Tate wasn’t going to help her. Eva forced herself to accept the cold hard truth as she stared at the angelic face of her sleeping son. It had been twenty-four hours since she’d met Tate at the cantina. No phone call, no knock on the door. She’d struck out. Failed.
Back to square one.
“Mommy, that hurts.”
She nearly fell off the bed at the sound of her son’s drowsy voice. When she glanced down, she realized she’d been squeezing his hand so hard she’d jolted him right out of a peaceful slumber.
As her chest tightened with the shame of knowing she’d brought him pain, she loosened her grip and moved her hand to his cheek.
“Sorry, little man, Mommy didn’t mean to hurt you.” She stroked his silky-soft skin. “Go back to sleep, baby.”
His eyelids immediately drooped, his breathing growing slow and steady as he fell asleep again. She envied him sometimes—Rafe was out like a light the second his head hit the pillow, and he could sleep through a hurricane.
Eva, on the other hand... She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d slept more than two or three hours a night. Maybe before she’d met Hector.
With a sigh, she stretched out next to her son, propping herself up on one elbow to gaze down at Rafe’s sweet face. When she’d been in labor, she’d wondered how she would respond to him if he inherited Hector’s harsh, dark eyes and angular features. Rafe was all her, though—the blue eyes, the black hair, his grandfather’s dimples.
Still, she knew she would have loved him even if he had resembled his father. From the day he was born, Rafe had been his own little person—strong-willed, quick to laugh, unbelievably sweet.
“You’re mine,” she whispered fiercely, reaching out to smooth a lock of hair off his forehead. “I won’t let him have you.”
She suddenly had to wonder if maybe that was why Tate had decided to refuse her. Had he known she was lying about her true connection to Hector?
When she’d come to the bar, she’d had every intention of telling him the whole truth—her relationship with the ULF rebel, the pregnancy, Hector’s single-minded desire to claim his son.
But her resolve had wavered when she’d glimpsed the look in Tate’s hunter-green eyes after she’d said Hector’s name. There had been murder in his expression. Murder and hatred and simmering rage.
She’d realized at that moment that if she told him she was the mother of Hector’s child, he might very well wrap his strong hands around her throat and strangle the life right out of her—that was how volatile his emotions about Hector Cruz were.
So she’d lied. Glossed over certain facts, made up a fake lover. She’d hoped that it would be enough to convince Tate, that he’d see how genuine her terror was, how grave her situation, and agree to help.
Looked as if she’d hoped wrong.
With a heavy sigh, she rose from the bed and glanced around the seedy motel room, growing pale when she spotted a fat black cockroach scuttling across the linoleum floor. The roach disappeared behind the dresser, officially squashing any chance of Eva getting any sleep tonight. She was not a bug person.
She drifted to the tiny kitchenette and sat on one of the uncomfortable chairs around the white plastic table. “Please don’t crawl up my leg,” she muttered, shooting a paranoid look in the direction of the dresser.
Reaching for the laptop in front of her, she opened the computer and booted it up. The motel she’d chosen was the only one in the area with wireless access, and she immediately opened the internet browser and typed in the web address for the airline. She could book flights for her and Rafe under the current identities they were using, but once they reached their destination, she’d need to arrange for new papers.
But where to go? Europe again? Or maybe Australia this time. There were hundreds of places to hide down under.
Lots of bugs, too.
Shoot, that was true. She remembered hearing that the outback had some crazy bug statistic, something like more than two hundred thousand different species of insects...
Okay, no, thank you. She promptly decided to stay far away from that part of the world. Canada might be a better bet. Find a place out west, up in the mountains somewhere.
She was in the midst of doing a quick flight search when a sharp knock rapped against the door.
Eva felt all the color drain from her face. Her first thought was that Hector had found her again—until she remembered the way his men had kicked down the door in Istanbul. Right. Hector definitely wouldn’t take the time to knock.
Drawing a deep breath, she reached for the .45 mm next to her laptop, gripped the weapon with both hands, and made her way to the door. She left the flimsy metal chain on as she inched open the door and peered out.
A pair of vivid green eyes glared back at her.
Relief flooded her belly. Tate. He’d come!
“You’re here,” she burst out, as she fumbled to unhook the chain. She opened the door and gestured for him to enter.
He stepped inside, his muscular body vibrating with reluctance and distrust. Eva’s heart did a little somersault as his scent surrounded her—spicy, woodsy and male. When she noticed the way his pants clung to his rock-hard thighs, her pulse took off in a gallop. She didn’t think she’d ever seen a more virile, sexier man, and her reaction to his maleness annoyed her.
