"Stop and identify yourself," Monica ordered.
The woman straightened. Spun.
Yasmine. Cradling a bundle in her hands. Relief quickly faded to suspicion.
Monica abandoned stealth and confronted her sister, keeping her gun aimed on the woman she didn't know all that well. A woman ordered by Colonel Cullen to stay in her room. "What are you doing?"
Her sister's hands whipped behind her back. "Tactful as ever, sister dear."
"Drop the humor unless you want to be dropped." Monica leveled her weapon, not realizing until just that moment how damned much she'd wanted to believe Yasmine's request for asylum was genuine. Monica forced her 9 mm to stay steady. She would kill in defense of her country. Knew she would kill in defense of Jack.
But good God, she wasn't sure she could live with herself if she had to pull the trigger on her mother's child staring back at her with eyes in a face much like her own. "Show me what you're holding."
"You do not trust me?"
"I can't afford to." She pointed the gun. "Show me or I will make you. There's no doubt here but that I can."
Yasmine's hands slid around. She thrust them forward to reveal...a dress?
"I only have one change of clothes with me." Defiant pride bathed her words. "I could not hide more when I came to work here, or people would have been suspicious."
"Why sneak around at night?"
Pink tinged her sister's cheeks. Yasmine blushing? The brazen chick who'd been chasing poor Colonel Cullen seven ways to Sunday?
"I only have one set of underwear. Stupid oversight, I know. But I was more than a little anxious when I left. I wash at night for everything to dry before morning. It would be...uncomfortable...to walk around this way during the day, even if no one could tell. I would know."
So her sister was running around sans bra and nobody would have guessed it? Figured Little Miss Perfect would have perky breasts, too.
Illogical laughter tickled. "No Band-Aids for you, huh, kid?"
"What?"
"Nothing."
Awkward silence blanketed the stale air between them, minimal noise outside, a truck, the low hum of airplane engines just prior to takeoff.
Would Yasmine recognize the sound and question the timing?
A lone voice drifted down the hall through an open office door, Crusty patching through his nightly call home to his family. Hopefully that would distract Yasmine from the other echoes. His dry laugh, jokes about the crummy food and questions to his wife about Trey's asthma, Austin's training wheels, everyday family concerns seemed so at odds with the distance and stakes of where they were. But if they stopped life, emotions, even happiness every time their country called on them lately, there would never be time to live. A notion that made her feel slightly less guilty for wanting Jack while Sydney was suffering.
What would it be like to have a normal life alongside the high-tension existence of her job? She'd worked hard at her last relationship before Jack. For four years she'd tried with Hunter, a civilian doctor with whom she'd shared much in common. But then he'd demanded she choose between him and her job that kept them apart. The decision was heartbreakingly easy to make.
"Uh, Monica?"
She blinked clear the foggy memories. "Yes?"
Yasmine nodded toward the gun still raised and aimed. "Could you please put that away now?"
"Oh, of course. Sorry." She reholstered her weapon. Still, Yasmine didn't leave. Monica couldn't bring herself to walk away, either. The swelling rumble of jet engines outside echoed the roaring tension within her. Three hours until Jack landed.
Yasmine nodded toward the open office door. "How sweet that he calls his family. He must be very proud of his sons."
"They're actually Crusty's half brothers. His father and stepmother are dead." Monica watched for Yasmine's reaction, some sign that her sister already knew of Crusty's connection to the assassinated ambassador to Rubistan.
Sympathy furrowed her brow. "Those poor boys. Losing both parents is...difficult...even when you're older. What happened?"
Monica shoved aside the twinge of compassion for Yasmine she couldn't afford. "Auto accident."