"Sir!" I yell, ducking back behind the wall. "Tall building, end of the street. Tallest one in town!"
He's radioing it in, but there's something lingering from my quick look at the building that's nagging at me, and I chance one more peep over the wall.
Oh, fuck.
It's hits me like a slug to the gut. The tallest building in town, with the empty flag pole, and the Taliban on the roof … .
… And the playground right outside the front door.
Jesus fucking Christ.
"Call it off!" I'm running, heedless of the metal flying past my head and exploding across the ground by my feet as I sprint towards the Sargent across the road on the radio. "It's a school! It's a fucking school!" I'm waving my arms at him, screaming. He must suddenly hear me, because he squints and looks up as he puts his radio down. Just in time for the bullet to catch him right through the ear and drop him like bag of cement on the ground.
Drones are noiseless, but missiles turning the school at the end of the street along with half the other buildings in town into pillars of fire are not.
And neither are my screams.
When it's over, I hear true and absolute silence. Everyone in our squad besides the three of us is dead, the pieces of shit using the school as a shield are dead, and I'm pretty sure anyone left in the town is dead as well.
It's in that very moment where I make my decision, and it's in that same moment where I convince Bryce and Hudson to come with me. It's then that we desert and just walk away from all of it. We're already dead, as far as intel is concerned, and from there it's over the border to China, and then to the Mediterranean, and then Africa and the mercenary work. And later, to William Archer.
And from that moment on, our whole lives change.
"Wait, where are we?"
I grin to myself in my seat across the cabin from Quinn, watching her lips curl into one of those sexy, intriguing and curious smiles of hers. Apparently, keeping secrets from this girl can be fun after all.
"Why do you ask?" I say as casually as possible, trying to hide my grin as she turns back to me with that questioning smile on her face.
"Uh, because I'm not looking at a map, but I'm one-hundred percent positive that's not Seattle down there."
I frown and shake my head as nonchalantly as possible. "It isn't?"
"Unless Seattle has suddenly found itself a white sandy beach with palm trees?" She arches her brow at me, her eyes sparkling, and I find myself wondering if I have time to tear her clothes off before we land.
"Huh, did I say Seattle?"
She laughs. "Um, yeah, you did."
"Huh, weird."
"OK, I give up! Where are we, Logan?" She says, giggling as she saunters over and slips into my lap. "Mexico?"
"Nope." I say, dropping my eyes to the swell of her breasts in her tank top and enjoying watching her blush and roll her eyes.
Just then a bell chimes as my pilot's voice crackles over the intercom. "Mr. Dempsey? Sir, we'll be touching down at Jose Marti International in fifteen, if you folks want to get buckled in back there."
I can't help but grin as her eyes go wide as she whirls to look at me with her jaw dropped. "We're in Cuba?" She shakes her head. "How'd you get vacation entry into Cuba?" She rolls her eyes. "Oh, wait, let me guess. Money," she says with a smirk.
"Cute, but no. We're actually here as a medical aid relief mission." Her eyebrows shoot up in this adorable way and I flash her a grin. "Grab your med bag, Doc. We've got work to do."
The hospital in the village is something I had built after the first time I was here. Back then I was here with money. Just learning how to live with being newly rich after starting with Archer Holdings. Back then, I was drinking rum and just looking for trouble, but there was something about this village that stuck with me.
Something like the school, sitting at the end of the only street in town.
And just like that, maybe for the first time really, I started to get the Old Man's whole thing about "giving back to the world."
I'm helping a couple of guys from the village frame out a new wing of the care center. Pounding nails and using my hands in a way that I love instead of sitting idle or using them to hit people. But I keep catching myself just staring off at Quinn on the other side of of the Med Center compound, working with the other doctors to immunize the cluster of kids crowding around apprehensively with their sleeves rolled up. I had a pretty good hunch Quinn would jump at the chance to help out here, but damn if she doesn't fucking shine at it. Seeing her like this is just incredible. This isn't "hide in the research lab and let people walk all over her" Quinn. This is the bold, confident, and fearless Quinn I knew she was from the moment I met her. She's just instantly on point, and instantly organizing and showing people what to do and where to go. The whole fucking med team from the hospital in Havana just stares at her and jumps to do what she says. Not because she's bossy or bitchy, but because she just exudes this confidence and poise. And besides that, it's just obvious that she loves this. She's on the ground, getting her hands dirty and helping people like I know she wants to do.
