“Probably not the best story for the moment,” Duff said from behind them.
“I’m okay with it,” Eleanor assured him and Heath could hear the strain had left her voice. She was handling this and he had so much damned pride for her. She’d been incredible through all of this. “You guys got him out?”
“We did,” Jangles said. “Made for a lovely vacation.”
Zip snorted. “There’s no other way you’d rather spend your off time.”
It was true, Heath thought. They had all loved the challenge. A body isn’t made to be upside down for so long, so the guy had been in real danger. It had been a race against the clock to get him free using only what they had in their packs. They’d had to chisel a pulley system into the walls of the cave and ease him out inch by inch with ropes.
“Aksan and his cousin have a lot of people going through this tunnel?” She asked.
“Not so many that they get caught. They charge enough for it to pay off any patrols that do come by, but they keep the traffic light. They make it cost prohibitive to keep it that way,” Merlin said.
“So Uncle Sam is paying a fortune to get me to Kazarus?”
Heath and the others laughed and Heath answered. “Discretionary Mission Funding.”
There was laughter in her voice when she answered. “That sounds good and vague.”
“Perfect. That’s the way it’s supposed to sound,” said Zip.
Ahead of them Merlin signaled for silence and they all went quiet as they continued the trek through the dark.
As they moved through the space, Heath kept his eyes trained on Eleanor and cursed himself six ways from Sunday. He was going to hell.
Because as they snuck through a dark tunnel under the border of two nation states, he was thinking about her body. He was thinking about how soft she felt under his hand. He was thinking about how good her silhouette looked even through his night vision goggles and how much he wished they were alone in the dark, and not in a tunnel.
Yeah, he was going to hell. He grinned. Might as well sit back and enjoy the trip.
Chapter 9
Eleanor didn’t realize how worried she was about her team until she saw them all waiting by their vehicle at the rendezvous point two miles out from Demir’s compound. They stood by their vehicle on the side of a road surrounded by rocky outcroppings and shrubs. White, blue, and yellow wildflowers dotted the landscape and if she wasn’t feeling on edge, she would be happy for the chance to take in the view.
She hoped they wouldn’t be there long. She felt exposed.
“You’re all okay?” She asked for the third time.
This time, her assistant Beth laughed at her, as did the other three people going into the negotiations with them.
“We had a gorgeous drive down the coast. It was beautiful,” Beth gushed.
Eleanor forced a smile. She’d seen the coastline of Turkey before and knew how breathtaking it was. She’d been surprised on her first trip here. She had thought Turkey would be sandy, all deserts and dunes. There were rock faces but they were beautiful and filled in with lush green shrubs and trees.
Her team had come down the western coast so they’d had the treat of ocean views and coastal breezes for their trip.
Beth had been her assistant since the woman graduated from college six years earlier. She had moved up through two promotions with Eleanor and they worked well together. She was uber organized and usually able to predict what Eleanor needed, even if she did have an addiction to romance novels Eleanor just couldn’t understand.
Eleanor had worked with Geoff, Sharon, and Marcus all before and liked them, for the most part. They had all worked to get where they were and didn’t seem to feel entitled to their positions. Her boss had let her choose who was coming on the trip with her and it had been a no-brainer to choose this team.
Geoff and Sharon had a lot of experience and she respected their opinions. That was important going into something like this.
Marcus, the youngest of the group, took a step closer to her. “It’s good to see you here in one piece. They wouldn’t tell us anything about where you were.”
Eleanor nodded. It was meant to be that way, with no one on her team or from her office knowing exactly where she was. She hated the fact that this whole thing had put her in doubt of the people standing around her right now. She needed to trust them to do her job. Needed to know they had her back as she went into these talks.
She raised her gaze to the man she knew she could trust above all others. Heath stood talking to two of five men who had escorted her team to the meetup, but his eyes were on her as he spoke. Her and the area around them, she realized. He was watching, always careful not to let his guard down.
She was grateful for that.
He crossed to her and introduced her to the two men who followed. “Eleanor, this is Ris and Nan. They’ve been with your team the last couple days.” He turned to the men. “This is Nor—uh, Eleanor.”
Eleanor flushed at his almost use of her old nickname. If she were really being honest with herself, she would admit that she’d missed the way her name sounded coming from him. Even when he said it here in front of other people, it made her heart race the way it had when he’d first told her he liked her after a tutoring session when they were teens.
Of course, back then, she’d thought he might be teasing her or setting her up for some horrible joke where the rest of the football team would jump out of hiding to make fun of her.
But things were different between them now.
So much of what had happened back then shaped who they were today. Hell, if it all hadn’t happened the way it had, he would have gone to a college near her school and played ball while she pursued her degree. He wouldn’t have ended up enlisting straight out of high school. He wouldn’t be here trying to sneak her into a dangerous negotiation that could go wrong at any turn.
She plastered a smile on her face and shook hands with the burly men in front of her. “Nan, Ris, thanks for being part of this. We appreciate all you’re doing to make this negotiation happen.”
The men grinned and Ris gave her one of those drawling, “Just doing our jobs, ma’am,” lines. Somehow, his flirting managed to not be offensive.
At least not to her. Heath was giving Ris a glare that could scare the pants off a four-star general. He was all muscle and chiseled features. He looked like a comic book super hero come to life.
And she had to laugh when Ris winked at Heath. She couldn’t believe how much these guys all ribbed each other during their missions.
Heath stepped between her and the other men, taking her by the elbow. Luckily for him, his grip was gentle, not controlling, or he’d be getting a mouthful and then some from her. As it was, she had to tell herself not to read too much into his actions.
“You’re going to ride with me. We’re heading to the hotel first and then we’ll go to the compound.”
They walked to the SUV that her team had arrived in and she, Heath, Beth, Zip, and Duff loaded in. Duff took the wheel. She looked behind them to see the others all loading into the other vehicle with Merlin driving that one and Jangles sitting in the back. She wondered how Ris and Nan’s team was going to get to wherever their next assignment was but no one seemed to be concerned about it.