Another shadow passed over the grass and Kai knew that Axl had joined them. Kai stood up, sent Sawyer a furious glare, and wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. He grabbed the bottle of water Axl held out and took a couple of deep sips before looking back at the house. “What happened?”
Axl shrugged. “Who the hell knows? I know as much as I did when I first briefed you." Axl wiped his face with his shirt before continuing. "The sheik and his guys were taken from the presidential suite at the hotel. He was here to negotiate an oil deal with the Nigerian government. The family contacted me and we started to negotiate with the kidnappers. A ransom demand was made, and the family paid. The kidnappers wanted more, and the family paid more but then the kidnappers stopped communicating. I arrived in Lagos a week ago—I flew here straight after I left Mercy and started looking for him. My intel led us here.”
Axl took the bottle back from Kai and drained the contents. He tossed the bottle from hand to hand and watched as an imam followed a high-ranking policeman into the house. “The government got involved. Maybe that’s what spooked them. Maybe the kidnappers decided to cut their losses before they caught the attention of people whose attention they didn’t want. I don’t know for sure, but that’s my best guess.”
“Whatever the cause, we were too fucking late.” Kai pulled his cotton shirt over the Beretta he’d shoved into the back of his pants. They’d surrendered their automatic rifles to the police as they’d left the premises but they’d been allowed to keep their personal weapons.
“Yeah. About four hours too late.”
Kai placed his hands on his hips and stared up at the sky. “Fuck!”
Sawyer and Axl knew that there was nothing to say, that no words would change the situation and that nothing but time would tame the tsunami of rage coursing through his body. Time and a week spent in bed with Flick, listening to her speak, laugh, feeling her hands on his body, her lips on his.
A man was dead and he was thinking about sex?Get a hold of yourself.But, actually, he was thinking of love, of comfort, of a soft place to fall. he scoffed at himself. Like he deserved that, any of that. He’d killed his mother and he was indirectly responsible for the sheik’s death. And he hadn’t even started to count the deaths that could be attributed to him. If he started to tally up the effect of the information he’d provided to the gangs and the police, he'd go mad. His actions in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, and in Somalia all made some pretty big ripples...
Who was he to think that he could return to that crazy, cute town and forget this hellhole of a city and a dead sheik a continent away? He didn’t deserve love or forgiveness, and he sure as hell didn’t deserve peace.
“I need to go and liaise with the police, notify the family, and make arrangements to have his body returned to Saudi,” Axl said quietly, his eyes haunted.
“Can we help?” Sawyer asked.
Kai prayed that Axl would say no. He didn’t think he could do much more. He felt gutted, all he wanted was a bottle of whisky and a dark room.
“I’ve got it,” Axl replied.
“You sure?”
“It’s what I do, Sawyer.” Axl rolled his shoulders and sent them a small, weary smile. “I’ve got it.”
He did. Kai saw the resolve in his face, the way he drew on that reservoir of mental strength that was such a characteristic of his friend. Axl never faltered, never failed.
Unlike him. Kai bent over and groaned as he vomited all over the grass.
“So then Pippa walked in and I told them to talk. I heard Gina’s reply.” Flick cocked her head and waited for Kai to urge her to continue. After an uncomfortable pause, he murmured a non-encouraging “mmm.”
“So, I suggested that they both hire a male gigolo and get laid.”
“That’s nice.”
Flick laid her fork on her plate and pushed it away. Kai had returned two days before, had ducked her questions about where he’d been, and had avoided any real conversation since. They’d had sex but, while it was still good—she doubted Kai knew how to make love badly—he’d held something back, and there was something mechanical about his moves. The magic they’d experienced the night before he left town had dissipated.
But far more worrying were his bleak eyes and grim mouth. He’d returned to that stick-in-the-ass annoyance he’d been when he first arrived in Mercy—sexy but sullen.
Why?
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Sorry. Miles away.” Kai dredged up a smile. “Run that by me again?”
“I was talking about Gina and Pippa and arguments around secrets,” Flick quietly replied. “But you don’t seem very interested, so we can talk about something else.”
Kai shrugged and Flick tried to ignore the hurt flowing through her. He’d become her sounding board, the person she could talk to aboutanything. But if he didn’t want to listen, if he wasn’t interested, then she was well and truly on her own. Flick lifted her wine glass to her lips and watched him as he ate. He’d retreated to a difficult-to-reach- place. He’d rebuilt his sky-high barriers and she wasn’t sure why. Had something happened while he was away? What? And why couldn’t he just tell her?
That wasn’t the deal, she reminded herself. There wasn’t supposed to be anything emotional between them, and she’d agreed to that. In fact, she’d insisted on it. But she’d fallen in love with Kai, an intensely stupid and dangerous thing to do. She’d known that she shouldn’t, had warned herself about doing it, but, since she was a special type of stupid, had done it anyway.
Flick rested her wineglass against her forehead and fought the urge to weep. This wasn’t a schoolgirl crush, it wasn’t a way to seek attention, to feel safe, to play the rescuer, or any of the million other games she’d played with men in the past. This was undiluted love, as pure and as bright as a sunbeam. She saw him clearly: he was difficult, defensive, independent, and a little fucked up, but she loved him anyway. She loved him because he was all of those things, and because he tried to be better than the crappy hand he’d been dealt. She loved his courage, his soft center below the layers of armor, his dry sense of humor, his integrity, and his brain. She didn’t want to rescue him, change him, or rehabilitate him—she just wanted to love him and be loved by him.
But he was back-peddling his ass off. He didn’t want her like that. In fact, she was starting to think that he didn't really want her at all.