Книга - Eye of the Beholder

Eye of the Beholder
Ingrid Weaver


TRUST ME, GLENNA….One look into Master Sergeant Rafe Marek's piercing blue eyes and Glenna Hastings knew she would survive. He was one of the best commandos in the legendary Delta Force, and it was his duty to protect her. As they fled from their hidden jungle prison, nothing could keep Glenna from giving her heart to the wounded soldier.Rafe was sure that Glenna's passion wasn't real. How could this beautiful woman desire a man so badly scarred both inside and out? Rafe had never opened his soul to anyone before, yet he burned for Glenna, and his carefully constructed barriers came crashing down. But could he prove to himself that he deserved Glenna's love?









“I’m not capable of love. If you want love, you’ve got the wrong man.”


Glenna fought back a rush of tears. She didn’t want to hear any more. Reality was shifting again, and she was afraid of where it would stop. “No, Rafe. You’re a good man….”

“I know what I am, Glenna!”

He took her hand and dragged her fingers over his scars. “For once, take a really good look at these. Do you see how deep and ugly they are?”

His grip verged on painful. She knew he wasn’t aware of it, just as he wasn’t aware of the tears that trailed down her cheeks. “Rafe—”

“They’re twisted. They’re repugnant.” He slapped her hand against his chest. “But those scars aren’t half as ugly as what’s in here.”


Dear Reader,

This month we have something really special on tap for you. The Cinderella Mission, by Catherine Mann, is the first of three FAMILY SECRETS titles, all of them prequels to our upcoming anthology Broken Silence and then a twelve book stand-alone FAMILY SECRETS continuity. These books are cutting edge, combining dark doings, mysterious experiments and overwhelming passion into a mix you won’t be able to resist. Next month, the story continues with Linda Castillo’s The Phoenix Encounter.

Of course, this being Intimate Moments, the excitement doesn’t stop there. Award winner Justine Davis offers up another of her REDSTONE, INCORPORATED tales, One of These Nights. A scientist who’s as handsome as he is brilliant finds himself glad to welcome his sexy bodyguard—and looking forward to exploring just what her job description means. Wilder Days (leading to wilder nights?) is the newest from reader favorite Linda Winstead Jones. It will have you turning the pages so fast, you’ll lose track of time. Ingrid Weaver begins a new military miniseries, EAGLE SQUADRON, with Eye of the Beholder. There will be at least two follow-ups, so keep your eyes open so you don’t miss them. Evelyn Vaughn, whose miniseries THE CIRCLE was a standout in our former Shadows line, makes her Intimate Moments debut with Buried Secrets, a paranormal tale that’s as passionate as it is spooky. And Aussie writer Melissa James is back with Who Do You Trust? This is a deeply emotional “friends become lovers” reunion romance, one that will captivate you from start to finish.

Enjoy! And come back next month for more of the best and most exciting romance around—right here in Silhouette Intimate Moments.






Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor




Eye of the Beholder

Ingrid Weaver





www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




INGRID WEAVER


admits to being a sucker for old movies and books that can make her cry. A Romance Writers of America RITA


Award winner for Romantic Suspense, and a national bestselling author, she enjoys creating stories that reflect the adventure of falling in love. When she and her husband aren’t dealing with the debatable joys of living in an old farmhouse, you’ll probably find Ingrid going on a knitting binge, rattling the windows with heavy metal or rambling through the woods in the back forty with her cats.


To Mark,

who makes life an adventure.




Contents


Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15




Chapter 1


The pilot’s blood spattered Glenna’s cheek, hot, wet and smelling like copper. Other passengers screamed, but Glenna couldn’t make a sound. The gun that was pressed to her windpipe cut off her breath.

“Ten minutes,” the man in the cockpit doorway yelled into his phone. “You give me an answer in ten minutes or we shoot another one.”

This couldn’t be happening, Glenna thought. No. It couldn’t be real. Any minute now she would wake up to the squeal of her alarm and the aroma from her coffeemaker and the chess problem in the morning paper and—

The pilot thumped to the floor. His white shirt turned crimson. Blood pulsed from the black-rimmed hole in his chest to form a gleaming pool at Glenna’s feet.

It was no dream. It was as real as the red stain that crept up the ivory leather of her high heels. Her legs turned to rubber, but she locked her knees to keep herself upright. She couldn’t fall apart. She never fell apart. She was levelheaded Glenna Hastings, always in control, no matter what problems were thrown her way. She couldn’t let herself show weakness, even if her stomach was congealing to ice and bile was burning her throat.

“Please…” It hurt to talk. She tried to swallow past the cold metal that was jammed to her throat. “Please, let me help him.”

They didn’t. The leader, the one with the phone, issued orders in an unfamiliar language. Two men stepped forward and dragged the fallen man to the open doorway. There was no staircase.

Oh, no. They couldn’t really mean to drop him—

Glenna winced at the sound of the pilot’s body hitting the pavement. Would he make it? Or would his life bleed away on the steaming tarmac before help could reach him?

He had tried to be a hero. Despite his white hair and his grandfatherly paunch, he had done his best to resist the men who had broken through the cockpit door and commandeered his plane. His efforts had earned him a bullet.

Was that what fate had in store for the rest of them? Would they be nothing but statistics on the evening news, faceless names to be read in somber tones, then promptly forgotten?

