Chapter Two
Sarah’s head was being beaten by an angry army of toddlers. Or, that was what it felt like. At least her nephew wasn’t gnawing on her ear, like that one time she’d fallen asleep on the sofa after too much wine. Emily had just watched and let it happen. The bitch.
And what the hell was that smell?
She was in bed, but everything else was fuzzy around the edges. Jet lag did weird things to her head.
Sarah rubbed her face with both hands. Her left arm twinged with a deep, painful cramp. She hissed and stretched it out.
“Careful,” a deep voice said right next to her. As in, in-the-bed-with-her close.
Sarah turned her head, struggling to recall the last few hours—or yesterday, even—but it was a blur.
“Where am I?” And who was he?
“Seoul.”
Rand.
Her stomach tightened, and her toes curled. The lust uncurling in her chest chilled. Nothing good would land her in a bed with him. All her girlish daydreams about waking up exactly like this died a miserable, wailing death.
How much shit was she in? What had happened to bring them together?
The last thing she remembered was being at the airport and…a call with Irene…and then…it went a lot fuzzy.
She sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes with her right hand. She had that yucky cotton-head feeling and her mouth was dry. Had she taken something?
“The painkillers did a real number on you.” Rand sat up, the early morning light highlighting his broken features, the deep scars. They’d aged, some lessening, so he appeared more like the guy she remembered and less like the wounded hero. He was still as ruggedly handsome as the day he walked out of her life a broken man.
“What happened?” Pills. That was why she felt so funny. She cradled her aching head in her hands.
“Short version, the company put a tracker in your arm, and someone sold you out to the MSS. More of us might be in danger. I don’t know yet.” He was either frowning, or his face was stuck that way. “Tracker’s gone. Haven’t made contact yet.”
“I was running—and you were there.”
“Drink.” He pushed a bottle of chilled water into her hand.
Sarah drank the liquid greedily. Her empty stomach cramped. How long had it been since she’d eaten? She couldn’t begin to process Rand’s succinct account of what’d happened. Not before tea and a meal.
“There’s food in the kitchen.” He thumbed over his shoulder. Like many small Korean apartments, the space was a single room, with an entry that doubled as a kitchen. She was willing to bet the bathroom was there, too.
“Starving. How long was I out?”
“You passed out for a bit, then we got here, and you conked out for the last six hours.”
She’d arrived in Seoul late in the afternoon, cooled her heels until time to do the drop… Which meant it now had to be mid-to-late afternoon. Not morning at all.
“Shit. I missed my flight.” Sarah stood, still wearing her shoes, jeans, and T-shirt she’d left the States wearing.
“You’re still alive.”
“I know, but—”
She should have been in China. Her drop there was for eight tonight. Then on to meet up with Charlie, the agent over all the operatives in Asia. Truth be told, she wasn’t sad about missing time with him. Ever since their failed fling, she never quite knew how to act around him. Things had changed, and he wasn’t the man she’d first met. He’d never been like Rand. No one could measure up to him, though. That was just the way of things.
“I have to call in.” She turned toward Rand and the small bed they’d shared.
“No.”
“Rand—”
“Someone at the company bugged you. And someone sold you out. You know what that means?”
“You can’t be serious.” She leaned against a desk, the only other furniture in the room.
Rand stood, unfolding his big body to his full height, towering over her. She gulped and stared up at him. She’d always been the vertically challenged one. It made for great hugs, though. Rand in particular had always liked picking her up, and deep down she’d always loved that moment of trust, knowing he’d never drop her.
He was telling her she’d been burned…and all she could think about were old times.
It was too much to wrap her head around.
“W-what do we do?” She was a courier. She took things from point A to point B, and that was it. Her training was minimal. This job was supposed to be low risk. Then why was she in an apartment with her arm cut open and no way to know if it was safe to leave the country?
The lines around Rand’s mouth deepened.
“Say it,” she demanded. Years apart, and she still knew when he was holding back.
“What was the nature of your mission?”
“I’m a courier. That’s it. I only have one operative I meet face-to-face, the rest are all dead drops.”
“Any idea what you’re transporting?”
She shook her head.
“Where’s the rest of your stuff?”
“In a locker at the airport.”
“Key?”
“In the jacket we tossed.”
