Surrender the Dark (3 page)

That was how much time the people in Bhajul had. The only problem was, unless he made his contact, they wouldn’t know the danger they were in. They wouldn’t be able to protect themselves from the lethal, merciless attack Jarrett knew was coming. Only Jarrett. The first two men he’d sent in were dead, the third had disappeared.

He heard the sound of running water coming from the next room, or close by at any rate. The bathroom probably.

How in the living hell had he ended up in the last place on earth he’d ever wanted to be? Even physically battered and resisting the knowledge that was chipping away at his newly reclaimed control, he knew his range of options were gone. There was only one. And from the sounds of it, this particular option was, at that moment, taking a shower.

Rae closed her eyes as the warm water sheeted over her face. She turned and dipped her chin to let it beat at her back, then squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden shock of unwanted tears. Calling herself several harsh names, she forced her eyes open and watched the water cascade off the tips of her breasts as she allowed herself to confront the chaos she’d been blocking out for the last several days.

As long as McCullough had been unconscious, she’d been able to contain her thoughts and activities to the necessity of doing what she could for his wounded body. But he wasn’t unconscious anymore, and she’d worked for the man long enough to know he would regain his health quickly. She had to get a grip now, make some hard, fast decisions that she would be ready and willing to stick to. No matter what.

If anyone had told her a week ago that she’d find herself struggling with decisions regarding her former
life, she’d have laughed at the person, and then told him he was crazy. Although who would have been telling her this, she didn’t know. She had no contact with anyone from that life. The few people who inhabited her world now knew nothing about her except that she was a jewelry artisan making a moderate income and that she bordered on the fanatic about her privacy.

Privacy that had been effectively destroyed three days ago. She shut the water off and threw the curtain back. Angry, hurt, and far more scared than she’d ever wanted to be again, she grabbed a towel and indulged in some good old-fashioned swearing directed at the man lying in her bed in the next room. It didn’t help.

She dragged on a pair of green sweats and a baggy green-and-white-striped sweater, then took the hallway exit to postpone seeing him again for at least another few minutes. After checking on the puppy, whom she’d finally sequestered out in the garage with a bowl of water, some old towels, and a safely perched space heater for company, she went to the kitchen and tested the chicken broth she’d set to simmering. It was warm. She poured some into a tall cup, plopped in a straw, and after taking a deep breath, walked back to her room.

It shouldn’t have surprised her to find him with his eyes wide-open and his head elevated by a pillow he’d bent in half beneath his neck. It shouldn’t have, but it did.

The sight of his chest caught her attention. It was bare except for the tape that peeked above her sheet. The forest-print fabric was draped halfway between his well-developed pecs and the taut tanned skin surrounding
his navel. Skin that was covered by tape now, but since she was the one who had wrapped him, she knew just about all there was to know about it. Where it was tight, where it was scarred, where it dipped, where it hugged muscle, where it was covered with fine swirls of dark hair. Where it wasn’t. Details she could have gone the rest of her life without ever knowing, but that for some strange reason would pop into her mind at the oddest moments.

After days of the sort of intimacy she hadn’t indulged in for a very long time, she couldn’t say why she was reacting to the sight of his naked body in a way that was far from clinical.

Realizing she was standing in the doorway, staring, she put one foot in front of the other … and eventually she was at his side. Again.

“Thank you,” he said, staring at the cup in her hand.

Those were two words she’d never thought to hear from him. She bit back the retort that sprang to her lips. His voice was still rough, but she could already hear the change. Yes, if he had anything to do with it—and of course, he had everything to do with it—his recovery would likely set medical records. She knew how he was.

Controlling. Calculating. Cold. Unfeeling. Mechanical. And always and forever in charge. From the moment they were introduced, over seven years ago in the cramped quarters of her college counselor’s office, and every single moment since, he’d been in charge. Yes, she knew how he was.