“You!” Someone propelled her forward with a rifle butt between her shoulder blades. “Stand here in front of the door.”

Glenna stumbled to obey them, grabbing the edge of the doorway for balance as she glimpsed the still form below her. A whimper rose in her throat, but she suppressed it. She couldn’t fall apart, she repeated to herself. She couldn’t.

She squinted against the blaze of afternoon sunlight, straining to fill her lungs with tropical air that was thick enough to spoon. Through shimmers of heat, she glimpsed a squat gray building with a glass tower and a drooping wind sock. A chain-link fence separated the runway from the rest of the airport. As she watched, a white van—an ambulance—rolled slowly through the gate and approached the plane.

Her heart had been slamming against her ribs in an exhausting sprint for the past eight hours. She hadn’t thought it was possible for her pulse to speed up…yet it did.

This was the first sign of outside help since the plane had landed on this godforsaken spot. It wasn’t much—what good could some paramedics do against maniacs with guns? Yet at least it was something. It meant the passengers and crew weren’t completely alone. And if the hijackers allowed someone to give aid to their first victim, then maybe there was hope for the rest of the hostages.

There was a sudden spate of conversation from the hijacker with the phone. The ambulance came to a stop twenty yards from the plane.

So near. So impossibly far away.

Glenna hadn’t realized she had swayed toward the open doorway until a rough hand at her elbow jerked her back. Once more, the muzzle of a gun was shoved under her jaw.

She blinked against the tears that she couldn’t quite control. She didn’t know the name of the island they had landed on. She couldn’t understand the demands the hijackers were shouting. But she did know that unless a miracle happened within ten minutes, she would be the next to die.

She had heard that a person’s life flashed before their eyes when they faced death.

It was true.

But rather than seeing what she had done in her twenty-nine years of living, she saw what she hadn’t done.

Oh, God. There were so many things she hadn’t yet done. She had always assumed there would be time. Someday, she was going to put the past behind her. She would take the chance to live like everyone else, maybe even love.

Love? How could she think of love at a time like this?

Yet if she didn’t think of it now, then when would she?

If only she had another chance, she would do things differently. She wouldn’t always have to be the strong one, the sensible one, the one in control. She would savor every moment of the time she was granted.

Please, God, let it be more than ten minutes.

Someone began to pray aloud. Seconds trickled past. Despair rolled through the fuselage in a choking wave. Fear was a smell in the air. Hope was as distant and unattainable as bedtime stories with knights in shining armor and happily ever after. Glenna swallowed a sob. She had left the fairy tales of childhood behind a long, long time ago.

This was reality.

There were no heroes.



Barely a leaf rustled as Master Sergeant Rafal Marek moved through the undergrowth. On his belly, using his elbows and knees, he inched toward the chain-link fence that marked the perimeter of the airport. Ignoring the sweat that trickled down his temples and the insects that whined around his head, he brought his binoculars to his eyes and focused on the plane.

The wide-bodied jet sat in isolation at the very edge of the tarmac. Black skid marks on the pavement showed where the pilot had desperately tried to bring the aircraft to a stop on a runway that was never meant for a plane that size.

Flight 481 had left Jamaica at dawn and had been scheduled to land in New York eight hours ago. Instead, it had been diverted to this crumbling strip of asphalt on a map speck in the Caribbean, its tanks so empty it was running on fumes. At this point it was unknown how the hijackers had gotten past the security measures in place at the airport and on the plane. Rafe suspected someone had been bribed or coerced into looking the other way. But how this had happened wasn’t his concern. What happened next was.

“Three in the cabin, two in the cockpit.” The voice crackled through Rafe’s earpiece. It was Captain Sarah Fox, relating what she could see through the windshield of the ambulance.

Rafe adjusted his earpiece and activated the attached microphone. “Weapons?”

“I can see two automatic weapons that look like Kalashnikovs,” Sarah said with her usual brisk efficiency. “The target in the doorway has one handgun, possibly a .45 calibre.”

“Seven minutes left to their deadline,” Flynn announced, laying his hand briefly on Rafe’s shoulder.

Rafe lowered the binoculars and glanced to his left. He hadn’t heard a whisper of sound as Sergeant Flynn O’Toole had approached. For a large man, Flynn could move with uncanny silence, a useful trait in their business. They had watched each other’s backs on more missions than he could count.

“We need to move in six,” Rafe responded. “Is everyone in position?”

Flynn melted into the shadows of a fern grove. One by one, the rest of the strike team from Eagle Squadron, Special Operations Delta, reported in. Rafe couldn’t spot them any more than he could see Flynn or Sarah. Good. The longer their targets were unaware of whom they were dealing with, the better the chances of this succeeding.

Usually the team planned a mission more thoroughly before embarking on it. They liked to consider every possibility, account for every potential flaw, and then practice the sequence of action until they could do it in their sleep. But the situation was deteriorating too rapidly to risk a prolonged standoff, so they didn’t have the luxury of practice time.

Worse, they were operating with no support. The Rocaman government hadn’t wanted to allow the U.S. military onto their soil in the first place, despite the fact that all the hostages were American citizens. The foreign secretary had done some heavy-duty arm-twisting, and eventually the locals had grudgingly agreed to permit Delta to send a small contingent, yet it was understood the team was on their own. There would be no backup. They would have to think on their feet, but then, that’s what they were best at.

