Guarding the Soldier's Secret (7 page)

“With a baby girl,” Yancy said softly.

He hissed out a breath. “I knew it—she—had to be mine. Nobody in that household would have touched her, and I knew for darn sure there hadn’t been anybody before me.” He looked at Yancy then, and the light caught his eyes and made them glow like fire. “She was a virgin when she came to me in that cave, Yankee. And God help me, I—”

A sound cut him off—the high, thin wail of a terrified child.

Chapter 5

H
e wasn’t in his best fighting shape but had managed to keep himself reasonably fit during the past two years spent under deep cover. Even encumbered by the extra fabric in his Afghan clothing, he was on his feet before Yancy and didn’t even remember covering the distance through the darkened courtyard to the women’s quarters. Pausing outside the door, he could hear her—his child, his little girl—whimpering. Hear the words she said.

“Ammi... Ammi...”

In the few seconds he waited there, Yancy was beside him. He glanced down at her and saw her looking back at him, her gaze fierce, its message unmistakable. He hardened his jaw and, without a word, stood back to allow her to go before him.

He followed her into the room, and his heart gave a queer little kick when he saw Laila kneeling on her pallet, her arms lifted to Yancy, the tears on her cheeks shining golden in the soft light of the sconce high on the wall. He wasn’t used to being the fifth wheel, the odd man out, and as he watched the scene from a distance that seemed farther than the few yards it was, he realized that the unaccustomed hollowness he felt inside was loneliness.

I’m an outsider. I don’t belong here.

It was much the same way he’d felt the day he’d realized that no matter how much he loved and respected his parents and valued the upbringing they’d given him, he wasn’t going to follow in their footsteps. That no matter how much they wanted it, he would never be a farmer.

While he waited for his adrenaline-fueled heartbeat to return to normal rhythms, reminding himself to unclench his teeth and his fists, unfamiliar thoughts crashed through his brain, colliding with reason.

But, still, she’s my child.

Yes, but it’s her mother she needs now, not me.

Yancy’s her mother.

But she cried,
“Ammi!”
Not
Mommy
.

I did this. My fault. My fault.

Yes, but I did what I had to do.

She needs me! I’m her father. She needs me, too.

With burning eyes he watched Yancy cuddle and comfort Laila until she finally fell asleep again. To add to his unaccustomed inner turmoil concerning his daughter, there was the continuing puzzle of Yancy.

She was the same and yet different.

Yes, she was as beautiful as ever. Yes, his attraction to her was as strong. Nothing had changed, and yet everything had changed. It wasn’t only the fact that in the eyes of the law she was Laila’s mother; it was more complicated even than that.

It was his own feelings he couldn’t figure out. How the hell did he feel about her now—aside from wanting her so badly he ached all over? He didn’t like not knowing. Liked even less the dark and turbulent mess he encountered whenever he tried to think about it. He longed for the way it had been between them, the simplicity of it. Of a man and a woman, of mutual hunger, mutual need, giving and taking in equal measures.

* * *

There are parts of that first time I can’t remember, but I know I told her my name. I had gone to her quarters still dirty and stinking of death and battle, filled with the horror of it, needing to wipe it out of my head, and the only way I could think of to do that was to bury myself in a woman’s clean, sweet body and lose myself there. I don’t remember saying much. No explanation, no asking, nothing. I looked at her and then she was there, and I kissed her, knowing it wouldn’t stop with that. And she didn’t stop me. Seemed to know what I needed without my telling her. I wanted to cry, but instead I put all that was inside me into making love to her.

She was generous with her loving. She gave it all, nothing held back, even though I hadn’t showered or shaved, and I know my beard marked her redhead-fair skin. I probably marked her other places, too, though not intentionally. Afterward—too quickly it was over—she didn’t give me a chance to feel ashamed. She smiled up at me and touched my lips with her fingers, and said, “Hello again, soldier.”

* * *

“She’s asleep,” Yancy whispered, and he nodded. “I think I should sleep here with her...in case she wakes up again.”

“It was a nightmare?” His voice was hoarse, raw with remembering.

She nodded, looking not at him but back over her shoulder at the sleeping child.

“Does she have them often?”

She pulled her gaze back to him, but it slid quickly away. “She did at first. But she hasn’t had one for a long time. Probably what happened today...”

