Guilt.

CHAPTER 17

“YOUR wound is getting better,” Hancock said matter-of-factly.

His brisk and impersonal examination of Honor’s stitches told her that indeed he had no desire for her to remember those tender, unguarded moments that he thought she had no knowledge of.

“The swelling is almost gone from your knee. You should be able to walk on it in another day without pain.”

“Does that mean we can go home soon? Tomorrow?” she asked, grabbing on to those last words and holding them to her with unconcealed excitement.

His eyes flickered. She almost missed it before he turned away, pretending interest in one of her other more minor injuries. There was something there. Something he didn’t want her to see. It should have alarmed her, but she wasn’t afraid of him. She trusted him. He’d told her he’d get her safely from the reach of A New Era, and he’d done exactly that.

Then he shrugged. “It isn’t as easy as you seem to think it is. There are . . . things—plans—that must be put into place. It wouldn’t do to make any hasty moves. We aren’t out of danger yet.”

It was vague and yet it was a reminder to her that, regardless of the fact that she felt safe with him, they weren’t safe and they weren’t immune to an attack. She frowned, wishing she knew where the hell they were.

She hadn’t even seen one of Hancock’s men in the days she’d lain in this bed, in this isolated bedroom resting and healing. Hancock had brought her meals. Hancock had dressed and tended her wounds. He’d even helped her bathe, much to her mortification. But he’d helped her in the shower with brisk efficiency that made it appear as though it were the most mundane task in the world. He’d patiently washed her hair, shampooing it several times with each shower to rid the strands of the dye. And then there was the body scrubbing that had her face so scarlet that she likely resembled someone with a bad sunburn. But again, he’d merely been exacting and thorough as he cleaned the henna from her skin, returning it to its original sun-kissed state. If he was trying to make her solely dependent on him, he was doing a damn good job, because even the thought of someone else in her—this—room made her uneasy.

This wasn’t her room. Even if it had become hers over the last few days. Her room was at home. In her parents’ house. She didn’t maintain a separate residence in the States. It made no sense to do so. She was gone more often than she was home, and so when she visited between assignments, or simply needed a break when the pain and despair she faced on a daily basis became too much for her to bear without losing sight of her mission, she sought refuge at her parents’ home. She slept in her childhood bedroom, a room they kept for her. One that was purposely unchanged from when she was a teenager still in high school.

It had all the things she’d grown up with. Her favorite stuffed animals. Her beloved books. Her language textbooks and all the research books on the Middle East, its culture, the differences and nuances of each individual dialect that changed from region to region.

Even her sports trophies, though she’d laughed at the idea that her parents would keep what amounted to nothing more than a participation trophy. She’d certainly won no championships, nor had she stood out as an athlete like all her siblings had. She was the odd duck of the family.

Honor swore to her parents they must have adopted her or found her in a cabbage patch because she was nothing like her siblings. She was so much softer. More empathetic. She lacked the ruthless drive to succeed, to be successful at everything she did like her siblings did. They called her a softy. Too kindhearted and tender to survive in the “real world,” as they called it. And yet the world she lived in was the epitome of survival. Nothing at all like her family’s safe jobs, safe homes, safe lives.

Her father was a former all-star athlete. He’d played multiple sports but had gone to college on a football scholarship and had even been drafted to the pros. But by then he’d met and fallen in love with her mother, and he’d told his children often that he wanted nothing more than to be at home with her and for her to have his children. A house full.

Most doubted his sincerity, and Honor’s mother said that even she’d been skeptical at first. She hadn’t thought her husband would be happy just walking away from such a lucrative career in the spotlight. But he’d never displayed one ounce of regret, and only a year after they married, they had their first child.

Playing pro ball would have kept him from home for the majority of the year. There was spring training camp. There was the entire football season and the playoffs if the team made it to postseason play. There was no doubt her father could have been one of the greats, but instead, he’d taken a high school coaching job in Kentucky, where he and her mother had chosen to live and raise their family.

It was a small town in Kentucky, not so northern that it came too close to the line between north and south. It had the hallmark of every southern town. Open, friendly and welcoming. Small enough that everyone knew everyone else and as a result, everyone’s business was also known.

Honor and her siblings had grown up and thrived under the love and affection their parents had bestowed on them. Her brothers, every single one of them, excelled in one sport or another. As had her older sister. Her oldest brother had also played football in college and showed promise of being recruited by a pro team. He, like their father, hadn’t entered the draft and no one had questioned that decision. But then their father knew well that some decisions were simply too personal to be discussed. They just were.