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Sierra didn’t know what to do with herself when she awoke on day five. She lay in bed appreciating the clean, fragrant air-dried sheets. Being dry was something she’d never take for granted again. Pushing her fingers through her loose hair, she closed her eyes, her body remembering last night. Remembering Mace. So strong. So damned honorable. If he hadn’t done what he did, Sierra wasn’t sure she wouldn’t have stepped forward and right into his arms. The man was a throwback to the Age of Chivalry, and she felt only admiration and respect for his honoring of her and the circumstance. For what hedidn’tdo. There was such electricity between them. It had been palpable. And how badly Sierra wanted to go all the way with Mace. But to what end? Even if they could balance the personal and professional between them out there in that green hell, it wasn’t something that would last. Mace was committed down here in Peru. He wanted to extract vengeance against the drug runners.
Turning onto her belly, she pushed her face into the soft goose-down pillow, her arms hugging it. That look in Mace’s gray eyes when he’d said,“I play for keeps, too, Sierra. Just remember that…”made her skin yearn for his large, rough hand skimming its surface. Maybe she was finally over losing Jeb. It was clear her body was coming back online. It was healthy. So was she. But her mind stood in the way and so did her values. Sierra had never played around. Oh, she’d had two love affairs before meeting Jeb, but they too, had been long-termed.
Desperately, she tried to imagine a way to make something work with Mace, but all she saw were dead ends. She would be sent on another mission to another part of the world when this one was completed. They’d not only be separated by distance but, most likely, given the type of ops they pulled, there would be no sat phone calls, no Skype or Zoom, no emails. No… nothing. And for how long? This one right now she was out on was for a minimum of three months and maybe much more if the HVT hadn’t been killed yet by that time. There was just no way.
She yearned for her cabin, for her quiet, nature-filled life. To go see a movie every now and again. To get a dog, one of those doggies she loved so much, and take it out on hikes with her. She wanted to get a horse as well. The cabin she’d bought had five acres of land, had a barn on it, and she’d already put in a decent corral for her dream horse. And she wanted a huge garden, just like the one her mother had had. It was all waiting there for her. But she always came home to an empty house. No dog. No horse. No garden. No man. Groaning into the pillow, Sierra flopped over, staring up at the white ceiling. The clock on the dresser read seven a.m. Her stomach growled. She wondered if Mace was down in the restaurant having breakfast.
Something made her quickly get up, go through her toilette routine, and get dressed. She left her hair down because she always saw Mace’s gaze go soft when she did so. Not much got past her. She was a sniper. She saw all the tiny details. And she always saw pleasure come to his face anytime she pushed her fingers through her black hair, taming it in place. She knew he wanted to tunnel his fingers through the luxuriant mass of it. And worse, Sierra wanted him to.
***
Sure enough, Sierrafound Mace eating alone at a corner table where he could see everyone. Smiling to herself, she watched him pick up on her presence. The man had powerful intuition. As she approached his table, he rose and drew out a chair opposite him for her.
“You’re up early,” he noted.
“I guess I’m catching up on sleep. Thank you.” She scooted the chair in and looked up at him. Today, he wore a lightweight charcoal alpaca long-sleeved sweater. It highlighted the color of his eyes. And she saw he looked pleased. Because she was here with him? His black slacks outlined his lower body and long, powerful legs. His hair was recently washed, his jaw shaved free of stubble. He looked delicious to Sierra.
“Hungry?”
“Yes. What are you eating?”
“Five eggs, hash and plenty of the best potatoes in the world.”
Everyone ate heavy. They burned it off so quickly in the jungle. “Sounds good.”
Mace got a waiter’s attention and ordered her the breakfast with two eggs instead of five. He had a pot of coffee on the table and the waiter brought over a second cup. He poured some for Sierra. Their fingers met as she took the cup from his hand.
Grateful, she sipped it eagerly, watching him over the rim of the cup. If he was upset over last night, she didn’t see or sense it this morning. They’d played Scrabble until midnight, and she’d won three to two. He’d been a graceful loser. “What’s on the agenda today?”
“Not much. Three years ago, I started a small charity fund for one of the orphanages here in Cusco. We have clothes, shoes and toys brought in and kept at our hangar at the airport, and when we get some R&R, we take it all over to the kids. Would you like to come along?”
“I’d love too.” Her heart swelled with some powerful emotion. Sierra felt afraid to name it. As hard and as tough-as-nails as Mace was on the outside, the man was showing her he had a heart of gold hidden beneath that facade. That he thought of others, not just himself. That he cared. She wondered, after having lost his own baby, if he might be turning all that grief around and pouring his love of children into another way to cope. Deeply touched by that realization, she blinked back sudden, unexpected tears. She would never broach this sudden understanding of him, realizing how tender still his grief and heart were over that tragic time in his life. It brought back something that had happened to her shortly after Jeb’s death. Her throat tightened. Only her parents knew. No one else. And Sierra couldn’t even begin to think she could ever give it voice again. It was just too overwhelming to her. But if anyone could understand that person might be Mace.
“Good,” he murmured, cleaning up what was left on his plate between his toast and fork. “When we’re done here, I’m going to kick the boys out of bed.”
“They’re party animals,” she said wryly.
“Yeah, young and full of themselves.”
“I was never like them,” she observed. “Probably because I couldn’t drink alcohol.”
“You missed a lot of hangovers, then,” he said, grinning.
The waiter swooped in and took the plate away.
She smiled a little, moving her finger in senseless patterns over the white linen tablecloth. “So how big is this orphanage?”
“Two hundred kids. Cute little rug rats, all of ’em. A Catholic charity takes them in. Sometimes, Indian parents dump them off. The kids are on the verge of starvation. They can’t feed even one more mouth.”
“That’s so sad…”
“Yeah, there’s a lot of people that would give their right arm to have a child.” He grimaced.
“I know,” she said softly, feeling his unspoken pain, seeing the loss in his eyes. Just knowing about Mace’s past helped her get over that one last hurdle of him being a hardcase all the time. “Has anyone ever told you lately that you’re a genuine hero, Mace?”
He stared at her. “No way,” he growled. “Keep your starry-eyed look for someone else, not me.”
“No,” she said, holding his narrowing gaze, “you’re a bonafied hero. And I don’t care whether you agree with me or not.”
