She knew better than to judge a book by its cover however, and wasn’t about to go overseas with some random guy she just met in a study lounge. She didn’t just barely escape the clutches of a sex trafficking ring to turn around and be so outrageously reckless.
Still she had to give Travis the benefit of the doubt. And so, when he packed up his things a few minutes later to head on his way to class, and handed her a small piece of paper with his phone number scrawled onto it, telling her to “Just think about it.” She did. No woman was an island, and besides, she thought to herself, ‘He’s pretty darn cute.
2
The Lonely Outpost
MEANWHILE, SOMEWHERE IN THE AMAZONIAN WILDERNESS.
As Mason, Raina, and Benton traversed through an open clearing, Mason stood at the tip of what amounted to a triangle as the trio began to move in three directions all at once. They did this in order to converge on all sides of an abandoned home suspected of being converted into a drug house. It was a mission of stealth from here and as such Mason began to give both hand and eye signals to the other two members of his task force, letting them know just how to proceed.
To Raina he motioned for her to meet him around to the other side of the compound. He then narrowed his eyes at Benton and motioned with his head for him to monitor the back of the house. This left Mason himself to check out the front. He felt a little bad about Raina having to go off by herself even if it was literally just around the corner of a house for a few seconds, with him just a short distance away.
And feeling compelled to let her know that he cared, as she began to depart from him, he pulled her toward him, she hissed in surprise, “Mason? What is it?”
He then answered her with a kiss, quickly pressing his lips to hers, as his hands gently clung to her waist. They only embraced for a few seconds but it was like a spark of energy passed between the two and after he let her go, and ran off in the other direction around the house, he felt like his batteries had been recharged.
Raina concurred with this sentiment, softly sighing to herself in satisfaction as she went around her designated corner of the structure to meet her teammates on the other side. Mason had been a lot more affectionate than usual lately, and she took it as a sign that their relationship had some room to grow.
Little did she know the true turmoil that roiled just under Mason’s surface however. Because as much as Mason liked Raina and enjoyed her company, he was consistently torn between her and the memory of his deceased spouse Bree. Mason’s former wife Bree had been everything to him and when she died of breast cancer he was absolutely devastated.
Since that time, he had put all of his energy into raising the daughter Bree had left behind and putting everything else he had into his work. Work—a four letter word which to Mason usually meant creeping around incredibly hostile environments, simply trying not to get shot.
Along with his inability to let the memory of Bree go, it was the nature of his work that gave him additional reason for pause when he considered the budding relationship that he had begun with Raina Martin. His missions routinely had both of them placed into situations of extreme danger, and Mason knew that his affection for her in these tricky situations most likely made that danger even worse.
He didn’t view his attachment so much as an asset as it was a liability. If she got hurt, he got hurt. Before he could charge out into the battlefield and not think twice, but as long as Raina was there, his feelings for her would always get into the way. And as Mason prowled around the side of the house, he couldn’t help but feel guilty for putting Raina in this kind of a vulnerable position. But that was precisely the quandary that he had found himself in ever since they had begun dating.
Raina Martin was a big girl, and this kind of action was precisely what she had signed up for, but now that the two were in a relationship he felt such a responsibility for her that it could be almost crippling at times. As he probed under the crawlspace of the house with his machete, he muttered to himself, “Damn it, Mason—didn’t you know that love and business don’t mix.”
As the reality of just what he was getting into sank in, he thought to himself, ‘I’ve got no choice… I’ve got to break it off.’ Deep down he just couldn’t shake the feeling that it was a mistake for him to bring his world of special ops missions and his personal life together like he had done with Raina. The second any of his adversaries knew that boyfriend and girlfriend were out holding hands as they worked together in the field, it would give them all the more reason to try and take advantage of it.
As he put an ear to the house to see if he could hear anything from the inside, he cynically thought to himself, ‘You just had to fall in love with a fellow operative Mason—what’s wrong with you? Was the singles bar not good enough?’
Mason was startled out of his deep introspection by the sound of Mathew Benton shouting, “Hey Mason, I’ve got somebody over here!”
Both Mason and Raina flew around their respective corners of the home and converged on Benton’s point to find him holding a man at gunpoint. The man himself did not seem to be much of a threat. He was completely emaciated, standing in just a t-shirt, khakis, and sandals—not appearing to be armed.
Mason