"You're gonna put a nail through your hand if you keep looking at the seniorita over there." Raul, the project manager, grins at me as he nods towards Quinn. He chuckles. "Then you'll be in some real trouble."
I laugh as I find myself grinning back at him. "You have no fucking idea, Raul."
Except Quinn Archer is the best kind of trouble I've ever been in. The kind of trouble that you can't get enough of, the kind of trouble that keeps hooking you back in and the kind of trouble that you could just find yourself falling in lo-
Whoa.
I let my hammer drop as I look up at her again, and this time she catches my eye and winks at me as she pushed a strand of hair out of her face. I can feel my whole heart get bigger inside, my pulse jumping in my veins as I meet those eyes of hers and just let myself get sucked in.
Just what kind of "L" word am I prepared to use when it comes to Quinn?
Chapter Twenty-Six
Quinn
"So, you think I did okay today?"
We're sitting on the balcony of the El Presidente suite of the luxury hotel back in Havana looking over the bay. Apparently, even doing humanitarian outreach comes with a little luxury when you've got Logan Dempsey-type money. The place is honestly a palace, occupying the entire top floor of the hotel and with full balcony terraces overlooking all of Havana Bay. Honestly, if we hadn't spent the entire day giving immunization shots to kids at a hospital he built, I'd have put my foot down at first sight of this place.
"Yeah, Doc." He grins at me and raises the glass of rum on ice in his hand to me. "You did okay."
I fake pout at him. "Just okay, huh?"
I yelp as his other hand jerks out to grab my wrist and he pulls me giggling into his lap. "Ok darlin, you did amazing work back there, but quit pretending you don't know that."
I'm feeling wild, free, and more alive than I have since maybe even medical school, and for once, I push all those "what-ifs" and "maybes" and "but what abouts" out of my head as I lean in and kiss him. It's not a hot and heavy make-out type kiss either, like it seems has been our style either. It's just that, a kiss. And in that moment, I'm know suddenly and without a doubt that I'm kissing the real Logan. This is tender, and there's something more behind it than just lust, and with a dawning realization, I suddenly know that this is Logan sans-armor. This is this man at his most open and unguarded, and in that moment, I know that whatever this crazy feeling is that I'm feeling for him is even bigger and wilder than I thought it was.
His lips tastes like sweet rum and there's something even more intoxicating about that than even the drink in my own hand.
"So is that a ‘Hey thanks for bringing me to Cuba, Logan, and letting me get my hands dirty doing what I love to do' kiss?" He's grinning at me, and for a moment I'm terrified that the humor and cavalier attitude that he uses as his armor will come up, and I quickly kiss him again.
It's deeper this time, moving from tender to something bolder. Something more passionate. I'm kissing him with everything I have, because I need him to stay right here with me in this moment. I need to be in his arms. The real Logan.
"Mmm, now that was a thank-you kiss." He murmurs into my mouth, his tongue darting out to run against my lips.
"Shh, hang on." I whisper back, kissing him again.
"What?"
"Just- " I hesitate, pulling back to look deeply into his green-gold eyes with my wide-eyed blues. "Just keep those walls down. I just want you, as is, without the armor." His eyes flash at me, and yet he holds my gaze. "Just stay here, right here with me." I whisper.
"Darlin," he says thickly, leaning into me as his lips brush mine. "There's nowhere else in the whole world I'd rather be than right here, right now, with you."
I kiss him again before pulling back once more. "You know what I mean though, right?" This is the moment of truth. This is the moment where he either lets me in or those walls come up again, and if it's the latter, I'm not sure I'll ever get in. The thought has me suddenly terrified of him even answering.