“Shit.” Rand paced the length of the small apartment. “I can work with that.”
“Are you sure they’re after me? What about the envelope?”
“If they knew what was in it, they’d have been trying to shoot you—not capture you.” Rand pushed the sliding door open that separated the entry and kitchen from the main room.
“Where are we?”
“We’re squatting in a vacant apartment.”
“Is it safe?”
“For now.”
Rand pulled out a box of take-out from the mini-fridge, dished out food into two bowls, and slid them into a microwave.
It was surreal being in the same room with him. They hadn’t spoken or seen each other since the day in Matt’s hospital room. The day they’d amputated from the elbow down. She understood why Rand blamed himself for the accident; the guilt was natural. Leaving Matt—her—without the opportunity to make things right, was the true crime.
Matt had needed his friend. He’d needed Rand. And Rand hadn’t been there. He’d vanished. Refused all form of contact. Cut them out of his life.
One day, she’d been writing him letters and drawing hearts over all the Is in the hopes that someday he’d get the picture, and then he was gone. Her letters came back undelivered, and no one heard from him anymore.
Matt’s recovery, his acceptance, had taken years. There was no doubt in Sarah’s mind that Rand’s absence had made things worse.
“Here. Eat.”
She blinked at the bowl of rice, still lost in her head.
“You have to eat,” he said.
“I know.” She took it and perched on the edge of the bed.
She could barely take her eyes off him. His reddish brown hair had more of a gingery tone, and there were more freckles on his skin. Those eyes of his, they were older now. She couldn’t imagine the things he’d seen, but under it all, she still recognized her Rand. The man who’d made her want to grow up a little faster.
“Have you slept?” she asked.
“I can’t let you leave.”
Sarah chewed the rice slowly. Just like Rand to wait until she had a mouth full of food to say something.
“I’m days away from completing a sensitive mission. Regardless if we’re compromised, I can’t see my assets hung out to dry.”
She swallowed and set the bowl on the bed. “What do you want to do?” She was at a loss, here. In over her head. Her training didn’t cover what to do in this situation.
He stared at her, nothing like the Rand she’d known. He was harder. With more edges that could cut than she could count. He was weighing her, deciding how far he could trust their tenuous connection versus her status as the newest burnt dish.
“I’ve spent the last year and a half supporting a high level general in the North Korean army who wants to defect. He knows things. But we’ve come to a point where he refuses to help us unless we get him and his family out of the country.”
Shit. That would not go over well. “The envelope…it’s what? Passports? Visas?”
“Sort of.”
“You want me to stay here until you’re done?”
“You have to go with me.”
“I’m not a spy, Rand. I carry a briefcase around.”
“You don’t have to do anything. I just can’t afford for you to fall into the wrong hands.”
It was all about him. How she was a danger to his mission. His objective.
Sarah nodded.
It made sense. She knew way too much about Rand, his family, and what he was doing. Her ability to withstand torture was laughable. They’d break her in hours. From a tactical standpoint, it made complete sense.
The girl who’d idolized Rand didn’t understand the shift in their relationship now that there wasn’t one. This was the man she’d looked up to, the one who’d played Lincoln Logs with her and told her one day he’d build her a house and they’d get married. Deep down, she’d held onto that promise through all these years. It was ridiculous and silly, but…she’d never given up the torch for him. Oh, she might want to wring his goddamn neck for abandoning Matt like he had, but an equal part of her wanted to hug him so tight he wouldn’t be broken anymore.
Rand Duncan might be a badass spy, but she’d seen him the day they amputated Matt’s arm. She knew what a shattered human being looked like.
“You understand, don’t you?”
“That you want me to be your prisoner to make sure your gig is safe? Yeah. I get it.”
“You aren’t a prisoner, Sarah.”
“You aren’t even considering if what I’m carrying is important to someone else’s mission.”
“I can’t think about anyone else right now.”
“I’m sorry I’m an inconvenience.”
“That’s—stop. I did not say that.”
She tilted her head to the side and stared at him. The same way he used to stare at her when she wanted to play with him and Matt and they’d told her no. Repeatedly.
His lips thinned.
“What I mean is, my priorities are you, me, and my assets. That’s it. I can’t be responsible or accountable for anything else. Besides, our handlers know what happened. If there’s something sensitive in there they need to get to someone, they’ll make it happen.”
