More Than Friends (The Warriors) Read Online Free Page B

muttered an ugly, totally self–directed oath under his breath. "You’re a little confused right now. It’s not surprising. You really smacked your head when you fell."
    "Tell me about it, please."
    "Leah, this conversation can wait. You’re tired and hungry."
    "But not deaf or stupid! Tell me what’s happened. Now," she insisted as she struggled for calm. His obvious reluctance to talk to her simply heightened her tension. "I’m frightened.
You
are frightening me."
    Brett started to pace. "You don’t recall any aspect of your life?"
    "That’s what I just said."
    "Christ! Nothing at all?" he clarified. He caught himself before he asked,
you don’t remember our son?
    He watched her shake her head, which sent her long golden hair on an evocative journey across her shoulders and down her back. Brett slowly approached her, his body language as unthreatening as he could make it. Going down on one knee in front of her, he smoothed his hand up and down her arm with the same gentleness he would’ve used on a small, injured animal.
    When she looked at him, he saw tears of pain, confusion, and fatigue welling in her eyes, but he managed not to draw her into his arms. He needed to quickly set the tone of their relationship, he reminded himself. Nothing more. He’d re–entered her life to protect her when an informant had alerted him to the death threats against Leah and her child, not to beg for a second chance at what he’d so stupidly abandoned.
    Six years ago, he’d told himself that he was protecting her by not exposing her to the jeopardy of being married to a man who worked covert military ops across the globe. He’d done the honorable thing then—at least, that was the lie he’d told himself—but it hadn’t lessened his loneliness or his desire for her during their years apart. And in spite of his best efforts, the very people who intended to kill her had finally found her and had succeeded in harming her. And he knew they wouldn’t stop until she and the boy were dead.
    Brett’s thoughts raced. Although he knew he couldn’t keep her ignorant indefinitely about the terrorist threat, he realized that the task of protecting her would be far less complicated if he had the power to insulate her from the reality of their situation during their stay in San Francisco and while in transit to Seattle.
    He knew, too, that Leah deserved his help as she tried to regain her memory. He intended to aid her in restoring it, but slowly and with great care.
    What remained crucial in his mind was the fact that she deserved his protection from an enemy she didn’t even know she had, an enemy intent on directing his wrath against innocents like Leah and her five–and–a–half–year–old son. All this thanks to a terrorist’s discovery of her link to both Brett Upton and Micah Holbrook, the two men who’d dedicated years of their lives to his downfall. With any kind of luck, as well as with the able assistance of several of Israel’s top Mossad agents, Micah had already begun to orchestrate the arrest of other members of the terrorist faction.
    Brett also felt reluctant to increase her anxiety about the well–being of a child she didn’t remember at the moment. He knew the boy and Leah’s parents were on their way to a safe house, thanks to the security personnel he’d ordered to Seattle, where her son was spending his Easter holiday.
    He would protect Leah while her older brother, Micah Holbrook, his closest friend and the commanding officer of a second covert counter–terrorism team operated by Naval Intelligence, handled the round up of the terrorist group responsible for the multiple bombings at various U.S. embassies and military installations across the globe, not just the vengeance–inspired death threats against Leah and her child.
    "Please talk to me," she whispered.
    He exhaled and refocused on her. "Shall I start at the beginning?"
    "Please."
    "I had just arrived at your place. I saw you putting your