The hijackers were demanding the release from an American prison of a convicted Central American drug lord, as well as ten million cash in American dollars and enough fuel to allow them to disappear. The negotiations were a farce—there was no way in hell any government was going to give in to those demands. Unfortunately, it looked as if the hijackers had realized that. They had already shot one hostage. In less than seven minutes, they would undoubtedly shoot another.

Rafe moved his binoculars to the body on the tarmac. White shirt, gold-on-black epaulets. Obviously the pilot. Hard to guess which had done more harm, the bullet or the four-meter drop from the plane door. The man’s chest was moving, so there was still a chance he might live if he could get medical attention.

The ambulance rolled another few feet closer to the plane, halting once more when threats were shouted from the open doorway. Rafe didn’t believe the hijackers would agree to let anyone tend to their victim, but the team hadn’t expected them to. The primary purpose of the ambulance was to provide a distraction.

Rafe moved into a crouch, stowed his binoculars in his rucksack and took out the wire cutters. One link at a time, he snipped an opening in the fence. He had readied the grappling hook and checked the sweep of the minute hand on his watch, preparing to go into action, when he caught a movement at the open door of the plane.

The hostage in the doorway was being repositioned by her captor to serve as a shield. Rafe retrieved his binoculars and focused on the woman.

She was right on the edge of the four-meter drop—one slip of her high heels and she would certainly fall. Good thing she didn’t look like the hysterical type. In fact, even with her business suit wilted from the heat, and her auburn hair straggling out of its clasp, she gave an impression of coolness.

She must have been one of the passengers traveling first-class. Classy was a good word to describe her. In other circumstances, with those clothes and that upswept hairstyle, she would exert the natural authority of royalty. Her elegant height and her body language marked her as someone more accustomed to giving orders than to following them.

Rafe adjusted the focus on the binoculars, zooming in on her face. Her chin was angled upward. The gesture was likely due more to the pistol that was pressed under her jaw than to defiance. Still, she didn’t look beaten. There were signs of spirit in the tight set of her lips and the angle of her brows.

She turned her head to the side, as if searching the surroundings. He knew she couldn’t see him behind the concealment of the foliage, but as her gaze swept past, he felt a jolt of reaction at the raw terror in her eyes.

He reconsidered his initial assessment. On the surface, she appeared in control, but it was the deceptive calmness of a charge of Semtex. There was a hell of a lot more to this lady than the elegant exterior she presented to the world. And she was no fool. She had to know that in a matter of minutes, she could be sharing the pilot’s fate.

Urgency gave an added push to Rafe’s pulse, but he breathed deeply until it steadied. Even in the best-case scenarios, there was always a risk of civilian casualties. That was the reality of high-stakes hostage rescues. He needed to keep his head clear if he wanted to do his job.

He was a soldier. That was his profession, that was his life. This was a mission. She was a stranger, no less and no more important than any of the other thirty-six hostages who remained on board the plane.

Yet as he looked at the woman across the heat shimmers that rose from the pavement, his reaction wasn’t that of a soldier. It was the reaction of a man. He wanted to save her. He wanted to protect her and erase the terror from her gaze. More than that, he wanted to learn what she kept hidden beneath that layer of control.

What would her lips look like when she wasn’t pressing them into a tight line? How would her cheeks move when she laughed? And her voice…what did it sound like?

Who was she? Why was some nameless redheaded hostage stirring feelings he’d had no problem controlling until now? He knew better than to let a woman distract him, especially a woman who looked like that.

“Thirty seconds,” Sarah said.

Rafe forced his thoughts back to business. He stowed the binoculars, pulled the black hood of his assault jumpsuit over his head and carefully pried apart the edges of the fence.



Glenna took shallow, panting breaths, trying not to inhale the smell of her captors as another one of the hijackers pressed close to her back. The ambulance was inching forward again. Despite the shouted commands of their leader, the men were peering past her in order to see what was happening.

A trim, blond woman dressed in a doctor’s white coat emerged from the van. With her arms raised over her head, a black leather bag clutched in one hand, she called out to the hijackers in what sounded to be the same language they had been using. Gesturing to her bag and then to tarmac, she obviously wanted permission to tend to the fallen pilot.

A heated discussion ensued. Glenna didn’t need to understand the words to get the gist of it. Permission was being denied, yet the feisty blond doctor kept arguing, despite the rifle that was thrust past Glenna’s shoulder to point straight at her.

The doctor seemed oblivious to the danger she was in. In fact, she appeared almost pleased with the reaction she was getting. What was wrong with her? It seemed as if she were deliberately trying to gain the hijackers’ attention.

A muffled clang vibrated through the plane. It was followed a heartbeat later by the thud-whump of an explosion.

The pressure of the gun at Glenna’s throat eased. She twisted to look behind her.

Dark smoke rolled through a hole in the opposite side of the plane. Glenna coughed, blinking to clear her eyes. There was a momentary glimpse of blue sky, then the opening was filled with moving figures. Before Glenna could blink again, a group of men, dressed in black from their boots to the ski masks that covered their faces, burst into the plane, brought their weapons to bear on the hijackers and opened fire.

