Enemy Mine (24 page)

“The little girl?”

Her heart plummeted. “Yes, there was a little girl in there. Her name is Tiki. H-have you found her?”
No! Oh, God, please, no. Don’t tell me she’s dead….

“
Señorita,
she was found first.” He motioned to the larger of the body bags. “We found her alive beneath her father, who was dead.” Shaking his head, he added, “And the mother, well, she is dead, too.”

“Tiki—she’s
alive?
” Kathy’s voice was trembling. “Where is she?”

He smiled through his weariness. Leaning on the shovel he held, he pointed back up the hill. “There were only two survivors from this caseta. Pablo, here, heard the little girl crying, so she was the first to be found. A paramedic took her by helicopter to Cuzco. I think she had some burns on her hands. Her hair was singed. But she looked okay to me.”

Mac came up behind Kathy, hearing the explanation. Seeing the tears running freely down her face, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. Without a word, she leaned against him and pressed her face into his neck. “And the other person who survived,
amigo?
” Mac asked.

“The gardener. I do not know his name. He had a broken leg. They took him to Agua Caliente. The doctor at the medical clinic there is taking care of him.” Looking around, the man said, “I know others who survived but I do not have a list of names yet.”

“Thank you,” Mac murmured, holding Kathy tightly in his arms. “We’re glad the little girl survived.” He closed his eyes and pressed his cheek against Kathy’s hair. For the longest time, the world stopped for Mac. She was in his arms and leaning on him. They needed each other in that moment. For all the hell he’d gone through as a mole, it had had a damn good outcome. Tiki
was alive. He was glad, too, for the gardener, a sweet old man who dearly loved the plants he tended. Good people shouldn’t die in such a situation, and too often, they did. This time, they’d had some luck.

He gave Kathy a gentle squeeze and lifted his head to whisper, “Come on, I’ll take you for an early dinner in Agua Caliente. We’ll hitch a helo flight into town. I’ll let your father know about Tiki and where we’re going.”

Kathy lifted her hands and with trembling fingers wiped the tears from her face. Sniffing, she said, “Yeah, fine. I—I just want to get out of here.” Looking around, she stated, “This place looks like how I feel—devastated.”

“A normal reaction,” Mac assured her. “I’ll meet you back where those jeeps are parked. We’ll get someone to drive us into town. You okay while I hunt your father down and give him the news?”

She nodded and said, “I’ll be fine, Mac. Thanks.”

“I’
M SO GLAD
Tiki survived,” Kathy confided wearily to Mac. They sat at the India Felize Restaurant in the heart of Agua Caliente. It was 1900 and they’d hitched a flight down the mountain to town.

“Yeah,” he murmured, cutting into his medium rare steak. “If anyone should have survived, she and that old gardener deserved to.”

Kathy dipped the spoon into her sopa criolla, a Peruvian style vegetable beef soup. “I’m so relieved. And thanks for making a call to the Cuzco hospital to see how she was doing. First degree burns on her arms and hands is getting off easy. I can’t believe she wasn’t hurt more than that, Mac.”

“It was my pleasure to get the info,” Mac said. “We’ll both sleep better tonight knowing she’s safe.”

“I know Tiki has relatives in Lima. Have they been contacted?”

“Yes. Her uncle is flying up as we speak. I’m sure Tiki will be absorbed into his family. It’s a big one and the man is honest as the day is long. Tiki will finally have a real family. In time, I think, she’ll deal with this loss, and with the steadying influence of her uncle and aunt, she’ll grow up to be a pretty nice kid”

He and Kathy sat up on the second floor, whereas most of the guests of the highly popular restaurant were dining on the ground floor. The owners sensed that they wanted privacy and so had given them the second floor all to themselves. Mac was grateful for that courtesy.

Kathy seemed exhausted. Her hair was crinkled from the high humidity and she wore a simple white blouse, jeans and hiking boots someone had given her at the BJS base. She filled it out in the most provocative of ways.

