CHAPTER FIVE
Jordan gave up on sleep. He was too keyed up, his mind going a mile a minute. It wasn’t unusual before a big op. The night before a normal mission, he slept like a baby, but anything major and he couldn’t shut off the part of his brain that thought of every possible scenario and anything that could go wrong.
They’d spent the first two hours sand-tabling the mission, going over comms and signals. Westin had received word that Leonidas, another private security company, would be able to assist them with the take-down of the compound and retrieval of the school girls, allowing Titan to focus on recovering Emme.
Opening his laptop, he connected to the plane’s wifi and searched for Emme’s blog. Her most recent post had been from three weeks ago, just before her kidnapping. She wrote about the importance of education for young girls in the country and how the terrorist groups were trying to close schools and intimidate villages. Browsing through older posts, he clicked on a link that took him to her YouTube page.
“Hey, everyone. It was a tough day today and I don’t really have the energy to write about it, so I figured I’d share in person. Or as in person as a video can be.”
Her smile was tight and her eyes were full of weariness.
“A girl came in today. And I do mean girl. She was only fourteen or fifteen years old. She had a miscarriage at three months. She was worried her husband would beat her for losing the baby.” She rested her chin on her hand and looked off in the distance for several seconds. She sighed and looked back at the camera. “I’ve been here for four months and I still can’t fathom it. I think about girls her age back in the States and their biggest concern is how many Twitter followers they have. Hell, when I was fifteen my biggest concern was a boy calling me a stuck-up tease.” She looked down at the table and a wistful smile played at her mouth. “I had someone who made me realize my worth was my own. I controlled it, not someone else and definitely not someone else’s opinion of me. These girls don’t have that. I want to give it to them, but I don’t know how.”
He paused the video. She was talking about him. And their one and only kiss.
Staring at the screen, he recognized the girl he’d kissed all those years ago. Even though she looked like she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders, Emmenowwas more beautiful. Her long lashes swept her cheeks and freckles dotted her nose. Her dark, curly hair was piled high on her head and he wondered if it still felt as soft as it had back then.
He’d avoided her the rest of that summer and the next two summers after that. Their kiss had made him realized she’d grown up at some point. He couldn’t look at her and see the little girl who’d chased after him and Doug. The one he’d teased and whose braids he’d pulled. Out of respect for her father and brother, he’d stayed away. But he’d always wondered what would have happened if he’d been given the chance to kiss her again.
Westin sat in the chair across from him. Jordan took off his earphones and closed his laptop.
“You going to take it?”
Jordan’s brow crinkled. “Take what?”
“The promotion.”
“What promotion?
Westin started at him, not saying anything.
He rolled his eyes. “Dude, seriously. You really need to be a little more forth coming with the words. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Your commander told you there were extra incentives for taking the job,” Westin said.
“I didn’t ask what they were. I didn’t care.”
Westin continued to stare at him as he ran his fingers over his lips and didn’t say anything for several seconds. “When we recover her, we’ll leave immediately for Abu Dhabi. We have a doctor on standby to take a look at her. General and Mrs. France have agreed to stay in the States and let the furor of her rescue die down before we transport her back. Two weeks minimum, but it could be longer.” He folded his hands across his stomach. “I told them I would ask you, but if you’d prefer to catch up with your unit, I can arrange for someone else—”
“I’ll stay with her.” Shit, what was he doing? Twelve hours ago, all he wanted to do was go forward with this unit, to get back to what he knew. Now he’d volunteered for babysitting duty. What the fuck?
He got a knowing look. “That will also give her time to recover before she has to travel so far and us time to arrange new passports.” Westin stood. “We’ll only be in Rabat long enough to refuel. It’s three hours to Mali. We’ll have about six hours on the ground before we go. Part of that will be hooking up with Leonidas and going over any possible changes to the plan. We’ll get your girl.”
“She’s not my girl.”
Westin smirked like he knew something Jordan didn’t. “Maybe not yet.”
Maybe not ever. Love and commitment didn’t seem to be in the cards for him. Not because he didn’t believe in it — Jase and Bree had shown him it existed — he just wasn’t sure he could let someone care for him that deeply. He’d gone to too many funerals, watched too many widows and children drowning in grief to ever put someone in that position. It was bad enough his parents had to live with that possibility every time he deployed.
He shook his head, closed his laptop, and reclined his seat. It wasn’t something he needed to worry about anyway. He hadn’t seen Emme in more than fifteen years. She wouldn’t even recognize him.
Jordan stared at the horizon. He’d never seen anything like it. The setting sun painted the endless African sky in reds, oranges, and golds.
Westin stepped next to him. “Fuck, I hate this continent.”
Jordan raised his eyebrows.
“Long story. Comms are up. The Leonidas team is a few minutes out.”
