A sexy soldier comes back from the dead to protect his daughter and her beautiful guardian.

Desperate to save his young daughter’s life, soldier Hunt Grainger tasked war correspondent Yancy Malone with smuggling Laila to the US. Now, years later, Yancy and Laila are back in Afghanistan—and face-to-face with the man they both thought was dead.

Hunt is desperate to reconnect with the child he barely knows and the headstrong redhead he never forgot. When Laila and Yancy are targeted by a group hell-bent on revenge, Hunt’s protective instincts kick into overdrive. Their only option: hide out at Yancy’s family ranch until the threat subsides. But Hunt’s own secrets might lead everyone he loves into even more danger!

“What kind of person do you think I am?”

“I don’t really know that,” Hunt said. “Do I?”

“You know a whole lot more about me than I do about you.” Yancy threw that at him, tight and quivering with emotions, three years worth of fear and uncertainty and unanswered questions. “I live my life in the public eye. You live yours in the shadows. You’re a—a—”

“Ghost?” A single word, spoken softly in the darkness.

Her chest constricted with the pain of remembering. She gave a helpless whimper of a laugh and turned away from him.

“Why did I keep Laila with me, and not hand her off to some stranger?” She paused, then took a careful breath and answered truthfully. “At first, I guess it was because she seemed so…lost. So scared. The way she looked at me…as if she trusted me.”

“I told her she could.”

How different his voice sounded. Did she only imagine it was emotion she heard? Or was she projecting her own inner turmoil onto him? Surely the Hunt Grainger she knew would never allow himself to be caught in such an unguarded moment.

But then, I really don’t know him at all.

* * *

Stay tuned for the next book in Kathleen Creighton’s Scandals of Sierra Malone miniseries.

If you’re on Twitter, tell us what you think of Harlequin Romantic Suspense! #harlequinromsuspense

Dear Reader,

It’s been a while since I last asked you to journey with me to beautiful June Canyon, California, where reclusive eccentric billionaire “Sierra” Sam Malone is attempting to atone for a lifetime of scandalous and reckless behavior. It was not my intention to stay away so long. After all, there are stories yet to be told, at least two more heirs for Sam to meet, two more granddaughters who may, possibly, come to forgive him. Maybe even learn to love him.

What is it someone supposedly has said? Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans?

Sometimes unexpected events can turn your life in a whole new direction, and it’s not always easy to find your footing on this new and often rocky path. In a way, that’s what happens to Yancy Malone and Hunt Grainger, as something neither of them could have foreseen turns their lives upside down, and sends them on a journey neither of them could have imagined. In the course of this journey they must experience tragedy and danger, duty and sacrifice, heartache and loss, before they can finally come to a place where both can accept, forgive…and love.

This is Yancy and Hunt’s love story, true. But it’s the story of another sort of love, too. The story of how “the soldier’s secret” brings unexpected light and joy to an old man’s heart.

Journey with me now, back to June Canyon…

Kathleen

Guarding the Soldier’s Secret

Kathleen Creighton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

KATHLEEN CREIGHTON has roots deep in the California soil but has relocated to South Carolina. As a child, she enjoyed listening to old-timers’ tales, and her fascination with the past only deepened as she grew older. Today, she is interested in everything—art, music, gardening, zoology, anthropology and history—but people are at the top of her list. She also has a lifelong passion for writing, and now combines all her loves in romance novels.

MILLS & BOON

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This book is for my children.

I am never so proud of you as

when life knocks you down,

and you somehow manage to

pick yourselves up and go on,

stronger than ever.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Introduction

Prologue

PART I

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

PART II

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Introduction

From the Memoirs of Sierra Sam Malone:

The day the railroad bulls beat me to a pulp and threw me off the train in the middle of a California desert, I wouldn’t have bet a wooden nickel on my chances of living to see another sunrise. Who would have thought I’d live to become one of the richest men in the country and make movies and hobnob with the biggest and brightest stars in Hollywood. Hobnob, hell, I bought and sold ’em.

Married one, too.

Barbara Chase wasn’t the first beautiful woman fool enough to marry me, but after she left her baby girl with a sitter and her clothes on a Malibu beach and walked into the sunset, I swore she’d be the last. The way I’d treated my first wife, Elizabeth, causing her to want no part of me in her life or our son’s, and now Barbara taking the way out she did, made it pretty clear to me I was not fit husband material. Or father material, either, for that matter. Which is why I sent my baby daughter off to be raised by Barbara’s folks in Nebraska.

Which turned out to be another mistake, but that’s another story.

So, I had sworn off love, after Barbara, though not off women. No...never off women. Of those there was always a plentiful supply, easily available and more than willing to please me. Mine for the taking. And I took without conscience or regrets.

When Katherine came to me with a sensible business proposition, I thought it seemed like a good idea at the time. Power and prestige, in exchange for the thing that mattered the least to me—money. The funny thing was, we were a good match, Kate and I, and we lasted longer than either of us expected.

But when tragedy struck, we lacked the one thing that might have seen us through the storm. And that was love.

Prologue

Somewhere in eastern Afghanistan

Three years previous

Laila loved puppies. She was sure there wasn’t anything in the whole world cuter than puppies. Except maybe baby goats. And lambs, of course. She liked the way the lambs sucked on her fingers when they were just born and hadn’t figured out there wasn’t any milk there for them to drink.

Laila’s mother said she liked puppies, too, but not in the house. She said the puppies and their mother had to stay outside, but she made them a nice bed from one of her old tshaaderis, behind the storage house where part of the neighbor’s wall had fallen down and made a sort of cave. It was just big enough for Laila to squeeze inside when she wanted to visit the puppies. It was nice and warm in there, but it was also cool when the sun got too hot. The mother dog liked it, too, because she could see what was outside but nobody could see her or her puppies.

It was a good place. A safe place.

On that day, Laila went one last time to say good-night to the puppies. She knew it was time to go inside for supper and to learn the lessons her mother was teaching her. Someday she would go to school—her mother had told her so—and she must be ready so the other children wouldn’t think she was stupid. But it was so much fun to hold the puppies under her chin and feel them tickle her neck with their little wet noses and hear the cute grunting sounds puppies make, while the mother dog watched, not minding at all. Laila’s mother had already called her once, but...oh, just a few more minutes, she told herself, and then she would go.

She heard a new sound and caught a breath and held it so she could listen. Yes—it was a truck coming along the dirt road, coming to their house! Not very many people came this way, especially not in a truck. Laila’s heart gave a little bump. Maybe it was Akaa Hunt! It had been such a long time since he had come to visit.

Carefully she put the puppy she was holding back beside its mother. She was about to crawl out of her hiding place when something stopped her.

The mother dog was growling. It was a scary sound, one Laila had never heard her make before. The yellow hair on the back of the mother dog’s neck was sticking up, and her teeth were showing. They were very big teeth. Slowly Laila backed up and shrank into the shadows, and the mother dog stopped growling and licked her muzzle and whimpered softly, almost, Laila thought, as if she was saying I’m sorry.

Now Laila couldn’t see the truck because it had stopped in front of the house. She wanted to go and find out who had come to visit, but when she started to crawl out of her hiding place, the mother dog put her paw on Laila’s leg and growled even more loudly than before. Laila didn’t want to see those big teeth again, so she crept back farther into the shadows. She stayed very still and quiet, and the mother dog and even the puppies were quiet, too.

Then she heard a new sound. It wasn’t like anything she had ever heard, but it made her more frightened than she’d ever been in her life before. It was high and sharp and terrible, and it made her feel cold inside, like she was going to throw up. It came again and again and again, and Laila put her hands over her ears to shut out the noise.

The worst thing was it sounded like her mother’s voice. But how could that be? Why would her mother make such a terrible sound?

She whimpered, “Ammi, Ammi!” and curled up in a ball and huddled close to the mother dog and the puppies. The mother dog growled softly, way down in her throat. Laila shivered and shivered and couldn’t stop, and after a while she heard the truck doors slam and the truck drive away.

Laila waited for her mother to come and tell her it was time for lessons and supper. But her mother didn’t come.

Laila didn’t want to be a baby, but she couldn’t help it. She cried and whimpered, “Ammi... Ammi...”

The mother dog whined and licked the tears from her face, and after a long, long time, Laila slept.

PART I

Afghanistan

Chapter 1

The room was dark, but the darkness was not absolute. By staring with wide-open eyes, Yancy could make out shapes against the whitewashed mud-brick walls: the foot of her narrow cot with the slight mound of her feet beneath the blanket; the pile in the far corner that was her personal gear; the table opposite the door and the water jug from last night’s supper.

