The Colonel's Widow?

He was halfway up the steps to the kitchen door when the blast shook the cabin. The force of the explosion knocked him down the steps and on his butt. Heated air gushed over him.

Black smoke billowed up over the west roof.

The barn.

“Rina!” he screamed, pushing himself to his feet. He ran toward the smoke and flames.

“Rook, wait!”

Deke’s hand brushed his arm. He jerked away, pumping his legs faster.

Then Deke tackled him. He went down heavily, with Deke’s arms locked around his legs.

Rook struggled, kicking. “Let go!”

Deke propelled himself up and over him, wrapping his arms around his shoulders in a bear hug. “Stop it, Rook!”

Rook heard a shout and the pounding of boots on the wet ground. He kicked again and tried to buck Deke off.

“You’ll kill yourself. Taylor’s men are checking it out.”

Rook barely heard him. He bucked again.

“Get off me you son of a bitch! I’ve got to get to Rina!”

Chapter Four (#ub6fd2869-4c06-5407-b08d-9c06a11c4113)

Rook finally pushed Deke off of him, or Deke gave up and rolled away. He vaulted over Deke and up the porch steps, heading for the basement safe room. From the color and height of the smoke coming from the barn, he was sure nobody could get to the basement going that way. The fire was burning too hot.

He raced through the kitchen and down the basement stairs. With a giant leap off the bottom stair, he hurtled himself against the metal door, pounding with his right fist and groping for the intercom switch with his left.

He prayed that the wires hadn’t been burned or shorted.

“Irina!” he shouted through the intercom’s speaker. “Answer me!”

Nothing.

His scalp burned with fearful anticipation. Had the explosion compromised the steel mesh-reinforced walls of the safe room? Had she been hurt? Or worse, had the men gotten to her?

He took a deep breath and shouted the safe word. It was actually a phrase, made up one night as they lay in each other’s arms after an hour of nonstop lovemaking. Loosely translated to English, the phrase meant “Come here often?”

“Irina, Priyed’te s’uda chasto?” he said carefully, enunciating the words the way he’d learned. He’d never been great with the language, although he could speak it. According to Irina, he always bungled the pronunciation. She’d laughed every time he spoke. He wished he could hear her laughter right now.

“Priyed’te s’uda chasto, Irina.” He hit the door with his fist again, then spread his palm against the metal, ridiculously relieved to feel its chill against his skin. Rationally, he knew it was too thick to allow heat to penetrate, especially after only a few minutes, but he breathed easier anyway.

Please, he begged silently. Answer me.

“Tol’ko—” a choked voice crackled through the intercom. “Tol’ko, kogda suda vhod’at.”

Only when the ships come in.

Relief sent shivers across his scalp and the nape of his neck, where sweat prickled.

“Irina, thank God. Are you all right? Are you hurt? Can you unlatch the door?”

He heard her fumbling with the lock, then with a cold metallic snick, the latch sprung.

For an instant, he paused. She hadn’t answered any of his questions. What if she wasn’t alone? What if one of Novus’s men was holding her?

But, no. She knew what to do. If she weren’t safe, she’d have answered Vse vrem’a, “All the time,” if she were compromised.

He swung the door open, expecting her to throw herself into his arms. But she didn’t. She stood, a couple of feet back from the door, her arms wrapped around herself.

He examined her closely, looking for any sign of burns or injuries. She looked unhurt, but she was shivering.

“You’re freezing. Dammit. I should have grabbed that blanket for you. Come here.” He held out his arms.

She looked at his outspread hands, then met his gaze. Her eyes were wide and dilated with fright. “Is it safe?”

His embrace or the situation? “We’ve contained the attack.”

Her gaze held his for an instant, then she pushed past him and went up the stairs.

He turned to follow her, but the straight, stiff line of her back in the silk dressing gown spoke volumes. In fact, she couldn’t have been clearer if she’d shouted.

She didn’t want his help, nor his comfort. He couldn’t blame her. She’d managed for two years without it.

He was terrified that during that time she’d decided that being without him was easier than being with him.

He didn’t take his eyes off her until she disappeared through the door at the top of the stairs and closed it, quietly but firmly.

He couldn’t make it up to her for leaving her. All he could do was make sure that everything around her was safe. So he stepped through the metal door and looked around. She’d turned on the solar lights that were fed by panels on the roof of the cabin, so it was easy to see that this end of the basement was undamaged.

However, the smell of smoke and burned wood and rubber permeated the air, and forty feet away, at the other end of the room, he could see where the steel mesh that reinforced the basement walls was bare in several places. Whatever they’d use to blow up the barn, it had generated enough heat to incinerate the plywood.

The basement was slightly soundproofed by virtue of the reinforced walls and metal doors. Still, it must have been terrifying for her, down here alone, listening to the gunfire. He couldn’t imagine what she’d gone through as the explosion ripped the roof off the barn and burned through the walls he’d assured her were impenetrable.

For all his training and experience, in the Air Force and afterward, it occurred to him that beneath it all he was a naive idiot, thinking that because he thought he’d made her safe, she actually was.

Worse, he’d expected her to blindly accept his decisions—expected her to trust her life to them.

When had he become so arrogant and self-delusional?

The door behind him opened.

“Rook?”

He heard Deke’s voice in his ears and through the com unit at the same time.