Page 37 of Raider Unleashed

“Fine. I’ll see what I can do but first, we need to bring you in. Where are you?”

She laughed. “Good question. Somewhere in one of the rainforest reserves. Raider will get us out. As soon as we hit civilization, we’ll call.”

“Okay. Piper, do you have the thumb drive?”

She started to answer when she heard a sound in the darkness. “Gotta go.” She hung up and went back inside the cabin. Raider was standing in the middle of the room stretching.

“Did you call Chambers?”

“Yeah, I’ll call him again when we’re out of here. There was rustling in the forest. Do you think they found us?”

Raider shook his head. “Kasinski doesn’t strike me as the nature type and neither does Denlo. They didn’t track us especially after it started raining. Remember the gunshot? I’m pretty sure they followed Wells and Baker. What you heard was probably just an animal.” He was being deliberately cool and professional. Not showing her any warmth and not meeting her gaze for any length of time.

She couldn’t blame him. They’d had amazing sex but that didn’t change anything. She’d still kicked him out without giving him the real reason. He didn’t trust her. Smart man. Giving in to lust didn’t change the past and it couldn’t alter their future.

“It’s starting to get light. We should go.”

Raider nodded. “You stay here. I’ll have a look around and then we’ll go.” He quietly shut the cabin’s door as he left.

“Okay.” Piper sat at the table for a moment and tried to pull herself together. It had been days since she’d had a shower, and her clothes were a mess. She was a mess. The rain had helped a bit in terms of washing some of the dirt off, but her hair was a disaster. She wrapped her hair in a bun and put the elastic back around it. She must look a fright, not that it mattered.

She closed her eyes and ran her hands over her face. This whole situation was tough, made tougher by spending so much time with Raider. It sucked that she still loved him so damn much. Sleeping with him had been heaven. Being safe in his arms with the world at bay was a balm to her jangling nerves, one that she missed with a ferocity that scared her.

Piper dragged herself to her feet. Raider wasn’t hers anymore no matter how much she loved him. She’d made a choice five years ago, an impetuous choice she’d made during a weapons bust, not even really thinking about it, and her world had changed because of it. One tiny decision had cost her everything.For five long years, she’d lived with the consequences and one of those was losing Raider. Taking a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders and then opened the door. She just had to get through this next bit and then she could fall apart.

Raider was at the edge of the clearing, waiting for her. Silently, she handed him the backpack and fell into step behind him.

The pace Raider had set was fast, but the trek wasn’t too taxing. Three hours later they emerged from the rain forest into a flat, grassy area alongside a dirt road. The sun was above the horizon and the day was heating up. Raider pulled out his cell and made a quick call to Harlan to let him know that Raider and Piper were out of the forest on a dirt road somewhere by Hilo.

“No problem. We’ll find you.”

Raider hung up and handed Piper the phone. She called John and told him the same thing. Then she clicked off the call. She wasn’t keen to talk to anyone. They had walked in silence the entire time. Now her time with Raider was coming to an end.

She was trying to decide if she should tell him now or wait until after everyone came when Raider made the decision for her.

“Once the world gets here we won’t have time to talk. When this is sorted, I don’t want to meet up again. It’s too damn hard. So, I kept my end of the deal. Now keep yours. Why did you kick me out? And don’t tell me it was because I was gone too much.”

Piper took a deep breath and blew out. “No, that wasn’t it.” Suddenly her throat closed over and she just couldn’t get the words out. The truth was just too crushing. It could destroy this man she still loved so, so much.

She swallowed convulsively a few times and then finally she managed to utter an apology. “I’m sorry.” Those words seemed to release the dam she’d built inside herself because it all came out in a torrent then.

“What I did was completely unfair but I…I didn’t want you to hate me.” She shook her head. “No, that’s not true. You hate me anyway. I didn’t have the nerve to tell you the truth that I knew would make you hate me on a fundamental level. Not justhey we don’t get along anymore, my ex is a bitch, but more of theI wish my ex-wife didn’t existkind of thing.”

Raider stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

“You were… wherever you were… and I was working a case. It was a weapons thing. We were running a nighttime op by the docks. It was dark, so damn dark, Raider. There was no moon and a light breeze.” She paused. “Funny how those details stick in your mind.” She remembered exactly how the shadows fell on the pier. She remembered the cold chain link biting into her fingers.

“What happened?” Raider prompted. He looked mystified how any of this could have anything to do with her kicking him out.

Wait. Just wait.She cleared her throat. “The deal went down as expected. The seller had the guns. Our team posed as buyers flush with cash. As soon as the exchange happened, we swarmed in to make the arrests.” She took another breath.

“The head seller had hung back slightly. He saw us coming and did a runner. I gave chase. John yelled at me to wait for backup… but I couldn’t. The guy would’ve gotten away, so I went.” She paused, fearful of reliving all the details. But she owed Raider the truth. She hauled in a deep breath and continued. “He went out onto the dock and ran back towards the street. He was fast but I was gaining on him. Then he suddenly disappeared into one of the shadows on the dock. I slowed down and cleared the area. I should’ve waited like John said but… I didn’t.” Regret choked her again.

Raider didn’t even lay a hand on her arm to offer comfort. Not that she’d have tolerated the gesture. If he was too kind, she’d never get this out.

“A few minutes later, he burst from the shadows and made a run for the chain link fence that separated part of the dock we were on. I went after him. The fence was high and old. He made it over and took off down the street. I wasn’t as lucky. I made it to the top and then my foot got caught and I fell to the sidewalk. I hit hard. Hit my head and my shoulder. I passed out.”

“When I came to, I was in the hospital. The nurse told me…” Piper swallowed once again. “Told me that I’d lost our baby. I had been eleven weeks pregnant.” Her heart splintered in her chest once more. It had shattered into little pieces that day and since then, she’d worked to mend it. Now the hairline cracks were splitting wide open.

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