Free Fall (Elite Force #4)(49)
Author: Catherine Mann

Just like that first time she’d seen him pulled from the sea into her boat, she felt that spark of something special, of her body acknowledging his. And for a woman of logic, this whole soul mate thing was totally knocking her for a loop. She’d expected to fall for the man most reasonably suited for her.

Not one who battled alcoholic demons and vowed he couldn’t give her the kind of forever she craved. But she couldn’t imagine living that dream with anyone else. Which left her pretty much confused as hell. All she knew right now was that he was alive. He’d faced the possibility of a horrific death without so much as a blink.

And he would do it again and again and again, because that’s the kind of man he was.

Her nose clogged and she hadn’t even realized she was crying. Damn it. She swept the back of her hand over her face, smiled at him, and shrugged. Sure, she shouldn’t be here and she was probably raising more than a few eyebrows.

He shook his head and shouted, but his words were carried away by the roar of hoses. He swiped a hand over his face and pointed to the other row of decontamination cubicles, the one where the trio from the truck had been taken.

What was Jose trying to tell her?

She looked closer at the third man and… recognized Sutton Harper. Her fellow captive from the compound. A student she’d trusted for her month undercover.

The man who’d carried that length of cloth from their warlord captors.

***

Jose was running out of uniforms.

His latest uniform was in a toxic waste bin and he’d been given a set of camos without patches until he could get to his own clothes. He scrubbed a hand over his damp hair, his eyes tracking Stella walking along the rope line until finally they met at the end. She flung herself at his chest hard and fast before pulling away.

“You’re okay?” She searched his face.

“I’m good. No flesh melting off,” he joked—sorta. “We got to the catering truck in time. Exposure appears to be minimal.”

But she had to know this already. Maybe she just needed to hear it from him, and God, it felt good to remind himself now that the aftermath of it was hitting him. He touched her shoulder and guided her out of the path of two guards. He thought about taking her inside, but work would intrude a helluva lot faster there. For just a minute, he needed to look at her and let that steady Stella logic ground him.

“Jose, what in the world was Sutton doing in the decontamination booths?”

Didn’t she know? He’d called in the student’s involvement over his headset, informing Smith right away.

“Sutton was inside the truck with the toxins.” And now the student was wearing sweats and walking between two guards escorting him to… hell, he didn’t know. He wasn’t in that loop. “You really didn’t hear that the student turned? I told Smith over my headset as soon as I recognized Sutton.”

“I had no idea. He didn’t tell me anything.” She gnawed her lip for a second. “But then I went off headset for a while. I’m not even really supposed to be out here now.”

“I’m glad you came.” The way they’d left things this morning, the way he’d walked out on her while she’d slept… Shit. What if he’d died and that was the way their relationship ended? “Stella, I’m…” He wrestled with the right words.

“It’s okay. Whatever you’re thinking, just hold onto the thought and we’ll talk when there’s not so much adrenaline clogging up our brains. Things are moving fast.” She cupped his face. “I have to get back to work… things are crazy at the command post. And no doubt the whole Sutton factor complicates everything. We’ll have to review everything we heard from him. And there’s a second cloth…”

She cut her sentence short, her eyes apologizing.

He squeezed her hand. “It’s okay. I don’t have a need to know. You do your job. I do mine.”

“That’s kinda become ‘our song.’” Still, she didn’t move and neither did he. The worst was over, right? For now. It was a matter of untangling the piece to start nabbing bad guys, which put the ball back in Mr. Smith’s court.

He heard his team walking up behind him even though they walked like f**king spooks. He stepped back from Stella.

Brick held out an arm to her like he was some frickin’ tuxedoed date. “Interested in your own team of Special Ops escorts back to the command post? We’re all headin’ that way.”

“Thanks; you guys are probably ready to get through your debrief and find food.”

Fang trotted alongside, getting ahead then falling back, racing ahead again, puppy style. “I feel like that damn song… should I stay or should I go? This place is crazy. Do they want our help or not?”

Data clipped alongside at an even-measured pace. “The vice president’s wife is emphatic on that subject. You can be sure today’s events won’t send her running.”

An odd sense of déjà vu rolled over her. “My mother said the same thing every time she would leave for her next Peace Corps mission. She would tell me about how little girls here were hurt… She waited until I was fifteen to explain that ‘hurt’ was a euphemism for female circumcision.”

Fang tripped over his overlarge puppy feet. “Shit, Stella. Is it even okay to say those words out loud? Just… Shit.”

Data scowled. “In a culture where it’s estimated over ninety percent of the females experience that…”

“Argh!” Fang thumped his hands on either side of his head. “Makes me want to kick some pirate ass for all those girls and for that boy we picked up too… Ajaya.”

Bubbles cocked his head to the side. “You think the kid’s innocent?”

Jose didn’t know what to believe anymore, not after Sutton. And now that Ajaya had been mentioned, why hadn’t the teen said anything about Sutton’s involvement? Perhaps he hadn’t known, but it was quite possible he had. How much was truth and how much was a setup? Ajaya was the one who’d told Stella about the code in the kanga cloth in the first place.

Her voice pierced through his thoughts as they reached the mobile command center.

“I think he’s scared shitless and would do anything to stay safe. I think there are countries that use children as soldiers and weapons for the very reason that we’re vulnerable in that arena. We’re wired to back off when a kid’s involved.”