Ruckus felt like a first-class jerk, but he couldn’t get around his orders. Sometime SEALs made split second decisions in the field and went with their gut. His gut was saying that Dana was determined to do as she pleased. He had no reason to give into a civilian and her foolhardy plans. Except he’d watched her give water to that old woman, the memories and the pain washing across her face. He’d read every regret, every sorrow. He understood why she wanted to go with him and that all tore him up like nothing had in a long time.

He’d watched her with that old woman and knew she was remembering. She’d fought to school her breathing into a regular rhythm, blinked furiously at the moisture gathering in her eyes, busied herself with the welfare of the figure in the bed. Damn, she was a tough beauty. Once the lady had fallen asleep, there was no reason she shouldn’t have just let go and bawled her eyes out if she wanted to. But she struggled to rein her emotions in, fought for control.

He sighed heavily.

She was getting on that plane. He just hated that she would never forgive him. So, what the hell? He’d let another woman down. What else was new? At least she’d be alive and safe. So why did he feel so raw inside?

He’d negotiated for a boat, the small, wiry man jumping up and down until he got his desired price. Ruckus paid him and he and Dana were leaving at nightfall for Yaviza. She had been giving him the cold shoulder ever since she’d heard through his mic that Wicked had secured the airport.

She was across from him shoveling in her food, focusing on it. He looked over to the bar where Sienna was taking care of customers. Dana had given the money she’d taken out of her pack to the young Brit.

It was a purely knee-jerk reaction on Dana’s part, helping a young woman who was currently in the same boat Dana had been months ago, except, Ruckus got the feeling that she hadn’t gotten closure.

This situation was volatile because there were deep emotions attached to those memory cards. Promises and guilt. A double-edged sword, sharp and dangerous—and poised between them. One of them would get cut. Ruckus had a feeling it’d be him. So he would have to take it a day at a time, living in each moment, breathing her in, absorbing every nuance. The heated fragrance of her bare skin beneath his palms, her lush naked contours pressing to him and making him so hard he’d thought he’d come before he could even enter her. Dammit. The memory of her body jangling his nerves.

Ruckus felt like a man tottering on the brink of insanity and scowled, then the little boy came into the bar and went to one of the stools. A man was slumped over and the boy tugged on the man’s sleeve. He stirred and pushed the little boy away, but the kid, nerves of steel, went right back.

“Worthless little bastard…”

The voice came out of the past, out of his childhood. A voice beyond the grave. He flinched at the memory of that voice. A conditioned response, even after all this time. Often enough, a slurred line from his old man had been followed up with a back-hand across the mouth.

The image of his father rose up from one of the dark corners of his mind to taunt, and unable to help himself, he stood. Dana looked up at him and something on his face must have alarmed her because she said, “Bowie?”

The memory of his mom sent anger shooting through him, blood running from her nose and lip brought the rage he’d buried for so many years shooting into his gut like adrenaline. Tears swam in her eyes and streamed down her cheeks, but she didn’t utter a word. His old man didn’t like noise. Made him even meaner.

His eyes were riveted to the little boy now helping the man out of the bar. He followed them and a few paces down the street. The man backhanded the kid and he tumbled into a puddle. When he lunged at the kid, Ruckus was on him, shoving him against the wall, his fist landing in his father’s face.

Just like he had all those years ago. When he’d been too small to help her, he’d tried and it had gotten him nothing but pain. But then he grew, matured, filled out and the blow he’d delivered at seventeen knocked his father against the wall, out cold.

“Stop it, Bowie,” Dana’s voice pierced his memories, the fog lifting abruptly as the view of the bloodied stranger’s face came into focus. He squeezed his eyes closed against it. He slammed his fist against the wall, the sounds of agony lost in the impact. He backed away from the man.

“Go home,” he growled and the drunk stumbled away. He turned to find the kid looking up at him, wet, shaking with the same look in his eyes that Bowie had seen in his own.

He knelt down and took the boy’s small arms in his hands. “Don’t ever let him make you feel worthless. You’re not.” He grabbed his chin. “Be strong.”

