Cindy Dees - Close Pursuit

“D.U. put the word out,” he answered. “They’ll come.”

Doctors Unlimited was a low-profile international aid organization that sent medical personnel into the most remote and dangerous corners of the planet. Katie still didn’t know a whole lot more than that about the group, even after she’d gotten the call from her brother that it needed her help. Mike was military intelligence, although he couldn’t officially admit it. But everyone in the family knew he’d been a SEAL and probably still worked with the teams as an intel analyst.

She’d half suspected this trip was some sort of undercover SEAL op until she’d met Alex, who no way, no how was a SEAL. It wasn’t just that he ran to the lean and elegant rather than stupidly buff. He was more...cosmopolitan...than she associated with most of the guys on the teams. He was James Bond, not Rambo.

And then, of course, there was the whole bit about his actually delivering babies out here. She didn’t doubt SEALs could deliver babies—Lord knew, they could do just about everything else—but she couldn’t see one successfully posing as an obstetrician for weeks or months on end. Although, how Alex had gone from mathematician to physician during the black hole of time her brother wouldn’t speak of was a mystery to her.

“This area looks completely deserted,” she announced.

He shrugged. “You saw the same maps I did. Karshan’s a good-sized village, and it’s less than a mile up the river from us.”

“How will word spread that we’re here? And to whom?”

“Women gossip faster than the internet,” he murmured absently.

She’d already lost him again. His gaze was fixed on the heavy boxes of medical equipment they’d carried up there from the Land Rover, which was hidden under a brush pile down by the river at the bottom of the narrow, steep valley. Emphasis on steep. Her legs and back were going to kill her tomorrow.

She bloody well hoped they didn’t have to move this camp anytime soon. Their first two camps had been in caves in much more accessible locations than this mountainous crevasse. Twice Alex had woken her up with an urgent warning that the rebels were coming, and it had been relatively easy to throw their gear in the Land Rover and bug out.

At this time of year, Zaghastan, high in a remote region of the Hindu Kush, was as barren and lifeless as the moon with vast stretches of gray granite mountains and wind-scoured valleys. She huddled deeper into her high-tech mountain climber’s coat as a burst of frigid air rustled the canvas overhead. “Feels like snow,” she commented.

“Humidity’s under ten percent. Any snow will fall as virga.”

“And what is virga?” she asked with the long-suffering patience she’d learned working with kindergarteners.

“Precipitation that falls from clouds but evaporates prior to reaching the ground. Although technically snow is a solid, so the correct term in this case would be sublimation and not evaporation, of course.”

“Of course,” she echoed drily. Being with this guy was like traveling with an encyclopedia. And he had about as many emotions as one. Either that, or Alex Peters was freakishly, inhumanly self-disciplined. Either way, she felt completely inadequate in his presence. As for her, she let everything she felt and thought hang right out there for everyone to see. It was so much easier that way. No secrets. No surprises. No head games.

Still, there was one thing she knew that he didn’t—the local language. The natives of this region spoke an ancient tribal tongue not used anywhere else on earth—except in a small community of Zaghastani expatriates living in Pittsburgh. She’d learned it during her three-year stint there with Teachers Across America, educating their children.

It turned out she had a gift for languages. Absorbed them like a sponge. That, and the rules of hospitality in Zaghastani culture dictated that teachers be invited into parents’ homes. She’d picked up the dialect like candy. It had helped her teach the kids English.

“Storm’s blowing in,” Alex observed.

She huddled closer to the tiny heat source, and her knee accidentally bumped his. He drew his leg away fractionally, and her fantasies about him were dashed yet again. Clearly, he didn’t think she was in his league. Either that or he was gay.

“I thought you said we’d only get virga,” she said a tad peevishly.

“That doesn’t mean it won’t get cold and windy. At this altitude, it’s not uncommon for temperatures to drop well below zero.”

She winced at the thought. Give her a nice, cozy fireplace, fuzzy socks and a cup of hot chocolate, and she was a happy camper. Less than one day on this mountainside and she was ready to pack it in and head home. Even a cave would be a step up from a canvas-covered crack in the rocks. At least they had the mountain at their back to block the wind a little.

“We should have some business before morning,” he announced.

“Why’s that?” she asked curiously. Was he psychic, too?

“Female mammals tend to give birth in the worst possible weather. It suppresses the movement of predators and enhances survivability of the gravid female and her offspring during the birth process.”

Well, okay, then. This trip was going to be nothing if not educational, apparently. Alex commenced rummaging through his boxes of equipment. He looked frustrated, as though he’d misplaced something. “Can I help?” she asked.

“No.”

That was Alex. Mr. Monosyllable.

Intense silence fell around them, disturbed only by the flapping of canvas.

“Seems like the only predators around here are the husbands of the local female population,” she remarked to fill the void. She hated quiet. She hadn’t grown up with five older brothers for nothing. Their house had been a zoo. But Alex seemed to prefer the transcendent silence.

He lifted one of the boxes effortlessly and shifted it into the corner. He might run to the lean side compared to her buff brothers, but he was stronger than he looked. He commented, “I doubt the husbands are the problem. It’s an eighty-five percent probability, plus or minus about three percent, that conservative religious zealots have been the ones killing the midwives.”

Slaughtering them, more like. Religious extremists were killing not only the midwives, but all women who advocated women’s rights or who represented female power in their communities. It was obscene. And largely unreported in the media. The massacre had prompted Doctors Unlimited to fund this secret mission into Zaghastan to deliver babies, in fact. When her brother had asked her to go along and translate, she wasn’t about to say no to helping women just trying to survive childbirth. She’d also just finished her gig with Teachers Across America and had yet to land a permanent teaching job or even decide where she wanted to live. And then there was the bad breakup with the latest rotten boyfriend to get away from. Her friends called her the asshole magnet for good reason.

“I’d suggest you get some sleep,” Alex said briskly. “You look like you need it.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Hasn’t anyone ever taught you women don’t like to be told they look like crap?”

He looked vaguely startled—a first for him. “I beg your pardon?”

OMG. He really doesn’t know that? “Women don’t like to be told they look bad.”

He frowned, his formidable mind obviously examining her statement from ninety-two different angles. “I suppose that’s logical if a woman is insecure about her appearance for some reason.”

“News flash, Einstein—all women are insecure about their appearance.”

“I have no context within which to place that remark.”

Oh, for the love of Mike. “Are you always such a geek?”