give them too much time to think. To fear. To break and talk.
Still, she couldn't leave them behind to bear the brunt of the fury that would come from her attempt to escape. Staying would have to be their choice, these dear friends now bonded to her through experience into a family that had nothing to do with blood relations.
She wouldn't blame them for laughing in her face. After all, what did she have? A couple of sharpened forks buried with a handful of pills hoarded from her early days in captivity. Her captors didn't offer much in the way of drugs to prisoners.
Certainly not for medicinal purposes.
Only enough to dope them into submission. But she'd saved it all in the hope of using them on her guards one day. She'd gritted through the pain of a broken ankle. Pretended to be docile. Sometimes more difficult than others.
Nausea swelled with memories. She swallowed both down.
Would Phillip and Kayla be willing to attempt escape with her or give her away? Too well she knew family wasn't always loyal.
She couldn't afford to wait much longer for a miraculous rescue. How naive to think Blake would come charging in. Her job bred familiarity with the maze of diplomatic channels required even to bring food into this country. He couldn't dial up his SEAL team buddies for a quick swoop in to scoop her out.
And she knew it was killing him inside that he couldn't. Forget that they'd broken up before she'd left the country, unable to reconcile their conflicting ideologies, the pacifist and the warrior. How damned inconvenient. Heartbreaking. And over. Blake, her dear friend who had once been her lover.
Not that sex was high on her list of favorite topics now.
Memories seared through, more persistent this time, of brutal hands claiming her body in an act of domination and humiliation inflicted on each of the hostages. She tried to remind herself that being raped had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with violence. Sometimes that helped. Other times not. And it wasn't something any of the three of them were ready to talk about.
Refusing to think about it was easier, especially as time passed without further repeats. Once certain the three NGO workers weren't CIA, their captors pretty much left them alone except for the occasional taunt, slap or punch served up with horse-meat on rice.
She'd lived through the hell. Survived. If nothing else, she'd learned these past months that the child who'd always depended on her sister's protection was a survivor after all.
Flipping to her back, Sydney stared out the thin window, eyes focused on the sky, and allowed herself to entertain the near-painful dream of seeing her sister again. Of course practical Monica would have already guessed what happened to her since her capture. But the growing proof of the incident would kill her over responsible big sister. She tried not to worry about Monica, who always worried enough for ten people.
And there was plenty to worry about, increasing in size with each day that passed.
Rolling onto her side again, Sydney tucked her knees to her chest in a protective shield that wouldn't mask the truth from her friends or her captors much longer. Under the cover of the dingy sheet, she slid her hand to her belly, cupped the curve that would soon decide her fate for her if she didn't take charge of it herself. Because if Ammar al-Khayr found out about this baby, biologically his child, he would kill her.
Or worse yet, never let her go.
Yasmine threaded through the crowd of diners, unwilling to be caught just yet. Yes, she wanted the kind-eyed soldier with a penchant for fruit-flavored candy to apprehend her. Eventually. Once she had reached a more secluded location.
She could hear his footsteps thudding a steady pace behind her. Closer. Louder. Or was that her heart? Not that it mattered either way. She shivered in anticipation, steadied her breathing. This was the man with goodness in him she'd been hoping to find. One search into his eyes as clear blue as the endless desert sky upon sunrise and she'd known.
He was her contact. A conduit for her goal. One with cerulean eyes that soothed and stirred her all at once.
Seconds after she saw the goodness, she found more. Felt more, something akin to the crackle of a dry lightning storm across windswept dunes. But she could deal with that. She would deal with it, because nothing was more important than staying alive.
Yasmine darted from the stifling dining area into a near-deserted corridor, past faded framed posters of the Rubistanian countryside. Away from the crowd. Down a narrow side hall.
A hand clamped around her arm. Hard, thick fingers. Her heart tripped along with her feet. Please, please, she hoped she hadn't misjudged this man.
Panting, she righted her step. Her back pressed to the wall. The frame cut into her waist, a minor intrusion compared to the icy gaze digging into her soul through her eyes.
"Don't move."
Her vision filled with desert camouflage uniform and honed man towering over her, an M-16 hooked on his shoulder and pistol in his web belt holster. She focused on his blue eyes instead. "Will you release my arm, please?"
"Not until I'm convinced you aren't going to gut me or blow me up."
Fear and indignation prickled. Suicide bombers made things more difficult for everyone, sewing the seeds of distrust against even the innocent.
He touched her.
Shock stilled her. His hands roved her arms in bold swipes that left the air suddenly thick and heavy. He moved up to her shoulders, down her back to her waist.
Along her legs.
Heat rushed to her face and to other parts of her until she fought not to fidget under his search. Never had she been stroked this way, but understood she had surrendered a certain hold on her rights by pressing the note into his palm. Her mind clouded with a haze, pleasurable, urgent.
