AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He certainly understood her struggle to step out of her dad’s overlarge shadow. Max scratched his forearm, still burning from just the caress of Darcy’s eyes. He’d marked himself with tattoos more than once to claim his life as his own and rile his old man.
Personally, he didn’t care anymore or let others’ opinions shape his decisions. Running life solo worked better in his job as he’d learned well with Eva. He’d found his place in the world outside his father’s influence. He hoped Darcy could find the same.
He expected she would. The General might be over-bearing, but Max doubted the old guy had ever leaped from behind corners to knock her on her butt.Reflexes boy. Don’t ever let the enemy catch you unaware.
Max dumped thoughts of his father out of his head. Must just be seeing Darcy and her dad together that was messing with his mind.
She pulled herself into a stance that couldn’t be mistaken as anything other than military attention directed toward her father. “With all due respect,sir,unless I miss my guess, this one’s outside your scope of command. There’s a bigger picture here and if there’s something I can contribute, then I’m not budging off this island.”
The two wills, father and daughter, battled so strongly Max wasn’t sure who would win. He had to tip the odds for the General, no matter what Darcy wanted, no matter that it chewed his conscience.
Max stepped forward. “That bigger picture is about your flying world, too. Leaks like this can affect every flight plan for the Cantou conflict coming out of planners on this island.”
Indecision flickered through her eyes. “I’m listening.”
He pulled out the stops and voiced what needed to be said to make her leave. “You wanted to be a part of the war effort. Well you were a part by getting me here whether you knew it or not. Time to see the big picture then and now. You’re a military pilot. You look out for your wingmen and do what’s best for your country. And right now, your country needs you to get off this island. You’re hampering my investigation.”
Darcy’s lips may have stayed closed, but her eyes shouted her anger across the room.
The General turned, gratitude stamped on his craggy face. “Thank you, Keagan. Well put.”
Max stayed as silent as Darcy. Who would have thought he’d ever side with the starched shirts he’d so long disavowed? But weighing the options for keeping Darcy safe, Max accepted he would have to stand in the old man’s shoes.
But for a guy more accustomed to Teva sandals, those polished leathers made for a tight fit.
* * *
Darcy yanked herself from nightmares full of blood and sea snakes. She refused to allow herself to scream.Instead,she gasped in drags of antiseptic air, grappling for the chain on the hospital light. Her hand finally swacked it, grabbed, jerked. Light illuminated the room. And the man sitting in the corner chair.
It washim.
One leg hooked over the arm of the chair, Max watched her through narrowed eyes. His revelations from earlier rolled over her. The irony of it that she’d been a part of the war effort all along.
Not that it made her feel any better at the moment. Just hollow. Tired. Darcy forked a hand through her tangled hair. She didn’t even bother asking how he’d wrangled past the guards. Apparently, this man made his own rules, which didn’t include respecting her wishes.
She wanted Max out of her room, before she did something ridiculous like ask him to hold her until the nightmares faded. “Visiting hours are over.”
He didn’t budge, just continued to pin her with those sea-green eyes shifting with more depths than even she’d imagined. She’d only just begun to figure the guy out, and now he’d changed the picture all over again. Folding his hands over his stomach, he looked so much like the man who’d waited in her room after the snake attack a few short weeks ago.
But that guy had been an illusion.
“What are you doing here, Max?”
“I thought you might need me after what happened, in case it stirred up bad memories from the past.”
Of the tree snake?
Then she realized he meant the kidnapping twelve years ago. The past. Of course he knew everything about her from his CIA briefings. Betrayal blazed over her with a fresh vengeance. She’d never stood a chance against him, not when he knew all her secrets, every button to push to wrap her mind so totally around wanting him.
She accepted that a certain loss of privacy came with signing away her life to the military and all the necessary security clearances that entailed. But right now she wasn’t feeling reasonable. She felt exposed to a man who’d kept everything about himself hidden.
Darcy lashed out with the first line of defense that came to mind. “Ineededyou on the beach yesterday, but you didn’t seem to care much aboutthat then, secret-agent man.”
He swung his leg from the side of the chair, both elbows on his knees. “You have good reason to be angry with me.”
Blast him and his sympathetic eyes.
“It doesn’t take a Scooby Doo sleuth to figure that one out,Doc.”