Nothing appeared out of place. Nothing appeared to be amiss.

But something had awakened her.

Tense and alert, she listened for the faint rustle of clothing, the barely discernible sounds of breath and heartbeat. She heard nothing but her own. And yet she was absolutely certain she was not alone in that room.

Then...a lightning flurry of movement...a sudden sense of bulk and heat...and before she could draw breath to scream, a hand clamped over her mouth. Adrenaline flooded her body and coiled through her muscles, but even as she recognized the futility of struggle, a stirring of breath warmed the shell of her ear, carrying with it the softest of whispers.

“Yankee...it’s me. It’s me.”

The adrenaline froze in her veins. There was a rushing of wind in her ears. She felt an easing of the pressure of the hand covering her mouth and turned her face to escape it before drawing a shallow breath, making an effort to keep her voice light and steady even though she knew he could feel her body’s shaking.

“I’d assumed you were dead,” she said.

His laughter was all but soundless and held no trace of amusement. “I must be a ghost, then.”

She didn’t reply, and his weight and heat shifted away from her, leaving her feeling not relieved, but chilled and vulnerable.

His voice came from the darkness, low, musical, slightly sultry. “You used to call me that—Ghost. Remember?”

Remember? Oh, how she wished she did not. But her senses hadn’t forgotten. Defying her will, they stirred with familiar responses.

She cleared her throat and this time answered him. “Of course I remember.”

A sense of unreality had settled over her, and with it a blessed numbness. She hitched herself into a sitting position and drew up her knees under the blankets, rested her elbows on them and combed back her hair with her fingers. Deliberately, she yawned and spoke to the shadows into which he’d withdrawn.

“So...what are you doing here?” And how long will you stay...this time?

She could keep her voice devoid of emotion in spite of the shakes, confident she would sound merely curious. She was Yancy Katherine Malone, after all. She’d stood before cameras and reported live while bullets and rocks and bottles flew and bombs and mortars exploded around her and the air she breathed was filled with the screams of the injured and the shouts of the enraged and the stench of burning flags and tanks and human flesh. She was known for being cool under fire.

This was a piece of cake.

It should have been.

This time his laughter brought a vision to her mind, so clear it seemed more real than memory: a mouth upturned at the corners in a smile so at odds with the fierce golden glare of the eyes that went with it. Lion’s eyes.

“You didn’t used to have to ask,” he said.

Oh, I remember the night you came as you so often did, coming into my bed with a rush of air, your body cold against my back but warming quickly with my heat. Already wide-awake and shivery, I smiled in the darkness and murmured a sleepy “Who’s that?”

“Who do you think?” A chuckle and a rasp of beard in the curve of my neck.

I turned in your arms, feigning surprise. “Oh—it’s you.”

You said in a growl from deep in your chest, “You were expecting...someone else?”

I laughed, and your mouth silenced my reply.

I remember thinking, So it’s been a month? Four weeks without a word from you?

But you are here now, and I’ve learned not to wonder or ask why.

I’ve learned to be thankful for the moment...this moment. And to remind myself again that it is never wise to fall in love with a ghost.

* * *

“Nice deflection,” Yancy said, but even as the words left her mouth she realized this was different from all the other times he’d come and gone and shown up again without word or warning.

He was different. He sounded different. Almost...wary. Even uncertain, impossible as that would seem to most who knew him as Hunt Grainger, man of steel, Special Ops warrior, a man high on adrenaline and in love with the life of risk and danger he’d lived for so long. A man without fear, not even—perhaps least of all—of death.

Superhuman.

That was how she’d seen him first. More machine—a killing machine—than man.

* * *

The worst thing about battle is the sound. You’d think it would be the images, wouldn’t you? Or even the smells, that nose-burning, throat-clogging mix of smoke and explosives and blood and dust and fear. And it’s true that even now a whiff of one or the other of those will bring the images back in full horror and living color. But the sound is simply intolerable. I still watch raw footage with the sound muted, to save myself another round of those recurring nightmares.

That day I remember curling into fetal position with my hands over my ears, praying my flak jacket and helmet would stop the bullets, that the mud-brick walls wouldn’t bury us alive, and if that was too much to ask, at least that I would die quickly and without too much pain. Even in that hideous din, I remember hearing Will, the cameraman, swearing, and someone else, I don’t know who, muttering something in rhythmic cadence that might have been the Hail Mary.

I heard—no, felt—the percussion of machine-gun fire, so close it was a physical assault on my eardrums, and between bursts there were shouts, unintelligible at first, but then... Oh, my God, yes, it was—it was English!

I heard the scrape of boots, felt the thud of heavy feet on the hard-packed earth beneath me, and the blessed shout: “You all okay in here?”

I dared open my eyes and saw the room fill with what seemed almost to be alien beings. Superbeings, certainly, more machine than men, laden as they were with their gear and weapons and helmets and body armor. One knelt beside me, and I saw his eyes, brilliant, amber gold in color, and so intense it seemed I could feel their heat.

“Are you hurt?” he shouted, and I shook my head.

“Can you walk?”

I nodded.

“Then let’s get the hell outa here.”

Somehow I was on my feet. “The truck—” I think I shouted.

“Forget the truck. We’ve got a chopper. This way—move!”

As if I had a choice, with this man-machine’s arm around my waist, half carrying me. But I could see Will and the other members of my crew being similarly hustled through the rooms of the bombed-out house—mostly rubble now—and gave myself up to being rescued and focused my attention on trying not to step on anything that might have been body parts.

Once clear of the house, we ran across open ground with all the speed we television newspeople were capable of, bent almost double as if that would make us less vulnerable to bullets and mortar shells. My rescuer kept me tucked under his arm, practically under his body, shielding me with his own armor.

I could hear the thump-thump-thump of rotors, and then my rescuer’s hands grasped my waist and hoisted me bodily into the helicopter. Within seconds we were all aboard—rescue squad, news crew and most of our gear—and the chopper lunged into the air. As it banked and swept away from the battle zone, heading back toward the base, blessed quiet—comparatively speaking—settled over us. Above the creak and rustle of armor-clad warriors settling themselves and their weapons in for the journey, I could hear my own heart beating, out of sync with the thump of the chopper blades.

When I could breathe evenly enough to speak without gasping, I looked over at my personal savior. I found him watching me, eyes half-closed in his blackened face, the fire in them banked for the moment.

“Thanks,” I said, knowing how profoundly inadequate it was.

A smile transformed him instantly from machine into man. “Just doin’ our job, ma’am,” he drawled.

“What’s your name, soldier?” I asked, remembering my own job, belatedly.

Still smiling, he shook his head. “Soldier’s enough.”

* * *

That was the first hint she’d had of how human he was; later, she’d found he could even be vulnerable. Though...she’d never seen him afraid, not once in all the years he’d flitted in and out of her life like a shadow.

But he’s afraid now.

She was almost certain of it. What could have happened to him in the year since she’d last seen him...touched him...felt his touch? Possibilities flashed through her mind, scenarios formless as wisps of smoke.

She strained her ears, listening in the silence of that room, silence that stretched beyond the mud-brick walls and small shuttered window into the cold Afghan night. There were no sounds of battle tonight, no voices raised in fear or anger, song or prayer, not even the cry of a night bird or barking of an abandoned dog. Again she listened for the rustling of clothing, the whisper of quickened breathing. And again, all she heard was her own heartbeat.

Anger came like a small hot whirlwind. She sucked it in and held it close as she threw back the heavy woven wool blankets, thankful once again for the years of experience that had taught her to sleep fully clothed in these remote outposts.

“What do you want?” The question came in a tumble of uneven breath as she stabbed the darkness with her feet, searching for her boots. “Damn you, at least tell me why you’re here. I think you owe me that much.”

The answer barely disturbed the silence. “You’re right. I do.” There was a quick, soft exhalation and then: “I need your help.”

And for Yancy, where there had been heat, now there was cold, a new chill that penetrated to the pit of her stomach. On a sharp gasp she asked, “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“No. Nothing like that.”

“For God’s sake, Hunt.” Still shaky, she pulled her coat from the foot of the cot and swung it around her shoulders. It wasn’t until she stood up that she realized how unreliable her legs were. She groped for the battery-powered lantern and swore under her breath when she kicked it in the near-darkness.

“No,” her visitor said harshly. “No light.”

Unformed notions swirled like swamp fog through her mind. Oh, God, he’s been wounded...horribly disfigured...doesn’t want me to see...