After that, everything went by in a fast-forward blur. Bullets thudded into the seats and clanged into the fuselage as the hijackers fired back. Several of the black-clad men advanced on the cockpit. The other half guided the passengers toward the back of the plane, where an emergency exit was opened and an inflatable escape chute unfurled.

They were leaving. Against all odds, it was actually happening.

Glenna threw her weight to the side, trying to jerk away from the man who held her. He hooked his arm around her neck and yanked her back, wedging them both into the doorway. Using her body to shield himself, he fired at the retreating hostages and their rescuers. Glenna’s ears rang from the noise of the gun and her eyes were streaming from the smoke, but she continued to struggle, doing what she could to throw off his aim.

More quickly than she could have believed, her fellow hostages had funneled through the opening at the tail and disappeared, leaving her trapped between the hijackers and safety. Screaming in frustration, the man who held her jammed his gun to her cheek.

The gun barrel was hot now. It burned her skin. Glenna had another flash of awareness, another moment of clarity when she knew she was about to die.

But the bullet she expected didn’t come. Instead, a staccato burst of gunfire came from the direction of the cockpit and the arm around her throat went slack. And then Glenna was falling through the air. She had a split second to brace for the shock, but with the blood that was pumping through her body by her elevated heartbeat, she barely felt the impact with the ground. On some level, she registered agony as the pavement ripped the skin from her knees and her right ankle crumpled beneath her, yet the pain didn’t matter. She was alive. She was free.

But for how long?

She glanced around. Beyond the belly of the plane she could see the drooping orange emergency chute. At its base, the last of the passengers were clambering into the back of a large, canvas-covered truck. The blond doctor who had arrived in the ambulance helped load the pilot’s limp form, then leaped onto the running board just as the truck pulled away. Clods of dirt flew up from its tires as it left the tarmac and careened toward a gap in the fence that bordered the runway.

Even at this fast-forward speed, how could it all be happening so quickly? Glenna tried to stand, to run after them, but her ankle collapsed, sending her back to the pavement. Biting her lip, she had started to crawl forward when someone thudded to the ground behind her.

Panic that she had managed to suppress until now suddenly surged through her veins. Whimpering, she dragged herself another yard, only to stop short when her fingertips struck a black-booted foot.

“Give me your hand,” a deep voice said. “I’ll help you.”

Glenna looked up. One of the men who had stormed the plane just minutes ago was standing over her. Like the others, he was clad all in black. If she hadn’t already been terrified, his appearance would have been enough to send chills through her heart. His size, his black clothes, the rifle he held would have made him look menacing in any circumstance.

But right now, she knew he was her only hope. She grasped his hand and came to her knees, attempting once more to get her feet under her. “I…I can’t,” she said. She hated the weakness that put the quaver in her voice. “My ankle…”

He didn’t wait for the rest of her explanation. Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, he leaned down and slipped one arm under her knees, the other behind her back. “Hang on to my neck.”

She looped her arms around his shoulders. Beneath the tightly woven black fabric, there was no softness—his muscles were bunched like steel cables. His face was hidden behind the black mask. Only his eyes were visible.

But oh, Lord, he had beautiful eyes. Vibrantly blue and full of life. His gaze was as solid and confident as the rest of him. It glowed with strength, it made her want to trust him, hold him, perhaps even believe in heroes….

Glenna inhaled sharply. She was losing her mind. How could she be staring at his eyes while bullets were flying around her?

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes, except my ankle.” She glanced toward the rapidly retreating truck. There was no way they could catch up to it.

He cradled her against his chest and straightened up in one smooth motion. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you out of this. I promise.”

Normally she didn’t believe men who made promises. She had learned the hard way to rely on no one but herself.

But the rules she had lived her life by had become irrelevant eight hours ago. His voice affected her like his pure blue gaze. She wanted to believe him.

“Keep your head down.”

She did as he said without hesitation. Tucking her head under his chin, she pressed her cheek to the hollow of his shoulder. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet, princess. We’ve got a long way to go.”

It didn’t seem possible, but the muscles that had felt like steel hardened yet further. Crouching to shelter her with his body, he jogged toward the ambulance that sat abandoned on the pavement.

A sudden high-pitched whine drowned out the staccato pops of gunfire from the plane. The man carrying Glenna dove to his left. An instant later, the ambulance exploded in a fireball. Black smoke billowed upward while twisted shards of debris rained down.

“Oh, my God!” Glenna cried.

The man staggered sideways and muttered a curse. “Where did that shell come from?” He recovered his footing, then glanced toward the airport gate. “Oh, hell.”

Glenna saw the answer to his question at the same time he did. Two olive green pickup trucks, their cargo areas filled with armed men, sped toward them from the direction of the airport gate. At first she thought more help was on the way, but then she saw that the weapons were aimed directly at her and her rescuer.

He veered in the opposite direction, increasing his speed from a jog to a sprint. Glenna tightened her hold on him, doing her best to keep from flying out of his grasp as he lunged into a zigzagging path toward the fence.

Puffs of dust burst from the ground on either side of them. Glenna felt something whiz past her ear. They were almost at the fence when she felt the man jerk. A shudder went through his body and his grip on her slackened.

Desperately Glenna clung to his neck. Would this nightmare never end? Had she put her trust in the wrong man again? “Please. Oh, please, don’t leave me now. We’re nearly there.”

