Page 92 of Delta Force Defender

“This is really just embarrassing,” Jonas said, almost lazily, still standing back by the door to the stairs. He didn’t even raise his weapon.

Caradine was flat against the wall, the gun hanging ather side. But she was looking at Isaac, not tracking her brother.

“I told you I missed you on purpose,” she told him, her voice hoarse. “In Maine.”

Isaac saw something he recognized in her gaze then. A certain bleakness he knew all too well, each and every contour.

And he didn’t want that for her. He’d spent so much time in that desolate place it was like a second home. He didn’t want her to add that particular darkness to the things she already carried around.

He didn’t want her to touch it, because once she did, there would be no taking it back.

There was never any taking it back.

“If you do it, you become it,” he told her softly. “That’s how it works.”

“You do it all the time.”

“Not all the time. And never lightly.” He saw her hand twitch at her side. “And I’ve never pretended I wasn’t what my choices made me. You can’t take a life without paying for it, one way or another.”

He understood the misery on her face then. Too well.

“Caradine—”

But another shot rang out across the lobby before he could finish his sentence.

And this time, her brother went down in a heap. But he made a lot of noise while he did it, which made Isaac’s chest feel slightly less frozen solid.

Because Caradine had shot her own brother, but she hadn’t killed him.

“Right to the knee,” Jonas said like a sports announcer. “Ouch. That’s going to sting.”

And later, maybe, Isaac would think about the fact that she really might have missed on purpose in that little house in Maine.

But not now. He was there before her, his hand achingfrom the punch he’d delivered, and she was staring back at him with that familiar mix of longing and defiance all over her.

Everything was different. And yet this was the same. They were the same.

“Report, for God’s sake,” Templeton snapped over the comm unit. “Some of us are stuck in the bar time forgot.”

“Threat neutralized,” Isaac replied, but his gaze was still on the woman who stood there propped up against the wall, her ten-year nightmare in a heap on the floor of this dank lobby. But his nightmare remained the same. And would be worse, now, with this scene etched on it. “Caradine is fine.”

Jonas took over then, listing potential injuries and requesting medical attention as well as law enforcement to clean up the mess.

Isaac shut off his comm unit because his attention was on Caradine, who didn’t look fine, no matter what he’d said. Bruises seemed to multiply the longer he looked at her throat. Her pretty face was swollen, cut, and battered. And still, she was glaring at him like she was daring him to do something about any of this.

It took him a moment to recognize the sensation that soared through him at the sight of that glare.

Pure joy.

“Are you?” he asked her, quietly. “Fine, I mean.”

She smirked, though it must have hurt. And there was a glaze over her eyes, which made him want to shoot things himself.

“Of course I’m fine. I’m always fine. It’s my defining characteristic.”

“I can think of other definitions.” He shook his head at her, fighting to keep his fury at bay. “What would you call someone who deliberately put herself in danger the way you did today?”

“Determined,” Caradine said, and the smirk faded. Leaving only bruises and scrapes and too many ghosts in her eyes. “Desperate.”

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