Tate’s hard gaze landed on the gun in her hands, and the corners of his mouth lifted. “Do you even know how to use that thing?”
She shrugged. “Point and shoot, right?”
“Something like that.”
Unable to stop herself, she found herself staring at his mouth, which was far more sensual than she’d realized. His lips were surprisingly full, and the dark stubble above his upper lip and slashing across his strong jaw painted a blatantly masculine picture.
“You done gawking at me?”
His mocking voice brought the heat of embarrassment to her cheeks. He’d caught her checking him out, but he couldn’t be a gentleman about it, could he? No, he just had to point it out.
Gentleman? Look at him, dummy.
Yeah, she really shouldn’t expect any gentlemanly behavior from this man.
Swallowing, Eva hoped she wasn’t blushing and locked her eyes with his. “So can I assume you’re agreeing to help me?”
Rather than respond, he gestured to the two suitcases sitting beneath the painted-shut window. “Is that your stuff?”
“Who else’s would it be?”
Ignoring her sarcasm, Tate reached into his back pocket and extracted a black gadget the size of a BlackBerry. He flicked a button, then strode across the room and swept the device over her bags. A steady beeping pierced the air. Eva realized he was checking for bugs and tracking devices.
When he finished with the suitcase, he glanced in the direction of the bed, shooting a frown at her sleeping son. “You’ve got your kid with you.” He sounded annoyed.
The remark had her own irritation flaring. “Of course I do.”
Tate’s biceps flexed as he crossed his arms. “He can’t come with us.”
“He has to. I have nobody to leave him with.”
He slanted his head. “What about your parents?”
“I haven’t seen my parents in three years,” she said in a dull voice.
Still looking irritated, Tate grumbled something unintelligible and marched toward her. “Spread your legs, arms out to the side.”
Indignation seized her insides. “Pardon me?”
“I’m checking you for wires. Same goes for the kid.”
Eva’s eyebrows soared. “You honestly think I’d put a wire on my three-year-old child? Who would do that?”
“You’d be surprised.” Those green eyes watched her expectantly, and when she didn’t move a muscle, he gave a low chuckle. “You’re not going anywhere with me unless I’m sure you’re clean, so either you let me pat you down, or I walk right out the door, sweetheart.”
Her cheeks grew hot again. Pat her down? God, she didn’t want this man touching her. Not one bit.
But what other choice did she have?
Swallowing down her humiliation, she widened her stance and lifted her arms.
Two seconds later, Tate’s big, rough-skinned hands were roaming her body as if they owned it.
He started from the south, gliding those callused palms up each of her legs, the heat of his touch searing through the fabric of her leggings and making her skin tingle. Her pulse quickened when his hands neared her midriff. He patted her belly, her back, her shoulders, while she stood there, cheeks scorching, heart pounding.
Why did this man affect her this way?
Four years of celibacy will do that to a girl.
Right, that had to be it. It wasn’t Tate. Every human being had basic, carnal urges, and she’d been depriving her body for so long it was no wonder the mere proximity of a member of the opposite sex was getting it all excited.
Tate’s hands suddenly cupped her breasts, and Eva squeaked in protest. The sudden contact confused her nipples as much as it confused her brain, because those two buds puckered at once and strained against the front of her T-shirt.
“No bra,” Tate remarked, those green eyes glinting with approval. “Convenient.”
Outrage and mortification mingled in her blood. “I’m not wearing a bra because it’s not comfortable to sleep in, not because I anticipated you taking it off me.”
The corners of his mouth twitched as he dropped his hands from her chest. “I meant convenient in another sense, sweetheart. The best place for a woman to stash a wire is in her bra—either the straps or beneath the cups. Saves me time, not having to search your undergarments.”
“Oh.” She nearly apologized for assuming the worst but stopped herself at the last second. Why on earth should she apologize to this man? He was the one who’d just felt her up, for Pete’s sake.
“That your laptop?” he asked, gesturing to the silver MacBook on the table.
She nodded.
“Unplug it, shut it down and take the battery out.”
Her nostrils flared. “No.”
“Do it or I walk out of here.”
It was obvious he wasn’t going to budge. Grumbling her displeasure under her breath, Eva followed his instructions. After she slid her computer into its plush case, she looked over at Tate with a frown. “What now?”
“Gather your stuff. We’ll talk in the car.”
Getting her things didn’t take more than a minute. She hadn’t bothered unpacking her bags—living out of a suitcase had become second nature after being on the run for three years. She collected a few of Rafe’s toy trucks off the floor and threw them into one of the bags, then reached for the storybook on the nightstand, which she’d read only two lines of before her son had conked out.