As if he’d read her thought, his voice held a touch of irony. “I need to open the door... Don’t want the light to show outside. Okay? Just...wait...”

She caught back questions and stood hugging her coat around her, trying not to shiver as she stared at the place where she remembered the outside door was. She listened to faint sounds, felt the movement of air as the door opened all but invisibly against the blackness of the night. After a moment, she heard the door close. The shadows in the room rearranged themselves.

Hunt spoke, barely a whisper. “You can put the light on now, if you need to.”

Yancy fumbled again for the lantern and this time found it and switched it on. Light flooded the room, a visual assault after such darkness.

She turned quickly, heart pounding, not knowing what to expect, afraid of what she would see. And went utterly still with shock. Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t this.

Where the shadow had been that was Hunt Grainger, now there were two figures. A tall man wearing traditional Afghan clothing and a full beard, thick and dark. With him was a small Afghan child—a boy, judging from the way he was dressed, and no more than four or five years old.

“Not quite what you expected, I guess.” Hunt’s voice was still soft, but again with that hint of wry humor as he gave words to her thoughts.

“Not...quite,” she managed to murmur, still staring at the child clinging to Hunt’s leg with the fierce determination of a drowning cat. “Who is he?”

“She. It’s safer if...” There was a pause before he continued. “Her name’s Laila.”

Yancy lifted her eyes to look at him, understanding beginning to dawn. Could it possibly be...? How does he know what I...? Uneasiness tightened her chest.

“Why— How...?” She stopped, knowing it was useless to try to rush him.

“Her mother’s dead.” The statement came in a flat undertone. He tipped his turbaned head toward the child. “And if she stays in this country she might as well be. She needs to get out, and I know you can make that happen.”

Her small gasp of laughter was an automatic and, she knew, futile diversion. “Why would you think—”

He cut her off without raising his voice. “Yankee, I know. Okay? I know what you do, who you work for—besides WNN. I know your organization has the machine in place, the people—and I don’t mean them.” He jerked his head toward the door behind him, indicating the rest of the house and the rooms where the other members of the news crew were quartered. “You have the means to do this. You know how. You’ve done it before.”

Yancy hesitated a moment longer, then nodded. A cloak of calm came around her, and the ground steadied under her feet. She didn’t know how or why Hunt Grainger knew about INCBRO, but the fact that he did wasn’t a complete surprise. Hunt and the others like him seemed to know things no one else did.

“She’s a child bride, then?”

Hunt made a scoffing sound. “If that’s what you call it. They bartered a five-year-old child to a tribal leader, in exchange, I suppose, for a promise of protection.”

“They?” She had squatted down, balanced on one knee, and was gazing again at the child, who still had her face buried in Hunt’s long chapan.

She thought, My God, a bride? She’s so small...

“Her family.” His voice had an edge of steel. “Of course.”

Yancy glanced up at him, but all she could see of his face in the dim light and behind the dark curtain of beard was the glitter of his eyes. So familiar, and yet I’ve never seen him look like this...

Swallowing the knot of rage and sickness that had lodged in her throat, she spoke quietly. “Does she speak any English?”

“A little. Probably understands more than she speaks. When she speaks. Right now she’s not saying much of anything.”

She straightened up, letting out a breath. “Hunt, I don’t know what you know about the organization—INCBRO. We’re more about trying to intercede diplomatically—you know, educate and persuade family members, get them to understand they can do better for their daughters by letting them go to school instead of marrying them off as children. If they don’t have the money to do that, we try to help them. We don’t usually take a child out of the culture and environment they’re accustomed to. We don’t just...pick them up and carry them off—not that we don’t wish we could, sometimes...”

“But you’ve done just that, in certain cases. As a last resort? When the girl’s life was at stake. Haven’t you?”

“Well, I—”

“Her mother’s name was Zahra.”

She heard an edge of flint in his voice—and something else she couldn’t name. It stirred conflicting emotions and swirled them together in her mind like a wicked little dust devil—fear, compassion...a hint of jealousy—making her heart stutter and her breath catch. But for only a moment. The thoughts and emotions settled like leaves when the wind has passed.

“So you knew her?”

“Yes. I knew her.” His hand rested on the child’s turbaned head, so gentle in contrast to the cold rage in his eyes. “I thought I’d found a safe place for them, but they—” He broke off with a meaningful glance at the child and stepped away from her, turning his back to her before he continued speaking to Yancy in a low murmur. “The male members of her family killed her—killed Zahra. How they found them I don’t know. Thank God this one managed to hide. Look, I don’t have time for details. I just know if she stays here they’ll find her again sooner or later. In fact, the longer I stay here the more danger she’s in—and you, too. I know your crew is about to wrap up—pulling out tomorrow, right?”

She nodded and again didn’t bother to ask him how he knew.

“Okay. So take her with you. Get her on that underground railroad you help run. You’re the only one who can get her out of Afghanistan. You can keep her safe.” He pulled in a breath. “If you need money—”

“Not a problem. INCBRO is very well funded,” Yancy said tightly.

He nodded and for a moment seemed to hesitate—that unfamiliar uncertainty again. Then he turned abruptly, went down on one knee and took the child by the shoulders. He spoke quietly to her in Pashto, a language Yancy was still struggling to learn. The little girl made a whimpering sound and reached for him, but he held her firmly away, still talking to her.

Then, in an abrupt change to English, he said slowly and clearly, “Laila, this woman is my friend. I told you about her, remember? She’s going to take good care of you. She’ll keep you safe. Okay?”

Laila kept her head bowed but silently nodded and, after a moment, lifted small clenched fists to scrub tears from her cheeks.

“That’s my girl,” Hunt said in a husky growl. “I’ll come and see you, soon as I can, I promise.” Unexpectedly, he drew the child into his arms and held her close. Yancy’s heart did a slow flip-flop. “But for now, I want you to go with Yancy. Can you do that?”

After a long pause, Laila nodded. Hunt released the child, rose to his feet and turned her toward Yancy. The little girl bravely lifted her eyes.

A smile of reassurance froze on Yancy’s lips. She sucked in an audible breath. Lion’s eyes...golden eyes, tear-glazed but bright as flame...

Her own gaze flew to Hunt, who had paused at the door to look back at her.

“Yes,” he said gently, “she’s mine. Does it matter?”

Yancy shook her head, barely aware she did so.

“Put out the light, will you?”

Numbly, she reached for the lantern. As the room plunged into darkness she felt a chill breeze and knew he was gone.

In the silence that fell then, a small cold hand crept into hers.

Chapter 2

Kabul, Afghanistan

Present day

Yancy tightened her grip on her daughter’s hand as they wove their way together through the sluggish river of shoppers, stepping around parked cars and top-heavy pushcarts and the knots of women who were pausing to examine displays of brightly woven fabrics, piles of fresh-baked bread or bins of cheap plastic trinkets.

“Look, Mom, Mickey Mouse,” Laila said, pointing, and Yancy smiled and squeezed her hand.

“Just like home.”

Her daughter lifted her golden eyes, eyes now sparkling with the smile that was hidden beneath the drape of her scarf. “Well, not exactly.”

Yancy laughed, feeling lighter in heart than she had since she’d made the decision to bring Laila with her on this trip to Afghanistan. She’d have preferred to wait until her adopted daughter was older before taking her to visit the country of her birth, but with the allied troops preparing to pull out for good, she knew there was no way to predict what the future might hold for the war-ravaged country. It might be a case of now or never.

Still, Laila was only eight years old. It had been three years since the traumatic events that had made it necessary to get the child out of Afghanistan for the sake of nothing less than her life.

Yancy hadn’t tried to erase her daughter’s memories of that terrible time—quite the opposite, in fact. Thinking it would be therapeutic for her to talk about it, she’d downloaded YouTube videos, which they’d watched together, Yancy answering Laila’s questions, talking about the ways her life was different now. She’d even probed gently, never sure how much Laila had witnessed or remembered about her mother’s murder. But Laila had never spoken of that day, and whether that was because she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, Yancy had no way of knowing.

Their first day in Kabul, Laila had clung close to Yancy’s side, shrinking closer still at her first glimpse of the mysterious blue burqas that sprinkled the crowds even here in the modern capital city. Last night Yancy had asked her about that, wanting to know why Laila was frightened when they’d already talked about the fact that some women in Afghanistan covered themselves completely when they went out in public.

But Laila had only shrugged and mumbled, “I’m not scared. I just don’t like them. I think they’re...creepy.”

