Nowhere to Hide (Delos Series Book 1) Page 13

  He removed his finger, but remained standing so close to her, feeling her reaction to his impassioned words. Cav could never take her scars away, but he could get her to see that they were a part of her life journey, not the journey itself. “I’ll never ask you what happened,” he said, “but if you ever want to tell me, I’ll listen. That’s a promise.”

  If he didn’t take a step back, Cav knew he would kiss her. He saw her black pupils grow larger and knew she had read his intent. For a second, he felt her yearning for him, and then, her confusion.

  He forced himself to step away and gruffly ordered, “Go get your shower. I’ll make us a meal.”

  Shaken, Lia gave him a brief nod. How badly she wanted to fall into Cav’s arms! The look in his eyes told her he couldn’t care less about her scars. He wanted HER! But how could that be? She walked down the hall, wrapped in shock combined with euphoria. Did she read his look correctly or was it her vivid, hungry imagination? His words rang in her ears, in her heart over and over again as she got her cooling shower.

  Afterward, she dried and pulled on her long blue cotton bathrobe. Draping her damp blouse over her arm, she padded barefoot to the laundry room and put them in the washer.

  She smelled the aroma of chicken frying in the kitchen and heard Cav moving around. Standing in the laundry room, Lia felt fear, and then hope. She knew that Cav was going to kiss her soon. She just knew it. The look in his hazel eyes, the gold flecks deepening in them, told her.

  Slowly, she released the grip of the collar around her neck, allowing it to lie flat, exposing the entire slash across her neck. Cav had been right: he’d already seen those scars.

  And no man had spoken to her as boldly as he’d just done. How badly she wanted to believe that the damn scars meant nothing to him, that he really did see her, not them, first. She felt a surge of courage thread through her, and her skin still tingled where he’d brushed beneath her chin with his calloused finger.

  If Cav was that gutsy to call her out on the scars, then she had to be strong enough—brave enough—to stop hiding from him.

  Lia realized he’d been privy to her scars since he’d met her down in San José and had never stared at them. Instead, he always caught and held her gaze. He was an intense, focused man, and Lia always felt the full weight of his attention when he spoke to her.

  Still not ready to face him, Lia tried to make sense of it all. She realized some of her confusion was from her terror of being humiliated once more. And once he undressed her and saw her lower body, he might draw back.

  On the other hand, Cav had told her he wouldn’t ask what had happened to her. That was such a huge relief, she’d nearly sobbed in relief in front of him. She knew she had to start releasing herself from her shame and humiliation. Could she believe Cav? This man saw only her gray eyes, her mouth, her hair. And the low vibration in his voice told her he liked what he saw.

  Cav had not said a word about a relationship, but she’d seen evidence of his feelings in his eyes, heard it in his voice. Lia knew she was very poor at reading men accurately, and it was her fault. She’d had years of loneliness and isolation without someone in her life. Oh, her children helped because she imagined them as her own. Instead of focusing on her loneliness, she focused on them. In return, they loved her and never embarrassed her about her scars. If adults could be like her children, Lia knew she could eventually get over her wounds. Finally, she forced herself out of the laundry room, refusing to draw the collar up to hide her neck. As she passed through the kitchen, she saw Cav glance up from his work over a salad he was putting together.

  “Feel cleaner?”

  “Yes,” she mumbled, hurrying toward her bedroom. Her heart was pounding, as she recognized that same tenderness in his expression, though she barely met his gaze. Lia shut the door to her bedroom and leaned against it, closing her eyes, shaky with relief. Placing her hand over her heart, she took in a deep, ragged breath, opened her eyes and forced herself to snap out of it.

  She pulled pale green linen trousers from her closet and chose a short-sleeved, dark green tee to go with it. The trousers would hide her legs. Cav had seen her arms. It was time to stop hiding completely.

  As she dressed and combed her hair, Lia tried to gird herself. Would Cav continue to talk about it? She hoped not. There was enough in what he had said to mull his words over for a long time.

