Page 39 of Fighting for Lucy

Only Lucy.

She was the only woman who had ever made him believe in the same things his sister did.

Until her, he’d thought Scarlett was crazy for being so determined to find love. Love didn't exist. Or at least, not the kind that filled songs, books, and movies. The kind of love his twin believed in was make-believe, it was what people convinced themselves of so they didn't have to live out an otherwise lonely existence. It certainly wasn’t his experience with love.

Yet Scarlett had believed in it wholeheartedly.

While he’d thought it made her naïve and possibly even a little weak and needy, he now realized it made her strong.

So much stronger than he’d ever been.

Because she’d somehow known the truth despite the fact that love hadn't been part of either of their childhoods. She’d understood so much more about the world than he had, and he was ashamed now of all the times he’d rolled his eyes at his sister’s attempts at finding love.

It might have been a rocky road for her, but Scarlett had found her other half, and maybe … maybe he might have as well.

A glance at the sleeping woman in his lap filled him with completely unfamiliar emotions. But they felt nice. They felt right.

But no matter how right they felt, it didn't change anything.

Didn't undo what had happened to his team, didn't change the fact that darkness lived inside him now, didn't mean he could reach out and take the happy ending that could be waiting for him with Lucy.

She was so damn trusting. Despite his lies, despite what she’d been through, despite everything she believed in him.

So sweet.

So naïve.

She had no idea of the kind of man he was. Of what he had allowed to happen.

“Zander?” Lucy’s sleepy voice whispered his name as she stirred.

“Go back to sleep, baby.” Unable to resist, he dropped a kiss to the top of her head.

“Can't, we need to keep walking.” Although she desperately needed the rest, she was already pushing herself upright with a determination he knew wasn’t going to be squashed.

“We can wait a little longer for you to rest some more.” If he carried her and ran, they could make it to the extraction point in time and still let her sleep for another hour or so.

“Not if we want to stay ahead of Raul’s men. They’ll know better than us where the nearest towns are.”

“We’re not heading for a town, we’re heading deeper into the jungle, the opposite way to where they’d expect us to go.”

“Then how are we going to find a way to get home?” Lucy looked exhausted by the prospect of hiking for so long and through such thick rainforest, and he realized he’d never briefed her on the whole plan.

“We’re hooking up with a team that Eagle is organizing to get us out,” he told her.

Confusion filled her blue eyes. “Prey? How would they know where we are? I mean, other than knowing we crashed somewhere in Mexico?”

“I called them. I had a phone in my backpack, it survived the crash.” Sighing, he dragged his fingers through his hair, knowing he had a lot to confess. “Luce, I was never going to let Raul get his hands on you. When I heard what happened with Scarlett, I made contact with Eagle. Explained that I was using the weapons dealer to bring down a terrorist group and would hand over all intel when I was done. Eagle knew that you weregoing to need to go back to Mexico to get more of the plant you were using so he asked me to fly the plane.”

Lucy was staring at him with wide eyes, and he couldn’t read what she was thinking so he just kept talking.”

“He was worried about you and knew that if anything went wrong, I knew of a safe place to take you. We crashed close to Raul’s house, that’s why I couldn’t let you go off on your own. My handler was about fifty miles or so away from where we went down. That’s where I was taking you. I was going to have you hide out there with him while I went back to Raul to finish my mission. That way I could tell him you were gone when I woke up after the crash, and I had no idea where you were.”

Lucy stared at him a moment longer then glowered at him and punched his arm. “You terrified me, ghost man. You could have just told me all that from the beginning.”

“I didn't want you to get close enough to me to know any of that. I … didn't want you to hate me more than you already did when you learned the truth about what I was doing. It’s not a pretty story, Lucy. And one that was bad enough that I would put my sister through hell just to do what I could to fix it in any way possible. After I was shot, and I realized you’d been taken, I called Prey. I knew if I called my handler, he’d tell me to stick with the plan. That your life was an acceptable sacrifice for the greater good, that you’d just be another casualty of war. But I couldn’t let that happen. Not to you. Never to you.”

The very thought of Lucy not being alive filled him with ice-cold dread.

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