“I wonder if Tiki saw much?” Kathy murmured, losing her appetite at that thought. She set the spoon back into the large bowl of delicious soup. “She has to be completely traumatized by it all.”

Perhaps the only good news—other than Tiki’s survival—was that Paloma had now been released forever from her heroin habit. As they’d left the caseta, Kathy spotted an important find. To her surprise, the laptop bearing all the vital information on Garcia’s operation was intact when she pulled it out from between two pieces of drywall that had fallen over it. Therese had been found earlier in the smoldering debris, one of the
workers told them later. They’d also learned that Adelino, Tiki’s British schoolteacher, had been in Cuzco at the time and was spared. Most of the kitchen crew had survived because they’d run out the back door and into the jungle to escape. Kathy had been thrilled to hear the news. The people she’d grown fond of had been saved, much to her relief. And she silently admitted she was glad Garcia was dead.

“I hope Tiki didn’t see much at all, but we’ll never know,” Mac said. He saw the pained look on Kathy’s face and gripped her hand for a moment. “Listen, you did what you could. Tiki will now be fine in Lima, surrounded by her relatives. She’ll be okay there, raised by her uncle.”

Kathy savored the warmth of his hand and squeezed his strong fingers. “I guess you’re right,” she whispered, rallying beneath his searching look.

In an effort to cheer her up, Mac brightened his expression. “I got a message late this afternoon from ATF headquarters. They want us to fly back in a few days and start the debrief on this mission. Want to spend a little more time with me?” he asked in a teasing tone. Watching Kathy recover sent his heart skittering in his chest. He’d never forgotten that one, heart-stealing kiss they’d shared, and he wanted more. Much more. As she lifted her thick blond lashes and looked across the table at him, Mac felt his heart expand with joy. Her blue eyes were large, trusting and filled with an undeniable emotion aimed directly at him. Mac was afraid to call it love even though that’s what he wanted to do. Kathy had never said she loved him.

“I’d like that….”

He cut another piece of his steak and asked, “Yeah? You can stand being around me for a little longer?”

“You tend to grow on people.”

Chuckling, Mac popped the meat into his mouth, chewed and swallowed. “We don’t know much about each other. I’d like to spend the time in D.C. changing that. The debrief will take at least a week.” He lifted his brows and grinned. “I’ve talked to your squadron commander and he’s granting you thirty days leave, which is appropriate in this case. You’ve been through a lot. And you’ve done a lot to help curtail global drug movements.”

Thirty days.
That was news to Kathy. She gave Mac a suspicious glance. “Now, you wouldn’t have had a hand in that thirty-day leave, would you?”

Mac had the good grace to blush. He busied himself with cutting another piece of steak as Peruvian music, consisting of drums, accordion and throaty panpipes, drifted up the stairwell. He smiled briefly. “Can I plead the Fifth?”

“Not anymore you can’t,” Kathy insisted. Suddenly, her appetite was back. She took a piece of the warm, grainy dark bread and slathered it with butter. Her heart swelled with happiness as she stared at Mac.

Dressed in civilian clothes, a simple white, short-sleeved shirt, jeans and hiking boots, he looked like any other tourist coming to see Machu Picchu. But the curve of that delicious male mouth of his made her hot and hungry for him on a whole new level of her being. “I’m through being a spy. I was lousy at it, anyway. I blew it with you at the hotel. I knew it the moment those words flew out of my mouth.”

Chuckling yet again, Mac shook his head. “Yes, you did. Lucky for you, I was on your side. If I’d been a drug dealer or a snitch, you’d have been marked and dead within twelve hours.”

“I know that,” Kathy said defiantly. “That’s why later, when I found you in Therese’s office, I decided at the last minute to trust you. I knew deep in my heart that if you were an enemy, I wouldn’t have lasted two days after returning from Cuzco.”

“You’re right about that. I think you should stick to being a Seahawk driver, doing your thing down here behind the scenes and working with Navy SEALs and Marine Recons.” He gazed at her. “I hear from your SEAL commander you’re damn good at what you do. You’re not afraid of returning fire when you go into a hot zone to pick up a team.”

