Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

The noise that greeted Marlowe inside the barn was not what she expected. Not a single dog barked or whined, not inside or outside. It was uncanny how silent they all were. Well, except for the little yellow fellow in the nearest kennel. He yapped and slapped the ground with both paws, his tail wagging and his butt wiggling like he wanted to play. The cutie was smiling. He looked like he was happy to see her. She was sure of it, he was smiling.

"Look, Asher." She nearly squealed, pointing out the brazen pup who was now, literally, climbing the chain-link wall of his kennel. He yelped at her. Right at her. Not at anyone else. He was smiling, his whole body wiggling so hard that he fell off the fence and landed on his fluffy butt. But then he bounced to his feet and started climbing again. "Look. He's smiling."

"I see him," Asher replied calmly, then yelled, "Hey, Harley. We're here."

A tall, sandy-haired man on a phone leaned backward out of the big wooden stall at Marlowe's right and waved. "Howdy, ma'am. Asher. I'll be a minute, so make yourselves comfortable. The MWDs are in the rear corner, but they're all spoken for. Everyone else is fair game."

"Copy that. Thanks," Asher answered.

"What are MWDs?"

"Military working dog. Harley trains dogs for veterans, select military operations, and police forces across the country."

"No wonder he works in a barn."

"Yup."

Marlowe inhaled the delicious scents inside Harley's barn. There was no stink in the air, just the sweet smells of alfalfa, cedar, the rough wooden walls, and the spring breeze filtering in behind her. The entire floor was one wide expanse of smoothly finished timbers that looked like they'd been polished. Or sanded, maybe that was what gave them their soft sheen.

Four rows of kennels lined the area to her left. Harley's stall, or whatever it was, stood nearest the door. Her feet itched to get up and walk from one end of this wonderful, mammoth building to the other, but cooing overhead sent her gaze up to the rafters. "Pigeons. Look, Asher! There's a white one. See him? Right there, in the middle." Oh, to be as free as that pretty bird.

When Asher didn't respond, Marlowe looked over her shoulder to see what had his attention. She didn't blame him for being distracted. She was. There was so much to see, and the openness of this building felt almost as good as being outside. She was free and able to breathe. Life was good. Not for long, but today, she had dogs to meet. Maybe hold. She could hardly wait.

Marlowe had never owned a dog or cat. Not that she was getting one today. She wasn't even sure she had the capacity to take care of anything besides the women who came and went in her life. They were temporary. Pets weren't, and her life at home had never been like other girls' lives. From little on up, she'd had to be the adult in her family, and that usually meant spending days, sometimes weeks, home alone. Scrounging for food in a house bare of normal furniture, like a table and chairs, a nice sofa, not the sagging, smelly thing that took up what should've been her living room. When she wasn't home, Marlowe didn't have time for pets. She'd been out, roaming the streets and back alleys, looking for her mom. Dragging her home from the bars, when she'd allow it. Sometimes she'd already hooked up with some sleazy guy and insisted he come along, too. Those men always thought they had rights to whatever her mom owned, even her daughter. Marlowe hit the streets when that happened. She had no choice, and she hated her mom for doing that to her, for not caring enough to protect her only kid.

She had no idea where her mom was today, didn't care if she ever saw her again. She'd had to grow up fast back then. Had to babysit her mother, make sure she ate, slept, bathed, and didn't drink herself to death. Well, no more. Her mom had her chance to be decent, but she'd wasted Marlowe's childhood on freaking booze and creepy men. Marlowe was the mom now, and she was everything her mother should've been, a woman who'd die to save poor Afghan women and their kids. It was up to her to search them out and get them out of Afghanistan. She owed it to them. No one else was dedicated or brave enough.

Shrugging off the memory of the chaotic US military desertion, Marlow refused to go back and relive one second of her pitiful childhood. Period. End of that damn trip down memory lane.

Asher still hadn't answered her question, though, and that bugged her. Didn't he hear what she asked? His head was tilted up and in the right direction, but he wasn't looking at the pigeons. They'd all flown away. He was just standing there, staring at nothing.

Of course. He needed a dog, and here she was, going on about birds. Since Asher wasn't in control of the wheelchair, Marlowe reached her one good hand to the top of one wheel and started the chair rolling. She wanted to talk to that yellow puppy. Touch his fur and see if it was as soft and fluffy as it looked. It was cute and friendly. It'd be perfect for Asher.

"Whoa, there, ma'am, where do you think you're going?" he said, stopping her forward momentum.

