Free Guarding the Soldier's Secret by Kathleen Creighton Page A

there.”
    “With enough supplies to last a few days—until they could send a chopper to pick us up. Zahra knew the terrain—she told me she used to tend her family’s sheep in the area. She knew a cave the sheepherders used, which would be deserted at that time of year when there was no wild feed to graze.”
    He fell silent but didn’t look at her, gazing instead at his clasped hands. She had no way of knowing how much time had passed before she saw his shoulders lift, and he drew in a breath and went on.
    “It took longer than it should have for the extraction team to get to us—there were reasons, but it doesn’t matter why. She took care of me. Nursed me. It was a small cave. It was cold. Hell, I can make a hundred excuses, but the bottom line is, what happened shouldn’t have happened. I take full responsibility.”
    Of course you do , she wanted to tell him. God forbid you should be human.
    But she kept silent, and he cleared his throat loudly. “Obviously, I had no idea she was pregnant, and neither did she. I arranged for her to be taken in by a family—friends, contacts of mine, people I knew I could trust—in a village far enough away from hers that I felt she’d be safe. I gave her a backstory—husband killed fighting the Taliban, that kind of thing—and I arranged to have money sent on a regular basis. But I was sent back to Germany for rehab, and then...well, it was almost a year before I was able to get back there to check on her.” He gave a short, hard laugh. “And there she was.”
    “With a baby girl,” Yancy said softly.
    He hissed out a breath. “I knew it—she—had to be mine. Nobody in that household would have touched her, and I knew for darn sure there hadn’t been anybody before me.” He looked at Yancy then, and the light caught his eyes and made them glow like fire. “She was a virgin when she came to me in that cave, Yankee. And God help me, I—”
    A sound cut him off—the high, thin wail of a terrified child.

Chapter 5
    H e wasn’t in his best fighting shape but had managed to keep himself reasonably fit during the past two years spent under deep cover. Even encumbered by the extra fabric in his Afghan clothing, he was on his feet before Yancy and didn’t even remember covering the distance through the darkened courtyard to the women’s quarters. Pausing outside the door, he could hear her—his child, his little girl—whimpering. Hear the words she said.
    “Ammi... Ammi...”
    In the few seconds he waited there, Yancy was beside him. He glanced down at her and saw her looking back at him, her gaze fierce, its message unmistakable. He hardened his jaw and, without a word, stood back to allow her to go before him.
    He followed her into the room, and his heart gave a queer little kick when he saw Laila kneeling on her pallet, her arms lifted to Yancy, the tears on her cheeks shining golden in the soft light of the sconce high on the wall. He wasn’t used to being the fifth wheel, the odd man out, and as he watched the scene from a distance that seemed farther than the few yards it was, he realized that the unaccustomed hollowness he felt inside was loneliness.
    I’m an outsider. I don’t belong here.
    It was much the same way he’d felt the day he’d realized that no matter how much he loved and respected his parents and valued the upbringing they’d given him, he wasn’t going to follow in their footsteps. That no matter how much they wanted it, he would never be a farmer.
    While he waited for his adrenaline-fueled heartbeat to return to normal rhythms, reminding himself to unclench his teeth and his fists, unfamiliar thoughts crashed through his brain, colliding with reason.
    But, still, she’s my child.
    Yes, but it’s her mother she needs now, not me.
    Yancy’s her mother.
    But she cried, “Ammi!” Not Mommy .
    I did this. My fault. My fault.
    Yes, but I did what I had to do.
    She needs me! I’m her father. She needs me, too.
    With burning eyes he