She could recall with perfect clarity their first meeting. How he’d listed, in that carefully controlled voice of
his, always so damnably devoid of emotion, the reasons why her combination of personal traits made her the ideal courier for his private firm. No family or relatives. No contact with any of her foster families. No tendency to form close or lasting relationships. The sort of person no one seemed to notice. He did not mention her academic achievements, but since he’d been holding her school file in his hand, she was certain he was aware of her excellent record, as well as her interest in world history and political science.

No, the things he’d mentioned weren’t found in any school file. They were the sort of things only someone close to her could have known, and the one person that could have been was her counselor. The older woman had gradually worn down Rae’s natural resistance to discussing herself or her own feelings. Rae had confided in the woman, telling her about her childhood, and about how her growing fascination with the grand scale of world politics was somehow helping her to sort out her own mixed-up past. Her most recent confidence had concerned her desire to work in the government, to get involved firsthand with the secret dealings between her country’s leaders and those of foreign nations.

Rae remembered how betrayed she’d felt, and how quickly that sense of betrayal had faded in the face of the undeniably intriguing world this dark, emotionless stranger was offering her. This person who wanted her specifically because of who she was. That fact alone had been almost intoxicating.

And in all that time this was the first thank-you she’d ever heard from him.

“You’re welcome,” she said, her voice as blank as his had ever been. “You should try to get some of this down.” She sat and aimed the bent straw at his lips. She took great pride in the steadiness of her hands under his watchful gray eyes.

He lifted his right hand and took hold of her wrist, guiding the straw the last inch past his lips. Any pride she’d taken in her control vanished at the immensity of his.

His skin was hot. The fever, she told herself. But that didn’t explain the frisson of awareness that raced all over her body at the scrape of his calluses on her skin and the latent strength she detected in his grip.

This was the man who wanted you dead
, she reminded herself needlessly. Yet it did nothing to lessen the impact of his touch.

Several silent minutes later a good portion of the broth was gone. He finally let his hand drop, and Rae tried hard to keep her sigh of relief inaudible. She wasted another thirty or so seconds making space for the half-empty cup on the bedstand between the water pitcher and water cup and changing the cloth on his forehead. She felt his gaze on her and was thankful he wasn’t touching her anymore. In the five years she’d worked for him, he’d been nothing more than her boss. Nothing more, and yet he had been everything. He was a private man with an astonishing ability to draw out of each of his operatives exactly what was necessary to accomplish each mission, all without ever divulging anything of himself.

His code name had been Enigma, and that was precisely what he’d always been.

She’d never been this close to him before. And certainly not with him naked. His weakened state should have made a difference. It didn’t.

His eyes were the same, though, their intensity every bit as daunting. His injuries only underscored their power.

“There are things we have to discuss,” he said.

Her time was up. Three days hadn’t been enough. Hell, who was she kidding? Obviously two whole years hadn’t been enough. She couldn’t even allow herself the luxury of anger, indignation, or most of all, panic. It would only make her vulnerable to him. So she took refuge in the old and familiar, hoping he wouldn’t see the fear behind the bravura.

She worked up a sardonic smile and leaned back in the chair. “Yes, let’s skip right past the small talk, why don’t we? That gee-it’s-nice-to-see-you-again-how’ve-you-been-and-oh-by-the-way-thanks-for-saving-my-life crap gets downright maudlin, doesn’t it?”

He stared at her in silence, not a shred of embarrassment or shame on his face. That shouldn’t have surprised her either. If he hadn’t cared the last time she’d faced him, all bloody and ravaged, nothing she said now was likely to elicit any emotion.

“I didn’t plan on coming here,” he said finally.

“Well, that’s a relief.”

“You’re the last person I would have come to, Gannon. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m here.” His voice was still raspy and his last sentence hadn’t been
much more than a growl. After a long tense silence he purposely shifted his gaze to the cup of broth, then back to her.