She zipped up the suitcase and headed for the bed, tossing Tate a dark look over her shoulder. “Are you still intent on searching my son?”
“Sorry, but yes.”
Eva bent down to scoop Rafe into her arms, then gritted her teeth as Tate stalked over and patted her son down with those rough, warrior hands. The little boy stirred, then burrowed his head against her breasts, made a snuffling sound and continued sleeping.
“Shocking,” she muttered after Tate deduced her kid was “clean.”
He ignored the barb. “Ready to go?”
Holding her son tight, she gestured to the suitcases and laptop case on the floor and shot Tate a pointed look. “Can you carry those?”
Without a word, he picked up the bags as if they weighed nothing, then marched toward the door.
The parking lot of the motel was dark and deserted when they stepped outside. Tate headed for a beat-up Jeep Cherokee that had more rust than paint and flung open the back door to toss the suitcases inside. While he slid into the driver’s seat, Eva buckled Rafe in the backseat, then joined Tate up front.
After she was settled, the engine roared to life and then they were pulling out of the lot and heading for the main road. Eva briefly glanced out the window, watching the derelict buildings whiz by before turning to study her companion’s hard profile.
He must have felt her gaze on him, because he gave the sharp swivel of his head and pinned her down with a scowl. “The kid’s not coming with us,” he muttered. “We’ll have to leave him with my men.”
Panic trickled through her. “I’m not going anywhere without him.”
“And I won’t take a child on a potentially dangerous op.”
She chewed on her thumbnail, seeing his point. When she’d fled Istanbul and made the decision to find Tate, she hadn’t exactly thought through all the logistics. The only thing on her mind had been getting rid of Hector once and for all, but now she realized they did indeed have a problem. They couldn’t take Rafe to San Marquez.
But she couldn’t leave her son in the hands of a stranger, either.
“Meet my guys and then decide,” Tate added with a shrug.
“And if I don’t trust them?”
Sarcasm dripped from his gruff voice. “I suppose we could research reputable day cares in the area.”
Her nostrils flared. “Don’t be a jerk.” She tilted her head. “You don’t have any children, do you?”
“None that I know of,” he said with a crooked grin.
She rolled her eyes. “If you were a parent, you’d understand my apprehension about leaving my son.”
“Well, I’m not a parent, and I don’t give a damn what you do with the kid—but he’s not coming with us.”
His tone brooked no argument, so Eva smothered a sigh and fell silent. She would decide what to do with Rafe after she met Tate’s “men.” Until then, she would just have to be grateful that Tate was even helping her at all.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, Eva gulped as the Jeep ascended a dirt road that snaked its way up the mountain. It was pitch-black out. She couldn’t see a thing, save for the two pale yellow beams provided by the headlights. Tate obviously knew where he was going, though. He sped along the barely visible road with confidence, not bothering to reduce his speed.
When he finally slowed down, she exhaled a rush of relief, then wrinkled her forehead when a foreboding gray fortress came into view, a structure she’d expect to see in a war documentary or history textbook. Shaped like a square, the fort looked old and unstable. Walls were crumbling away, and up above, the watchtower looked ready to tumble over, boasting several gaping holes where there should have been stone.
“Nice place,” she murmured.
“Safe place,” he corrected. He stopped in a small dusty courtyard and killed the engine. “It has a pretty complex tunnel system, leading out to various parts of the mountain. Lots of useful escape routes.”
“Hector’s hideout is in the mountains, too,” she found herself saying. “The entrance is carved right in the rocks, almost completely hidden from sight.”
His green eyes narrowed. “I see.”
It took her a second to register the expression on his face as surprise. “You didn’t believe me,” she accused. “When I told you I knew where he was.”
Tate shrugged. “I half believed you.”
“And now?”
Another shrug. “Three-quarters.”
Eva almost laughed. She couldn’t quite figure out this man. One second he was as cold as ice, a lethal warrior who could probably kill her without breaking a sweat, and in the blink of an eye, he was a charming rogue, ready with a sarcastic remark, a mocking joke, a sensual grin. He completely unnerved her—yet at the same time, he made her feel oddly safe.
“I’ll get your bags, you carry the kid,” he barked, back to business.
She bristled. “His name is Rafe.”
“Like I said, the kid.”
As she hopped out of the Jeep to get Rafe, she ordered herself not to be annoyed that Tate viewed her son as a hindrance. What had she expected? That he’d welcome the idea of being saddled with a three-year-old? That he’d toss Rafe on his shoulders and parade him around with pride? Tate wasn’t Rafe’s father, for Pete’s sake.
