“There is no road.” Penny’s chest ached with the truth of her words. There was no road, just a darkened mine with quicksand traps and projectile poison daggers. It was impassable, impossible, and not going to happen.
“Oh hell. You love him.” Vincent’s statement blended in with the loud drone of voices surrounding them.
“As you pointed out, falling for a man like Rafe Ortega would be an ultimate act of stupidity.”
“I didn’t say it in those exact words, but yeah. Basically. Yet you did it anyway.”
Yeah, she did. Through the years of Trey’s absence, Vince had stepped in as a pseudo–big brother and best friend—one who put the brood in brooding. He knew her well enough that she didn’t need to tell him he was right. But not saying it aloud didn’t make it any less true. To make it worse, she hadn’t just fallen in love with Rafe. She’d dropped flat on her ass, rolled off a cliff, and skidded down the world’s deepest ravine.
Every time she replayed their exchange in the hut, her chest felt as if it would crack open all over again. Though she hadn’t expected words of undying devotion, she’d hoped for them. With her entire being.
“You’re killing me with the quiet thing.” Vince gently bumped into her shoulder to gain her attention. “Considering the most meaningful relationship I’ve ever had was with the Navy, I know I’m not exactly the right person to dole out advice.”
“When has that ever stopped you?”
“It hasn’t. I don’t know anything about Rafe other than he’d like to loosen my jaw with a few ear-ringing uppercuts, but I know you. There’s no way in hell you’d give your heart to someone who wasn’t worth the trouble.”
“I may know he’s worth it, but that doesn’t make a damn bit of difference if he doesn’t know it, too.”
“True. But maybe he’s never come across the one woman who could convince him otherwise.” With a playful flick to her nose, Vince urged her gaze north. “Penn, I’ve seen you do some amazing shit since we’ve known each other. Some of it was in the courtroom when you stood by your clients and helped them face down their abusers, and some of it was when we were hauling parole violators back to the jail yard. Hell, I chased your cute ass down to Honduras to find—”
“That I’d gotten lost in the jungle with a man who makes me second-guess everything I thought I ever wanted in life?”
“I was going to say, to find that there’s nothing you can’t do if you set half your mind to it. Smartass.”
If only she could believe in herself as much as Vincent did. Penny forced her legs to lock and rose to her feet. “Wrong. I can’t make Rafe see himself as others do. As I do,” Penny heard herself say.
The pull to go to Rafe was more than strong; it was magnetic. But instead of taking the path of least resistance and feeling her heart break all over again, she turned back toward the huts.
*
Rafe had hunted terrorist cells in the middle of the Afghan desert, thwarted assassination attempts made on foreign dignitaries, and jumped from a cargo hold at thirty-five thousand feet to land in a field of pissed-off tangos. He was cool under pressure, ready to leap into action at a moment’s notice, and never once would’ve questioned his motives.
But that was before…before Honduras. Before Penny.
She was the ultimate weapon, had the ability to get him hard with an innocent look and singe his core with just a promise of a touch. The convoluted mixture of sweet and sass was permanently etched far beneath the surface of his skin, and he didn’t want to get it out, didn’t know if he even could, but fucking up her life because he wasn’t man enough to let her go wasn’t an option either.
He rubbed his chest as if the pain settling beneath his sternum would go away, but it worsened. Everything about this situation sucked to high holy hell. It threw him off his game, made him second-guess every damn decision he’d made since that first fucking night.
Even without Vince making a decibel of noise, Rafe knew I-Can’t-Keep-My-Fucking-Hands-to-Myself Franklin hovered at his flank. Ignoring the man’s presence, Rafe dropped onto an oversized boulder and meticulously spread out his guns.
Cleaning chambers and assessing trigger mechanisms were his version of therapy. They calmed him. They were methodical and precise. He tore off a piece of his shirt and scrubbed the barrel of his Glock hard enough to take off the shine.
“What the hell do you want, Franklin?” Rafe finally asked without glancing up.
“I’ve heard about Alpha Security,” Vincent said, his voice breaking the silence. “Even working on the civilian side, things get talked about. A lot of the world’s biggest badasses are serving time in jail, or otherwise, because of you guys.”
“We do our share.”
“So then tell me why a world-class organization would hire a world-class asshole such as yourself?”