Again Hunt nodded. “It was probably seeing me that set her off—made her remember.”

She opened her mouth to deny it, then shook her head and shrugged. “Maybe. Probably. I don’t know.”

He said, “Yankee—” just as she hitched in a breath to say more, so he yielded to her. The look she angled up at him was dark and troubled.

“Hunt, what happened today? Was it—”

Breath exploded from his lungs, and for the second time he said, “I wish to God I knew.”

“I thought Kabul was secure—relatively. There haven’t been any bombings or kidnappings since the drawdown. And now—and here
you
are, and... Hunt, tell me the truth. Is it
Laila
they were after? What’s going on that I should know about?”

He touched her face, unable to tell her what was in his heart just as he’d been unable to tell her then, that first time. Only now, though he needed her as much, wanted her as badly, this time there was no welcome, no giving, no compassion in the eyes that bored into his. Only questions and anger and fear.

“Yankee,” he whispered, “all I can tell you is that I didn’t mean for this to happen. I didn’t mean for you to know...about me. I wish I could tell you more, but I can’t. I hope you can understand.”

She stepped back, away from his touch. “I wish I didn’t, but I do.” Her voice was soft as a sigh. “That’s what makes it so hard.”

She closed the door. Gently.

He stood for a long moment, her image burned onto his retinas. Then he turned and went upstairs to his room, where he accessed the secret cubbyhole that housed his computer and COM link. As he waited for the system to power up, his mind was busy composing the report of the day’s events he’d be sending off to central command. That, and the questions he wanted answers to.

Was it Laila those men were after?

Or Yancy?

Was it a random kidnapping, revenge or part of a much larger plot?

And, most important, who is behind it—the Taliban or al Qaeda?

* * *

Laila was awake, but she didn’t open her eyes. Not yet. She was thinking. And she felt scared. And she didn’t know why. There was
something
scary lurking in her memory, just out of reach, and she knew that if she tried too hard to see it, it would only shrink back into the shadows. Whatever it was, it made her feel cold and quivery in her stomach.

She thought maybe it was a dream, and if she opened her eyes it would be gone. So, even though she was afraid to do it, she summoned all her courage and opened her eyes.

The scary dream-thing went away, all right, but now she didn’t know where she was. This wasn’t her room back in Virginia or her mom’s room or even the hotel room they’d slept in the other night. Her bed was a soft pillowy thing, and when she reached out her arm she could touch the floor.

Laila pushed herself up on her elbows and swiped her hair out of her eyes, and there was her mom, standing a little ways away, smiling at her and brushing her pretty red hair.

“Good morning, sweet pea.”

Her mom always called her silly things like
sweet pea
and
pumpkin
and
honey
. She said it was because she had grown up in Virginia, and that it meant you loved someone very much. Laila just knew it made her feel warm and good inside, and hearing it now made her smile.

And also she remembered.

Her mom was wearing the same brown dress from yesterday, and the pretty scarf she’d bought at the market was draped around her shoulders, instead of over her head, covering up her hair. Laila remembered she’d had to wear a scarf over her head, too. She remembered the men who had crowded around them, and how her mom had stumbled on purpose and tripped one and made them fall, and how she had grabbed hold of Laila’s hand and they had run very fast.

She remembered Akaa Hunt.

This was his house.

“Come on, sweetie pie. Aren’t you going to get up and dressed?” Her mom dropped her brush into her purse, which was sitting open on the pillowy mattress beside her. “I’m sure breakfast must be ready.”

Laila scooted herself up onto her knees. “Is Akaa Hunt going to eat breakfast with us?”

“I imagine so.” Her mom looked in her purse, found a lipstick, opened it, stared at it, then put it back. “If he hasn’t already eaten.” She was frowning the way she did sometimes that meant she was thinking hard, not that she was angry. Then she looked up and smiled. “Okay—how about a bath?”

Laila found the bath very interesting. It was in the floor and made of tile and had little steps to go down into it, like a very small swimming pool. Her mom ran some water into it, which wasn’t very hot, only just warm. Laila stretched out in it on her stomach and let it lap against her chin while she thought about her mom and Akaa Hunt. She wasn’t sure why, but she liked having them with her. Both of them. Together. They made her feel safe. And happy.

