In the Line of Duty (First Responders 2)

He was beginning to open up. Kendra wasn’t sure if she was glad or if she needed to escape. She wasn’t good at this sharing thing. But he’d been here for her tonight. He was holding her in his arms, and she owed it to him to listen. She wanted to help even though the very idea scared her to death.

“Someone died?” she prompted, swallowing hard. All she could see in her mind was that beautiful young girl. A person’s face changed when their heart stopped beating. For a few precious moments it had been peaceful and beautiful, but then it was different. Like a shell where once there had been a soul.

Soullessness scared her to death.

“I still have nightmares about it. She…” His voice broke a little and he stopped, inhaled.

“It was a woman.” Her voice sounded hoarse.

“From a nearby village.”

He stopped. Kendra didn’t urge or nudge. She just waited. If it wasn’t time, he’d stop and they’d talk about something else. And if he needed to get it off his chest, she’d listen. Jake was turning out to be so much more tender and caring than she’d expected. It wasn’t fair that he’d been so tied up in knots for what, a year? Two years?

“We were in a pretty delicate spot. Lots of insurgents around. Lots of Taliban and a lot of frightened villagers. I met this woman—Khaterah.”

His voice hitched saying her name. It was a beautiful name, exotic and lovely. Had Jake fallen for her? Had she been someone special?

“Khaterah. That’s beautiful.”

“It means desire.”

“Oh,” she answered. Oh, she thought. There was definitely something here. There was something in the way he said her name. A quiet reverence. A wistfulness. Kendra was relatively sure no one had ever spoken her name in quite that way, not ever. For a fleeting moment, she was the tiniest bit jealous that this woman, whoever she was, had captured Jake’s heart so completely.

Jake’s chin rested against Kendra’s temple as he spoke quietly. “She wore a burka. The first time I met her, I could hardly see her eyes. She wouldn’t look at my face—it was wrong to make eye contact. Wrong to touch. The burka was shapeless and covered her from head to toe, but she moved with a grace that was beautiful. She passed me a message that day. It was incredibly brave and stupid of her to do that.”

Kendra’s heart started beating faster, afraid of what was coming next. “Any woman who would do such a thing—”

“She was risking her life. When I met her later, I told her never to do it again.” He swallowed and she felt his Adam’s apple rise and fall. “She met my eyes. More than that. She showed her face to me that day. I’ve never seen a more beautiful woman, brave and determined. And yet her life was about hiding, about being faceless and powerless. She fought back in the only way she knew how.”

There was anger in his voice now, and frustration. Kendra leaned back a little so she could look into his face. It was so tense, so…haunted. She lifted her fingers and touched his cheek. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. I meant it when I said it was okay.”

His dark eyes probed hers. “I know you did. Maybe that’s why I finally wanted to tell someone.” He tilted his head a bit. “You would have walked away without knowing, wouldn’t you?”

“Everyone has a right to their secrets. To their private pain. But if you want to tell me the rest, I’m here.”

“Why?”

It was a simple but incredibly loaded question. Why was she getting herself involved with Jake, taking on his problems? Leaving the pseudo-sex on the beach out of the equation, there was something more going on. She could acknowledge that in her head even if she couldn’t say it out loud. Something drew them together. Perhaps it always had, right from the time he’d held out his hands, dressed in nothing more than boxers, and commanded, “Cuff me, Constable. You know you want to.”

It had been a challenge. And, she understood now, a way of punishing himself. A person couldn’t live like that forever.

“Because it’s time you told someone. It’s time you stopped punishing yourself. Somehow, despite our horrible beginning, we understand each other. It doesn’t have to go any deeper than that.” She touched his cheek with her fingertips. “What happened to Khaterah?”

He hesitated, deliberating, but finally continued. “She fed me information for days. It got more and more risky, and we…I…got personally involved. I never touched her. Never kissed her. I wouldn’t have risked her that way. Besides, she was married. But it didn’t matter. I fell in love with her anyway.” He laughed bitterly. “It was all impossible and crazy. There was no way on earth we would ever be together and we both knew it. But it didn’t stop how I felt about her. How I wanted to protect her, to take her away from there and the danger.”

Kendra cursed lightly under her breath. No wonder Jake had been a mess.

“And then they knew. Somehow they knew that she’d been meeting me.”

“What happened?” Kendra was afraid to ask, but desperate to know the truth.

“They treated her as they would any traitor.” His voice was flat. “Only maybe worse. They raped her before they killed her.”

Shock rippled through Kendra. “Raped…” She took a breath, tried to steady her voice. “How can you be sure?”

He lowered his chin, met her gaze with his own. Despite the thick emotion in his voice, his eyes were dry. “Because I heard it. I heard the shouts. I heard her scream and I could do nothing to stop it without giving away our position. By the time we got there it was too late. She was already dead.”

“My God, Jake.”