Barefoot with a Stranger (Barefoot Bay Undercover #2)(78)

“We could make it, you know.” The words tumbled out of her mouth, fueled by adrenaline and the brush with death. “We could beat all the odds.” She pulled him close and kissed him without even trying to hide how she felt about him.

She couldn’t let go. Couldn’t stop kissing and touching and giving in to the words that bubbled up like a pent-up volcanic eruption. “We’re so good together, Mal. We’re special. We’re a team. I never met anyone like you. I want you to—”

His hand pressed on her mouth, sweaty and strong and silencing. “Stop,” he said gruffly.

She blinked at him, and he slowly dropped his hand. “I don’t want to stop,” she whispered. “I want to tell you how I feel.”

He gave a sharp shake of his head. “You’re just…it’s just…near death.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Nothing like a brush with mortality to make you realize how you feel about someone.”

He just stared at her, silent. His eyes looked longing, but a frown creased his forehead, and his jaw was set in a way that told her he was working hard not to say a word.

“Mal…” She was still catching her breath from the rough landing, and her voice cracked. “Can you really look me in the eyes and tell me this…this…thing we feel is absolutely and truly hopeless?”

She counted her heartbeats, thumping so hard they echoed from her chest to her brain, waiting for his answer.

“Can you?” she whispered as hope slipped away with each passing second.

“Yes. Let’s go. We have a long walk.”

He climbed out of the cockpit, and she sat perfectly still for a long moment, letting the sadness and pain hit her heart. They did crash and burn, after all.





Chapter Twenty-five





Of course it was hopeless. Irrevocably hopeless. The truth of that slammed at Mal’s heart and head with the same intensity his feet slammed against the muddy field they crossed on the long, mosquito-infested, two-mile walk to the outskirts of El Sal.

Neither one of them spoke, since a bug flew into Chessie’s mouth the minute she’d opened it. So they trudged along in silence, with her confession hanging in the air as thick as the Cuban humidity, making them both sweaty and uncomfortable.


We could make it, you know. We could beat all the odds. We’re so good together, Mal.

Could they? Did he dare even think that he could—

A bug bit his neck, and he slapped at it a little too hard.

Of course not.

“Why are you so opposed to happiness?” she asked, obviously willing to risk swallowing a mosquito to psychoanalyze him. “And if you say ‘define happiness,’ you’ll eat my fist instead of a bug.”

He fought a smile because…because shit. She made him smile. And that was the f*cking problem. “I’m not opposed to happiness.”

“Oh, it’s just me you’re opposed to?”

He closed his eyes and slowed down, kicking a little mud in frustration. “I’m not opposed to you, Chessie.”

“But you don’t want to take a chance on anyone who might make you happy.”

He looked skyward, wishing like hell they could talk about the blanket of stars and how they looked pink and how the whole Milky Way was visible out here. But no, they had to talk about his happiness.

“I wasn’t born into it, like you were.”

“And this is, what, Medieval England, and you can’t change your stature in life? People have shitty childhoods and grow up to let go of that and make a better one for their kids.”

“Kids?” The word popped out before he could manage to just think and not say it.

“I don’t mean ours,” she said, and he could hear the disappointment in her voice. Or was that in his own head? “I’m speaking…hypothetically. Ew. Pfffft.” She turned away and spit. “Gross.”

Spitting out a bug or the idea of kids with him?

“Why don’t you try?” she asked. “Why don’t you try to find happiness?”

“How do you know I haven’t?” he fired back.

“But you do know that my brother has a business helping people who are in precisely the situation you’re in, right?”

“I know what Gabe does.”

“Then why not use his services? Why not have him get you a new ID and a new life? Disappear if you have to. Get away from this Roger Drummand guy who has it out for you. Start over and…and…”

He waited, half dreading, half aching to hear what she’d say next.

“Find someone,” she finished.

I found someone. I’m walking next to her. I’m half in love with her.

Holy, holy hell. He was in trouble. “It’s not that simple,” he said. “Gabe helps people hide from bad guys. I’m hiding from the good guys.”

She blew out a frustrated breath. “Yeah, well, they don’t sound so good to me.”

“They aren’t all good.”

“Could you ever have a normal life? You know, not look over your shoulder? Not be on the CIA shit list? Could you ever…”

He stopped walking for a second and turned to her. The need to set her straight welled up in him. “Logistically? Technically? Physically? Yeah, there is probably a way for me to live a little less on the edge of doom, and maybe Drummand will outgrow his hate-on for me, and maybe I could find a place where I’m someone else, doing something else, even though I’d really rather just be me doing what I was trained to do.”