You. Me. Assets.
Rand liked lists. Order. She’d thrown away hundreds over her lifetime. There were still times she’d open a book when she was at home and find a list crammed between the pages. He’d rewrite a list until he had everything in the right place. Most important, to least.
He’d put her at the top of his list.
They were words, but they were important.
Rand had changed. But she was still important to him. The same way he was to her. For now, that was enough.
“What’s in the briefcase?” he asked. “Eat.”
“I can’t eat and answer.” Still, she spooned a bit of rice and held it. “You know I can’t tell you what’s in it.”
“Can it wait?”
“I…think so.” The hitch was, she was the only person who could open it. She knew that. Her handler knew that. And the person she’d deliver the remaining contents to also knew that. No one else did. “What do you want us to do now?”
“I’ve been thinking—”
“You have a plan? Shocking.”
“Shut up, you.” He tossed the corner of the bedspread at her.
Sarah grinned. They weren’t that different now, were they? Her heart didn’t seem to think so. In an instant, it was as though she’d hit rewind on her life and they were teenagers again, hanging out in her room because Matt was grounded and Rand was bored. She’d lived for those weeks, when Rand would come over to see her, and not her brother.
She stuffed rice in her mouth before she said anything she’d regret.
“We wait until nightfall, move to one of my off-the-grid hides. I have supplies there. While you clean up, I can find you a change of clothes. I also have a suture kit there.”
“Oh, goodie.” The constant throb in her arm was uncomfortable, but not really painful.
“Once we set up the meet, we’ll need twelve hours to get into position. After we hand off the goods, we’re done. We can arrange an extraction for the both of us.”
“What about your assets?”
“They’ll have their own way out of the country.”
“You’ve clearly thought of everything. Have you been here long?” She nibbled on more of the food without really tasting it.
For eight years, she’d wondered where the hell Rand was, and now she had the chance to ask him to his face. And she couldn’t.
“Seventeen months, two weeks, three days and…” He glanced at his wristwatch.
“I get it.”
Rand. So literal sometimes. She couldn’t help but smile. God, she’d missed him, but she didn’t even know him anymore. What could she say to him?
I’ve missed you.
I hate you.
How could you?
It physically hurt to look at him, as if someone were ramming a knife between her ribs over and over again. She almost wanted to pull up her shirt to see if she was bleeding.
His voice dropped, softer, quieter. “How’s your brother?”
The elephant in the room.
“Matt’s good.” She pushed the rice in her bowl around.
“What’s he up to these days?”
“Working. Burping babies. He married Emily.”
“Wait—your friend, Emily?”
“Yeah. We made him go with us that last year in Thailand. I think it was always going to happen between them. She’d crushed on him since we were teens.” Sarah smiled. Emily was the only person Sarah had trusted enough to share her girlish attraction to Rand. She missed her friend, but there was no doubt in her mind Matt needed Emily more. “They have two kids. Jonah, who’s four, and Jillian, who’ll be one in two months.”
“Are you serious?” Rand seemed to deflate. He leaned back and stared across the room.
“Yeah. Matt works for a construction company as a general contractor. Emily’s a stay-at-home mom and sells leggings at online parties. I’m pretty sure he’s stressed about how much space her inventory takes up, but they’re doing good. Talking about getting a bigger house, having more kids.”
“Jesus. They’re okay? He’s fine?” She recognized the tones of disbelief. There’d been a chunk of time when even Sarah didn’t know if her brother would make it, if he’d choose to go on.
“Matt lost his arm, Rand, not his life. He could’ve used you back then, you know?” We all could have.
Rand glanced away, the shame still the albatross around his neck. She’d sensed it the last time she’d seen him. The weight of that guilt must have been suffocating. But it didn’t change the fact that Matt—and Sarah—had needed him.
“I get the guilt. I understand why you think you were responsible for that accident, but you weren’t. It was war, Rand. What I don’t understand is abandoning your best friend when he needed you.”
“You don’t get it, Sarah.”
“Then try to explain it.” She put the bowl down and glared at him, years of pent-up bitterness ready to lash out.
For several long moments they stared at each other. As children, they’d fought and argued like siblings, but this man was a stranger to her now, no matter how much she wanted him to be her friend. He had the name of a man she’d loved. But he wasn’t the man she remembered. He was different and she had to wonder if she knew him at all anymore.
