Their laughter bounced off the walls in the dimly lit basement. She saw a sudden playfulness in his character, and she quickly felt the need to stop their closeness creeping further. She concentrated on her weapon, fixing a holster around her waist.
“Sir,” she said. “There’s something else I need.”
“You got it.”
She cast her eyes over her pants and T-shirt. “I can’t wear these clothes every day.”
“Of course,” he said, shaking his head. “I hadn’t realized. I’ll take a trip to the nearest town and buy what you need.”
“Can’t I come with you?” she asked.
He rubbed his face. “I’d rather you stayed with Sergeant Gomez. It’s safer.”
She put her hand on her holster. “I can look after myself.”
He looked at her and she stared back.
He bit his lip. “All right, we leave in five minutes.”
* * *
Dean started up the rusty, old truck and drove out onto the narrow, winding lane, checking each direction thoroughly, before deciding it was safe. Cara was sitting in the seat beside him, wearing an old overcoat of his that swamped her petite frame. Her slim wrists poked out of the sleeves, rolled up several times. The truck rattled and bounced along the lane, heading for the busy highway in the distance.
He glanced over at her. Even in that old overcoat she possessed a beauty that floored him. He often had to stop himself from staring at her, studying the way her face rose and fell with emotions that she struggled to conceal. He’d caught Gomez gazing at her a couple of times but he’d brushed it off as “research” into his suspicions about her.
“Is there anyone you need to call?” he asked. “Anyone who’d be worried about you?”
“No,” she answered quickly. “There’s just my mom, but she’s on vacation in Florida.” She looked down in her lap before adding, “There’s no one else.”
“No one important in your life?” he asked, choosing his words carefully.
She turned her body to face his. “If you’re talking about a boyfriend then the answer is no. My job isn’t really compatible with dating.” She looked into the distance. “I scare most men off.”
He gave a small smile and nodded. “Strong women can sometimes scare a man.”
She straightened her back. “Do I scare you?”
His lips curled into a playful smile. “Sometimes, yeah.” It was a truthful answer. She did scare him but not in the way she imagined.
“Good,” she said. “Then I must be doing something right.”
He shook his head, laughing. “Gantry was right. You really are one tough cookie.”
“Colonel Gantry was the person who recruited me into sniper school at Fort Bliss,” she said, relaxing back in her seat. “If anyone knows me, it’s Carter Gantry.”
Dean decided not to mention that it was Colonel Gantry who persuaded him to take Cara into his team. He just couldn’t shake his concerns about her suitability and had decided to recruit another sniper in her place. Colonel Gantry had insisted that Dean give her a chance. He’d followed the colonel’s advice, despite it going against every instinct in his body.
“Gantry obviously sees something special in you,” Dean said, remembering her amazing display in the Colorado Mountains. “He knows how hard you’ve worked to get where you are.”
“When you put your mind to something, you can achieve anything,” she said.
He glanced over at her. Her face shone with an expression he hadn’t seen before. It intrigued him.
“I never met a woman like you before,” he said, turning onto the highway, pressing the gas pedal hard to keep up with the fast-moving traffic. “You seem so...” He struggled to find the right words.
“...challenging?” she suggested.
He smiled. “I was going to say fearless.”
“I guess you haven’t met many different types of women, then,” she said. “There are plenty of us fearless types in the military.”
He mentally ran through the list of females in his life. It was a pitifully small number, mostly the wives of fellow soldiers, women he admired and respected, women he was fighting for. He thought of his mom and sister. They were good, strong women—survivors. But they’d needed his strength to save them. They couldn’t have faced the terror of his father alone. They would certainly never have thought that they were capable of protecting him.
“I guess you’re right, Hanson,” he admitted. “I haven’t met many different types of women.” He stopped himself from adding that he hadn’t actually met many women at all.
“What about you?” she asked suddenly, seeming to want to turn the spotlight on him. “Is there anyone in your life?”
He cracked his knuckles as he gripped the steering wheel tight. “My life is in Special Forces. Needless to say, I don’t get out much.”
“Maybe Gomez isn’t the only lone wolf.”
He forced a laugh. “I think we’re all lone wolves in Special Forces. We’ve all got something driving us forward, pushing us to win every battle.”
“What drives you?”
He glanced over at her. She looked expectantly at him, interested in his response. He began to feel uncomfortable and wished he’d chosen a different topic of conversation. He didn’t want her probing into his personal life, trying to figure out what makes him tick.
“De oppresso liber,” he said finally.
She looked quizzically at him.
“It’s the Special Forces motto,” he explained. “To liberate the oppressed. Freeing people from tyranny and despair is what drives me forward. It makes it all worthwhile.”
He’d already experienced enough tyranny in his own life to know how suffocating it was, how it took hold of your life and sucked it dry. He was determined not to let it happen in any walk of life, just as he’d been determined to stop it happening in his own family. A bully was a bully, whatever language he spoke, and he would never stand by and watch the needy and vulnerable be beaten and broken.
“It’s your own personal mission, huh?” she said, cutting a little too close to the bone for his liking.
He winced. “You could say that.”
He felt her watching him closely as she spoke. “You ever thought you might want to settle down someday?”
He widened his eyes in surprise at the boldness of the question. This was definitely stepping outside his comfort zone.
“Like I said,” he answered, keeping his eyes fixed on the road, “my life is in Special Forces.”
She could read into that what she liked. She’d probed deep enough.
“While we’re on the subject,” he said, shifting in his seat, “is there a white picket fence in your future?”
“I doubt it,” she said with a shrug. “I’m not the settling-down type. There aren’t many men who’d accept me as a wife.”
He raised his eyebrows. Was she kidding? He could think of a whole bunch of men who’d be glad to have her by their side. Not him, though. She and he were totally incompatible. That much was obvious.
“I’m sure there’s some guy for you out there, Hanson,” he said. “He’ll find you.”
“Yeah,” she said,