“I made the choice before you ever came to my room, Kane,” she admitted. “I watched you for weeks and maybe became a little obsessed with you. I’d never seen anyone like you before. Maybe our time together wasn’t memorable to you, but I remember every single detail. I remember the way you touched me, how your skin felt against mine, how careful you were with me. I hear the sound of your voice at night, and it comforts me. Nothing has ever made me feel the way you did. If I only had that one night with you, it was enough for me.”
Kane stood up abruptly and turned his back on her, uncertain whether he could keep emotion from his expression. She humbled him with her courage. She was an extraordinary woman, and he couldn’t believe she’d tied herself to him, especially after one night of sex with him. Granted, he had wanted her first time to feel as if a man loved her above all else. He didn’t want her to feel forced or afraid, and he’d done everything in his power to prepare her body to accept his, but the bottom line had been, if Rose hadn’t allowed him to have sex with her, then Whitney would have sent another man in his place. That man—Carlson—would have used brute force.
“I guess I’ll have to spend the rest of my life proving to you that you made the right decision.” If his voice was a little too husky, he chose to ignore it. He wasn’t a man given to emotion, and being in such close proximity to Rose and the baby made him feel as if he could spend a lifetime right there in that house in the desert, even knowing the threat hanging over their heads.
“Kane.”
The way his name was a caress turned his insides to jelly. Damn, women had power, so much more than he’d ever considered. Rose could turn him inside out with just her tone of voice. He turned a little reluctantly to face her.
“I would have gotten on the helicopter if you’d come too.”
Trust. There it was. Stark and honest and handed to him when he wasn’t altogether that deserving. Why he’d been so lucky he had no idea, but she’d taken a cynical, hard man and created some kind of knight in shining armor out of him.
“We’ll keep the baby safe, Rose,” he assured.
If there was one thing he knew for certain, it was that Whitney would never get his hands on the boy or Rose. Whitney would have to go through Kane to do it, and Kane had a hell of a team standing behind him. He might not believe in many things, but he believed in his unit.
Each night when he left the house to scout, he scattered signs for Mack and the others to find. They knew him, knew what to look for, and they would know he was alive. They would come for him—for Rose and his child. He buried the evidence of birth deep in the tunnel where no animal would uncover it and possibly give away to the sentries that Rose had already had the baby.
“I feel strong enough now to help more,” she assured, shifting a little to ease her sore body into a new position.
He knew she didn’t even notice she was still sore. Rose was determined to pull her weight. It mattered little that he’d already made the big mistake of pointing out he was the man and it was his place to protect them both. That hadn’t gone over very well. He searched for something more diplomatic to say.
She laughed softly. “You look like you might implode, Kane.”
“Talking with a woman is like walking through a minefield,” he admitted and immediately realized that statement was probably one of those truths that would be better left unsaid.
Rose’s laughter rang out again, that music that haunted his daytime dreams. He had no idea a man could fall so damn hard for a woman. He reached down and circled her bare ankle with his hand, his fingers stroking over the petals of her tattoo, needing some kind of personal contact with her, no matter what it was. He spent a good deal of his time studying the complex tattoo on her ankle. He’d really grown quite fond of it. He knew every petal intimately, stroking and caressing her soft skin while she fed the baby or just sat holding him.
Rose never objected to his touching her, nor did she now. She shook her head at his comment. “Women are easy to talk to, Kane, if a man just uses logic.”
He opened his mouth, then thought better of entering into a discussion on the logic of women with her. He bit down hard on his impulsive reply. She laughed again, and he realized she was teasing him. He found himself laughing with her.
He tugged a little on her ankle, his thumb sliding over the petals of the rose. “I think we can safely say this is the source of Whitney’s ability to track you. He’s using a satellite, but only intermittently, which means he’s using it for something else, something more important, and can only spare it occasionally to check on you and the other women who escaped the compound.”
“That’s if each of the tattoos actually carries the same ability.”
Kane shrugged. “Why bother giving the women a tattoo if it wasn’t useful to him?”
She winced. “I know we should have been suspicious. We wanted to believe we meant something—anything—to him. He was the only constant in our lives, other than each other.”
“I wasn’t passing judgment, Rose.” His heart ached for her when she looked so sad—a child desperate for the love of a parent—and finding out once again that parent had betrayed her.
“It’s just that I know better than to ever give him the benefit of the doubt, and yet, there’s this part of me, so childish, that keeps hoping we meant something to him.
He raised us. We did everything he wanted, no matter how frightened we were or how difficult or painful it was.” She shook her head and then kissed the baby. “I can’t let that happen to him.”
“We won’t, sweetheart. And we’ll find a way to disable the tracking device in the tattoo. Javier or Jaimie will know what to do. They are practically hardwired into their electronics.”
“Won’t I lead them right to your unit?”
“He won’t come after us with Mack and the others helping to protect you. And if he did send someone, they’ll run into a wall.” He spoke with absolute confidence, believing it the truth. His unit would fight to the death to keep Rose and the baby from Whitney. He glanced out the windows at the gathering darkness. “It’s almost time for me to go check on our two friends.”
Rose sat outside in the evening for an hour, giving the illusion of being heavy with child, just meditating in the night and seemingly oblivious to the two men watching her. Kane figured the act would buy them a little time. He went out before her each night hunting the two, getting close enough to listen to their conversations, gathering intel he hoped would let them know when Whitney planned to make his move. In truth, all they were doing was buying time for their son.