After sipping the well-spiced tomato-based soup, she said, “I like to be where the action is.”

“No joke.” Mac gave her a look filled with pride. Kathy Trayhern was a modern-day heroine in his eyes. She was cool under fire. She could think during a crisis and plan what had to be done next. “Well,” he said huskily, setting his flatware down on either side of the white platter, “you showed your stuff the other day when we stole that Blackhawk and made a run for the BJS base.”

“And just where did
you
learn to fly like that?”

Grinning more widely, Mac said, “Where do you think? I was in the Marine Corps just like you at one time. I flew Seahawks and inserted black ops teams just like you’re doing. After my six years as an officer were
up, the ATF courted me. So I left the service and decided to try my hand at undercover work. And here we are.”

Eyes wide with awe, Kathy sat back. There was so little she knew about Mac. “You’re one of us! You’re a Marine no matter where you go in life or what you do after you leave the Corps.”

“Yep, Marines stick together,” Mac said, chuckling. He liked the soft smile that graced her lips. Kathy wore no makeup, but she didn’t have to. She was beautiful au naturel.

“So what are you going to do after this mission?” Her brows dipped. “Go undercover again?” She began to realize that Mac had been a mole for nearly a year and a half in the Garcia organization. If she allowed herself to have a relationship with him, she wouldn’t see him for long stretches at a time. That didn’t sit well with her. Having gotten a taste of spy ops, she understood only too clearly how one slip could put his life into complete jeopardy. Having Mac die was not something she even wanted to entertain. She’d just found him.

“I don’t really know yet,” Mac admitted. “It depends.”

“On what?”

“Brazen woman, aren’t you?”

“It’s my nature to confront.” Kathy grinned like a wolf, holding his laughter-filled gaze.

“Okay, it depends upon you and me.”

“Go on…” Her heart skittered. She saw Mac sit back as if considering what he was going to say next. Her palms got damp.

“I want to think that there’s more than a fleeting attraction between us, Kathy.” Mac took a deep, shaky
breath, because he was scared to death that she might not feel the same. “And I’d like the time to explore what we have or don’t have. Being down here for nearly five months, working together, wasn’t a fair test. We were undercover and we sure as hell didn’t give anything of our real selves away.”

“What about that kiss? Was that fake, too?”

He saw the fire in her eyes and the obstinate set of her lips, and had a tough time not smiling. Mac reached out and gripped her hand in his. “No, that was real. That was
me.
And that’s how I felt about you. Nothing fake about it. Okay?” He searched her eyes deeply.

Her fingers tightened around his. “Okay.”

“Were
you
faking it?”

Kathy sat up, stunned. “Me? No way, dude! Did you think I was?”

Releasing her hand, Mac smiled. He lifted the white linen napkin and wiped his mouth. “You could have. You had reason to. You’d just blown your cover with me. I thought you were angling to lure me into some kind of a relationship so I wouldn’t squeal to Garcia about you.”

“Humph! No way! I would
never
do that.” Her expression was indignant.

“Do me a favor, bright angel? Don’t apply for another undercover job because, trust me, you won’t be able to carry it off. You just don’t have it in that heart of yours to be a first-class liar,” Mac said, winking at her. How he would love spending time with her. And in the end, he hoped his instincts were on target—that Kathy Trayhern could very well be the person to change his life forever.

M
AC COULD SEE
the closeness between Kathy and her father. He’d seen it often in the last four days. Each morning they’d fly out to the destroyed villa, searching for anything to help them with the drug war. Every night they’d sit in the conference room of the BJS base, huddled together with Major Maya Stevenson, her husband, second-in-command Major Dane York, himself and a secretary who typed up their findings.

Mac was moved whenever Morgan gazed across the table at his daughter. The man’s eyes radiated love. It made Mac feel lonely and wish he’d had such a family. But he hadn’t been so lucky.

“Well,” Morgan said on the fourth night, tapping his watch and then looking up at the convened group, “it’s 2300. Are we ready to wrap this up? Anything more?” He gazed at each individual in the cramped room.

