The Relic Runner Origin Story Box Set, Ernest Dempsey [summer books TXT] 📗

pain I was beginning to forget about. I appreciate it." Nicole spun on her heels and marched into the narrow kitchen.

Stopping in front of a cupboard, she tugged on the handle. The door opened easily and she removed a bottle of Jack Daniel's.

Dak smiled in approval. "That was one of the things I always loved about you. You're a whiskey girl."

"Please go," she ordered. This time, however, her voice cracked.

That hurt more than the acrid attitude he'd received so far.

"Look," Dak said, his head hanging again, eyes locked on the bamboo floorboards.

She held the bottle in her right hand while she fished a tumbler out of the same cabinet. "Go on, Dak. Spit it out." She splashed three fingers of whiskey into the glass and set the bottle down, leaving the cap off. Dak knew what that meant. He'd hurt her with the simple act of coming here, and she was going to deal with it the way she used to.

"I need your help," he said, deciding to go with blunt honesty. The words came out of his mouth like hot ash atop of a swollen tongue.

She was in the midst of raising the glass to her lips when he said it. The words disarmed her, causing her to freeze. Nicole turned her head to face him, still holding the drink near her neckline. "What? Did I hear you correctly?"

"I don't deserve it. Okay? I know I screwed up. Big time."

She nodded and tossed the whiskey into her mouth with the expertise and showmanship of a career bartender. Her head snapped back, and she swallowed the warm liquid without wincing at the tingling burn as it crawled down her throat.

"Got that right," she said and tilted the bottle over the glass again. This time, she went for just two fingers and a slightly more careful pour. "So, I was right. You're in some kind of trouble."

"Not some kind," he said, risking a step toward her. He stopped by the kitchen counter, began. "The worst kind. The army is saying I went AWOL, turned my back on my team, and now they're looking for me."

She'd raised the glass to her lips and taken a sip when he said it. The whiskey spewed out in a fine, amber mist. Nicole managed to catch only a fraction of it in her palm.

"What did you say? The army? The United. States. Army. They’re looking for you? And you thought it was a good idea to come here?"

"They don't know I'm here, Nicky."

"How did you know I was here?" Her voice raged in the confined space.

He blushed. "I… I never stopped loving you. I wanted to make sure you were okay, so… I kept tabs on you."

Her chin drew back against her throat, eyebrows reaching skyward. "You stalked me?"

"Okay, now that you put it that way. I guess I never really thought of it like that, but no, not exactly. I just—"

"You just stalked me." Her hands dug into her hips and her head tilted at an angle; an angle he'd only seen when she was beyond angry.

"No," he insisted. "I… I just asked Keri now and then how you were doing. That's all."

"Oh." It was Nicole's turn to feel ashamed.

"She said you moved here, to Istanbul. That was… that was a while back." His head hung; he couldn't hold eye contact for fear the dams in his eyes would burst. "She told me you were doing okay, that you'd taken a job for some big company." He picked up his head again and did his best to make eye contact without losing it. "I just had to make sure you were good. That's all. I wasn't going to bother you. Then this happened."

"What happened?" she asked, her tone softening. She didn't take a step toward him, even though her instincts told her to.

He took a deep breath and sighed. "I guess there's no harm in telling you since I'm a wanted man now, anyway." The words stung him right in the chest. He still didn't understand what happened, other than the lone theory rattling around in his brain. Bo must have convinced the colonel that Dak had turned on them. It was the only explanation.

"We had an operation in the mountains of Northern Iraq," Dak said. "The job wasn't an easy one, but we didn't anticipate running into much trouble. There was a terrorist camp, most of them holed up in a cave. They'd been hitting small villages and outpost towns for a while. Everything went according to plan until we got into the cave."

He paused, tempted to let her ask what they had found underground, but kept going. "We took out the targets. Then we found something, a treasure of some kind. Looks ancient, but I'm a little rusty on some of my history stuff."

One of her eyebrows arched slightly.

"Anyway, the guys thought it would be a good idea to loot the place, sell the artifacts, gold, jewels, all of it, on the black market. I argued with the guys, told them we needed to report it, but they were set on taking everything and making some quick cash. Because I didn't go along with their plan, they tried to kill me. I barely got out alive. And that was after they left me for dead in the cave."

"How… did you get out?"

"I found a place to hide where they couldn't get to me. With everything in a stalemate, they knew they couldn't stay there indefinitely, so they blew the entrance to the cave, effectively locking me in. Except I found another way out."

"And you came here?" She looked confused and apologetic at the same time.

"Not at first," Dak admitted. "I returned to base. I thought I could go back, tell the colonel what happened, and they would arrest the rest of my team. Instead, they tried to take me."

"But they didn't." She almost sounded proud of the fact.

"It was a close call, but I know Bo Taylor had to be behind it.