  Cav placed the fried chicken, baked beans and a salad on the table for them. When Lia quietly entered the kitchen, he saw the wariness in her eyes, and then he noticed that she’d stopped wearing that damned long-sleeved white blouse. Now, the scars on her upper arms were plainly visible. He felt a sense of pride in this beautiful, frightened woman, and silently applauded her courage to stop hiding. He wanted badly to say much more, but knew better.

  “Can you grab the butter out of the fridge?” he asked. He saw the tension in her body begin to melt.

  “Sure. Anything else?” she asked, opening the door.

  “Any salad dressings in there? I haven’t had time to look.”

  “Yes, I’ll get them,” she said, crouching down.

  Cav almost felt like part of a married couple. He got the plates and flatware from the drawer, placing them on the table while she brought out the butter on a narrow plate, plus two types of salad dressing.

  “You’re pretty good at scrounging things up from the fridge,” she said, gesturing to the salads. “I didn’t even know I had a mango in there.”

  He grinned from across the table. “It was hidden deep in the veggie drawer.”

  “Leave it to a black ops guy to find the hidden mango.”

  Chuckling despite himself, Cav saw a slight tinge of pink come to her cheeks, that full mouth of hers pulling shyly into a smile as she teased him back.

  “Hey, it would be pretty embarrassing if I couldn’t even find a mango in the vegetable drawer,” Cal pointed out with a slight grin.

  Laughing softly, Lia was now enjoying herself. She saw the gleam in his eyes and heard the mellow warmth in his voice as he walked into the kitchen. “I’m sure they didn’t give you any tests for finding mangos in a fridge, did they?” she shot back.

  Cav brought out a saucer with four slices of whole wheat bread on it, setting it down on the table between them. “You’re right about that,” he said, coming around the table and pulling out her chair for her.

  “Thanks,” she said, enjoying his nearness. There was such power and strength around Cav, yet she felt completely comfortable with it. With other men, she shrank inward because of the power men had once used against her.

  “Welcome.” Cav moved to the other side of the table. “Eat up.”

  Lia took the smallest piece of chicken, a thigh, and put it on her plate along with two scoops of beans. Of course, Cav took two huge chicken breasts, leaving a thigh for her, and nearly all the beans. His salad was twice as large as hers.

  “That’s a lot of food for just two people,” she said, picking up her knife and fork. “But it looks wonderful. Thanks for making all of this.”

  “Sounds as if you never have sit-down meals.”

  “Sometimes, I do, but other times, I’m whipped. Then, all I want to do is go to sleep. When I wake up, I nosh on whatever’s in the fridge.”

  He raised a brow as he cut into the succulent chicken dusted with Caribbean spices. “Which is why you’re way too skinny for your height.”

  “Oh,” she grumbled, “don’t start, Cav.”

  “Okay, I won’t pick on you tonight,” he said lightly. He saw the glint of rebellion in her eyes, the set of her luscious mouth. He’d like to kiss that soft mouth and then open it beneath his. The scorching thought singed his lower body, as always. “But I do expect you to clean up your plate.” He stabbed his fork toward her salad. “And I went to a lot of trouble to make that into a salad you’d love to eat. I even found some slivered almonds near the mango.”

  A grudging smile pulled at her lips. “You’re really adept at using guilt, aren�
��t you, Mr. Jordan.”

  He gave her a proud look. “If it will make you eat, yeah, I’ll use it, Ms. Cassidy. Whatever it takes to put about twenty more pounds on you.”

  Lia bowed her head, not wanting Cav to see her reaction. “You’re like my Dad,” she muttered defiantly, cutting into her chicken. “I was a picky eater as a kid, so he’d start needling me, pushing me and daring me at the table.”

  “I think I’d like to meet him. Sounds like my kind of dude.”

  Lia said nothing, paying attention to the food on her plate, which tasted delicious. She found the baked beans had some brown sugar in them, and she gulped them down with gusto, then went back for seconds. And then thirds! By the time she got to her salad, which had been very artfully arranged, she started to laugh.

  “What is this?” and she turned the bowl around toward Cav. Amongst the greens, he’d cut two eyes, a nose, and a smiling mouth out of the mango. With the slivered almonds, he’d made what look like hair across the top of the salad face.