Today, though, she seemed to be enjoying the crowds, the bustle and noise, the tapestry of different costumes: men and boys in everything from jeans, T-shirts and Western-style jackets to the traditional loose white trousers and tunics and long chabas embroidered with intricate patterns; the turbans or flat Afghan hats, or karakul hats like the one the president wore; women and girls in conservative Western-style dresses or flowing robes and draped head scarves, and, of course, the burqas. Every direction they looked was a new feast for the eyes.

A feast for all the senses. Though the sky overhead was the same crisp blue she recalled from previous trips to Afghanistan, here in the bazaar the air was dense with dust and exhaust, the familiar smells of spices and baking bread and overripe fruit and the musky scents of people. The noise of traffic and exotic music and voices raised in chatter or barter or a snatch of song made a tapestry of sound.

I’ve missed this, Yancy thought.

“What are those?” Laila pointed.

“Hmm...looks like dates,” Yancy said.

“Can we get some?”

“You don’t like dates, remember?”

“Yes, but I’ve never tasted these dates.”

“Uh-huh.” Recognizing that her child had been bitten by the shopping bug, Yancy diplomatically steered her to another display, where large flat metal bowls held an array of grains and beans and nuts. “How about we get some of these, instead? You like pistachios, don’t you?”

Laila’s answer was a happy gasp. She tugged at Yancy’s hand like an excited puppy while Yancy bartered with the women hovering over the display. She counted out the money, then gave the drawstring shopping bag they’d brought with them—no paper or plastic here—to Laila to hold while the shopkeeper dumped a scoopful of nuts into it.

Laila said, “Tashakkur!” the way Yancy had taught her, in a strong, clear voice, and the woman beamed her approval and added another handful of nuts to the bag.

They walked on, stopping to examine trinkets, discussing what gifts they should buy for Laila’s school friends back home in Virginia. Yancy fingered beautiful scarves, debating which one to buy for her clotheshorse sister, Miranda.

The sun climbed higher and so did the temperature, and the crowds began to thin. Yancy noticed Laila’s enthusiasm seemed to be waning, as well. Her footsteps lagged as she looked around her, craning her neck, clearly searching for something and disappointed she hadn’t found it.

“Are you getting tired, sweetie?”

“No...” Laila lifted her shoulders in what was half sigh and half shrug. “I was just hoping...”

Yancy’s stomach lurched. Surely, she couldn’t be hoping to see him.

Impossible, anyway. He’s dead. He must be. And how can she even remember?

“I thought there would be animals.”

“Animals?” Yancy said blankly.

Laila was watching the toe of her sandal make designs in the dusty ground. She heaved another heart-tugging sigh. “Yes, like sheep or goats. Or donkeys. I like them. They had them at the market where I used to live.” She lifted her gaze—and her chin—in a way that was almost a challenge. “I know because I remember them.”

Yancy put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders and pulled her close in a one-arm hug. “This is Kabul, honey. It’s a very big city—like New York or Los Angeles. Probably there wouldn’t be many sheep or goats or donkeys here in the middle of the city. But I promise we’ll make sure and find some tomorrow when we go out in the country—okay?”

“Okay...” Clearly, her daughter was only somewhat appeased.

Changing the subject, Yancy said, “Hey, are you hungry? I know I am. How about we go back to the hotel and see if they have any ice cream.”

“Pistachio?” Laila’s golden eyes sparkled up at her with that wicked humor that never failed to wrench at Yancy’s heart and bring back memories of a time she hoped someday to forget.

She’s so like him. How am I ever going to be able to forget, with her as my constant reminder?

With one arm resting lightly across Laila’s shoulders, Yancy lifted her head to survey their surroundings, hoping to determine the best and shortest route back to the main street where, presumably, they could flag down a taxi. But she found she couldn’t see much because of the press of people that surrounded them.

Which was odd, because a moment ago she could have sworn there were only a few straggling shoppers here, dawdling about among the stalls. Now she and Laila appeared to be completely walled in by a crowd of people.

No, not a crowd. A group of men. Tall, bearded men, all dressed in traditional Afghan costume.

As the bolt of awareness shot through Yancy’s brain, it triggered a wild montage of the warnings, cautions and instructions she’d heard time and time again when preparing to venture into volatile and unpredictable regions of the world. More than once she’d covered the story when a colleague had been abducted—or worse—and there had even been some close calls that were hers alone, the memories of which were all too vivid. She’d never really been frightened then—at least not that she could remember. But it was different now. Now there was Laila.

She tensed and strengthened her hold on her daughter’s hand, at the same time nervously checking to make certain no stray locks of her own dark red hair had strayed from beneath her scarf. Keeping her eyes averted, she quickened her step.

Without any overtly threatening moves or gestures, the knot of men moved with her, keeping pace.

Yancy’s mind raced, searching for explanations but capable only of shooting off questions. Who are they? Taliban? What’s happening? Why are they doing this? What do they want with me? Are we about to be kidnapped? What have I done?

Or...is it Laila they’re after?

Her heart banged against her ribs. Her scalp sizzled; she could actually feel her hair lift and stir against the silk fabric of her scarf. She could almost hear Hunt’s voice... They’ll find her again, sooner or later...

Oddly, the thought had a calming effect.

Laila? They can’t take her. They will have to kill me first.

She drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. Think. You have one advantage: you’re a woman. They won’t be expecting resistance from a woman. Plus, they won’t want to touch you, a strange female, if they can avoid it. You know the moves—they won’t expect that, either. Strike fast, strike hard, break loose.

Then both of us run like hell.

They’d reached the outskirts of the bazaar. Beyond the human barricade that surrounded her, Yancy could hear cars moving slowly, tires crunching on the hard-baked ground. She could hear laughter, music coming from a car radio, the impatient beep of a horn. She wondered if one of those cars was meant for them. She imagined a sudden shriek of brakes, hard hands shoving her into a waiting vehicle, Laila screaming...

Or, infinitely worse, Laila being wrenched from her grasp. Then the slamming of car doors, a gunned motor and silence.

* * *

Twenty yards or so behind the odd clot of Afghan males in the otherwise free-flowing stream of midday traffic, Hunt Grainger maintained a relaxed and steady pace. Keeping anger in check along with surging adrenaline, he followed the phalanx’s every movement, gauging the situation, biding his time, waiting for the moment.

And still hoping this was going to turn out to be nothing more ominous than a tight-knit group of male shoppers oblivious to the two insignificant females in their path. Still hoping it wouldn’t be necessary to make himself known. He’d intended to do so eventually, of course, but at a time and place of his own choosing.

No, not this way. Not now.

The adrenaline was easier to deal with than the anger. He knew how to bank adrenaline, keep it focused and ready for the job at hand. He’d already assessed the odds of roughly ten to one, which didn’t trouble him particularly—he’d handled worse. Although admittedly not with a woman and child in the immediate proximity of the operation. That might complicate things.

Damn Yancy, anyway!

What was she thinking, bringing the girl back to Afghanistan? Hadn’t he made it clear to her how dangerous it was? If Zahra’s family found out...

That was the troubling thing. They obviously had found out. How? How could they know?

Although, he supposed, if he’d known, it was possible someone else could, as well. A world-famous network war correspondent couldn’t exactly keep a low profile.

The agency he’d hired to keep an eye on the two while he was out of reach had kept him informed of their travel plans, and he’d been watching them almost from the moment they’d arrived in the country. Admittedly that wasn’t so much because he feared for their safety. Not then.

Truth was, he’d simply wanted to see them again. Both of them. Nothing wrong with that, he’d argued with himself as he’d lain wide-awake and sleepless in anticipation of their arrival. Laila was his daughter, after all.

And Yancy... Hell, he wasn’t sure what Yancy was to him. Never had known.

What he did know was, it would be better for everyone if he could have stayed away, let them go on believing he was dead.

He’d told himself he’d look—that was all. Watch them from afar. Then let them go, never knowing.

It’s better that way. For now.

That was the plan. One of them, anyway. Maybe he would have been able to keep to it, maybe not. Now it looked as if he wasn’t going to have the luxury of choice.

His senses snapped to full alert when he noted what appeared to be a disturbance in the tight knot of men surrounding Yancy and Laila. The knot appeared to be unraveling. He quickened his pace, and several things happened in lightning-quick succession: One man seemed to stumble, then fall back against his comrades. This sent several to the ground in a tumble of flowing garments that might have been comical under different circumstances. Then two female figures, woman and child, broke free of the melee. They came straight toward him, running as if from the devil himself.

