Free No Stranger to Danger by No Stranger to Danger (Evernight)

it didn’t work out. You didn’t fit into my life because of my job, and I didn’t fit into yours. I never should have married you and led you to believe we would settle down, that we would have a nice little house with a picket fence and family to raise. That's just not me. That was never meant for me, and you know it."
    Mara whipped her head around. "Oh, bullshit. It could have been. Don’t think I haven’t seen other soldiers do it. Don’t think other men just as damaged as you haven’t. You just didn’t want it."
    "There is a reason I had the job that I did, and it's because I don’t have a family. I have no liabilities to compromise me." Something hitched in his stare, and he looked away.
    Mara looked away, too, with a gasp. That stung deeply. Maybe there was a good reason they had never had this discussion. "So that’s what I was to you? A liability."
    Logan clenched his jaw. "My leaving you was always for your protection, Mara. Nothing else. And you wouldn’t have become a liability now if I'd not done something incredibly stupid. It was my mistake, and that is why you are here. I'm not going to let you get hurt because of my mistake."
    "Not get hurt?" she scoffed. "You're doing exceedingly well keeping me from getting hurt. What did you do? How did they get a photo of me and find out who I was to you in the first place?"
    His stare fixed to her lips as she spoke, but fell when she stopped, and he swallowed hard, glancing all around them, prompting Mara to fix an impatient stare on him.
    "I had it with me," Logan said.
    Mara's back stiffened, and she looked sharply at her ex-husband. "What? The picture? You had a picture of me with you? Why?" she asked, shocked.
    Her loud question garnered the attention of all the Tuareg traders, and the men with them turned on their camels to face Mara and Logan. Mara blanched and dipped her head, remaining silent until they turned back around.
    "It doesn’t matter," Logan hissed near her ear.
    "Yes, it does," she hissed back, just as vehemently. "You divorced me to keep me out of this life you've made for yourself, remember? There's no reason you should have had my photo."
    "Well, I did," he snapped. "And when Conyers found the information I had been collecting on him, he found the photo, too."
    Mara let out a loud huff and crossed her arms, shaking her head. "What did you do, Logan? Where is your team, your commander, your government backup? When shit goes wrong they usually send in someone. I'm really surprised an agent in a black suit didn’t come pick me up before that asshole broke into my home."
    "Did he hurt you?"
    Mara snorted. "Wow, you sound like you care. A spoken concern from the man who carried my photo around five years after a divorce. I'm starting to feel special." Another long silence followed, Mara looked over at him again and narrowed her stare. "You don’t belong to the military anymore, do you?"
    His eyes flared. "I don’t work for anyone anymore if you want to be real technical about it."
    Mara looked ahead, the desolate looking village coming in clear view with each rough, joggling step of the beast under them. The buildings were made of either dried mud or painted tin. Some shelter looked to have been put together with old pieces of wood and debris.
    "Promise me as soon as this is over you will be back out of my life and you won't have any more pictures of me lying around to get me into trouble."
    Logan nodded. "Fair."
    "So, what happened?" she asked, a bit softer. Mara turned to look at him from under her lashes.
    He sighed and relaxed against her a bit. "A year ago my handler called me up for a job."
    "What is a handler?"
    Logan scowled. "Are you going to let me tell you what happened?"
    Mara sat back and held up her hands, but at the same time tensed at the warmth of Logan seeping into her back once more, the steel of his thighs against hers. "Okay, continue."
    "I was supposed to work with him in Brazil setting up a compound to lure terrorists