  She couldn’t stop from giggling because she hadn’t noticed it until just now.

  Cav gave her a very pleased look. “Just a bit of arts and crafts. Hey, my mother always did that for me. On the pancakes, she’d cut up pieces of bananas and strawberries and make faces on them for me. When I was young, I was a really picky eater. She knew I loved fruit, so she put faces on everything to get me to eat it.” He smiled broadly. “It worked. Today, I’ll eat anything, even if it’s still moving.”

  “Ugh!” Lia said, turning the salad around, loving the idea of a face made of mango and almonds. “I can’t handle raw meat. Makes me sick.”

  “Well,” he continued, his voice droll, “as a SEAL, if you run out of MRE’s on a patrol or mission, you eat what you can find. And usually, because making a fire would give away our position, we’d eat sushi. Even if it was a sacrificial goat.”

  Wrinkling her nose, she put the balsamic vinaigrette on her salad. “I’d never made it as a SEAL.”

  “I like you just the way you are,” Cav said lightly. “You’re a very brave, resourceful woman, Lia. I like being around people like you.”

  CHAPTER 11

  “Why the hell isn’t that Cassidy woman dead yet?” Medina demanded of the two men who stood uncertainly before him. His dark brown eyes narrowed on Bruce Schaefer, an ex-Army soldier. “You were given orders. What the hell have you been doing?”

  Schaefer pushed his finger through his short blond hair and gave his boss a helpless look. “Sir, Jorge and I have been trying. The problem is that Delos Charity has hired security contractors. A bunch of them.”

  Jorge Dominguez added, “We’ve been doing our best, Patron. We know you want her killed like the other two women. But she’s got a contractor with her every second of every day and night.”

  Snorting, Medina gestured sharply for his mistress to leave them. She was seventeen years old, a Russian sex slave he’d bought two weeks ago, and had been raised in her trade since a child. She knew how to please a man. Her red hair and green eyes were alluring, but she had no conversation to offer Medina. Instead, she pouted playfully and used her seductive wiles to keep him interested. Now, at his order, she rose gracefully and left the room. After she left, Medina eyed his two nervous soldiers. “I want that woman dead. She’s the bitch who drove Lupe to the airport here in San José.”

  Bruce wrung his hands, feeling the sweat staining his tropical shirt and shorts. He and his men had to dress like tourists so they wouldn’t stand out in the crowds around Arenal and the nearby resorts. “We can’t do much, Patron. There are always a bunch of operators in town, everywhere, not just by the woman. We saw an important-looking man and a woman from somewhere else who went to visit where the school was. And someone is dropping off truckloads of construction material there. I think they’re going to rebuild the school, Patron. I would bet on it.”

  Snorting, Medina pushed his sandaled feet off the burgundy leather couch and stood up. Glaring, he yelled, “I don’t care if they show up with an army! You haven’t completed the job I gave you. I told you all three women were to be killed and that school burned down.”

  His voice became a sinister hiss. “And if you don’t get this done in the next week, I’ll send someone else to do it. And if I have to do that, he’ll be killing both of you first. Now, vamoose!”

  He dismissed them with a wave of his manicured hand, and the men jumped back, then hurried out the room. Medina cursed softly, his hands behind his back as he paced angrily back and forth across the white tiled floor. Ordinarily, his two ex-Army soldiers were good at what they did, but this time, they’d screwed up badly.

  It didn’t matter that the Cassidy woman had run into the jungle and hidden from them. It just made his men look more stupid, since she was obviously smarter than he’d given her credit for.

  He scooped up several printed photos his men had taken of the school area and studied the men’s faces with intensity. He knew none of them personally, but one thing he did know: they were black ops, no question.

  Delos Charity had hired the best. Schaefer and Dominguez were hardly of that caliber—they had no black ops training or background. Just the look on those men’s faces told him they meant business.

  Medina knew they cost a fortune, each getting a minimum of a hundred thousand dollars a year for jobs like this. Rubbing his neatly trimmed black beard, he halted at the crystal clear blue oval pool, ignoring the white tiles with hand-painted dolphins around the inner edge of the pool. His dead mistress had loved dolphins.