She stared at him, willing herself to be unaffected. The task was impossible and she retreated behind a wall of words. “You’d ask me to give my soul for the good of the cause, but you’d die before asking me to help you personally, wouldn’t you?” she said quietly. When he didn’t respond, she simply stared him down. She didn’t dare give him the slightest edge. She already felt she was holding on by her fingertips as it was.

“More,” he said, his teeth clenched, his eyes empty.

She leaned forward to grab the cup and angle the straw in his mouth. He drank his fill, but didn’t hold her wrist this time. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. His steady regard was easily as disturbing as his touch had been.

He took a moment for the broth to go down, then said, “I don’t have a choice in this.”

The first taste of fear entered her mouth.

With supreme effort, she kept her tone casual. “You said you didn’t come to my mountain on purpose. Just because you ended up here doesn’t change anything. But I
do
have a choice, McCullough. I made it two years ago. I don’t work for you any longer.” She kept a close watch, but his gaze didn’t soften. There wasn’t even a hint of what had passed between them the last time they’d seen each other.

“I know that,” he said. “You were very clear on that point, and several others, the last time we spoke.”

Bastard, she thought, careful to keep her expression blank. “Yes,” she said calmly, “I suppose I was.”

Because she knew he expected her to retreat physically, she leaned over and removed the cool cloth from his forehead. Inexplicably, she had to curl her fingers against the sudden urge to brush away the damp black curls clinging to his forehead.

“Gannon—”

“Listen, McCullough,” she cut him off. She had to lay it out straight now, before he got any stronger. “I found you, I got you here, I took care of you. My choice. I could have left you to die. It doesn’t give you a claim on me.”

“Why didn’t you leave me?”

Her control slipped a notch. “Because I didn’t need another death on my conscience.”

“Not even mine?”

She drew in a sharp breath and studied him, but he revealed nothing of what he was feeling. “Not even yours,” she answered.

“Water.” She helped him take a sip without comment. He watched her set the cup down and lean back in her chair, then said, “The last time I saw you, I wasn’t too certain about that.”

“The last time I saw you, I wasn’t armed,” she shot back, wondering where he was heading with this. His body may have been damaged, but she knew his predatory instincts were still in fine working order. “If you recall, I was strip-searched before I was allowed to enter your office and your presence.”

“You make it sound like I ordered it for my own personal enjoyment.”

Caught off guard, she stiffened and knew her eyes had widened. Despite his emotionless and often ruthless command, he’d never once made a single comment to her that could have been construed as sexual. He’d been way ahead of his time on the issue of harassment and women’s rights. Of course, for McCullough, affirmative action meant equal opportunities for women to get killed in the line of duty.

“And we both know,” he went on, “that the lack of a gun or knife didn’t exactly render you weaponless.”

The added roughness to his already deep voice grated on her nerves. Her pulse was racing. He was getting to her, dammit. “True,” she said. “But I thought I made it clear that day that I would not—could not—be responsible for any more …” She faltered and wanted to kick herself for doing so at such a crucial moment. She strove quickly to regain her control. “Be responsible for any more violence,” she went on, her voice stronger than necessary. “No matter how good the cause.”

“Patching me up helps even the scales, then?”

Her eyes narrowed, her uneasiness vanished. Anger and hurt filled her voice and she didn’t give a damn. “Nothing could ever ‘even the scales,’ McCullough. But then, I never expected you to understand that.”

Surprisingly, his response was to let his eyes drift shut. Power still radiated from him, but his having his eyes closed helped her to regain control. She was suspicious
of his apparent retreat. He couldn’t have simply backed off.

When he didn’t say anything for several minutes, Rae realized he must have drifted to sleep, and she felt a twinge of guilt for badgering him as she had. After all, he’d been out of it for a good while and had just awakened.

The guilt disappeared quickly. McCullough didn’t need her sympathy. She’d do damn well to remember that.

She waited a few more minutes, watching his chest rise and fall, trying to empty her mind. That was another skill she’d acquired under his command. It had been her salvation in captivity, her solace in isolation.