He grunted. “I’m not leaving you, princess,” he said. “I’ll keep you safe.”

Behind the black mask, his expression was invisible, yet his eyes shone with determination. He spared her only a glance.

It had the same effect on Glenna as before.

He managed another three limping steps before his leg buckled in midstride. He shifted as he fell, taking the impact of their combined weight on his back, then rolled over, rose to one knee and thrust Glenna behind him. While she pressed as close as she could to his body, he unslung his rifle from his shoulder and faced the trucks full of armed men that were bearing down on them.




Chapter 2


After the heat of the day, night brought a creeping clamminess that chilled straight to the bones. The air was thick with the musty odor of damp cement. Glenna hunched her shoulders and huddled closer to the motionless man on the floor, as much to share her warmth with him as to draw comfort from his.

No more than a sliver of lamplight came through the crack beneath the door. It was enough to distinguish shapes and outlines, but the shadows swallowed any color. For that, she was grateful. She didn’t want to see whatever small creatures were making the scurrying noises in the corners. She didn’t want to look at the swelling on her ankle. And she didn’t really want to see the blood that seeped onto her hand.

The bullet wound in her rescuer’s leg had opened up again when their captors had tossed them onto the floor of this storeroom. In the darkness, she wouldn’t have discovered he was bleeding if she hadn’t felt the sticky warmth on her palm. She had done what she could to help, ripping up her suit jacket to wrap around his thigh as a makeshift bandage, but her knowledge of first aid was minimal. For lack of anything better, all she could think to do was press her hand to his thigh over the bandage to help stop the bleeding.

Even slack with unconsciousness, his body was rock solid. He emanated an aura of strength that was as tangible as his warmth. Whoever he was, he must be in superb physical condition to have survived the treatment he’d received. It had taken seven men to overpower him and knock him out when the trucks had reached them. Glenna suspected that if it wasn’t for her, he never would have allowed himself to be captured. Despite the wound in his leg, he probably could have made it to the fence and gotten away from the airport altogether, but he’d remained by her side, willing to risk his life for a complete stranger.

What kind of man did that?

Her gaze moved to the pale blur of his face. His black mask, along with some kind of radio headset, had been removed when he’d been dragged onto the pickup truck, but he’d been lying facedown during the trip here, so all she had been able to see was the back of his head. The transfer to this room had been short and rough—she hadn’t gotten a good look at him then, either.

He had carried her in his arms. He had sheltered her with his body as bullets had hissed past them. Yet she didn’t know his name. And if she passed him on the street, she wouldn’t recognize his face. After what they had been through, it seemed…wrong somehow.

Keeping her palm on his thigh, she lifted her free hand to his face. His skin was taut, with a hint of roughness from the day’s growth of his beard. She ran her fingers along his jaw, exploring the contours. It wasn’t enough to build a picture in her mind, but it did reinforce the impression she already had. He was lean, hard and uncompromisingly male.

A smooth ridge of skin interrupted the sandpaper beard stubble on the right side of his jaw. It had to be a scar, she thought, tracing the ridge to his cheek. The scar branched there, scattering into a network of furrows and more patches of raised skin that curved upward to his right temple. She swayed closer, curious, running her fingertips over the pattern. She didn’t need to see it to realize how bad it was. He must have suffered horribly.

Was he a policeman? A soldier? Did he storm hijacked planes and rescue women for a living? Had he obtained these scars while he was being a hero for someone else?

Whatever had caused it must have happened years ago—the skin had the firm smoothness of an old injury, like the tiny line on her own index finger that was a souvenir of a childhood mishap with a crystal water glass. She felt a surge of sympathy for him. What courage he must have, to continue to brave danger despite the pain he must have endured.

Compared to him, she had been a cringing coward, afraid to fully live, to take a chance on life.

Yes, well, she intended to change all of that.

She moved her fingers along the ridges and grooves that crossed the rise of his cheekbone until she reached the corner of his eye. The scar didn’t extend this far, or it would have showed at the edge of his mask. The only lines on his skin here were laugh lines, too fine to feel, but she remembered them perfectly.

He had beautiful eyes, so blue and piercing. Would the fine lines at the corners crinkle when he smiled? Was his laugh as deep and rich as his voice? Would she get the chance to hear it?

Before today, the sensible, levelheaded Glenna Hastings wouldn’t have wasted one moment considering those questions. What possible relevance could the sound of his laughter or the color of his eyes have to her life?

But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? She was alive, and she hadn’t forgotten what she had vowed when she had believed she was going to die. Every extra minute she lived was a gift. Every detail about her rescuer was relevant. The sound of his breathing, the scent of his skin, even the warmth of his blood against her palm…at this moment those things were more important than any of the thousands of trivial details that usually filled her days.

Her knees nudged against his hip. She winced at the stinging from her scraped skin and the ache in her ankle, but her injuries were nothing compared to her rescuer’s. She moved her hand to his hair. In the shadows it was leached of color, but on the ride here she’d seen it gleam golden in the sunshine. It was cropped short in a no-nonsense style that had appeared stiff, but as she slid her fingers into it, she discovered that his hair was as fine as a baby’s. It tickled her fingertips in a caress of silk, and for the first time since she had left the airport in Montego Bay, she felt her lips relax in a smile.