The woman’s face was a mask of grim determination; the child’s was blank with confusion. Hunt started forward, then halted when he saw the woman’s eyes focus, home in on his face. He saw her eyes go wide, first with fear, then with stunned recognition. He saw her stumble slightly, her body flinch and her face drain of all color.

Unexpected pain sliced through him.

Dammit, Yancy. Not like this—this isn’t the way I’d have chosen to break it to you.

An image came into his mind, one of those lightning flashes that stays on, seared into the memory like a brand.

...I’m strolling the boardwalk on the base with a couple of guys from my team, fresh off a successful mission with some leftover adrenaline to dispose of. Every soldier has his own way of dealing with it—that jacked-up reckless feeling you get sometimes when you’ve done your job and come back in one piece. Everything seems sharp and clear and simple. Life and death. You win or you lose. And that day we won. Life was good.

Times like that, some guys head straight for their laptops for a face-to-face with their families. A few go to the chapel, I guess. Me, I get a yearning for a little piece of home, so I hit the boardwalk and the same fast-food places I used to hang out in when I was a kid, growing up in the Midwest.

So my guys and I are debating the relative merits of subs, pizza and tacos, or whether we should go to Friday’s and have all three. And that’s when I see her. Them, actually—the news crew we’d picked up out of that firefight earlier in the day. They’re gathered around a table drinking something tall and cold, all scrubbed and shiny like they’ve just come from the showers. They still have that dazed look civilians get when they’ve had a closer look than they ever wanted at what war’s really like.

She’s impossible to miss, with that red hair of hers, the wind blowing it around like dark flames. I guess I’m looking at her pretty hard and maybe she feels that, because she looks up just then, straight at me, and I see her eyes go big and wide with that look that says she’s recognized me, too. I feel a kick underneath my ribs, which I chalk up to that leftover adrenaline, and I give her a nod. Maybe I smile at her, too.

I’ve worked my way through about half a foot-long meatball sub, joking with the guys across the table, when I hear, “Hey, soldier.” And here she is, sitting down beside me.

The guys, of course, they give me the eye, elbow each other and get up and move to another table.

She says, “I don’t mean to interrupt...”

I chew and swallow and reach for my napkin, wipe sauce off my face and clear my throat good. My heart’s doing the happy-dance and there’s nothing I can do about that, but I keep my voice polite and nothing more. “What can I do for you, ma’am?”

She winces and says, “Ma’am? Really?” and makes a face.

“It’s a term of respect—like sir,” I tell her. Something makes me add, “From where I’m sitting, you definitely do not qualify as sir.”

She laughs, and I feel a sizzling inside my skin, and I know I’m going where I’ve got no business going. I’m feeling hot and hard and I blame that on the adrenaline, too.

“I don’t know if I even said thank you,” she says. “For saving my—all...of our lives.”

She’s looking at me with big brown eyes, and it occurs to me her eyes seem to match her hair, which doesn’t make sense, because her hair is definitely auburn, and her eyes are definitely brown.

“You did,” I say.

She nods. “And you said you were just doing your job.” She’s studying me, and there’s this kind of a frown making lines between her eyebrows, like she can’t figure me out. Then she turns her face away, but I can see it tighten up and change color anyway. “That’s what it was to you, maybe. But to me it was a whole lot more. It was my life, you know?” She swipes her fingers across one cheek, clears her throat and adds, “And I want you to know I’m very grateful.”

I want to touch her, and I pick up my sandwich so I can’t. I take a bite, chew it, nod to the sandwich and say, “Glad I could help.”

I feel her staring at me again. Softly she says, “I wish I understood what makes someone like you tick.” I turn my head to look at her, and for a long time that’s what we do—look at each other. Or maybe it only seems like a long time. Then she sort of smiles and says, “I don’t suppose you’d consider—”

That wakes me up. “Not gonna happen,” I tell her.

Her smile goes a little sideways. “I was going to say, ‘I don’t suppose you’d consider having dinner with me.’”

“No, you weren’t.”

She doesn’t miss a beat, but leans closer and says, “What if I was?”

There’s a long silence while I listen to the voices in my head telling me things I already know, all the reasons I want but can’t have. Then, probably because I’m used to shaking hands with danger, I lean in closer to her and whisper, “It’d still be no.”

She sits back and the contact between us snaps like a rubber band pulled too tight—it stings a little. She tilts her head and asks, “Why?”

I laugh—I mean, she has to ask?

“You’re the media,” I say, “and my job depends on secrecy.”

“I’d never compromise that. You know us media folks always protect our sources.”

I shake my head. “Sorry. Too big a risk.”

“I thought that’s what you do—take risks.”

“Not stupid ones.”

She thinks about that. Then after a moment, she nods, gets up and starts to walk away. While I’m silently cussing—myself, her, maybe fate—she comes back, leans down close to my ear and whispers, “If you change your mind, I’d still like to hear your story. Your terms, your rules. My quarters are in the Quonset next to the media’s. You can find me there.”

After she leaves I look at the sub I’m still holding in my hands, and I realize I’ve lost my appetite—for food, anyway. Right then the only thing I’m hungry for is a woman with auburn hair and matching eyes.

His trip down memory lane lasted for the space of the few seconds it took them to get to him. He reached out for Yancy, who staggered and almost fell into his arms, the child sandwiched between the two adults. He caught and steadied her while her eyes searched his face in shocked disbelief. Her mouth opened, but before she could fire off the questions he knew must be piled up inside her, he said in a low, guttural voice, “Go—run. Keep going. Don’t stop for anything.”

He had to hand it to her—no questions, no hesitation. She just nodded and took Laila’s hand in a firm grip.

Hunt shoved the two of them behind him and turned his attention to the would-be abductors, who by this time were sorting themselves out and shouting at each other in fury and outrage. A couple of them seemed to think they might give chase but changed their minds when they saw what was blocking their path. A tall man wearing the elaborately wound turban and embroidered vest of a Pashtun tribal elder would give the average urban Afghan male pause even if he wasn’t portraying an attitude of authority, strength and menace. Hunt excelled at all three. In a matter of moments the men had dispersed and vanished into the crowds, both pedestrian and vehicular.

Hunt waited until he was certain the threat had passed, then turned to follow the woman and child, who had already vanished from sight. He walked rapidly but didn’t run. He knew he’d find them again.

* * *

“Mommy? Who was that man? Who were those other men? Why were they following us? What did they want? Why did we run away?”

Yancy could only shake her head as she leaned against a mud-brick wall and fought to catch her breath. As she waited for her pounding heart to calm itself, her numbed brain struggled to absorb the reality that once again the assumption of Hunt Grainger’s demise had been premature.

She tried to figure out how that made her feel.

I don’t know how I feel!

There isn’t time to feel. Not now. I have to get Laila to safety. Someplace safe...

Dear God, where? I don’t even know where we are.

Laila was having no trouble finding breath for her usual stream of questions. Questions Yancy couldn’t answer, not then. How would she answer...ever?

Mommy, who was that man?

He’s your father, sweetie. The father that dropped you in my lap and disappeared from both our lives.

Who were those other men? What did they want?

I think they wanted to take you away from me...maybe kill me in order to do it.

Why?

Why? That’s a good question. How do I answer that? How do I make you understand ignorance and evil?

Yancy held up a hand to stem the flow of words, then reached out to pull her daughter close to her side while she cast intent looks in every direction. She could see no sign of pursuit or anyone that looked threatening, but the fear lingered. She could feel Laila’s body quivering as the child clutched her tightly and pressed her face against her side. She could feel her moist heat, smell terror and sweat, and for a moment rage clouded her vision.

Then, once again, she commanded herself to think.

I have to get us back to the hotel. She’ll be safe there.

Thank goodness she still had her purse, the strap looped snugly across her chest from one shoulder to the opposite hip. She dug in it frantically, located her cell phone and turned it on. While she waited for it to locate a signal, she looked around, hoping to find a street sign or, failing that, some sort of landmark that might help a taxi find their location.

“Look, Mom—donkey,” Laila said in a faint but hopeful voice.

Yancy watched the small dusty animal toiling up the rocky, rutted street—just a path, really—with a load of water jugs balanced on his scrawny back. A boy no more than eleven or twelve years old, dressed in baggy trousers and a T-shirt several sizes too big for him, trudged along beside the donkey and switched idly at its rump with a small stick. Several yards beyond the pair, a man plodded steadily uphill bearing a pole across his shoulders, a plastic water container suspended from each end. Several children ran by, their bare feet seemingly impervious to the rocky ground as they leaped nimbly across the ditch that ran down the middle of the street carrying sludge and raw sewage. And she realized she did know where they were, at least generally.