"Ma'am? You called me ma'am?" She turned on him, daring him to call her that again. "What do you think I am, an old woman? I'm just twenty-six, smartass."

He cocked his head. "You're only twenty-six? Really? That's all?"

Now he was being mean. "Yes, that's all. Are you deaf or just plain stupid?"

"No, no, I… I just thought… I mean, you—"

"Ha! You do think I'm old, don't you? You think I'm an old hag. What an asshole. Who the fuck cares what you think?" In a fit of temper, she tore the stupid sling off and tossed it aside. Not smart. The instant it went flying, her arm ached, but she didn't care. It was past time to leave this place. "Thanks for the fresh air, but I've had enough fun for one gawddamned day. Take me back to my room. Right now."

Asher dropped to one knee beside the chair. "Marlowe, stop. Please. I had no idea how old you were, and I'm sorry if I offended you."

"I don't need your help. I don't need anybody's help."

"It's just that, honey—"

"Stop calling me that! You don't get to call me that. Get away. I can make it back to my room on my own."

"No, I'll take you, but I need you to know—"

"Fuck you!" Marlowe pushed on that wheel, but nothing happened, not with his big hand holding her in place. "Let go before I—"

"Really?" he asked, as calm as ever. "That's how you're going to play this? I save your life, and you get pissed because I call you ma'am? You seem determined to take everything wrong. Ma'am is a simple sign of respect where I come from. There are a lot of other things I could've called you, but I didn't and I wouldn't. I respect the hell out of you, and I will most certainly call you ma'am and honey anytime I want. Because you mean something to me. You have the heart of a lioness, honey ."

He'd said that last word to underscore how stupid she was acting, but damn. That word, honey, meant a lot to Marlowe. It was a nice word, a kind word. It was his word. Her gaze hit the polished floor. She couldn't believe how easily she'd gone ballistic and nasty. Over nothing. What was wrong with her? She had no idea what to say next or how to apologize, because—

Marlowe had never apologized before, not to anyone, not if she wanted to live. Life on Chicago's streets was hard, harder for girls, and harder yet for girls who didn't know how to stand up for themselves and fight back. But life in Afghanistan was murder, literally, for unescorted American women. Over there, she'd had to charge hard every single day and fight for every little scrap of food and—

Maybe that was a good place to start, admitting she'd lost her temper. Still looking at the floor but not seeing it, she begrudgingly muttered, "I overreacted. You're right and I'm sorry. I just…" Shit, this was hard. "I just—"

"You're just used to doing everything alone, and no one having your back, I get it. What I don't get is why you were in Afghanistan by yourself. You had no support team to fall back on, did you?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, no. But I'm okay with that. I work better alone."

"What work?" The disbelief in his tone was palpable. "What kind of boss gives you a job in the most dangerous country in the world and then leaves you there by yourself? How long were you in Afghanistan, anyway?"

Marlowe stared, not yet sure of this whole trusting thing yet, and not meeting Asher's eyes. He had ESP or something. Those emerald green babies were looking through her; she could feel them. She told the truth, just not all of it. "As long as I needed to be."

"Jesus. How many times have you been in and out of there?"

"I do what I have to do."

"And that is?"

She pursed her lips, breathing short, shallow breaths to keep from falling apart. Could she trust Asher? Part of her wanted to. It'd be the best thing ever to not have to carry her self-appointed burden all by herself, all the time. But if she told him, he might put an end to her work, and there were still more women who needed out of Afghanistan.

Asher leaned sideways until he was peering up at her. "Honey, it's okay if you don't answer. I get it. But let me tell you what I know about you, just having been around you these past few days. You want that puppy over there." He glanced at the yellow dog. "Right?"

She huffed. "No. Maybe."

He kept going. "You're an extraordinarily strong young woman. You're vibrant, and you have more stamina than most older, well-seasoned guys. When you're angry, your instant go-to words are asshole and fuck. Beau overuses fuck, too. Lots of us guys do, but honey, you put a helluva lot more venom into it than we do. You're thin, but you're not anorexic. You're a hundred percent lean muscle, and somehow, you find time to work out because, I gotta tell you, those muscles of yours are hard as diamonds. And, oh yeah." He massaged his jaw. "You pack a wallop."

She nodded, guilty as charged. If running for her life and the lives of her women counted as workouts.

"And…" Asher waited until she finally raised her chin and met his eyes. "You know how to bring a man to his knees. You're fast and you're lethal, and I know damned well you could hit the long-distance gong at our TEAM range if I took you shooting. But I also know you had to be mean to survive, and maybe, you've had to be mean for a long time. Too long. Maybe your entire life. Which leads me to the mystery of how a little girl from AnyTown, USA, grew into the stunning warrior you are today."