“Sir, from my vantage point as Agent in Charge of the scene, we’ve sifted through that villa with a fine-tooth comb. I’m satisfied that we’ve found what’s important,” Mac said. He then looked at Kathy, who sat on his right. “And you had the biggest find of all—Therese’s laptop. That alone, I think, is going to help us more than we know.”

Kathy felt heat rising in her cheeks as she saw the pride burning in Mac’s gray eyes. “A lucky find,” she said. Across the table from her sat the legendary Maya Stevenson, who nodded and smiled at her. Kathy had already thanked her and her copilot for saving their lives out there that day they’d nearly died.

Kathy had the utmost admiration for the black-haired woman with the amazing emerald-green eyes. Maya was powerful and empowered. The whole squadron revolved around her, for her charisma as a leader was palpable. Kathy had found no one who disliked the major, and the whole unit almost idolized her. There were many rumors about her, one of them being that she was a trained medicine woman in some sort of metaphysical craft. Kathy hadn’t found out more than that, for her people were highly protective of her.

In Kathy’s mind, it didn’t matter. Maya was one hell of a kick-ass leader. She had created this amazing black ops out of nothing more than a desire to help free her world of drugs. That in itself made her larger than life. Kathy had enjoyed being around Maya, for she was learning a lot from her being a good officer and leader.

“Let’s wrap this up, then,” Mac said with a smile. “I want to thank everyone here for your cooperation.”

As they filed out of the room, Kathy noticed that Morgan pulled Mac aside. Curious, but realizing her father wanted to talk to him in private, she ambled down the hall, heading toward her barracks cubicle, located on the second floor. It was near midnight and most of the cave was dim, except for strategic lighting here and there. In the rear of the cavern the routine maintenance on the
Apaches continued, as it did twenty-four–seven. She could hear the clink of tools, the soft murmuring of the crews on duty. It soothed her. She loved the military.

After showering and slipping into a dark blue cotton gown that fell to her knees, Kathy was heading for bed when there was a soft knock on her cubicle door. Frowning, she padded over in her bare feet and opened it. Mac was standing there.

“What are you doing here?”

He grinned sheepishly. “My room is down on the first floor, I know. Men on level one and women on level two.”

She returned his smile. “I don’t think you’re lost, Mac. Come on in. I’m about ready to call it a night.” Kathy stepped aside. Her heart beat a little faster as Mac sauntered into her cubical, which held nothing more than a bed, a dresser and clothes closet. It was spare and simple.

Mac closed the door but remained near it. Kathy looked beautiful with her hair damp from a recent shower, her skin glowing in the low light. The loose gown could not hide her full breasts, or the luscious curve of her hips—attributes that had teased him mercilessly since he’d met her.

“It’s late,” Mac said apologetically, “but I wanted to let you know something.”

Kathy sat down on the edge of her bed. Mac was so easy on the eyes. Folding her hands in her lap, she said, “Shoot.”

“Your father invited me to come for a visit.”

Her brows shot up. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” Mac muttered. “After we’re done with the debrief in D.C., he wants to fly us to Montana together on one of his Perseus jets.”

She gave him a guarded look and wondered if her dad was matchmaking. Her mother was well known for it. Now her father? Gulping, she said, “Why?”

“He wants to offer me a job working for Perseus. I’d be flying Blackhawks again, inserting and extracting merc teams this time around instead of Navy SEALs.”

Tilting her head, she smiled. “My dad knows good people when he sees them, so I’m not surprised.” Just the thought that Mac might work for Perseus, might not be undercover anymore, lifted a load off Kathy’s shoulders. “How do you feel about that?”

“I don’t know. I just want to make sure you’re okay with me going home with you, that’s all. I’ll listen to what he has to say, talk to his strat and tact people and then make up my mind.”

“You’re a great pilot,” Kathy said, meaning it. She saw Mac puff up a little bit with pride at her praise. The man deserved to. “Won’t you miss the adrenaline rush of combat flying?” She grinned knowingly.

