weight of my grief, too.”
Sabine turned away and swiped up the handle of her suitcase. “Tensions are high. Don’t sweat it.”
“Sabine—”
“I told you I have a plane to catch.”
Sabine was out of her depth. Sure, she was a trained agent. She was just more of an information-gathering, bug-planting, charm-the-bad-guy-into-talking kind of spy. She was about as far from a fully armed Special Ops team as it was possible to be, despite their mutual goal of finding out who had killed Ben.
Doug grabbed her arm. “I can’t let you leave, Sabine. You’re not going anywhere without me until I get some answers.”
Mistakes. That’s what it all boiled down to in Doug’s mind. His life could be summed up in a series of mistakes that never should have been made—the most recent of which stood in front of him now. He touched her elbow. It was slender, her skin smooth under his rough fingers callused from a war he had never wanted to reach her shore.
Her head reached his chin, and her hair reflected every shade from auburn to dark chocolate. The red dress flattered her figure in a way that wasn’t suggestive. She was pure class. The color looked warm against the almost Mediterranean-rich tan of her skin. Ben had been much lighter. Doug had wondered why the siblings hadn’t looked anything alike. On the day he had asked Ben, Doug had been given a back off look. He didn’t ask again.
Despite the feelings she evoked in him, Doug was on a mission, and emotions had no bearing. At least they weren’t supposed to. He’d have to chalk up his earlier outburst to being overcome with grief. After all, who knew the extent of her involvement in Christophe Parelli’s life, his business and his death? The quicker Doug got both of them out of here, the quicker he could find out how Sabine figured into Ben’s death. CIA or not, she’d be answering a whole lot of questions.
After that she would be free to walk out of his life. He thought of all those get-togethers when he’d had to force himself to be cordial while everything in him hummed just from being near her. The reality of how shallow his attraction to her was hit him like a needle that burst a balloon and deflated his sense of honor.
It seemed like his initial impression had been entirely wrong. Not about her being very good at what she did. He’d believed she was some high-powered financial type at the bank where she worked. Ben had told anyone who would listen that his sister was a big deal, traveling all over the world for her job.
Had Ben even known the truth?
She wasn’t the type of woman that Doug wanted to get to know. Even though just looking at her made his brain miss critical steps, Doug couldn’t let her affect him. She’d charmed her way close enough to Christophe Parelli to get his fingerprints, and Doug had no interest in a woman who used her looks to get what she wanted. Once this mission was over, they’d both get on with their lives.
“My plane leaves in three hours.” She lowered her slim wrist. The gold bracelet didn’t look like any watch he’d ever seen. The smallest bit of fear crept on her face, despite the stubborn set to her shoulders.
“You’ll be on it. Just as soon as we get to a safe place where you can answer some questions.”
A click in his earpiece signaled California had something to say. “You gonna bring her over here, MacArthur?”
Doug caught her eye. How would she react to being crowded by army operatives? She knew each of them, except Ben’s replacement. He’d seen her laugh and talk with the boys and their wives and girlfriends. Still, despite her status as a teammate’s sister, he doubted any of them would be kind now that there were questions over her involvement.
“We’ll be there in five, California.”
He hoped the crack in her armor, the one currently giving off waves of fear, was an indication that she’d share what she knew. Doug had no intention of interrogating her. Nor could he hurt her in any way.
Even if it hadn’t been Sabine, he wasn’t the kind of man who did that. It didn’t line up with what he’d been taught, his personal code of ethics or his faith. All in all, that was a lot of rules, but they were good rules. Honest standards he could live by and know he got things right.
Sabine Laduca was the antithesis of everything he stood for—a bolt of lightning. Would God create a woman for the sole purpose of throwing Doug off his game?
Well, he might be thrown, but there was no way she would bring him down.
If that tear she had tried to hide was anything to go by, he’d brought her grief back to the surface. There was no other choice. Doug was tempted to dial down his determination to find the truth. For the sake of this woman’s obvious pain, he could take some extra time to soothe her into sharing.
But he wasn’t going to.
Could she really be involved? Who even knew what the CIA was up to? In spite of his personal distaste, he had to push her. He couldn’t afford to suddenly go soft. Sabine knew something. Until he found out what, she was going to have to deal with the discomfort. They were together. And she was right. They really shouldn’t stay in this room any longer. Parelli’s guys could show up again any second.
“You good to go?”
Sabine grabbed her roll-on suitcase again. But this time when she straightened, her face was a blank mask.
He sighed. “Right. Let’s move.”
He took the suitcase from her. She didn’t like it, given the look on her face. Too bad. No man worth his salt made a woman pull her own suitcase when he was perfectly capable.
Doug scanned the hall both ways, gave a short nod and led her out, taking her hand to make sure she stayed with him. He paid no mind to the shimmer of warmth when he touched her slender fingers. He just hadn’t held a woman’s hand in a long time.
He pressed the button for the elevator. To anyone observing, they were simply a couple on their way down to check out. They could easily be on their honeymoon for all anyone else knew—except for the lack of wedding rings.
And didn’t that just prick his heart in a way he wasn’t ready to consider? Maybe, after he retired from the army, he could have that kind of relationship with a woman. Whoever she was, the woman he married would understand his driven nature because her heart beat to the same pattern. Family. Loyalty. Trust. Honesty. Those were the lifeblood of any relationship.
It was too bad he could never trust the woman beside him. His dream was just that—a dream. Until then he’d have to rely on God to take care of the future. The years of training that made him the man he was today would cover the here and now.
Six foot four, 250 pounds of muscle, Doug was a weapon honed by the United States Army into one of their best soldiers—a fact that had nothing to do with who his father was. Doug had sent home all the daddy’s boy naysayers with their tails between their legs. Sure, Doug could have gone the West Point route and earned butter bars, but the gold bars of a lieutenant’s rank would have put him behind a desk commanding missions. Not on the ground in the thick of it.
His dad had known exactly how hard Doug would