Damn it. He did have ESP. She wasn't close to stunning, she'd never shot anything in her life, and she didn't plan to. But fast, lethal, and mean? Yup. Guilty as charged.

"Make no mistake," he murmured, "I know capable warriors when I see one. But honey, the crap you must've suffered to become who and what you are today, is etched all over your pretty face, and like it or not, it's aged you." Asher ran his big, warm hand over her beanie. "I see you, Marlowe Rich, but I see the pain bottled up inside of you, too. I'd sure like to know that little girl from AnyTown, USA better, but it's up to you. I'm not the bad guy here. Talk to me. Let me help if I can. If I can't" —he shrugged those magnificent shoulders— "nothing ventured, nothing gained."

She swallowed hard, tears leaking out of her good eye, giving her away, and making everything blurry. "Your go-to word is honey," she told the floor, needing to say something that wasn't mean or defensive for a change.

"It is," Asher whispered. "My dad calls my mom honey. It's the first word that popped into my head when I saw you in that cave, well, after I crawled off the floor and could finally stand up. You're one tough cookie."

Marlowe heard the tease in his tone. Looking deeper into Asher's green eyes gave her the courage to risk everything she was and all she'd accomplished in her pathetic life. She'd only seen the same glow transforming his rugged face now, once before, on the face of the first woman she'd rescued. When that poor woman was finally inside the rescue helicopter with her two tiny baby girls and had to turn and tell her homeland goodbye. When she'd fully realized she was on a one-way trip and would never see her mother and father again. She'd cried and Marlowe had cried with her, but that woman had then looked down at her babies. She'd blown out a deep breath and her face had glowed, like the freaking sun. That was when she had known that her babies would only live if she turned her back on her past and left. Asher had that same glow.

"I don't trust easy," she whispered. "It'll get you dead and people are stupid. They suck. They always let you down. But you—" Her throat clamped shut on the words she was trying to say. Asher hadn't let her down. Just the opposite. He'd charged into hell, took out the bastards torturing her, and… and…

And she'd kneed him in the balls. She'd hurt the only man who'd ever killed for her, who would've died for her. The first and only man who'd ever risked his life for her.

"I'm sorry for what I did to you in that cave," she whispered, then cleared her throat, upped the volume, and repeated in a voice he could actually hear, "I was scared, and it was dark, and you had a beard, and I thought you had a light in the middle of your forehead, and…I'm sorry, Asher. I don't know why I got so mad. I just" —she lifted both shoulders— "do."

He leaned in close and whispered, "I hear you, honey, and I trust you. When you're ready to talk again, I'll listen. And, ahem." He cleared his throat. "I believe you just said you want a comfort dog too, right?"

"Me? No, I—"

"Sure you do. That's why we're here, isn't it?"

"Well, yeah, but the dog's for you, not me. I'm just" —she meant to say dead-weight, but changed it to— "your advisor."

"My trusted advisor," Asher corrected, a gleam in his stunning eyes. "I trust you to help me choose the right companion, Marlowe. Do you trust me to do the same for you?" He cocked his head, waiting and teasing and, okay, trusting her when he shouldn't.

Marlowe swallowed her pride—for now. "I guess I trust you. Yeah, I think I can do that."

Unexpectedly, she found herself whisked out of the chair and into his arms. Again. She swallowed hard at the strength and warmth of the gentle giant holding her, as if she were breakable. Which she was. If only he knew how badly. Embarrassed that he might see her tears, she leaned her head against his shoulder. "I'm so dumb."

The biggest sigh rumbled beneath her ear. "You're the farthest thing from dumb, honey. You just get ahead of yourself sometimes. You think you're alone, and when you feel threatened, you lash out at whoever's closest. But you're not alone anymore. I've got you."

"I… I…" She couldn't believe she was going to admit this, but she did. "I've never had anyone I could rely on before." She turned her face into his shirt, ashamed of her pathetic childhood and her loser parents. What was wrong with her? She was stronger and meaner than this weepy, sniveling thing she turned into whenever Asher was around. What was in the IV she'd been hooked up to? Crybaby juice?

"You've got me," he said, stuffing a tissue into her clenched fingers. "Now wipe your face, and by the end of the day, we're going to be the owners of two comfort dogs. Are you ready?"

She wiped her eye and dabbed her nose. "Yeah. Let's go."