“I fucked up. I should have realized it was a trap, that something was wrong.” He was back there, mired in memory, the mistakes.
“Matt doesn’t blame you.”
“He should. Is he really okay?”
“Yeah. He’s probably sleep deprived because the baby hates sleeping at night, but other than that, he’s fine.”
“The arm, it doesn’t hold him back?”
“Not a bit. It did in the beginning. He’d get surly and say he couldn’t do stuff, but it was more that he hadn’t learned how to do it. He got pretty depressed there for a while, and we were worried about him, but Emily cured him of that.”
“How’d she do that?”
“It’s a long story you have to hear Matt tell.” She relaxed by degrees. “There were still two bad years in there. Matt missed you. We all did.” I missed you.
She’d needed someone to lean on when Matt would get ticked off and her parents would cry. It’d been up to her to fill Rand’s void and keep them all together. She couldn’t imagine the guilt Rand must have felt, but they’d forgiven him. Never once had Matt or she blamed him for the accident. It was war. Terrible things happened. What she couldn’t get over was being abandoned.
Rand reached for her blindly and they twined their fingers together. In that moment, she was seventeen again. The boys had just graduated boot camp and would be headed off to war. They’d gone out to celebrate. Matt had drunk himself silly and passed out at the hotel, leaving Rand and Sarah to stroll down to a park. They’d sat on swings, fingers entwined. He’d had a story, some silly point about how he and Matt would be half a world away and still right there…but all she remembered was sitting there, holding his hand, scared to let him go.
If he couldn’t face what had happened, that he’d abandoned them out of misplaced guilt, she didn’t know if they could work together.
The day she’d heard Matt and Rand were in an accident, that there’d been a fire fight, she’d worried about both of them. Even when the details came out, painting Rand at fault, because someone had to carry the blame. Maybe if her parents had found fault with him, or if Matt were angry, but they all got it. And he’d still disappeared.
It hurt.
“Bathroom functional?” She needed a moment to herself. To pack all these stray emotions in before she cried.
“Yup. Through there.”
“Thanks.” She stood slowly, holding herself together.
There was still a big, Rand-shaped hole in her heart. Well, now she knew where he’d been and could assume why he hadn’t come back. Spy work was dangerous. It was why she avoided home as much as possible. She just didn’t know if the man with her now was the same one she missed. She wasn’t the same person from back then, so why should she expect him to be the same? To be what she wanted?
…
Rand watched her cross the room, his gaze drifting lower, measuring her stride, looking for a limp or weakness. If they had to run, he needed to know if she could keep up. Those hips. He’d studied them as a teen. There was a whole mental flip-book of Sarah in those tiny volleyball shorts from high school lodged in his skull, featuring those hips.
Sarah Collins. All grown up.
She closed the bathroom door, shutting him out. All the tension lodged between his shoulder blades was leaking into the rest of him.
How the fuck had this happened?
The last time he’d seen Sarah, they’d been in that hospital room. He’d taken one look at Matt, then her, and known he couldn’t stick around. That he was the last thing they needed in their lives. He destroyed things. Anything near him was in danger. And Sarah was too precious to risk.
She shouldn’t be here. How long had she worked for the company? How deep in was she?
He stood and stalked across the room to the window.
They’d lost the MSS agents tracking her once the chip was out, which only confirmed his suspicion that someone had sold her out. Had the same person turned him over as well? Or were they ignorant about his role in this? Did the MSS know?
Part of him wanted to kidnap Sarah, take her to Africa or maybe somewhere in Europe. Lose themselves for a while until the company, the mole, and the fucking Koreans found someone else to haunt. But if he did that, a family would die. Children. And he already had so much death weighing on him. But Sarah… After what he’d taken from their family once, he couldn’t risk her, too.
He still wasn’t sure what to make of seeing her again. Courier Girl, the same person he’d traded so many innocuous notes with, was Sarah.
She’d known it was him.
He could hear her voice reading all those lines, the teasing tones. She’d been communicating with him all this time. How did she not hate him?
The bathroom door opened, and he listened to her light footsteps crossing the tile.
“Do we have any of those painkillers? Something light.”
“In my bag.” He turned, and a lump lodged in his throat.