The little boy’s eyes flashed and his chin lifted. He nodded curtly and then ran off down the street. For a moment, Bowie knelt there breathing around his pain. Finally he felt her hands on him. “Come on,” she whispered.

He rose and they went back to their room, the meal forgotten. He went into the bathroom and turned on the water, hissing a little at the sting of the cuts on his knuckles, the blood, his own and the drunk’s, washed down the drain.

He understood how she felt about her mother, but he had hated his father and hadn’t mourned his passing for even a fraction of a second. The resentment was more acute that his mom had thrown him out. It hurt like a bitch, even now.

He wanted to let go of his bitterness and his pain, find some common ground and have a successful relationship out of the SEALs, but his role model had been so damaged, lost in a bottle, mean to the bone. Sometimes Bowie worried that he was just like him, if he didn’t hate alcohol so much he might have even…he couldn’t finish the thought.

When she came into the bathroom and took his hand, he tried to pull away, but she held on tight. She pressed her lips together and used the first aid kit to take care of his cuts.

When she was done, he left the room, brushing past her in the confines, the scent of her filling him up and pushing away the darkness.

He knew that old fears never quite died—they just hid in dark corners of the mind and waited for the chance to slip out.

He went to the window and looked out. “He deserved it,” he said and believed every word. Maybe it would stop him from hitting the kid again, but Bowie didn’t think so. There was nothing he could do for that kid, just like he’d been powerless with his own father.

“He did. Absolutely. But I don’t care about him. How are you?”

He debated the wisdom of revealing anything about that time in his life. A part of him wanted to guard the secrets, hide the past, protect himself. “We should get a couple hours of sleep before we move out.”

She came around in front of him. “Don’t,” she whispered and cupped his cheek. “He abused you, that’s clear. Can you talk about it?”

He shrugged, as if it was unimportant or easy, when it was far from being either. “Yeah, old news.”

“Apparently not.”

Trying to hide anything from this woman who had shared the most private, intimate time with him, who had given him so much pleasure and held him safe in her arms challenged him and surprised him. She had opened her body to him, now he felt safe opening another part of himself, tentatively, hesitantly, feeling more vulnerable than he had in his life. “He was a mean, abusive drunk. I tried to fight back, but I was too small. Then I turned seventeen, and I clocked him, knocked him out cold. My mom threw me out after that.”

“Did she? Maybe she wanted you to be safe. Maybe she wanted something better for you. Maybe she knew you were strong enough to survive, and she wanted to give you that chance before the violence closed off your freedom.”

“Closed off my freedom?”

“Bowie, the violence could have gotten worse. I bet she knew that.”

He’d never thought about that. He’d been mired in his bitterness. He’d never considered that his mom cared enough about him to make him go. She would have been trapped with him and his moods.

He thought about all the years that had passed. The years she had endured when he was alive, and now, Bowie had cut off any ties with her completely. He tried to breathe around that revelation, but his lungs couldn’t seem to expand to accommodate the humid air. The pressure was so great, he wondered wildly if he would simply explode.

He needed control.

His hands balled into tight fists at his side as he tried to leash the fury building inside him. His whole body trembled with the power of it. If there wasn’t rage and pain, there was now guilt.

“I wished him dead so many times, I lost count. He robbed us both,” he whispered, his voice strained. He covered his eyes for a minute, trying to swallow past the emotion clogging his chest, rising in his throat.

“Oh, Bowie.” She clasped him around the waist and pressed her face against his. “It’s not too late.” He watched her blink rapidly, as if she were afraid to take her eyes off him for even a fraction of a second. She held her ground, that was for sure, brave as all get out. And his heart squeezed painfully at the thought.

A fresh surge of hate for his father welled up inside him, and he recognized that a large part of his anger was from the fact that he had never been made to pay for his crimes. Justice had never been served. Some of the blame for that was his, he knew, and the guilt for that was terrible. If only he had found the courage to refuse to go or tell someone at school. But he hadn’t.

