No matter what happens, Jack, swear to me, you tell the team we get her out. I don’t care if you have to hit her over the head and take her out unconscious. She’s not playing the heroine and saving my ass at the cost of hers.

Jack’s amusement was soothing balm on a sore wound. Oh, you got it bad, bro. That woman has you tied up in knots. Get the hell out here and let’s go. We’re not leaving anyone behind.

Ken believed in few things, but he believed in his brother. He gave Mari the location of the helicopter. “Run. Let the team provide covering fire. You keep going and I’ll be right on your heels.”

We’re coming out, he warned his team.

You’ve got enemies scattered in a loose semicircle, Jack warned. Mitch is trying for the bluff, but he isn’t going to make it. There was a moment of silence and then a rifle shot. Oh darn, he slipped back and isn’t moving.

Mari took off, sprinting with the blurring speed of an enhanced soldier, Ken keeping pace right behind her. She didn’t run straight, but zigzagged, trying to find cover where there was little to find. Gunfire erupted all around them, but they kept running, Ken trusting Jack and the others to keep the enemy pinned.

Incoming.

Down, Mari, hit the ground. Ken leapt forward to tackle her, driving her down even as he warned her, sheltering her body with his. Angry bees stung his back and legs, but he sprawled over Mari, striving with his arms to cover her head and keep her safe from the small, deadly missiles the mini-bomb was ejecting.

Jack swore in his head, the curses long and eloquent. Nails. They put nails in the damn thing. You look like a f**kin’ porcupine. Can you run?

I have to. I can do it. Just don’t let them throw one of those again. He hurt like a son of a bitch, but he wasn’t about to get shot—or captured. He rose, his back and calf muscles screaming at him. Mari obviously felt the pain in his mind, because she kept trying to turn, to see him, but he pushed her firmly forward again.

He put the pain out of his mind. Compartmentalizing was a useful tool, and Ken and Jack had learned it early in life. He ran flat-out, the nails in his body not slowing him down. Several shooters—including Neil and Logan closing in on either side of them and dropping to one knee—systematically picked off the enemy.

Mari made it to the helicopter and caught Martin’s hand, allowing him to jerk her inside. Ken leapt in and caught the rifle thrown at him, picking it out of the air with one hand, swinging it to his shoulder, and dropping to cover his brother as he came out of the foliage. He heard Mari’s gasp as she saw the nails in his body, but his concentration was on the enemy and covering Jack’s butt.

Jack came out into the open, firing steadily. Ken caught sight of a soldier tracking his twin and he squeezed the trigger. The man went down, and Ken immediately swept the area looking for others. One rose up right in front of Jack, shooting too fast. Ken saw Jack stagger.

Drop. Even as Ken gave the order, he pulled the trigger. Jack hit the ground and the soldier fell almost on top of him. How bad you hurt?

Just clipped me, took a little bit of muscle, but I’ll live. Jack was already up and covering ground fast, looking just as lethal as ever in spite of the blood on his right arm.

Stop trying to look cool and get your ass in the helicopter. Everyone knows you’re a tough guy. Ken kept the worry from his voice, covering his concern with their usual jokes.

I was hoping you’d come and carry me; I’m feeling a bit weak. Jack fired off another round, and a soldier using a boulder as a partial shield went down.

Ken tracked two of the enemy sighting on Jack and shot them both. Briony’s going to be really pissed at you for coming home damaged.

I’m bringing her sister. She’ll be treating me like a hero. Jack made it the last few feet and leapt inside. Martin and Neil followed suit.

“Go, go,” Neil ordered, and all of them turned their attention to any ground fire coming their way.

Logan pressed Ken down and sat beside him. “Toss me the med kit.” He pointed behind Mari’s head.

She snagged it and threw it to him, her gaze still on the ground, watching. Once the rifle went to her shoulder, and she pulled the trigger.

“We’re clear. No birds in the air.”

She noted there was no relaxing. Neil and Martin took up positions to protect the helicopter as Logan began to pull the nails from Ken’s back and calves. Most were shallow; there were one or two that looked deeper. Logan ripped Ken’s shirt from his body, and she caught all of the men glancing at one another.

Mari dropped down beside Ken and put her hand on the back of his head. She leaned close to him, feeling protective, knowing he wouldn’t show it, but he detested the others seeing the scars and the way his back looked like a giant grater had scraped over him, turning the skin haphazardly to cottage cheese. The front of his chest had the same thin pattern of scars as his face and neck. There was no way to block the line of vision all his team members had. She despised the looks on their faces.

Hey, baby, you doing all right? She wanted to ask out loud, for all of them to hear the concern for him in her voice, to hear what she felt for him, but she couldn’t make herself that vulnerable. She asked it softly, intimately, in his mind, trying to join them together so he could feel she was with him.

His fingers tangled with hers. There was physical pain, but he could easily bear that. It was much, much more difficult to have his friends staring at him—seeing him—seeing the terrible destruction of his body. Mari ached for him, felt tears burning in her eyes and throat for him. He had been a handsome man with an astonishing face and physique, and Ekabela had taken great care to destroy him, inch by inch.

She bent closer, her lips feathering gently over his temple in an effort to distract him. Thanks for coming to get me. I really didn’t want to stay there.

His fingers tightened around hers and he drew her hand to his mouth.