This was the old slummy part of Kabul, where mud-brick houses clung to the side of the mountain practically one on top of the other, most without electricity or running water. Where people lived in appalling poverty, and all the water needed for cooking and bathing had to be carried up from the community wells down below. Several years ago Yancy had done a feature on the conditions here. It was disheartening to see that nothing much had changed.

With unsteady fingers poised to punch in the number for her network’s Kabul bureau, she hesitated. Of course, they’d send someone to pick them up if she asked, even though she was on leave, not assignment, and hadn’t told anyone at the network of her travel plans. But if possible, she wanted to continue to fly under the radar, for so many reasons. This was a personal pilgrimage, for her and for Laila. Or it had been, until...

Until we were almost abducted in the middle of a Kabul bazaar, for who-knows-what reason.

Until a man I thought was dead stepped in to help us escape.

Or did I only imagine that part? Could he possibly be real?

But Laila had seen him, too.

“Mommy, I’m thirsty.” Laila was tugging at her skirt.

“I know, baby. I’m thirsty, too.” Shading her eyes with her free hand, she surveyed the jumble of houses and winding dirt paths through which they’d just come. Water would only be found at the bottom of the hill, as would paved streets and access to taxis. They couldn’t stay where they were, obviously, but what if their would-be abductors were down there, as well, looking for them?

Inspiration struck as she remembered the shopping bag with the things they’d bought at the bazaar, including the scarves she’d picked up as gifts for Miranda.

Jamming her cell phone back into her purse, she opened the bag and pulled out the two most brightly colored and beautifully patterned scarves, one in rose and gold, the other in blue and green. She pulled off the much more sedate and modest gray one she was wearing and draped the rose-and-gold one over her head and shoulders, arranging it so it covered her hair and half of her face. Ignoring the glances of passersby, she exchanged Laila’s white scarf for the prettier blue-and-green one, while Laila gazed at her with solemn eyes and said not a word, not even to ask a question.

Yancy straightened and took Laila’s hand, shifted her purse onto her hip and said, “Okay, sweetie, let’s go find some water, shall we?”

She wanted more than water. She wanted a huge glass of wine. Or maybe a slug of whiskey. She wanted to sink down with her back against the mud-brick wall and fall completely to pieces.

Not now. Not until Laila’s safe. I have to get her to safety. Somehow.

She started down the dusty street, holding her head high and putting as much confidence in her step as she could summon while her heart pounded and cold sweat trickled between her shoulder blades. They’d gone no more than twenty yards or so before a tall, imposing figure stepped out of a narrow, branching alleyway to block their path.

Chapter 3

“This way—I’ve got a car.” His voice low and terse. “They’re probably still looking for you.”

Yancy stood rock-still, conscious only of her burning eyes, pounding heart and the small moist hand in hers. She whispered, “Hunt?”

Deadpan, he said, “Yeah, Yankee, no ghost. It’s really me. Come on—hurry up.” He waited for them to slip past him into the narrow passageway, then followed, urging them to go faster, fast enough that Laila, with her shorter legs, had to trot to keep up.

Yancy’s Irish temper sparked to life and built to a slow simmer. Not the best timing for it, she realized, but it did help burn off the fog of shock. Before her anger could reach full boil, she halted, so abruptly Hunt had to sidestep nimbly to keep from bumping into her. She heard him swearing under his breath.

“What are you stopping for? Move, move.”

Yancy tightened her grip on her purse strap. “That’s not going to happen. Not another step. Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

From the shadows between his turban and beard, his eyes seemed to glow like those of a wild animal. “Can’t you just trust me?” She stared at him without answering. He hissed out a breath. “Dammit, Yancy, this isn’t the time. I’ll answer your questions when I’ve got you to safety.”

“Okay, sure, that’s fine.” Holding herself straight and firm, tall as she was, she still had to look up to meet his eyes. “Darn right you will. But there’s someone else here I’m sure has questions. Maybe they can’t wait. Did you even think about her? Did you stop to think you might be scaring her?”

She saw him hesitate, saw his gaze flick to Laila and something she couldn’t identify flash across his eyes, though his features remained impassive. He dropped to one knee, took Laila by the arms and turned her to face him in a way she’d seen him do once before.

In a gentle voice she’d also heard him use once before, he said, “Hey, do you remember me?” Laila stared stoically back at him, rigid as a post. “Do you know who I am?”

Moments passed, filled with heartbeats and silence. Yancy held her breath until it hardened in her chest. Then Laila whispered a single word, in Pashto. “Akaa...”

There was a soft hiss of breath. He threw an unreadable glance at Yancy before turning his attention back to Laila. “That’s right. Akaa Hunt, remember? I need you to come with me now—will you do that?”

He reached for her hand, but she shrank back against Yancy, shaking her head, whimpering, “No...no...”

Hunt drew back and draped the rejected hand across a drawn-up knee. His voice was, if possible, even more gentle. “No? Why not?”

Yancy put her hand on Laila’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze. She nearly choked on the words. “It’s okay, baby. He’s...our friend.”

Laila turned swimming golden eyes toward Yancy and asked in a small voice, “Is he going to take me away, Mommy?” A tear made its way slowly down her cheek. “I don’t want to leave you. Please don’t make me go.”

Again, pain sliced through Hunt’s chest. He had to look away and his hand clenched into a fist while Yancy gathered his daughter close and murmured reassurances.

My daughter.

But I deserved that, I suppose.

Not that knowing it lessened the weight in the pit of his stomach to any noticeable degree.

He stood up and briefly laid his hand on Laila’s scarf-draped head. “I’m not taking you away from your mom. You’re both coming with me. Right...Mom?” He braced himself and met Yancy’s eyes, prepared for the blazing anger he saw there, knowing he deserved that, too.

No apologies, Yankee. I did what was necessary. Couldn’t be helped.

Laila looked to Yancy for confirmation, back at Hunt with her chin at a particular tilt, one he remembered well. “Okay, I’ll go,” she announced. “But I’m very tired of walking. My feet are tired. And I’m thirsty.”

“No problem,” Hunt said with a shrug. “I can carry you.”

She bristled, as he’d known she would, and her chin rose up another notch. “Don’t be silly. I’m way too big to carry. I’m eight years old. I’m not a baby.”

Yancy automatically murmured, “Laila...”

Hunt spoke over her. “You’re right—you’re not. So, we’d better get a move on, okay? It’s not much farther. Sooner we get going, the sooner we’ll be there.”

“My mom said we were going to have ice cream. Do you have ice cream?”

He glanced at Yancy, who shrugged and looked away, hiding her expression behind a swath of scarf. He gave the kid—his kid—a sideways look. “I imagine that could be arranged.”

“Pistachio?”

Pistachio? He and Yancy exchanged another look. His said, What the hell?

Hers, along with another shrug, said, Don’t look at me. She’s got your DNA.

He snorted and gave Laila his best glare. “How ’bout we save the negotiations for later? Right now, we’re gonna play Follow The Leader, and I’m the leader—you got that?”

After a moment, she nodded, though he could tell from the gleam in her eyes she wasn’t all that impressed with his claim to authority. Growling under his breath, he turned and led the way down the curving alley, trusting Yancy to bring the girl and keep up with him.

Mommy. My mom said...

It played over and over in his head. He was having trouble wrapping his head around that. Not the fact of it—he’d known about the adoption, of course. Maybe hearing her say the words... No—it was the way he felt when he heard her say the words. That was what he couldn’t reconcile himself with.

Hunt Grainger—the Hunt Grainger he’d made himself into—couldn’t afford the luxury of feeling. For so many years—he’d lost track of how many—he’d put away any feelings that threatened to get in his way, put them in a safe he’d long since lost the combination to. He’d had a job to do, a job with lives at stake. Sometimes more than just lives. Sometimes the future of nations depended on his staying focused, going into impossible situations and getting the job done. Not only would feelings get in the way of him getting the job done, but they could be downright dangerous.

* * *

“No apologies. I do what I have to do.”

I remember saying those words the night I finally went to her Quonset.

To tell you the truth, I don’t know what drove me to knock on her door. It was a couple of weeks after my team pulled hers out of a firefight, the day she’d invited me to drop by and tell my story. Like the last time, we’d come in off a mission, only this one hadn’t gone the way we’d planned. We hadn’t lost anyone on the team, but there’d been civilian casualties. Children. Women. I had no intention of telling anybody about any of that, but I was carrying pictures in my head that weren’t going to be erased by a sub sandwich, even if it was accompanied by a cold beer. Or several. Maybe I thought the company of a beautiful redheaded woman would do something to make me forget the image of a little girl clinging to her dead mother and crying, “Ammi, Ammi...” over and over.