Even exhausted and travel-worn, she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Dark hair, pale skin, green eyes, short and curvy. He’d always wondered what she’d grow up like.
“How long have you been working for the company?” He fished the bottle of pills out of his bag and handed her one.
“Since I was…twenty-three? It was the year we were in Thailand, so yeah, that’s right.”
“What is it you do?” And how much danger was she in?
“Clean water initiative.”
“I remember that. I meant for the company.” Sarah had always been a crusader type. Thinking about others. Never about herself.
“Oh. Right. I, um, I mostly transport things. I’m not a real spy. More like a courier. I don’t think I can say more than that.”
“I get it.”
They stared at each other. She seemed a bit wary, and he couldn’t blame her. He’d abandoned them, so why should she trust that he wouldn’t do the same thing now? He thought he’d been doing the right thing then. He wasn’t so sure now.
“How have you been?” he asked.
“Good.” She rubbed her palms on her jeans and sat down again. “My life is actually a lot more boring than you’d imagine.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“No, really. I make these deliveries on my way back and forth from where I’m stationed. Otherwise, I work with local water companies and help facilitate new treatment plants for remote areas in China.”
China. Shit. Talk about jumping from frying pan into the fire. Thailand was a pretty small fry in the Asia game, but China? No wonder the company had recruited her if that was where she was now.
“How’d this happen?” he asked.
“We got home after Thailand. These people came to ask me questions. They had a job offer for Emily and me.” Sarah pushed the rice in her bowl around. “I think…I’m pretty sure they just wanted me. Or maybe one of us. But they said they wanted to recruit Emily and me. Emily and Matt’s relationship was so new. He needed her in a way no one else could be there for him. I couldn’t let her be put in any more danger. So I told them I’d take the job so long as they left her out of it. Here I am.”
Christ. That was Sarah. Everyone else before her. “Your brother know?”
“Oh my God, no.” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t give me that look.”
“What?”
“You’re giving me the look.”
“What look?”
“That one.” She pointed at his face. “You don’t like my choices and you want to tell me not to do it.”
“You’re right. This is dangerous, and I don’t like the idea of you being hurt. Did I say anything, though? No. Because I’m willing to bet that arguing with you has gotten even more frustrating with age.”
“You never seemed to mind arguing as kids.”
“I’d like to get us out of here in one piece.”
Her lips thinned. Was she thinking about Matt?
He was.
Rand hadn’t been able to do right by her brother, which meant this was his chance to make up for that mistake at least. If he could keep Sarah safe, get her home—maybe he could forgive himself.
“I’ve missed you,” she said.
He nodded, not trusting his voice enough to speak yet.
Sarah put her bowl down on the floor and scooted over to sit next to him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and rested her cheek against his shoulder.
She’d be justified in hating him. If Matt wanted to kick his ass, he wouldn’t even put up a fight. Rand had earned that.
He looped his arm around her and kissed the top of her head.
He’d missed Sarah, Matt, their families. Everything had changed, and if he were honest, he’d never moved on from the accident.
“I’ve missed you, too,” he finally got out.
“You could have called. Emailed. Come back.” She squeezed him a bit tighter.
He needed to put space between them. It was one thing to air their grievances about the past, it was another to hold her. Touch her. He was a special kind of fucked up, and she needed to be far away from him.
Rand cleared his throat and let go. “If you’re done eating, we should hit the road.” He checked the time. “I’d like to use the afternoon rush to make it across the city.”
“Good thing I didn’t take my shoes off, I guess.” She let go with him, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Ready when you are.”
Her lips were full, slightly red, like she wore some sort of lip balm or something. Would she taste sweet? What did adult Sarah sound like when she kissed? He’d never forgotten catching her with a boyfriend under the bleachers, or the moan that’d nearly had him breaking the other kid’s nose.
“Great.” Rand stood and strode across the apartment. He shoved a few things in his bag and slung it over his shoulders. “I’ll go first. I want you to stay twenty yards or so behind me.”
The faster they reached the safe house, the sooner he could set up the meet across the border. Then he could get Sarah out. Home. Fuck the briefcase, and fuck her going back to China. He’d take her home and sit on her if he had to.
Someone had betrayed her. Twice. And he was going to do everything in his power to make her safe.