  Unfortunately for her, Medina didn’t care for her whining and had drowned her two days after the pool had been refilled. The last thing she’d seen was the dolphin tiles.

  He was thinking about one thing now, how to get to the Cassidy woman. He held up a photo that showed her with a tall, powerful looking hombre standing next to her. The guy was wearing the telltale light jacket and Medina knew he had a pistol in the back of his belt. There was probably a smaller one in a sheath on one of his ankles, hidden by his bone-colored chinos. The deadly look in the man’s eyes told Medina this operator knew his business. He was literally bristling with protectiveness for that bitch.

  The more he studied her scarred face, the more he began to change his mind about killing her. Lia Cassidy wasn’t bad looking except for the scars. He was a man who liked uniqueness among the women who sexually served him.

  Among his “harem,” as he referred to it, he had one woman who had been tortured by the Taliban. She was an Afghan village woman who had fought back, and they’d scarred her body quite well. And then, they’d sold her to a Pakistani sex trade dealer. She’d eventually showed up at a private party in Russia, and he’d bid on her.

  A slight smile came to his thin mouth as he studied Cassidy’s face and neck. He knew how she’d gotten those scars and the others she hid beneath her clothing. Bruce and Jorge had grudgingly admitted they’d tried to knife her to death when she’d fought them trying to rape her.

  One thing he liked about his Afghan bitch was that to this day, she fought. She fought him every time he took her, and that only excited Medina more. She had fire and spirit. Well, so did this Cassidy woman.

  Deciding to change the order, Medina gestured to a nearby servant.

  “Get Schaefer and Dominguez back here,” he snapped to his butler.

  Medina was sitting in his wingback chair when they arrived, breathing hard. Their room was in the small barracks behind his palatial villa in San José, a good ten-minute walk from here. The entire two acres were shielded from view by ten-foot-high bougainvillea that surrounded the place. No one went through that brush because the murderous thorns would easily tear a person’s flesh wide open. It was far more effective than stringing concertina wire.

  “Yes, Patron?” Schaefer huffed, standing at attention in front of Medina.

  “I’m changing my order,” he told them lazily. “You are to capture Cassidy, not kill her. I want her taken alive, brought here to the
villa.” He saw Schaefer’s blue eyes widen. It was none of their business why he’d changed his mind. “Do whatever you need to do in order to capture her.” He waved a finger at the men. “Under no circumstances do you harm her. I want her handled with great care. If I see one bruise on her flesh, I’ll make sure you’re beaten within an inch of your mongrel life.”

  “But,” Bruce stumbled, “she fought like a wildcat the last time we tried to take her, Patron.”

  Shrugging, Medina said, “No one bruises my merchandise. Do as I ordered. And since this is a little tougher to pull off, I’ll give you two weeks.” His voice flattened. “After that? If you haven’t brought me Cassidy alive and well, I’ll send out someone who will, but you’ll both be dead men walking.”

  Where had the week gone? Lia was grateful that the five classrooms at The Orchid Resort were working well with the children. Everything was going smoothly because of the time, care and money that Robert and Dilara had poured into reviving the charity school.

  As she stood with Cav watching the workers crawl all over the new structure, she smiled. No expense had been spared for this new school. It was to be made of brick, fireproofed, with state-of-the-art materials and construction. Dilara had bought twenty-five computers to be set up for the children in the new section of the larger school. Everyone was optimistic and excited and the parents were doing more than their share to help the building get quickly resurrected.

  Many of the fathers would come over during the last few hours of daylight, after working all day at their jobs, and lend a hand with the San José construction workers who’d been hired to build it.

  It was nearly five P.M., the sun in the west and the sky cloudy and threatening in the east. There would be thunderstorms later in the evening. She heard a low sound like a jet passing overhead. It was Arenal coughing out another huge stone from its throat and spitting it into the air. The monkeys were screaming and hooting now, as they usually did the last few hours before dusk. A squadron of bright colored green parrots flew overhead, going to their nightly roosting place.