It was a little thing, to be sure, but taking pleasure in the texture of a strange man’s hair was something Glenna simply didn’t do. She might do lunch with a man. Or dinner and the theater, when her schedule allowed. Nice, sensible functions with no commitment, no expectations and no messy demands. She had found the situation completely satisfactory.

But it all seemed so impossibly faraway now, another world, a previous existence.

There was a furtive scrabbling along the far wall. Glenna’s smile faded as quickly as it had formed. Her situation was worse now than it had been hours earlier on the plane. She should be thinking about ways to escape instead of mooning over her fellow hostage.

Is that what she was doing? Mooning over a man, like some teenager with a crush?

Hardly. There was nothing juvenile about what she felt for this stranger. With one hand in the sensual softness of his hair, the other slick with the heat of his blood, Glenna had never felt more intimately connected to another human being in her life.

For however long that lasted.



Rafe came awake with brutal swiftness. His leg was on fire, and someone was slamming a sledgehammer into his head. His eyes had barely snapped open when he sensed a figure leaning over him.

Why was everything so dim? Had the blows to his head messed up his vision? Either that, or night had fallen. How long had he been out? Where was he? The questions buzzed through his brain as his hands shot out to grasp his assailant’s wrists. With a twist of his torso, Rafe reversed their positions.

There was a startled gasp. “Ow! What are you doing?”

The voice was female. It didn’t take Rafe more than a second to realize that the body he’d pinned to the floor was female, too. More than that, she felt familiar. She smelled familiar, a blend of sunshine and citrus that had his nostrils flaring for more.

Rafe blinked, trying to focus on the face beneath his. It was impossible to see anything more than a blur, yet he knew who this was. He might not be able to see her, but his other senses had no trouble recognizing her. It was the woman from the plane—the tall, classy redhead.

He knew the chances of rescuing her had been slim when he’d seen her fall to the tarmac. He should have remained with Flynn and the team to cover Sarah’s retreat with the other hostages. This woman who lay beneath him was a stranger, he reminded himself again. No less and no more important than the others…but the decision to go after her hadn’t been made by his brain, it had been pure gut-level instinct.

He breathed shallowly a few times, striving to control his pain the way he’d been trained to do. The pounding in his head retreated. The burning in his thigh settled into a deep throb. Bullet wound, he realized. He’d been hit five yards from the fence. He replayed the final moments, searching for an explanation for their present circumstances, but he must have been unconscious while they were transported here.

Wherever “here” was.

“Where are we?” he asked, careful to pitch his voice low enough not to carry. No point alerting anyone else that he was awake.

“I don’t know.”

He put his mouth close to her ear. “Keep your voice down. Is it a house? A factory? A warehouse? How big is it?”

“It’s a house,” she whispered. “It was hard to tell how large because it was already dark when they brought us here. They dumped us in this room and left.”

She had said it was already dark. That meant his vision was probably undamaged. One piece of good news. “They? How many?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Try to remember.”

She paused. He could feel her body tremble. She was struggling for the control she’d exhibited before. Her terror was there, just under the surface, but she was fighting it down. “There might have been six or seven men on each truck,” she replied finally. “There are more in this place.”

“We’re still on Rocama then?”

“Rocama?”

“The island where your plane landed.”

“Yes. We must be.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“What is it?”

He hadn’t liked the setup of this mission from the start. This proved his misgivings had been justified. “The locals were in on it.”

“What do you mean?”

“At the airport. Had to be. How else could the hijackers have gotten reinforcements through the police cordon and pulled off a raid of this scale?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“We weren’t allowed backup. That has to be why.” He squinted in the direction of his left wrist, but he saw no sign of the luminous dial of his watch. They must have taken it along with his gun and the knife he’d strapped to his calf. “How long did it take to get here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Minutes? Hours?”

“It felt like hours.”

“Damn.”

Her breath puffed past his cheek. “What are we going to do?”

“Escape.”

“How?”

“I’ll think of something, princess.”

She was silent for a moment. “Glenna.”

“What?”

“Glenna Hastings. That’s my name.”

It suited her, he thought. It was classy and feminine, just like the woman. “Master Sergeant Rafal Marek,” he replied.

“Sergeant? Are you with the police?”

“Army Special Forces,” he said.

“You mean like SEALs?”

“They’re navy. Special Ops Delta is army.”

Another silence. “You’re from Delta Force?”

He heard the note of awe in her voice. He had Hollywood to thank for that. They had built Delta into a legend, even though the government still didn’t officially admit the force existed. “I’m from Eagle Squadron. And most people call me Rafe.”

“Okay. Rafe?”

“Yes?”

“Could you get off me, please?”

Rafe knew he should have let her up as soon as he had realized she wasn’t a threat. Sure, he’d wanted to learn the details of their situation as quickly as possible, and he hadn’t wanted their conversation to be overheard, but those weren’t the only reasons he had delayed.

He liked Glenna where she was. Her body was warm and firm and very, very comfortable stretched out underneath him. Now that she had brought it to his attention, he was aware of every inch of her. Her long legs rubbed alongside his. Her breasts pressed into his chest with each breath she drew and the pulse in her wrists was fluttering hard against his fingers.

She was a good fit. He didn’t want to let her go. It was the same possessive urge he’d had when he’d first seen her through his binoculars. And despite the ache in his head and the throbbing in his thigh, he felt a quick stirring of masculine interest.