Oh, no. That honor belonged to a monster.
Holding Rafe tight, she stuck close to Tate as they approached the old fort. They paused in front of a narrow door, and Tate rapped his knuckles against the rusted metal in what sounded like a secret code. There was an identical resounding knock, then a grating sound, and the door swung open.
A shadow loomed in the doorway.
Eva instinctively recoiled when a man stepped out of the darkness, but she relaxed once she got a better look at him. He was in his late twenties, with a handsome face, shaggy brown hair and warm, amber-colored eyes.
“That was fast,” the man remarked.
Tate gave that careless little shrug she was beginning to think of as his trademark. He gestured at Eva and said, “Eva, Nick. Nick, Eva.”
Before she could greet the other man, Tate was ushering them all inside. She blinked a few times, trying to adjust to the dark as she followed the two men deeper into the fort. She stumbled after them toward the faint glow coming from the end of the corridor. A moment later, they entered a large chamber illuminated by dozens of candles that rested on the floor and various ledges.
She studied the room, taking in the squalor with a frown. There were makeshift tables, a couple of metal chairs, the skeleton of a couch. She spotted a few sleeping bags, along with several big black duffels and a crooked wooden table littered with canned food. Another table in the corner housed a whole lot of laptops. A tall man with dirty-blond hair was bending over one of the computers, and his shoulders stiffened at their entrance.
“This her?” the third man muttered, turning to examine Eva with a pair of suspicious gray eyes.
She nearly flinched under his impenetrable gaze. This man couldn’t be considered classically handsome like his cohorts, but there was something very magnetic about him. His features were hard, angular, and his nose wasn’t quite straight, as if he’d broken it a time or two. He was sexy, though. Extremely sexy, in a stark, masculine kind of way.
“Eva, this is Sebastian,” Tate told her.
Wary, she met the other man’s angry eyes. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“So you want to kill Cruz,” he said in lieu of a greeting.
She lifted her chin in resolve. “Yes.”
Sebastian grumbled something under his breath, then cursed when he zeroed in on the bundle in her arms. “Is that a kid?”
Jeez, what was it with these men? Had they never seen a child before?
“Eva’s son, Rafe,” Tate filled in, sounding as disgruntled as Sebastian looked.
“Here, let me take him,” Nick said with a genuine smile. He beckoned his arms at her. “He can sleep over here until we figure things out.”
Warmth spread through her body. Finally. Someone who didn’t act like Rafe had the Ebola virus.
“Thank you,” she said gratefully. “He’s getting a little too heavy for me to carry these days.”
Smile widening, Nick plucked Rafe out of her arms and took him toward one of the sleeping bags. Eva watched in wonder as he tenderly smoothed out her son’s hair before placing him down on the cushy bag.
“I love kids,” Nick said over his shoulder, covering Rafe with a thin wool blanket.
“Do you have any?” she asked.
“No, but my older sister has three little ones. Her twin girls are two, and their big brother is five.” He paused. “They’re probably enormous now—I haven’t seen them in six months.”
It was hard to miss the melancholy chord in his voice, which had her wondering, why were these men on the run? She hadn’t given it much thought when she’d been tracking Tate—as far as she was concerned, his problems were none of her business. All she’d wanted from the man was his assistance in dealing with Hector, but now she couldn’t fight her curiosity.
She swept her gaze from Nick, to Sebastian, to Tate. All three were clearly military, and all wore the same uneasy expressions, as if her presence had raised each of their guards.
“If we do this, we’ll be leaving your son with Nick and Seb,” Tate said. He glanced at her as if seeking her approval.
After a moment of hesitation, she nodded. “Okay. I think that could work.”
Sebastian wouldn’t have been her ideal choice of babysitter, but Nick had won her over. Anyone who looked at a child with such tenderness couldn’t be a threat, right?
Still, her chest tightened at the thought of leaving Rafe behind.
“I’ll take good care of him,” Nick said, evidently sensing she needed the reassurance.
She nodded again, the thick emotion clogging her throat making it hard to speak.
“All right, so we’ve got babysitting duties out of the way,” Sebastian said rudely. “Can we focus on more pressing matters now?” He threw Tate a pointed look. “Like why the hell are we working with this woman and how do we know she won’t get us killed?”
Eva jerked as if she’d been struck. Sebastian’s hostility rippled through the air like an invisible storm cloud. As indignation swirled in her belly, she shot a quick look at Tate in an unspoken request for backup.
To her dismay, he merely offered her a sardonic smile and said, “Yes, Eva, tell us why we can trust you.” His smile went feral. “Tell us why I shouldn’t kill you right where you stand.”