His mother had been the one to suffer the price. Regret burned like acid in his throat, behind his eyes. He clenched his jaw against it, whipped himself mentally to get past it.

“Come on.” She coaxed him toward the bed. Let’s get a couple hours of sleep before we have to go.” He moved with her, relieved that she wasn’t giving him the cold shoulder any more. Somewhere along this journey with her, he found that he needed her. But, that was something he would have to get over. He wasn’t convinced that he could take any steps to make himself feel better. Not sure he could bridge the gap between his past and present, release the hatred and bitterness that had been so much a part of his life. It had fueled his anger, allowed him to excel as a SEAL. The team was his family.

But he took the comfort she offered as she smoothed her hands over him in the dark. He’d struggled with female relationships his whole life. After the horrible failure of his marriage, he had never let another woman get close, never this close. Abandonment was always there in his mind, lurking, and he left before they could leave him. It was his pattern. But Dana, she broke down his defenses with her understanding and her compassion. He admired her courage and her fortitude. She was like no one he’d ever met before.

Once his orders were given, he didn’t deviate unless he reassessed everything and found the decision to not be sound. He was decisive, lives depended on his leadership. Her life depended on it.

Dana was a complicated woman, and she’d shared only a brief glimpse of who she was. Outside she was strong and confident.

Inside she was lost. Like him.

Hours later, in the dark, they made their final preparations and walked through the town to the dock. They loaded up the boat, and the motor was the only sound that broke the hush of the forest.

The breeze was warm with a mixture of fertility, decay and fish on the wind. As they passed pockets of green, the cacophony of the inhabitants of the forest made sure it was never really quiet out here.

He wrestled and struggled with the concept of letting a civilian accompany him on a top secret, black ops mission. It went against his orders to get her on that plane. Miles of trekking with her, protecting her had changed their relationship ten-fold. He wasn’t the same guy who had HALO’d into the jungle.

She had changed him.

His butt could be in a sling, his very career on the line, and that was his life, his family and it terrified him to think about being out, disgraced. It made him sick, in fact.

His father had been a piss-mean, drunken good-for-nothing son of a bitch who had told him time and again he would never be anything but a good-for-nothing son of a bitch. Bowie had proved him wrong, both about his lethal name and what he could accomplish.

But he had to admit, Dana wasn’t just a civilian. Something had happened between them. When they had been locked together on that bed after her shower, his barriers had been obliterated. Her features had softened, her brown eyes glowed with more than open desire, and Ruckus didn’t know what he wanted from her, if she gave a damn, but his body inside hers was more than two people satisfying a need.

Oh, yeah, it was something. And, fuck him, but he wanted more.

He couldn’t dismiss what this meant to the cupcake, to Dana. It was closure for her and she was willing to risk her life for it. That’s what he couldn’t seem to reconcile or ignore. If he was being honest with himself, his orders suited him just fine. He wanted to keep her safe, dammit. But the way she had looked at him, the fierceness in her eyes when she’d told him she was getting her memory cards back had been as fierce as any SEAL.

The soft sound of the motor echoed off the trees that crowded the shore, a no man’s land beyond, one he’d traversed with this beautiful woman sitting quietly beside him. Voices travelled easily over the water, and he’d cautioned her about talking.

“What you did for Sienna,” he whispered, keeping his voice low. “That was admirable.”

“I didn’t do it to garner your admiration,” she said stiffly. The woman who had held him last night, comforted him was gone. The lie he’d told her now sat between them.

“It’s clear to me what’s driving you, Dana.”

“I’m so glad you get it, Bowie,” she said, her eyes snapping and sarcasm dripping from her voice.

He was undeterred. His secrets were out in the open, and she’d actually helped him. He flexed his knuckles on the hand he’d slammed against the wall, close to that man’s face he’d wanted to smash again. But the anger was that of a teenager. It was now time to take control of it, be a man and let go of the hatred he held for his father. It was the only way to move on. All this time, she’d been right. His father was controlling him and now that he realized that, he wasn’t going to let it get the best of him. Never again.

“Did your mother love you?”