Adrenaline, that’s all it was. Battlefield lust. It was nothing more than his body affirming that it was alive, a natural albeit primitive reaction to a brush with death and a tense situation.

Concentrate, he told himself. He had to think of the mission, not the woman. They were on the floor in an unknown location, surrounded by an undetermined number of enemies. He should be investigating their prison, assessing their options and forming a strategy.

And he should get the hell off Glenna before she felt the physical evidence of the reaction he was having no success controlling.

“Sorry,” he said, releasing her wrists. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You didn’t startle me.”

Yeah, right, Rafe thought, rolling to his side. If his face hadn’t been covered with a mask when they’d met, she probably would have gone screaming off in the opposite direction, bad ankle and all. Lucky for him this place was so dark. He sat up, biting back a groan as he straightened his leg in front of him.

“Oh, be careful,” Glenna said. “The bleeding’s almost stopped. You have a wound in your left leg.”

“Right. Forty-five caliber from the feel of it.” He ran his hand over his thigh and found a twisted piece of fabric. Something was wrapped over the leg of his jumpsuit just above the knee. “What’s this? Did they bind it?”

“No, I did that. I used my jacket for a bandage. It’s all I could think of.”

Her jacket? She had used that elegant silk outfit to sop up his blood? For some reason, the image jarred him. “Thanks.”

“I turned it inside out before I used it.” There was a whisper of movement, the slide of skin on cement. Her voice came from a spot near his shoulder. “I know it’s not sterile, but it was the best I could do.”

He traced the edge of what he realized had to be a sleeve and found a knot. “Thanks again. Are you a doctor?”

“No, I’m a planner.”

“A planner?”

“For the Winston Hotel chain. I coordinate special events like conventions and fund-raisers. It’s…” Her voice became muffled, as if she rubbed her face. “It all seems so trivial now.”

Not trivial, he thought. Just a long way from here. A woman like her belonged in a different world, where men wore suits and drank bottled water at health clubs. The last man to touch her probably had manicured nails and wouldn’t know a bivouac from a bidet.

Still, she had done a good job binding his bullet wound, he realized as he loosened the knot. He eased back the torn edges of his jumpsuit and gingerly probed the area. Fresh waves of agony rolled over him. Despite the chill in the room, sweat dampened his upper lip, but he continued his exploration. He had to know the extent of the damage if he was going to plan an escape.

“Sergeant Marek? Rafe?”

It was more of a furrow than a hole. The bullet had tunneled into the fleshy part of his thigh and then passed through the other side. Messy, but good. He withdrew his hand and tipped back his head, steadying his breathing before he replied. “Yeah?”

“Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?”

Sure, he thought. She could press her body against his again and take his mind off this pain. “It’s just a flesh wound,” he said, using Flynn’s euphemism for anything that didn’t involve shattered bones. He repositioned the makeshift bandage.

“But—”

“I’ve had worse. It’ll heal on its own.” True enough, as long as it didn’t get infected, he thought grimly. Under these conditions, infection was extremely likely, and usually deadly. He’d have to make his move soon, before the infection set in, or he wouldn’t be able to move at all.

“Maybe we can ask for a doctor.”

He snorted. “We’re not going to stick around that long, Glenna. We’re only alive because they needed more hostages. They must still be hoping to negotiate.”

“Who are those people, anyway? Are they terrorists?”

“No. Just your garden variety drug smugglers with delusions of grandeur.” He gave her a summary of what he knew, including the demands the hijackers had originally made. But as he spoke he realized that the demand for the jet fuel must have been a sham meant to throw them off the trail—the hijackers had never intended to leave this island. This was where they were based. “I don’t think they’re going to release us, whatever happens. They have nothing to gain by showing mercy. That’s why it’s imperative that we escape as soon as possible.”

He braced his knuckles on the floor, got his feet under him and straightened up to stand. Pain knifed along his leg to his groin at the change in position, but he fought it back and limped toward the darkness that marked the nearest wall. He ran his hand across the surface. Cement block. If it had been wood, there might have been a chance of prying a board loose, but without tools, he couldn’t realistically consider this way an option. Moving cautiously, he made a circuit of the room, exploring their prison by touch, searching for any windows, any break in the mortar, but the only opening was the door. He got down on his stomach and laid his cheek against the floor to peer through the crack.

What he saw wasn’t encouraging. A long corridor, the legs of a chair, the butt of a rifle and three pairs of scuffed brown leather army boots. Three men. Armed. Probably paramilitary trained like the group at the airport.

Still, they wouldn’t be expecting an escape attempt so soon. He’d have the element of surprise on his side. If he got Glenna to provide a distraction, and if he managed to get a weapon away from one of those guards before they sounded the alarm, then they might be able to make a run for it. They would have to move fast, though. Otherwise…

He pushed off the floor and moved back to where he’d left Glenna. His leg would be good enough to carry his own weight for a short distance, but he wasn’t sure whether it would bear Glenna. “How’s your ankle?” he asked.

“Sore.”

He used her voice to zero in on her position, then sat down and groped in front of him. His fingers brushed her knee and he heard a sudden intake of breath. “Sorry,” he said. “I forgot you scraped the skin there in your fall.”