But that wasn’t the first time I’d had to deal with such things, and I knew it wouldn’t be the last. So maybe what I was really looking for was an excuse to do what I’d been wanting to do all along.

* * *

Watching Hunt Grainger face off with his own daughter did a lot to restore Yancy’s spirits. Oh, she was still half in shock, still angry, for so many reasons, and she still had more questions than she could put in coherent form, even though asking questions was how she made her living. But he was right—those were for another time. At the moment she was finding a certain measure of satisfaction in the look of utter helplessness she’d seen on Hunt’s face when he was haggling with Laila. Who would have guessed the man she still thought of as more superhero than man, more machine than human, could be brought to earth by an eight-year-old girl?

But she’d seen that look of utter bewilderment on his face before. Only once. And it was probably what had made her sleep with him. At least the first time...

* * *

It’s still sharp and clear in my memory, even after so long. I’m in my quarters, working on the copy for next day’s report. I’ve always written my own. It’s one of my trademarks as a correspondent. I don’t know if he knocked; if he did I was deep into the work and didn’t hear it. Then he is simply there, standing inside the door, standing straight and tall, almost at attention.

“Well, hello, soldier,” I say as I hit Save on my laptop and close it.

He says, “My name’s Hunt.” My heart begins to beat faster, and I fight to maintain my poise.

“Does this mean you’ve decided to talk to me?” I ask with professional calm, holding on to a smile as he saunters toward me. He frowns and shakes his head. “Then why,” I say, “are you here?”

“Damned if I know,” he replies, and the look on his face makes me catch my breath. For the first and the only time, I see pain there, and sadness, and confusion. I don’t know what to make of it.

Later I thought I’d mistaken the look completely; it seemed so out of character for him and never came again.

“Can...I help you?” I ask him, my smile faltering as he comes closer...so close. Though I’m not afraid, and I don’t know why.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe.”

He touches me then, one hand on the side of my face...my neck. His eyes are like fire. I feel them burning me as he lowers his face closer to mine, and I hold my breath but don’t move away.

Closer...closer, his mouth comes to mine, almost but not quite touching, hovering there, giving me time to stop what’s coming. My held breath fills my chest and throat, almost choking me. My heartbeat rocks me. His breath on my lips is like a powerful drug, clouding my brain. I put my hand up to his where it lies against my cheek, but not to pull it away.

When his lips touch mine at last, it’s as if a torch has been laid to dry tinder. There is no stopping it. And no going back.

* * *

The alley they were following opened onto a wider dirt street, this one crowded and noisy with pedestrians, mostly men, some pushing handcarts or leading donkeys. There were bicycles maneuvering through the crowd, and several cars were parked alongside the street, huddling as close as they could to the mud-brick buildings.

Hunt motioned for Yancy and Laila to stay back while he stepped into the street. Yancy watched as he surveyed it for several minutes in both directions, eyes touching on every pedestrian, every vehicle, every detail with the intensity of a trained sniper. Apparently satisfied nothing there represented any immediate danger to them, he gestured for Yancy and Laila to join him.

As she followed Hunt through the throngs of people, Yancy kept her head bowed, clutched her scarf beneath her chin and held tightly to her daughter’s hand. She couldn’t help but think how they must appear: Afghan man with his wife and child meekly following behind. The thought made her vaguely queasy.

They hadn’t gone far—Laila hadn’t begun complaining again about her tired feet—when Hunt paused beside a dusty Mercedes of indeterminate color and vintage. He produced a set of keys from the folds of his tunic, unlocked the car and opened the back door.

“Get in and keep down,” he said tersely. “Don’t get up until I tell you.”

Yancy had never been good at taking orders, but because she was mindful of Laila’s own contrary nature, and in the interests of leading by example, she chose to do as Hunt told her. She stayed down, hunched over Laila to keep her from popping up to look, as well, while he got in the front, started the motor and inched the car into the flow of traffic. But as soon as the smoothness of the road and the change of traffic noise from pedestrian to vehicular told her they were on a busy city street, she sat up and looked around. After a moment, she said, “Where are we going?”

Hunt snorted. His eagle’s glare met hers in the rearview mirror. “Thought I told you to stay down.”

“This isn’t the way to our hotel,” Yancy pointed out, ignoring that. “Where are you taking us?”

Lashes shuttered his gaze as he shifted it back to the street ahead. “To my place.”

Yancy considered that for a moment, while her heartbeat ticked a notch faster. She glanced at Laila, who had apparently tuned them out and was peering through the window with avid interest. She hitched herself forward and leaned her arms on the back of the front seat. “Is this a rescue,” she inquired in a low voice, but with a light, almost musical tone, “or another abduction?”

Although her view of the side of his face was mostly beard, she noted the subtle change in its shape and caught the flash of teeth as he smiled. His eyes clashed briefly with hers in the mirror. “I’m taking you someplace I know she’ll be safe.”

Safe.

Laila knew she wasn’t supposed to be listening, but she heard that word and knew they were talking about her, about wanting her to be safe, which was really funny because she didn’t feel safe at all right now. She felt jumbled and mixed up and kind of scared, maybe a little bit happy—the part about Akaa Hunt being here—but mostly she wanted to close her eyes and ears and make the dreams go away.

At least, she’d always thought they were dreams.

I used to have them a lot, when I was little and first came to live with my new mom. I dreamed about being in a cave in the dark with a big dog who kept me warm and safe from the demons who screamed and wailed outside, and then Akaa Hunt was there, reaching for me, and I thought at first he was a demon, too, but then he wrapped me in his coat and held me close to him, and I felt safe again, with him.

But then Akaa Hunt told me in a hard voice that Ammi—my first mother—was gone and he was taking me to someone who would keep me safe, and we traveled through the dark and the cold, and somewhere along the journey Akaa Hunt left me and went away.

She used to cry after she dreamed those dreams, when she was little.

Then Yancy became her new mom, and she felt happy and safe and didn’t have the dreams anymore.

Now, seeing Akaa Hunt again, she remembered the dreams and they seemed much more real than before. But she wasn’t little now. She was eight years old and she was too old to cry. Crying was for babies.

Laila pressed her lips together and clutched the car windowsill as she stared blindly through the glass and tried not to listen as Mom and Akaa Hunt went on talking.

“Wouldn’t we be safer at the hotel?”

Hunt’s eyebrows lifted into the shadow of his turban. “Think so? How did they know where to find you?” He paused. “Who knew you were going to the bazaar today? Who did you tell?”

“Nobody,” she stated with certainty, then felt herself go cold. With growing realization she added in a whisper, “The hotel concierge. The doorman...the cabdriver...”

Hunt was nodding. “I know, because I heard you. So could anybody else who might have been in the immediate vicinity.”

“You...were there? But how did you—”

Once again his beard telegraphed his smile, and his eyes denied it. “Let’s just say I have an interest in your comings and goings.” His voice hardened and so did his eyes. “Evidently, so does someone else.”

Yancy sat in stony silence while her heart raced and her mind whirled. She was both furious and frightened, so full of questions she felt she might explode, but acutely aware of all the reasons she couldn’t ask them. Not yet.

There was Laila, of course, whose hearing was keen and her mind busy even when she appeared to have her attention focused elsewhere.

But also, there was Hunt, who never answered questions. She thought of all the times...all the questions he’d never let her ask...

“Where have you—” I would always begin.

And his mouth would come down on mine, hard and hungry, his beard stubble rough on my face and his skin smelling of gunpowder, smoke and dust, shutting off the rest.

And I would close my eyes and my mind, letting it be enough that it was to me he came to forget, that it was my clean, female body he turned to, to erase the horrors he’d seen. The ugly things he’d done.

She eased slowly back in her seat, shaken by the sure and certain knowledge that this time was going to be different. It had to be. Too much had changed. This time she was going to ask the questions, and this time she would not be denied the answers.

She stared through the dusty windows, and as her emotions settled and her gaze focused, once again she realized she knew approximately where they were. This was another part of Old Town Kabul, only a few kilometers but worlds apart from both the poor section they’d just left and the bustling and modern downtown.

She slid forward again.