Almost like...

But she pushed that thought out of her head, because she didn’t want to wish for something that probably wasn’t ever going to come true.

Still, she watched them closely while she ate her breakfast of eggs cooked with vegetables, sweet flat bread and soft cheese with raisins, sitting on the cushions on the floor the way they had last night at dinner. She pretended not to watch them, of course, making a point to study each bite carefully before putting it into her mouth and closing her eyes while she sipped her cup of sweet milk and tea. But she listened.

Akaa Hunt said he would take them to the hotel, but only to get their things. Laila’s mom said that was nice of him but not necessary, if he would call a taxicab for them. Akaa Hunt said it
was
necessary, because they would be staying with him. Laila’s heart jumped when she heard that! Then Akaa Hunt made his voice very soft and she had to strain so hard to hear she could almost feel her ears growing bigger, and he said, “Until I get to the bottom of what happened yesterday.”

Laila’s mom didn’t answer.

Laila said loudly, “Are we going to see a farm today? You said we could, Mom. You
promised
.”

Mom opened her mouth but didn’t say anything. Akaa Hunt said, “Out of the question.”

Laila felt a lump growing in her throat and was afraid she might cry. She didn’t want to cry in front of Akaa Hunt. She whispered, “You promised,” then stared hard at Akaa Hunt, willing the tears to go back inside her head and out of her eyes.

Akaa Hunt looked back at her, frowning in a way that made him look very fierce but for some reason didn’t scare Laila one bit. She kept on looking at him, and after a moment, he turned the fierce look on Laila’s mom and asked in a growly voice, “Where is this farm? Whose is it? How did you arrange it?”

Laila’s mom cleared her throat and explained. “The family of one of our translators has a farm. It’s not far away—just south of the city, off the Kabul-Gardez Highway. It’s a secure sector.” She lowered her voice so Laila had to strain to hear again. “It’s completely safe, Hunt. You must know I wouldn’t even consider it otherwise.”

Akaa Hunt said something Laila couldn’t hear. Then he looked back at Laila with that frowning face and said, “Okay, you can go—under one condition. I’m coming with you.”

Laila’s mom lifted her eyebrows and her lips got tight, as if she might be about to say no. Instead, she looked at Laila and said in a company voice, “How about it, Laila? Is it all right with you if Hunt comes with us to visit the farm?”

Laila shrugged and said, “Sure,” hiding her face behind her cup of sweet milk and tea.

Inside, her heart was dancing.

* * *

Riding along the dusty highway in Hunt’s dusty Mercedes, watching the dusty land go by beyond his austere profile, Yancy felt as if she’d entered the Land of Oz—only in reverse, going from a Technicolor world to one of sepia tones, where even the familiar seemed unreal.

The car was ordinary, the highway one she’d traveled before. She was familiar with the rumbling trucks and crowded buses, the occasional donkey cart clanking along the shoulder. The landscape of cultivated fields against a backdrop of dun-colored hills, broken here and there by a cluster of mud-brick houses, was one she’d passed through before. The man’s profile was familiar to her, too, most often gently silhouetted against the glow of lantern light and molded with shadows.

Separately, these things were commonplace, unremarkable. Taken together, they seemed otherworldly. Dreamlike.

Yesterday at this time she’d been shopping in a Kabul marketplace with her daughter, picking out presents for her sister, Miranda, enjoying Laila’s delight in rediscovering her roots. If Hunt had entered her thoughts, it had been with poignant regret that Laila’s father could not have lived to see her grow up. Her life had seemed secure, her paths clear, her choices her own to make, for both herself and for her daughter.

Then, in a matter of minutes, everything had changed.

Today, not only was Laila’s father alive, but he was driving them in his car. He had taken control of their lives—hers and her daughter’s. And on this outwardly peaceful, sunny day, Yancy felt engulfed by clouds of mystery, uncertainty and fear.

Fear? Why now, when I’ve never been afraid before, not in a decade of reporting from battlefields and smoking ruins?

Yes...but then I didn’t have a child.

Yancy turned to glance back at Laila, who was gazing out at the passing scene, her forehead pressed against the window glass. And she felt a cold, squeezing sensation around her heart.