She glared at him as if she wanted to smack him hard across the face. “Yes, she loved me.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because…she told me. She showed me. She was always there for me, supporting me, taking care of me, giving me advice.” Her eyes narrowed, the guilt and grief riding her hard. “After your failed marriage, you can be a good judge? Why did she leave you, Bowie?”

That hit him hard making his own guilt tighten. “We’re not talking about my failures here. We’re talking about yours.”

Her hands clenched into fists and she glared at him, angry tears filling her eyes. “You would be an expert, then.”

“Yeah. Did you love her?”

“Yes,” she snapped as if she couldn’t quite understand where he was going with this questioning. “You know I still do.”

“So, as she lay dying alone, was she really alone? Wasn’t she thinking about you and your father and that no amount of short time that she had left did she think less of you. That she would have gone into death still loving you.”

Her face contorted, and she huddled into herself, her shoulders pulled in tight. The agony on her face, the gut-wrenching pain in her eyes hollowed him out, her tears shredded him. “She loved you, Dana. That’s forever. It wouldn’t have changed and nothing you do or put yourself through will change it. So cut yourself some slack, and stop punishing yourself for not being there when she died. Sometimes promises are held in the heart even when they can’t be redeemed. You don’t have to suffer and sabotage your own happiness to atone for anything. I guarantee that it didn’t matter that you were there in person. You were there in her heart, and her love for you carried her through.”

She didn’t say a word, only stayed turned away from him, her soft crying he hoped washed away her guilt, freed her from the terrible pain, let her begin to mourn for her mom.

His throat thick, he looked away from her toward the banks thick with patches of yellow spiked cane and coffee weed, fan-fronded palmetto trees and verdant ferns. The Gap was teeming with danger, but it also held a primitive beauty. Unable to handle it, he turned back and pulled her against him, wrapped his arm around her. She turned her hot, wet face into his neck, weeping in earnest as her tears soaked into his T-shirt, and his heart constricted against her sorrow.

Her sobs subsided, and there was nothing but sniffles as they passed through a shadowy corridor of trees, the sounds of branches rustling were most likely disturbed monkeys vaulting from one bower to the next. She still held onto him, and he assuaged his guilty conscience with the hope that his words had some impact on her, just as hers had an impact on him.

They made Yaviza as dawn was breaking across the jungle, the sky orange, then a smoky white that lightened to a lush purple stain across the horizon, that gave way to a bold, brilliant azure. She moved out of his embrace, her red-rimmed eyes the only sign that she’d gone through a deep-emotional breakdown.

He spied the dock and activity as citizens of Yaviza prepared for the day on the water. Rivers here were the highways of this region. He guided the boat over to the dock, settled between two boats and tied off the pirogue. He went to help Dana up to the dock, but she was already moving. Transportation on his mind, he maneuvered to the dock and followed her. The town was bustling for so early in the morning, but she seemed to know where she was going. They would bus out, get to Panama City, then to the airport where they…he could rent a car to drive to the resort. She would be in the air, winging it back to San Diego. He was just hours away from saying goodbye to her.

Sympathy rushed through him for her and he shoved it back. He wasn’t going to endanger her no matter how much he understood why.

Her stiff back told him that she was renewing her anger all over again, and he couldn’t blame her. He had lied to her as part of his mission, he’d had to say he would go along with her to get her to comply with his wishes and keep the arguments down to a minimum. That cupcake could argue the paint off the walls when she put her mind to it.

A formidable mind and a delectable body all wrapped up in enough attitude to fuel a metropolis.

Damn, why did he have to like her so much?

Trusting her, though. He wasn’t so sure about that.

Outside of the SEALs, he’d had a lifetime of it shoved back in his face.

They went up an incline into the main part of the city. Dana leading the way. This would be the test to see if he could pass as Liam Nelson. They were similar, both of them with dark hair, and Ruckus was hoping the growth of beard would hide any dissimilar features.

But he suspected getting into Yaviza was much more difficult than getting into Panama City. They would just want to make sure people who were in the country had the correct traveling papers.

