Serving the Soldier - Part 5 (An Alpha Military Romance) by Helen Grey Read Free Book Online Page A

first time I really noticed what he was wearing. He glanced at the screen and then answered it. “Where are you?” Pause. “We’ll be there soon.” He quickly disconnected.
    “Jax, I know you don’t want to tell me much, but I—”
    “I know that you followed me earlier this morning.”
    I should’ve known. What could I say? “I was curious,” I said. He glanced at me, stared for a moment, and then his eyes swung forward again.
    “Curiosity killed the cat, you know.”
    “A bad habit of mine, this insatiable urge to snoop,” I admitted. “I’ve done it since I was a kid. I don’t mean to be intrusive—”
    “From now on, Angie, if you want to know something, just ask, okay?”
    I made a face and decided to test him. “Okay, then where are we going?”
    He gave me a look, a scowl actually, and then he finally answered. “Hell Hole Bay Wilderness.”
    “How apt,” I muttered. Hell Hole Bay Wilderness my ass. It was a swamp with a history that dated back to the Revolutionary War. “How many others are there? Will they be coming after us?”
    “Yes, there are more, but I’m not sure how many. Will they be coming after us? It’s likely.”
    “Why?” I asked. “Why did they kidnap me? I don’t have anything to do with this.”
    He paused again. “Guilty by association.”
    “Jax, I’m sorry. I really am. I want to thank you for saving my life back there. If you hadn’t come—”
    “It’s my fault you’re in this mess in the first place,” he said. “I’ll keep you safe, Angie. After we get to the safe house, Michael can take you—”
    “Jax, at the very least, don’t you think you owe me an explanation?” I stared out the window at the passing scenery, not really noticing any of it. “No, never mind. I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have been snooping. I know I shouldn’t have followed you but—”
    “You saw the Arab woman, didn’t you?”
    I nodded, glancing down at my hands. The trembling had eased slightly, but I was still a nervous wreck. I had a feeling that it wouldn’t take much to send me over the edge and turn me into a blathering, sobbing idiot. Either that or I’d start screaming.
    “Her name is Aleema. She’s the widow of the man who used to be our unit interpreter in Afghanistan.”
    I turned my head toward Jax and waited for him to continue. He didn’t. “Used to be?”
    After several minutes of silence, Jax finally continued. “He came from a rather influential family from Kandahar province in Afghanistan. I don’t know how much you know about the culture, but they’re tribal in nature, and some of the tribes go back thousands of years. His family was one of those.”
    I closed my eyes. I could just imagine it. A proud family with a rich heritage in the region. Would they have been ashamed to have their son working with the Americans, or would they have been proud? The steady thrum of the Jeep’s engine lulled me into a sense of calm. I was so exhausted, mentally and physically, that I felt sleep pulling at the edges of my consciousness. I couldn’t let myself sleep. I needed to know. I needed to know why I had almost been killed, and why I was in the situation I found myself in right this very moment.
    “So how did it go for him? Was his family pleased or not that he decided to work with the Americans?”
    “Displeased. Very displeased. In fact, they disowned him.”
    I said nothing for several moments. “You were close to him, weren’t you?”
    “When you’re over there, you learn pretty fast who you can trust and who you can’t. His name was Daud. We called him David. His family was rich, very rich, and their influence reached far, way beyond the borders of Kandahar, and in some cases, into Europe and Northern Africa.” He paused. “He was about twenty-five years old and had just gotten married a few months before he died.”
    “To Aleema?”
    He nodded. “Things went okay for a while. He was a good guy. He wanted to do what he