Kabul, Afghanistan August 2021
“Sergeant Green,” I said the next day. My stack of manila folders was balanced precariously between my hands, cell phone on top, as I walked toward where Nate stood guard at the doorway of the conference room our team had taken over as office space in the embassy. Guess it was fitting to call him an entirely different name, considering he felt like a completely different person.
But he’d slipped those earbuds into my ears yesterday and played “Northern Downpour” to distract me when the helicopter took off. What the hell was I supposed to do with that? It was a glimpse of who we’d been in this dusty, bleak landscape of what we’d somehow become.
“Ms. Astor.” Nate nodded, his eyes trained straight ahead.
“Isa!” Ben Holt came flying through the lobby behind me, dodging the thickening crowd of Americans looking for assistance, and I half expected him to pull a cartoonish skid, but he managed to stop before barreling into me.
“Is something on fire?” I asked, adjusting the folders.
“Did you file your report with Senator Lauren when you got back last night?” Worry creased the area between his brows, and I sighed, already seeing where this was headed.
“Yep. I sent my initial impression from yesterday’s trip when we got back.” It had been late in the afternoon, and I’d been more than a little emotionally exhausted after clenching every muscle in my body during both
flights, but work was work. “Kacey is still drafting the pretty version in there.” I nodded back toward the conference room.
“Shit,” he muttered, letting his head fall back for a second. “Do you always have to be so ahead of things?” There was a teasing glint in his brown eyes. “It would help the rest of us every once in a while.”
“Not ahead,” I reminded him as my cell phone buzzed with an incoming call. “Just on top of things. If I don’t get my notes turned in, then the junior aides can’t get theirs started.” My cell moved across the top folder with every buzzing ring.
Jeremy’s name and contact photo filled the screen.
Shit. It was his third call today.
“Let me help,” Ben said, reaching for the phone a half second too late. It fell from the stack of folders, crashing into the shiny floor, bouncing on impact.
Naturally, where Ben was too slow, Nate had the reflexes of a freaking cat, and he caught the device before it could impact again.
I was acutely aware of the rise of Nate’s body next to mine, and if I hadn’t been staring at his face, watching for any possible reaction, I would have missed the way his brow furrowed for a second when he saw the screen. “Just hit decline,” I said softly, my heart pounding at the thought that he’d answer it.
I wasn’t ready for the conversation Jeremy wanted, or the very different one I needed, and I sure as hell wasn’t ready for Nate to talk to him. Nope. No way was that happening.
Nate might not have known Jeremy, but Jeremy sure as hell knew who Nate was. Couldn’t blame Jeremy for hating him, though. I wasn’t keen on fighting a ghost for my fiancé’s attention either.
Except Nate wasn’t a ghost anymore. He was flesh and blood next to me, smelling like that spearmint gum he was obsessed with.
Which meant I knew exactly how he tasted right now.
“You sure?” Nate’s ice-blue eyes rose to meet mine, his finger hovering over the decline button.
“Absolutely.” I nodded, never as certain about anything in my life. “Man, you’re fast,” Ben noted, leaning around my stack of folders to
look at the phone. “Jeremy, huh?”
Nate looked at the phone for a second longer, and I knew he was memorizing every detail about Jeremy in that way he had, filing the
information away for later. Then he tapped the decline button, and instead of putting my phone back on the stack in my arms, he slid it into the side pocket of my black slacks.
He didn’t touch me with his hands, but damn, did it feel like he had. “How’s that going, anyway?” Ben asked like Nate wasn’t even there. “It’s . . .” I swallowed, hard, and couldn’t help glancing over at Nate,
but he’d already stepped back, taking his interminable position at the door. The files grew heavier every second we stood here. “It is what it is.”
“You know, I heard rumors.” Ben rubbed the back of his neck, giving me that pitying look I’d become accustomed to over the last six weeks. “But you hadn’t said anything, so I didn’t want to push—”
“Which I appreciate,” I said, cutting him off. “I’d just rather focus on the work we have here and leave Washington in Washington.” What I had to decide wasn’t for public knowledge, especially not in the gossiping fishbowl that was DC politics.
“Understandable.” His voice softened. “But just in case you need someone to talk to”—he reached for my shoulder—“I’m here.” With a sympathetic nod, he walked past me and into the conference room.
“Give me those.” Nate moved over and took the files from my arms without waiting for me to respond, and I nearly sighed with physical relief. “Whatever he’s asking you to share, don’t.”
“Really?” I asked, pivoting to face him.
“He’s . . .” Nate’s forehead crinkled, which meant he was searching for the right words. “He’s too eager for the information. Just a gut feeling.”
“Yeah.” I fought my smile, because he was right on the money. “He asked me out our first week on the Hill, and I’m not sure he’s ever really accepted that no.”
Nate’s brow furrowed as he glanced through the glass into the conference room. “Guys who wait for a woman to hit her lowest so they can make their move are pieces of shit.”
“Noted.” I pressed my lips between my teeth to keep from grinning. “What?”
“You’ve always had the ability to judge someone’s character within minutes of meeting them, and I’ve never seen you proved wrong.” I shrugged, looking away quickly. “You know we don’t need a guard at the door, right? We’re in the embassy.”