“Well,” he hedged, keeping his voice down because the walls of the cubicles were paper thin and he was sure other officers were sleeping on either side of them at this hour. “Being undercover is a constant adrenaline rush.”

Nodding, Kathy said, “Yeah, tell me about it. Not any fun, either.”

“Right on. Listen, I’m going to take off. So you’re okay with that? Me hopping a flight with you to Montana in about a week?”

“I think it’s great, Mac.” Her heart was pounding. As much as she wanted to reach out and pull him to her bed, it was still the wrong place and wrong time. This was a U.S. Army barracks and such things were forbidden.

She saw hope burning in his eyes, maybe hope for a future together. Meeting his hooded gaze, she touched his hand. “Let me show you the fine points of fly-fishing.”

“Bring it on.”

K
ATHY WAS TROUT FISHING
in a deep pool of a snow-fed river that lazily wound through the dense pines above her parents’ home. The day was cool, the sky a muddy gray, promising snow by late afternoon or early evening. It was late November, near Thanksgiving, and she inhaled the crisp air, savoring the scent of pine. As she stood in thigh-deep water in her rubber waders, she moved her rod back and forth in slow, graceful sweeps.

Mac was spreading out a red-and-white-checked wool picnic blanket on shore. On the flight out from D.C., they had agreed to spend this special time together. For three days he’d been shown how Perseus worked by Mike Houston. Mac stayed at one of the condos in town reserved for mercs coming and going on missions, while Kathy remained at her parents’ home. It had given her the opportunity to talk to her mother—about everything. Kathy was relieved that Laura understood. It had been a tearful time with a very positive outcome.

Not a night went by when Kathy didn’t lie awake thinking about Mac. About them. Glancing over her shoulder now, she saw that Mac had a nice fire going.
It was time to quit fishing and fry up the four trout she’d already caught. She shifted her creel of woven willow to her left side, reeled in the line and then waded slowly back to shore. The temperature was hovering in the forties, the wind making the pines sing off and on above them. A storm front was moving in.

“I’m ready to fry those trout,” he told her, getting up and taking her rod and reel.

“Great. I’m starving!”
For you.
But Kathy didn’t say that. She handed him the creel, and Mac opened it and took out the fish. Kathy quickly peeled off the rubber waders and joined him as he knelt on the ground with the trout. Together, they gutted them and prepared them for frying in a big black skillet over the fire. Kathy tossed in a hunk of butter and knelt nearby as the filleted trout were thoroughly washed in the river by Mac. He then came back and placed them in the hot skillet.

“Mmm, they smell good,” Kathy sighed as she quickly flipped the sizzling fillets over with an aluminum spatula.

“Yeah, I can hardly wait to eat them. I loved the fresh trout we always had down in Peru.” Mac quickly brought over two red plastic plates. The night before he’d made potato salad and three-bean salad—about the extent of his skills when it came to cooking, he’d confessed with a laugh. Setting out the containers of salad, he sat and waited for Kathy to scoop the trout out of the pan onto the plates.

“Fresh trout. Yum,” he murmured.

Kathy smiled, enjoying his closeness. “Did your dad ever take you fishing?” She was dying to find out more
about Mac, but the time simply hadn’t been available until now. She saw his smile fade. Turning the trout over in the skillet, she noted the meat was white, which meant the fish were ready to eat. After scooping up two of them, she placed them on the plate Mac held forward.

“No, my foster father was an accountant and a city guy, so I really didn’t get out into the country until after I left for college.”

He’d been orphaned? Kathy stared at him for a second and then scooped the remaining trout onto the second plate. She took the skillet off the grate and put a tin coffeepot in its place. They would have hot perked coffee by the end of their meal. Mac handed her cutlery and got out the salt and pepper. As she sat there, their elbows pleasantly brushing now and then, she murmured, “Your foster father? You were orphaned, Mac?”