“What the hell’s going on here?” Jack demanded. “I’ve been shot. Does anybody give a damn, or do I have to sit here and bleed to death while you all baby my brother?”

Neil and Martin instantly turned their attention to Jack.

“Sorry. It didn’t look that bad,” Neil said.

“That bad?” Jack echoed. “I’m pouring blood.”

Ken choked. When Mari touched his mind, he was laughing. For the first time since she’d met Jack, she actually liked him a little. She respected him as a soldier, was filled with awe and admiration for him as a sniper, but she hadn’t liked him very much and wasn’t altogether certain she wanted Briony with him.

With one small performance Jack had changed her opinion of him. He wasn’t the type of man to call attention to himself or be bothered by a small wound. He had his own scars, evidence of his torture at the hands of the same man who had had Ken for so long. Jack Norton had the reputation of being as tough as nails. She sent him a small smile and helped his game.

“I’ll be sure and tell Briony how tough you are.”

“Briony’s probably going to hit me with something when she sees me. I promised her I’d be careful.”

“I’ll tell her you were showing off.”

“You do that and I’m retaliating. That sister of yours can be mean.”

Ken closed his eyes, fingers tight around Mari’s, and allowed himself to drift. He was physically exhausted, three days without sleep and his body on fire from the nails, but he had Marigold and that was all that mattered. He relaxed, listening to his brother banter with her while the helicopter took them far away from Peter Whitney and his insane experiments.

Chapter 19

Ken’s home, situated deep in the Montana wilderness and surrounded by national forest on three sides, was the most beautiful thing Mari had ever seen. Ken stood beside her as she stared up in awe at the giant log cabin. To her, the house looked like the epitome of the wonderful homes she’d fantasized about when she’d watched old movies the men had occasionally smuggled in for the women.

“We have twenty-four hundred acres, Mari, so you definitely have freedom.” Ken covered his sudden anxiety with a small smile. “Unless you think you’d prefer to be a city girl.” He could never live comfortably in the city, but he knew if she wanted that—needed at least to try—he would go with her.

Mari shook her head. “I wouldn’t do well in a city. Too many people, too much traffic and noise. I prefer solitude.”

Ken let out his breath. “We’re completely self-sufficient here. If we ever ran short of funds, we could harvest trees. We actually have a workable gold mine too, although we’ve never bothered with it. The water supply to the property is gravity-fed, and we use a hydro-electric system that powers batteries.” He wanted her to love the place the way he did, to feel the sense of freedom in the larger-than-life forest surrounding them and the complete self-sufficiency of their home. “Right now we’re using only a very small percentage of the power available to us. Jack and I could live off the land, hunting and harvesting crops if necessary, so this is a perfect place for us.”

“I didn’t expect it to be so big.”

“Right now the house is over three thousand square feet. Jack and Briony have the larger wing. We’ve been working on a nursery for them. We share a kitchen, dining room, and great room with them, and our wing is on the other side. At the moment we have a bedroom, bath, and office, but I have a second bedroom roughed in. The garage nearly doubles the space, so we have plenty of room to expand if we want to, and if Jack and Briony keep it up, we’ll have to very soon.” He flashed a small grin. “They’re expecting twins.”

“You never mentioned that.”

“I like to save the best for last.”

She smiled at him. “That’s kind of scary. Twins run in your family, do they?”

He nodded. “Big time.”

She looked away from him back to the house. “I love the logs. What are they?”

Ken didn’t let his disappointment show. She wasn’t ready for commitment. He had gotten her to his home in the Montana forest; he had to be happy with that and hope he could convince her to stay. “Western white pine. We fitted them together with Swedish cope and used oil to finish them off. Jack made most of the furniture in the house. He’s very good at woodworking.”

“It’s beautiful. I love the porch.”

“The roof is built for warfare, and we have an escape tunnel. We have alarms and a few traps to let us know if unwanted visitors show up. The wood shop is just down there in that meadow, and the smaller garage houses the equipment. We have a vegetable garden in that little strip of land where the sun shines the most. Briony planted the flowers everywhere.”

Mari’s hand gripped his. “Is she here?”

“Don’t sound so scared. No, Jack will bring her tomorrow. He wanted to see her first. He’s protective of her.”

“He still doesn’t quite trust me, does he?”

“Jack doesn’t trust anything or anyone when it comes to Briony,” Ken said. “She’s his world, and if anything happened to her, he’d go berserk. She’ll be here, honey, trust me; she’s excited to know you’re alive and well. Nothing is going to keep her from coming home.”

“Except Jack.”

“For a night. He wants her to himself tonight, and I was hoping we’d have a few hours together.”

Mari stood at the bottom of the steps looking at the wrap-around verandah. The night was falling and the wind rustled through the trees. There was a bite of cold in the air, enough to make her shiver.

“Are you afraid of me, Mari?” Ken asked.

She lifted her hand to his face. As always, in the shadow of the night, the scarring faded away, leaving masculine perfection behind. “No, Ken, it’s not you.” She hesitated as if searching for the right words—or the trust she needed to expose her fears. “It’s me. I don’t know anything about who I am or what I want. When I’m away from you, I feel as if I can’t breathe without you. How can I ever learn to be complete if I go from never making a single decision on my own to being in such an intense relationship?” She looked stricken. “I’m just taking it for granted that you want a relationship. You’ve never said. Not once.”