“And I told you that for the next two weeks, I won’t be any more than a room away from you. Not until you’re safe and snug on a plane pointed stateside.” His gaze took a quick sweep of the files.
“But you’ll stay here, won’t you?” I whispered, my stomach sinking.
Putting me on a plane would only guarantee my safety, not his. Never his. “These names aren’t on our itinerary.” He arched a brow.
“They’re all SIV applications,” I said. “For Special Immigrant Visas.” “For people employed by us,” he said. “I know what SIVs are. What
are you doing with a stack of them?”
“I got the rundown on how to process them earlier and figured we could help out between meetings.” Looking over my shoulder, I noted how crowded the lobby was. “I walked into the waiting room, and every chair is full. They’re overwhelmed.”
“They are,” he agreed. “Good to see some things haven’t changed,” he said, turning to walk into the conference room. “You’re still trying to save everyone but yourself.”
 |
Ice-cold water soaked my feet and panic seized my muscles, making my numb fingers useless as I fought with the seat belt. We were going under, and there was nothing I could do about it but sit there and drown. The screams around me filled my ears as I yanked harder and harder on the belt. The water rose to my knees, and I tried to cry out for help, but my throat wouldn’t work.
The sudden silence made me look around at the other passengers, but they were gone, all evacuated through the emergency exit across the aisle.
I was alone. They all left me.
I forced out a scream, the sound garbled as the water rushed up my thighs and the floor lighting failed. There wasn’t enough air, enough time. I was going to die in here. The fuselage sank faster and faster, water rising around my chest, but the stupid belt was stuck.
Looking left, I saw the emergency exit open, but I couldn’t get there.
This isn’t right.
He wouldn’t leave me. He never left me. Not until I—
“Izzy!” Nate jumped through the doorway, splashing into the freezing water, then unhooked my belt with one flick of his hand, but he looked different. Thicker. Older. Harder. The name tape on his Kevlar read Green.
This was a dream.
With a gasp, I shot up in bed, my tank top soaked through with sweat and my heart pounding as I struggled for breath. My ribs squeezed like a vise, but I forced air in and out through my lungs. That was all it ever took to escape the nightmare. I just had to realize it was one.
Falling out of bed, I hit my knees and the carpet stung my bare skin. This was real.
“My name. Is. Isabeau Astor,” I managed through the narrowing passage of my throat. “I was a passenger on flight 826.” There we go. That was a full sentence. “We hit the water. I made it out.” The words had been drilled into me through years of therapy, though they always took different forms, depending on the nightmare. “I swam to safety. I survived.” By the time I finished, my throat had opened enough that I could take a deep breath. Then two. “We survived.”
I glanced at the clock. It was four a.m. Fresh air. I needed fresh air.
A beep alerted me that my door opened, and then it slammed shut, but the scant amount of moonlight coming in through the windows didn’t give me much visibility.
“Izzy?”
“In here.” My shoulders slumped in relief. There was only one person that voice could belong to.
“You screamed.” His shadow filled my doorway, and I could tell his weapon was drawn.
“It’s just me,” I assured him, wrapping my arms around my midsection.
He walked right by me, clearing my bathroom and then the area next to the window before flicking on the light on the nightstand behind me. “Fuck.”
That word was the only warning before there was a sound like him holstering his weapon. Then he lifted me into his arms, holding me close against his chest.
“I’m okay,” I promised, but that didn’t stop me from melting into his familiar embrace. He wasn’t decked out in that thick Kevlar vest anymore,
not that I expected him to be at four in the morning. There was soft black cotton and a steady heartbeat against my cheek.
“Yeah, seems like it.” He walked us into the living room, then sat on the couch, holding me in his lap and clicking on the table lamp next to us. “Shit, you’re soaked.”
I should have moved, should have scooted to the other end of the couch, but instead, I tucked my legs up and curled into him for the simple reason that there was nowhere safer in this world.
“It’s just a nightmare.” I shivered as my skin chilled beneath the beads of sweat.
Nate reached over his shoulder and pulled the blanket from the back of the couch over me, then wrapped one arm around me. His other hand stroked up and down my arm in a soothing, repetitive motion. “Would a hot bath help?”
“No water.” I shook my head and barely kept myself from arching my face into his neck. It should have been illegal to smell that good, all fresh soap and spearmint.
“The plane,” he guessed, resting his chin on the top of my head. “The plane.”
Minutes passed in silence as my heart rate slowed to match his. That was one of the things I loved about being around Nate. We didn’t have to fill every empty second with chatter.
“Do you ever get them?” I asked, knowing I should move off his lap, out of his arms, and yet unable to make myself.
“Not really anymore.” He continued the slow, steady strokes up and down my arm.
“What changed?”
“It became one of the lesser traumatizing things I’ve seen,” he said softly. “But if I do get them, they’re usually that I can’t get you out, or that you slip away in the current. Never gets past that, though. I’m perpetually battling to get you to shore.” His hand paused, and he squeezed my shoulder. “What about you? How often do they still happen to you?”
