Page 22 of Legacy's Call

Fleur leaned back and rolled her shoulders. “Habib has been my point of contact. Miller or a couple of the men go out to their camp and bring him back in when we’re ready to go. We don’t tell them where we’re going.”

“Do you use the same vehicle configuration each time you move people out?”

She shook her head. “No, if we need fuel, we take the fuel trucks and the refrigerator truck if we bring back perishables. Sometimes, it’s just the deuce and a halfs that transport people to the other camps. It depends on the needs of the camp and the supplies we can get from the areas we’re going to.”

Ronan leaned back and glanced at her. A deuce and a half was a two-and-a-half-ton truck that carried people in the back under cover. The other vehicles were also readily identifiable at a distance. “So, it’s possible for someone to know what you’re bringing back by the configuration of your convoy.”

She blinked and looked down at the checklist momentarily before swearing bitterly. She looked up at him. “Yes, damn it. They could. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you weren’t trained to do this. You were trained to follow procedures, and you did. You’ve done nothing wrong.” But based on the requirements placed on Fleur and the rest of the staff in thecamp, the convoys were set up to fail. He was surprised it hadn’t happened before then. The resources moving out and into the camp were extremely valuable to the factions at war in the country. But he was still missing details. “Tell me, when the convoys were attacked, were they attacked on the way there or back?”

“I’m not sure. I’m sorry. I hate to admit the fact that I singled my focus on the loss of our people and the IDPs.” Fleur stood up, went to an old, dented aluminum filing cabinet, and retrieved a folder.

“May I ask a favor?” He parroted her words from earlier. She stopped with her hand in the drawer. Those blue eyes blinked at him in surprise. Damn, everything the woman thought was expressed through those beautiful eyes.

“Sure. What can I do for you?”

He stared at her. She was amazing, and she needed to recognize that fact. “Stop apologizing. You’ve done a stellar job following your rules and checklists. Nothing you did was out of line or questionable in any way. Devote the energy you’ve been putting into guilt, concern, or worry into helping me help you.” She pulled the file out of the drawer and closed it. He watched her walk back and sit down.

She drew a deep breath. When she looked up athim, there was a glint of tears in her eyes. Every fiber of his being wanted to wipe those tears away and never let her feel this way again. “Guilt. It hurts so damn bad.”

God, he understood that. He’d bought that t-shirt and fucking purchased a hoodie just because he needed to dwell in the guilt a bit more. “Survivor’s guilt. Been there, done that. From experience, I can tell you guilt can place you in dangerous situations. If you let it, it will ruin you. You’re alive. Use that fact to put an end to the people targeting your convoys. Any other focus is a waste of your time.”

Her blue eyes closed for a moment. Her eyelashes rested on her sun-kissed cheeks. She was beautiful, both inside and out. There was zero pretense in this woman. She wore her emotions on her sleeve. “It almost did. Ruin me, I mean. I have a meeting set up outside the camp in three weeks.”

And that was shocking. The idea of a single woman and a foreigner going out of camp unescorted to meet with strangers was sickening. What could happen to her wasn’t imaginary or unlikely in any stretch of the imagination. The thought of those dangers crawled under his skin and dug in with bloody claws. He would never allow herto leave the camp unescorted. Never. He narrowed his eyes. “To do what?”

She winced and cringed just a bit like she knew what she was about to say wouldn’t fly with him. “The tunnel people, the contacts I told you about, agreed to meet me in three weeks, but they won’t come into the camp.” She rolled her bottom lip between her teeth, which he figured was her nervous habit.

Ronan leaned forward and got in her personal space. “Promise me you won’t go to that meeting.”

She blinked, her eyes dropped from his eyes to his lips and then back up. Her cheeks flushed red, and she licked her lips before nodding. “I promise. Shelly had already convinced me I could be doing it for the wrong reasons. It’s just that I had to try. Getting these people relocated is so important.”

Shelly sounded like she had her head screwed on straight. “What reasons?”

Fleur rolled her eyes. “She said I was trying to be a martyr, which, technically, I think she had the definition wrong, but yeah, I wasn’t thinking about anyone except me.Iwanted to get people out.Iwanted to come up with a solution. Thinking I was the only one trying. But I wasn’t, and I’m not. Man, I don’t know how I didn’t see what I was doing. Imean, everything was centered around me, which I’ve already apologized to you about.”

He leaned back and plucked at the seam of his utility uniform. “Your heart was in the right place.”

“Was it?” She sighed and dropped her head to the file on the table with a clunk.

Ronan grimaced. That had to sting. “Did that help?”

“No, it hurt,” the muffled reply said.

Ronan chuckled and smiled when she started laughing, too. Her laugh was amazing.

She lifted her head, and the red spot on her forehead was a testament to the fact that she hadn’t thought that move through. She rubbed the spot and sighed. “I’m really not this much of a putz. Today, you’ve seen me at my worst.”

Ronan smiled and shook his head. “If this is at your worst, you’ve got nothing to worry about. So, how about we look at those convoys and see if we can find a trend?”

She opened the folder and asked, “Do you want to look at all of them or just the ones that were attacked?”

“All of them from the beginning of the year.”

She nodded and started pulling stapled packets of paper off the top of the file. She leaned close to himas he examined each one. “As you can see, we don’t deviate from our checklists.” He made a sound of agreement. She had all the checklists with notification dates, times, and names, plus the names of the people moving to another camp and the supplies returning. Each camp had a designated logistics person she coordinated the moves with. The names didn’t change. He compared the notification names from each NGO and noted several changes within the other organizations. He closed the one he was reviewing. “This will take days.”

“What are we looking for? Maybe I can help.” Her ponytail slipped over her shoulder and landed on his arm. The soft braid surprised him. He glanced down, and she grabbed it. “Sorry.” He lifted an eyebrow and looked at her. Glancing up at him, she blushed. “I know. Stop apologizing.”

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