Free HOSTILE: A Military Romance Novel (Military Men Book 1) by Leila Haven Page B

me nervous. Derrick noticed too, holding me closer to him every time he saw something he didn’t approve of.
     
    “Do you know where we’re going?” I asked quietly. My gaze was still largely focused on the ground like he’d instructed, but I couldn’t help risk a glance now and then. It was a city I would have loved to explore once.
     
    “I think there’s a US base across the city on the outskirts. We’re going there.”
     
    “And we’ll be safe then?”
     
    Derrick hesitated, which pretty much answered my answer. “Safer, anyway.”
     
    I trusted he knew what he was doing. Derrick might be a dick, but Corporal Watson was an elite soldier. He knew what he was doing in these conditions far better than I did. I kept my mouth shut and followed along.
     
    As the morning broke, the residents of Jorm woke, and the streets started to bustle with people, mainly men. It wasn’t so easy to hide with so many locals around the place.
     
    Derrick grew more agitated, hurrying along as fast as possible without raising more suspicions. If he had his way, we’d probably be running.
     
    “There are rebels here,” he muttered to me. “We need to change course.”
     
    He pulled me into a café and led me to the back of the building. We sat at a table, in amongst others smoking and drinking coffee.
     
    The only air came from the front door and there was no air conditioning. The atmosphere in the café was thick and stifling, the pipe smoke clinging to my throat and making it cry out with dryness.
     
    Derrick had positioned himself so he could see the door over my shoulder. He leaned in close, as if we were having a deep conversation. “I don’t like the way there are so many members of the Taliban here. It’s not a good sign.”
     
    “How can you tell?”
     
    “They’re the ones with the biggest guns,” he replied with a sardonic twist to his lips before he shrugged. “It’s a gut feeling. You spend time somewhere and you start to notice small things. But, really, they could be anywhere and everywhere. We have to be vigilant.”
     
    “You don’t know if the military is here?”
     
    “They still could be, but they don’t have a grip on the city. It’s dangerous for us to be walking around. We look like foreigners. There’s no way to properly disguise it.”
     
    “So what do we do?”
     
    “Give me a moment while I work it out.” His forehead may have been creased with worry lines, but he still managed to offer me a cheeky smile.
     
    He was, by far, the most unpredictable and unreadable man I’d ever known. Here we were, in a country we were at war with, and he was still trying to play it cool. I guessed it must have been all that military training. Perhaps they’d prepared him for scenarios like this one.
     
    I hoped so, anyway.
     
    He thought about it for a while, his eyes constantly flicking between me and the door. The stuffiness of the café and the noise from those enjoying their morning stop made every minute pass at a crawling pace. I silently willed Derrick to hurry up and make a plan so we could keep moving again. Anything was better than just sitting still.
     
    “We stick to the backstreets and keep going,” Derrick finally said. “Every moment we spend here is dangerous. The sooner we leave, the better. It’s not going to be any safer if we dawdle.”
     
    “I’m ready to roll when you are.”
     
    He gave one nod, as if that made everything final, and then we left the café. I gulped in the fresh air once outside, filling my lungs to get rid of the smoke and heat.
     
    Derrick took our course off the main street, just like he said. We zigzagged through alleyways and crisscrossed streets. Our feet never stopped moving, hopefully taking us closer and closer to safety.
     
    When we came across some food markets, Derrick stole us something to eat. They were sweet buns with some kind of sticky cream in the middle. It was delicious in my otherwise empty stomach.
     
    He stole a