“You live here?” She dipped her head, indicating the aged trees shading the quiet street ahead, the high walls of houses with intricately carved wood window screens just visible through leafy branches. She waited for acknowledgment that didn’t come, then went on in a conversational tone. “I did a feature here a few years back. These houses are a couple hundred years old, at least, and most of them are owned by Kabul’s oldest families, families that trace back to the days of the Silk Road. How—”

“A friend of a friend,” he said, in a way that stated clearly, And that’s all I’m going to tell you.

She must have made some sound of vexation, because he exhaled through his nose and spoke under his breath. “This isn’t the time. Or the place.” The slight movement of his head recalled her attention to the other pair of ears present.

His eyes met hers and she realized with a small sense of shock that there was anger in them, mirroring her own.

She pushed back into her seat again, silently seething.

He’s angry? He’s angry? He pops in and out of my life—my bed!—without warning, as he pleases, dumps a child on my doorstep, tells me she’s his, then vanishes from the face of the earth for three years, and he’s angry? Really?

In a quick-as-lightning change of mood, fear returned.

Why? What is he angry with me about? It can only be something to do with Laila. Is it the adoption? The fact that I brought her here?

What business is it of his? He has no right—

A panicky shiver rippled through her. Did he have the right? If he was, in fact, Laila’s biological father—and she had only his word on that, after all. That, and those eyes.

Might he have a legal claim to her?

Could he take her away from me?

It was a new question, and it joined the others whirling in her mind.

Out of the maelstrom, once again one coherent thought emerged: I have to hold it together...put on a calm face...for Laila.

* * *

“Here we are,” Akaa Hunt said.

Laila ducked her head to look out the car window. She didn’t know why she felt funny about getting out of the car and going into the house with the carved patterns over the windows, but she did. Not scared, exactly, although she did have butterflies in her stomach and her heart was beating very, very fast. It was more like the way she remembered feeling on her first day in the new school after Yancy became her new mother, because she knew something big and exciting was going to happen and she wasn’t sure whether it would be good or bad.

“It’s okay, honey,” her mother whispered, and Laila nodded and reached for her hand. She felt like she might throw up or wet her pants, but that was so babyish she didn’t want to say so.

Just inside the door, she stopped suddenly and couldn’t keep from making a sound. It wasn’t very loud, but her mother and Akaa Hunt both heard. They stopped and looked at her.

“What is it, sweetie?” her mother asked.

Laila frowned and wrinkled her nose. “I smell something.”

“That would be supper,” Akaa Hunt said. “I hope.”

“It smells delicious,” Laila’s mother said and squeezed her hand in a way that meant remember your manners! “Doesn’t it?”

“It smells like...something I remember,” Laila said and added with a shrug, “but I don’t know exactly what.” She took a deep breath, let go of her mother’s hand and walked into the room. “I remember this, too. We used to sit on pillows when I lived with Ammi, when I was little.”

Behind her she heard her mother let out a breath and laugh a little bit. “Yes, I guess you did,” she said.

But her voice sounded quivery, and Laila wondered if maybe her mother’s stomach had butterflies, too.

* * *

“I think,” Yancy said, taking a deep breath, “Laila and I both could use a bathroom, if you—”

“Of course.” Hunt’s voice and manner were crisply formal. “Just go through there, into the courtyard. Second door down on the left is the women’s quarters. You should find everything you need. If not, let me know and I’ll have Mehri get it for you.”

“Mehri?”

“My housekeeper.”

“Oh—of course. Laila? Shall we wash up before supper?”

Laila looked up at her, then reached for her hand in a way that felt oddly as though she were offering reassurance and guidance to Yancy, rather than the other way around.

In the magnificently tiled bathroom, Yancy watched her daughter slowly and methodically wash her hands, arms and face, carefully rubbing the soap into foam, squishing the foam between her fingers, rubbing it over her forearms...

How silent she is. She should be chattering away, nonstop, asking one question after another, chirping like a little bird...

She cleared her throat. “Honey, how are you doing? Are you okay?”

Laila watched her hands, washing, washing. “Yes,” she said, but it lacked conviction.

“We had a pretty exciting day, didn’t we?” Yancy said carefully, wanting to go to her, wanting to touch her, though something held her back. “When those men...um. When they tried to...” When they tried to...do what? What did they want with us? I still don’t know. She caught another breath. “I was a little scared. Were you scared?”

“Well, I was...” Laila clasped her hands together and appeared to be fascinated by the foam squishing between her interlaced fingers. “But then I saw Akaa Hunt and I wasn’t scared anymore.”

Yancy felt a chill shiver through her. Breathless, she said, “Really? Why not?”

Laila’s shoulders lifted...fell. “Because I knew he would keep us safe. Like always.”

* * *

It was evening, which in recent times had become one of Hunt’s favorite times of the day. In his experience, most bad things seemed to happen at dawn. By nightfall, whatever was going to happen had happened, for better or worse. The world was shutting down, taking a breather. Even the wind stopped for dusk.

There was that, and the fact that lately it had begun to remind him of evenings when he was growing up, when the chores had all been done and the animals were quiet, well fed and bedding themselves down for the night. Dad would be out on the front porch having a smoke and surveying his kingdom while he waited to be called in to supper, and Mom banging things around in the kitchen, and good smells drifting through the windows. He remembered watching his dad and wishing he could be more like him, knowing he wasn’t and never would be as good a man as Charles Grainger, and all he really wanted was to be someplace far, far away from the farm and the whole state of Nebraska.

As an adult he’d worked hard to make sure the wish came true, and he had no regrets. Except maybe that—having no regrets—was something he regretted.

Here in the courtyard in Old Kabul, the air smelled of cooking—the meal they’d just eaten—and of flowers rather than hay or freshly turned earth or manure, and some kind of bird was singing a twilight song in one of the trees. Unlike his father, Hunt didn’t smoke—never had—and they’d already had supper. And the tiny kingdom he surveyed wasn’t his. But he was waiting. Waiting, not to be called in, but maybe—almost certainly—to be called to account.

He’d counted down the minutes before life-and-death missions with less trepidation.

He owed Yancy big-time, he knew, an explanation being the least of it. Explaining the facts wouldn’t be that hard, but he had a feeling “just the facts” wasn’t going to be enough for her, not this time. She was going to want to know what was going on with him, the why of it all, and how was he going to explain that when he wasn’t sure he knew himself. And even if he did know, he wasn’t clear on how much he was willing to tell her. Reticence was a hard habit to break. Knowledge was power, and giving that up to anyone, even the woman raising his child... He wasn’t sure he was ready for that. Or if he ever would be.

That realization made him inexpressibly sad.

The carved door behind him opened and his skin shivered with awareness. He turned and watched without comment as Yancy came into the courtyard from the part of the house that had traditionally been the women’s quarters. She was clutching a shawl around her shoulders. Because of the coolness of the evening, he wondered, or merely a case of nerves?

It surprised him a little that he felt the same purely physical, gut-tightening attraction to her he’d had almost from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her—not during the rescue, naturally, but later, back at the base. Sitting across from her at that table, looking into her eyes, the whole world around him fading away until it was just him and her... He’d known then he’d have her, eventually. He’d never doubted it. Just as he’d never doubted she’d be there whenever he came in off a mission, needing her.

He hadn’t looked too far ahead, back then. Never given much thought to a time when she wouldn’t be there. Then he’d put his daughter in her care, and everything had changed.

He’d thought he knew her pretty well, well enough at least to know she had nerves of steel. Ordinarily. But she’d been silent and withdrawn during the meal—with him, anyway—and he had an idea there was a lot churning around in that red head of hers. Because silence wasn’t a normal state for Yancy Malone.

“She’s asleep,” she said, and he nodded.

She glanced at him as she walked past him, deeper into the shadowed courtyard, where she lifted a hand to touch a blossom hanging from a vine. “It’s nice out here.”

“Yes,” he said, watching her. Waiting.

She turned to fully face him—as if squaring for battle. He couldn’t help but think how beautiful she was with that fierceness about her.

“Dinner was wonderful. Please tell... Mehri, wasn’t it?” He nodded. “Please tell her how much we—Laila and I—enjoyed it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen or tasted so many different rice dishes. And the qorma was fabulous. I’m going to have to ask her for the recipe.”

Seriously? It sounded as if she’d rehearsed it.

He answered with a stilted nod. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to share it with you. Afghan people are justifiably proud of their cuisine, as well as their hospitality.”

Her smile flickered and finally went out. Her gaze wandered away from his face and was jerked back, like a restive horse fighting the reins, to meet his, this time with defiance.

“Well?” he said. Gently rather than with impatience.

He heard the slight catch in her breathing. “Well, what?”

“I know you’ve been wanting to ask questions. So—ask.”

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