“Depends. Usually only when I’m in the middle of something really stressful, or something that’s out of my control.” Like right now. “Feels like I went through years of therapy for nothing,” I tried to joke.
“If they happen less than they used to, it’s worth it.”
I somehow doubted he’d acted on that sentiment in the last three years, given how opposed he’d been to it before.
Moments passed, and the impropriety of it all struck me straight in the chest. “Is this how you comfort every assignment you’re given?”
“Hardly,” he scoffed, shaking his head, and I knew that if I looked up, I’d see that slight smile curving his lips. The one that always made me ache to kiss him.
I couldn’t stay there, curled up against him like I wasn’t someone else’s fiancée.
Are you really, though?
I shifted my head slightly and felt the lump under my cheek, then drew back to stare at it.
“I was in the middle of getting dressed when I heard you,” he said, pulling the chain from beneath his shirt to reveal what looked like a dog tag, but it had been wrapped in black tape.
The tape was so he wouldn’t make a sound when moving around, if I remembered correctly.
“Explains the bare feet,” I said, shifting out of his lap and taking the blanket with me. It was odd that he was wearing dog tags if I wasn’t even allowed to call him by his name. All these years later, he’d dug deeper into the same life, while I’d completely changed mine.
He cleared his throat and moved to the other end of the couch, leaving only my feet on the no-man’s-land of the center cushion.
“What were you doing up at four in the morning?” I asked, tugging the blanket closer to cover the fact that I didn’t exactly wear a bra to bed. Not that he hadn’t already seen every inch of me naked.
“Getting back from the gym.”
I dropped my gaze to his hip, where a weapon was holstered. “And the first thing you do after a shower is strap up?”
“Listen to you.” He grinned, flashing that dimple, and my heart freaking clenched. “Strap up.”
God, it was safer against his chest, where I wasn’t looking straight into those eyes. Ten years later, and they still had the same thigh-clenching effect on me. The man could have done nothing but look at me, and I bet I would have come if he stared hard enough. I gripped the edge of the blanket.
His brow knit. “You’re not wearing your ring.”
Heat flushed my cheeks, and I drew my hand back beneath the blanket. “I don’t sleep in it,” I explained. The damn thing was cumbersome and caught on the sheets, and maybe I just needed a damn break from wearing the symbol of being Jeremy’s. “It’s . . . not comfortable,” I finished in a tone so lame even I cringed.
“I can see how a rock like that would get . . . heavy.” He looked away, his jaw ticking.
Guilt sat like a rock in my stomach, and a thousand things I wanted to say tickled the tip of my tongue. Then I remembered the sight of his rain- soaked back retreating down my hallway in New York, refusing to turn when I called his name over and over, and my chest tightened. “How are we supposed to do this?”
“Do what?” He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees.
“Stay this close for the next two weeks and just ignore . . . everything?” It came out as a whisper.
He shoved his dog tags back under his shirt. “It’s only twelve more days,” he answered quietly. “And we just have to.”
“Nate.” I moved to scoot closer, and he pinned me with a look that stopped me dead.
“Don’t, Izzy.” He shook his head. “I have one weakness on this entire planet, and you’re feet away when you’re supposed to be halfway round the globe.” That mask he wore like armor fell away, and the pain in his eyes was enough to make me suck in a sharp breath. “So please, have some goddamn mercy on me for once in your life and just . . .” His eyes squeezed shut. “Just ignore it.”
I studied the lines of his face, the tattoo that moved and rippled on his forearm when he curled his hands into fists. Every line of him was tight, like he was prepared to fight a battle I couldn’t see. It wasn’t fair to him. I was here by my choice, and he was only staying for me. “Okay,” I said. “I can ignore it.”
“Thank you.” His posture relaxed, and he stared at the coffee table in front of us. “What is that?” He motioned to the folder.
“The latest posts by American journalists,” I answered. “Kacey must have come in and put them on the table after I went to bed. I crashed early.”
“She has a key?”
“Yes. She’s a junior aide. She’s not a threat, Nate.” I rolled my eyes.
“You need to lock your dead bolt,” he muttered, reaching for the folder.
“And if I had, you wouldn’t have been able to get in, either, would you?” I challenged, tucking my legs underneath me as he handed me the folder.
He snorted. “Like a piece of metal is keeping me out when I hear you scream.”
I didn’t bother pointing out that if he could get past a dead bolt, so could anyone else. Instead, I thumbed through the articles. My breath caught when I saw her byline. “Nate,” I whispered, shoving the printed article at him. “She’s not in the picture, but it’s Serena’s article.”
I bet if I check my phone right now, I’ll have a Google Alert waiting in my inbox.
He took the article and studied the picture, sighing. “She’s in Mez.”
“What?” Against my better judgment, I moved closer so I could see it, too, my shoulder brushing his arm.
“That building. It’s the Shrine of Ali, also known as the Blue Mosque.” He pointed to the building in the distance of the picture. “She’s either in Mazar-i-Sharif, or she was recently.”
I couldn’t help but smile, because she’d filed it earlier this evening, according to the post time. “But she’s alive.”
“She’s alive.”
And now we knew where she was.
