Page 60 of Ford

Oh, she wanted to believe him. Almost ached for it.

But she wasn’t naive. And she wasn’t her mother.

And next time she had the impulse to kiss him, she’d remember that.

6

“Are you sure it was a good idea for you to bring your girlfriend on a mission?”

Ham sat opposite Ford on his bunk in the private berth on the train to Kiev.

Ford sat, staring out the window. In fact, Ford might not have heard him except for the fact that Scarlett had just left the compartment in search of more coffee.

They weren’t in Russia yet, but sixteen hours on the train had trekked them deep in the heart of Ukraine, and the stop to Kiev was less than an hour away. They’d had to wait three precious, brutal hours in the Warsaw train station, and spent yet another wretchedly slow night in the private car.

He was rethinking his decision to cede control of this op to another man, even if Ham did know his way around Russia.

No doubt the man would be invaluable when they arrived at the Russian consulate. Especially if they had to get creative to get RJ out of Russia, but right now Ford just wanted to know that his sister was safe, see her with his own eyes.

It might help loosen the knot in his gut.

It didn’t help that Scarlett had practically stopped talking to him. After their conversation in the hallway before Warsaw about God and His involvement in their lives, she’d quietly, and painfully, shut down.

And why not? Ford couldn’t scrape her words from his brain where they turned corrosive and gnawed at him.

Raped. By my mother’s boyfriend, Gary.

Wow. He’d known that Gary had abused her, but to hear her put it in the exact words…those words sat in his brain like a coal, burning through him. He hadn’t eaten much over the past ten hours.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Ford said now as Ham looked at him. “We work together.”

“I saw you two nearly kissing in Prague, and yesterday you ran after her like…” He lifted his shoulder in a shrug.

“Like I’m herfriend.”

Ham looked at him. “I don’t want to get caught in the middle of something. I’m here to do a job—one job—and that is to get your sister out. The last thing we need is some kind of lovers’ quarrel or…something else—”

“There is nothing else. She was my FOB radio contact, that’s all.” But even as he said it, the words tightened in his chest.

That’s all?

Not even close. Worse, her words about leaving the Navy still burned.

No, he didn’t want that to be all. But now wasn’t the time to dive into something. Keep his focus in the right place, and when they got stateside, he’d…

Let her decide.

The last thing he wanted to do was push her into a place where she was scared. Uncomfortable. Threatened.

He might never get the wordrapedout of his head. And maybe he shouldn’t.

“She was available to help,” Ford said now to Ham. “You were the one who said we needed a logistics person. Don’t worry, I’m not going to get distracted.”

Ham nodded but looked away, his mouth a tight line.

“What aren’t you telling me?” Ford said, following the itch in his gut. Ham possessed the same look his chief did when he was sitting on classified intel.

A beat of silence from Ham, then, “I just did a little research into you and it seems you’ve had a little problem with that.”

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