They entered an area where the buildings were small and without stilts, the muddy river down the hill.

“There is only one bus from Panama and should be here around noon, maybe sooner if the stops at the patrols along the way went smooth,” she said. “We have time for a meal and some rest before it gets here. We can get tickets at the bus depot at the edge of town.”

They stopped at the first cantina they came to, ordered a breakfast, then to a light blue building that was a nice hotel. In their room, they dropped their packs and reclined on the bed. Dana turned her back to him, his attempt to try to help her must have backfired. She might have hung onto him in the small boat, but that was probably any port in a storm thing.

Once again, he thought about the next step in this mission gone crazy. His simple tag and bag had turned into an odyssey, but he was determined to complete this assignment come hell, high water, or a cupcake.

After a couple hours of sleep and a quick combat wash, they were back out on the streets. At the bus depot, they bought their tickets. When a Senafront soldier asked for their papers, he presented Nelson’s passport which the distracted guard stamped and told them they were free to go.

They boarded the minivan that held about twenty-one people and made the short trip to Metiti, then transferred to an old school bus, the line called, Diablo Rojos, Red Devil. After bumping over the road for hours on end with broken down shocks and squealing brakes, Ruckus was relieved to finally see Panama City in the distance. Gravel road gave way to a bumpy road, then smoothed out, the bus caught eventually in the stop and go traffic in Panama City. It was hard to believe that just hours away, the Gap existed in this bustling city, in a country that embraced technology and notorious for connecting oceans, cultures and world commerce.

This bus would drop them directly to Albrook International Airport, a gleaming modern terminal. There his guys would have already worked it out to rent a vehicle. They’d be on their way as soon as he got Dana on her flight.

As soon as they disembarked, he latched onto her pack to keep her close to him. Wicked had said the terminal was clear, but Ruckus knew that things on an op could change on a dime. Her mouth tightened, and she shot him a nasty look.

Too bad, cupcake. They were doing this his way.

Right now, he needed to talk to his guys before he moved on.

He dragged her with him to a remote place in the airport. He inserted his earpiece and walked a few feet away from her.

“Ruckus to Rogue One, over.”

“Copy, LT. We’re here.” He kept his eyes on Dana.

“Is the vehicle secure?”

“Yes, sir. Taken care of and the cupcake flight is in thirty minutes.”

“Negate that,” he said. He’d warred with his conscience and his duty. To himself, his country, and mostly, his team. They had a stake in this op and if he was going to make this decision, they had to be one hundred percent on board because they believed in him, that his judgment was right and he’d make the best decision he could.

Back when he’d lied to her, his emotions weren’t in the game. Dana Sorenson was nothing but a road bump to his HVT. Not a living, breathing woman who’d just supported him through some of the worse jungle he’d ever been in. She’d earned her chance at Salazar.

“Is everyone connected?” he asked.

“We’re all here, LT. What’s up?”

“Don’t talk, just listen.” Then he told them, all of it. Well, except the sex and all that kissing. Those things he left out. That was none of their goddamned business. But he knew they were hot-blooded American males and they could easily guess.

“If you think she should go, Boss,” Kid said, “I’m in.”

“Cowboy?” Ruckus said, “be the judge, because I can’t right now.” He rubbed his forehead, agonizing over how to handle this. She was going to hate him if he put her on that plane. That was a given, but more importantly, she was going to be denied her closure and her due. That was even more damaging to his sense of justice.

“It’s dangerous for her, sir,” Cowboy said. “She’s willing to risk her life for these memory cards?”

“She is determined.”

There was a strained silence, then a deep voice, Cowboy’s said, “I think your decision is sound. She earned her spot. She had your back. I’m on board, too.”

“Blue, Wicked, Hollywood, Scarecrow and Tank all voiced their agreement.

“Scarecrow, patch me through to the major.” It only took him ten minutes to lay out his reasons for taking Dana, foremost is that she would ease him into the resort, lessen suspicion and she had a right to go after her memory cards. When he got the okay to proceed, he said, “Meet me at the vehicles, then. We’re going in.”