The Secret Soldier. Jennifer Morey

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Special thanks go to Dave Baker for letting me have my way in the opening scenes of this story. Dave, those hours in front of your white board were sure entertaining! You have an amazing brain and your knowledge of the military was invaluable to me. Any mistakes are my own. To everyone who supported me on my long journey to publication, your positive influence kept me going at my lowest moments. Everyone at Digital-Globe—there are too many to name you all. You know who you are. Gary Geissinger, don’t worry, you won’t end up in my novel. Neal Anderson and Walter Scott, any other bosses would have fired me for taking so much time off to write! Natalie Ottobrino and Margie Lawson, your strength resonates with me. To my entire family, who put up with my many absences so I could write. Dan, even though we aren’t together anymore, you were an integral part of my success and will always be my friend. Jackie, you are my favorite twin—despite your poor taste in fiction. To Sandra Kerns and Annette Elton, for helping me make sure my characters didn’t do anything too stupid. And to every other critique partner I have learned from along the way.

      But the highest acknowledgment goes to my mother, Joan Morey, whose passing inspired me to follow my heart.

       Chapter 1

      “One more week in this hellhole.”

      Kneeling on the ground, Sabine O’Clery finished winding a water-level indicator reel from inside a borehole before looking up at her unhappy field partner. Samuel Barry scowled across the grayish-brown landscape of Afghanistan’s Panjshir Valley. Sabine followed his gaze, a dry, hot breeze rustling the loose strands of hair that had escaped her pony tail. High, desolate mountains surrounded them under a clear blue sky, and yellow patches of grass covered the ground where they worked. She found immense satisfaction putting her hydrogeology degree to good use in places like this, but she couldn’t argue with Samuel’s sentiment.

      “It’s pretty here,” she quipped.

      Samuel grunted in disgust. “Yeah, if you like dirt and no amenities.”

      “Everyone needs clean drinking water,” she said. She’d grown attached to some of the villagers, too.

      Samuel grumbled as he put a portable reader on the ground next to the borehole. He was a big man who always talked about his wife.

      “I can’t wait to taste Lisandra’s homemade orange juice,” he said, as if on cue.

      Sabine smiled. Would she ever find a man who made her feel like talking sweet nonsense about him? Ha! She wasn’t going to hold her breath.

      “She makes a killer crème brûlée, too.”

      “And her cheese soufflés?” she teased.

      Samuel laughed. “My mouth is watering already.” He looked at her. “Sorry. I just miss her.”

      “Really? I couldn’t tell.”

      “Just wait ‘til you get married. Then you’ll know what it’s like.”

      Marriage seemed so foreign to her. “Not everyone falls madly in love and lives happily ever after.”

      “Maybe not out here.” He gestured to the dry landscape. The pages of the field book he held flapped with the movement, his thumb keeping the ones against the cover flat.

      Maybe not ever. She didn’t want to end up like her mother, loving a man who came around only when it suited him, always leaving for his next thrill. Nothing irritated her more than being treated like a thrill.

      “You have to stop comparing every man to your dad,” Samuel said.

      She set the indicator reel aside and reached for the borehole reader, wishing she’d never mentioned her father to him. “I don’t.” Not every man.

      He sent her an unconvinced frown from above the field book but didn’t argue.

      “I haven’t seen him since he showed up at my college graduation and ruined what should have been my best accomplishment. Why would I compare anyone to him?”

      Samuel raised a brow, telling her without words that the emotional response had just answered her own question.

      Okay, so he was right. Her father epitomized the kind of man she never wanted to marry. She remembered the way she had felt when he’d shown up at her graduation. Unchecked hope that he’d come for the right reason flashed before a too-familiar self-doubt. Did he know about that ? she got her freshman year? Never mind the honors. Maybe hydrogeology wasn’t scientifically challenging enough. If she’d become the first female president of the United States, her father probably still wouldn’t have been impressed.

      So why waste any energy thinking of him at all? It wasn’t supposed to bother her anymore. She’d overcome her insecurities and childish hopes the moment she left him standing in that college auditorium.

      Connecting the reader to the piezometer inside the borehole harder than necessary, Sabine waited for the measurement to appear on the display. Samuel wrote the number down in his field book, eyeing her dubiously.

      She’d never seen what real happiness looked like until she met her field partner. Maybe that’s what had her thinking about her father so much lately. Happiness was not a word she’d learned from his example.

      She straightened from the borehole. They were finished for the day.

      “Let’s go see if our supply helicopter brought us some cold beer.” Samuel closed his field book.

      “If Aden came with it, there’ll be beer.” As CEO of Envirotech and the one who had contracted them to do the groundwater analysis, Aden Archer always made room in the supply helicopter for good beer.

      “He sure does come here a lot. Have you noticed that?”

      “He doesn’t come here that much.”

      “He doesn’t need to be here at all.”

      She didn’t think it was that unusual. “I saw him meet with one of the locals once. Maybe it’s business related.”

      Samuel’s brow creased as he looked at her. “Who’d he meet?”