Salting his trout, he said, “I was taken from my parents by the child protective custody people when I was very young. I don’t remember most of it.” He handed her the salt, their fingertips touching. He liked touching Kathy. When he saw the angst in her wide, beautiful eyes, he gave her a lopsided smile. “Hey, it’s not the end of the world, you know?” He cut into his trout, finding the flaky fish incredibly tasty. Between bites he said, “I was three years old when a family adopted me. My foster dad was an accountant and my foster mom a teacher.”

Her heart ached for him. Kathy ate slowly, milling over this surprising news. No wonder Mac seemed fascinated with her and her family. One night he’d been invited to dinner and had met Jason, Annie and their young baby. Kathy had seen him watching almost hun
grily the interaction between her brother and his wife, as well as those between her and her parents. Now his interest made a lot more sense.

“What about your real parents? Do you know them?”

Mac spooned up a bite of potato salad. “My mother was a drug addict. She died a year after I was taken from her.”

“I’m sorry,” Kathy murmured. She reached out and squeezed his arm. His face lost some of its tenseness when she touched him. It felt good to know that she could make him feel better. “And your father?”

“I never knew him. From what I’ve been told, my mother was a prostitute making money to feed her drug habits.”

“That’s terrible,” Kathy said sympathetically.

“Don’t feel sorry for me,” Mac replied, relishing the trout as if it was the best meal he’d ever had. “I love my foster family. They’re proud of me and they love me. And I love them.”

“That’s good…. Were you the only child?”

Chuckling, Mac said, “Yeah. Does it show?”

“No, it doesn’t. I was watching you with Kammie after dinner the other night and you were playing on the floor with her as if you’d always played with siblings.”

“Maybe it comes naturally.” He shrugged and slanted a glance at Kathy, who was looking at him in a new way. “I don’t know.”

“I’m lucky and I know it,” Kathy said, picking up flakes of the trout with her fingers. “I’ve got a great family. It’s not perfect and, yeah, we fight sometimes. But when it comes right down to it, we’re tight and we love
one another. I’ve seen enough dysfunctional families to know that mine isn’t that bad.”

After finishing off the trout, Mac said, “You’re right. You have a healthy family. And knowing what I know now, I think you all survived the kidnapping pretty well.”

“Except me. I had to go out half-cocked and try to get revenge for my family. I wonder if I have Mafia blood in me and don’t know it?” She grinned at him as he laughed.

“I think you were the child that fell through the cracks on this,” Mac told her, his tone serious. “Maybe because you weren’t kidnapped, your parents thought you weren’t wounded by what happened, but you were. They just didn’t realize it, and you didn’t communicate it, either.” He sized her up, raising one eyebrow. “And that’s taught me a lot about you. You hide what you really feel.”

“Men do, too.” She dug into the potato salad. Mac had done a nice job with it, adding chunks of red pepper to make it look pretty.

“Guilty as charged.”

Kathy set her empty plate aside. She took a pot holder and moved the perking coffee to the edge of the grate, where it would stay warm, then got up to retrieve two tin mugs from their picnic basket. She sat back down on the log and, taking a deep breath, asked the questions that had been eating at her since they’d arrived in Montana.

“What do you think about my dad’s business? Do you like what you see? Has he courted you enough to make you quit the ATF and come work with him?” Kathy wrapped the pot holder around the coffeepot han
dle and poured the steaming brew into the mugs sitting at her feet.

“It’s tempting,” Mac admitted slowly. He placed his own empty plate behind the log where he sat. Picking up his mug, he watched the rising steam twist into the air. It was getting colder. Snow was on the way.

“My dad has a phenomenal record of sweet-talking the people he wants to come and work for him, and they all say yes.” She sipped the hot coffee carefully and then looked in his direction.

“What about you?” Mac asked. “You graduated from the Naval Academy at age twenty-two and you’re twenty-seven now. You have a six-year commitment with the military and two years to go. Are you going to re-up at that time or come back here and work for Perseus? I noticed Jason works with your dad. And Annie, his wife, is their corporate helicopter pilot. Morgan seems to want to keep Perseus a family affair.”