“It wasn’t bad. It’s not bleeding anymore.”

“It probably wasn’t deep enough to leave a scar.”

“I’d say my appearance is the least of my worries right now.”

She wouldn’t feel that way once they got out of here, Rafe thought. He traced her leg downward, grasped her calf and brought her foot to his lap.

Her palms slid over the floor behind her. “What are you doing?”

“Checking the damage.” He ran his fingertips over her injured ankle. There was a spongy swelling where he judged the bones should be. He felt his way down to her foot. “Can you move it?”

“Yes.” She wiggled it. “A bit.”

“Where are your shoes?”

“They fell off on the trip here.”

“I don’t think your ankle’s broken, just twisted. But you won’t be able to walk far on it tonight, especially barefoot.”

“You can’t very well carry me in your condition.”

“Not for long, no.”

She hesitated. “You could make it on your own.”

How could she think he would even consider that? Rafe wondered. On the other hand, she had no idea how he felt. Why would she? He had trouble figuring it out himself. “When we go, we go together.”

“But if I can’t walk…”

“Then we get a vehicle. Trust me, Glenna, I’m not leaving you.”

Trust me. She didn’t really have a choice, Glenna thought, yet she had trusted him from the first moment she had looked into his eyes. Now all she needed to do was to hear his voice, and she believed him.

Was it some kind of side effect of their situation? she wondered. Or maybe it was all wrapped up with this new lease on life she suddenly had, something to do with not squandering the time she had left.

Whatever was behind it, she didn’t want to deny her feelings. He was wide-awake and very aware, yet that sense of intimacy she had felt when she had touched him earlier hadn’t faded. If anything, it was deepening.

Rafe’s hands were large and strong, like the rest of him. His fingers were warm against her skin. His inspection of her ankle was justified and completely clinical…and yet her nerves tingled at his touch.

He was a Delta Force commando. He really did storm hijacked planes and rescue people for a living. Who would have thought that a man who did what he did could be so gentle? Like his surprisingly soft hair, like the laugh lines around his eyes, there was much more to Rafe Marek than the tough exterior. She leaned forward and covered his hand with hers. “Thank you, Rafe.”

“What for?”

“You saved my life.”

He set her foot on the floor. “Sure. From the frying pan into the fire. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not exactly home free yet.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m still better off than I was. You gave me another chance at life, and I’m grateful for the way—”

“I was doing my job,” he said gruffly.

Why did her gratitude make him uncomfortable? She smiled. “How much do they pay heroes these days?”

“Hero? You’ve got the wrong man, princess.”

She didn’t think so. She curled her legs to the side and leaned closer. “Rafe?”

“What?”

“Would you hold me?”

“Listen, Glenna, you don’t know what you’re saying. I’ve seen this happen before in hostage situations. You’re feeling the strain of the situation and—”

“No, I’m feeling chilled,” she said, calmly interrupting him. “I used my jacket for your bandage.”

He hesitated. “So you did.”

“That left me with just this sleeveless shell, but if it would bother you…”

He muttered something under his breath and pulled her into his arms.

Glenna sighed as she fitted her cheek against the hard curve of Rafe’s shoulder. She was no fool. She knew their situation was grave. And he was probably right. She was feeling the effects of stress…but she didn’t care. This man had given her a reprieve from death. Was she going to waste it?

No, she wasn’t. She was going to savor every moment. From now on, she would rather have regrets for something she had done, rather than something she had restrained herself from doing.

Who knew how much longer either one of them would be alive? And when was the last time she had shared anyone’s embrace? She couldn’t even remember.

That was a rather sad commentary on her life, wasn’t it? She could remember practically every word that was said at the meeting she’d attended yesterday. She could recite the phone numbers of florists and staffing agencies in every major North American city where a Winston hotel was located. She had a gold-embossed leather day planner that was filled in for the next two years…but she had no idea when she had last felt a man’s arms around her.

Rafe’s fingers splayed over her back, urging her to lean more fully against him. “You might as well try to get some sleep.”

“I doubt if I’ll ever sleep again.”

“You’re still feeling the adrenaline,” he said. “You’ll crash when it wears off.” He moved his hand to her neck and brushed her hair aside to rest his fingertips over the pulse beneath her ear. “Relax, Glenna. I’ll keep watch.”

Could he feel the way her heart pounded? she wondered. Did he know how wonderful his skin felt against hers? She had never been comfortable with casual touching. She preferred a handshake to a hug and an air-kiss for a greeting. But somehow she needed to touch him. “Thanks, Rafe.”

“No problem. You need to rest and recover your strength. As soon as you can put more weight on your ankle, we’ll make our move.”

“But—”

“We’ll get out of this. I promise. I’ve been in worse spots. The whole key is you’ve got to keep a clear head.”

“Control,” she murmured. “That’s what I kept telling myself in the plane.”

“You did great, by the way.”

“I didn’t have any choice.”

“There’s always a choice. When I was watching you in the doorway—”

“You were watching me? How? I didn’t see you.”

“I was there, Glenna. Even now, the rest of my team is probably searching the area. Once we get out of here, we’ll find some way to hook up with them and you’ll be back home in…” He paused. “Where are you from?”

“New York,” she replied. “It seems so far away.”

“Sure, but you’ll be back there before you know it. Once you’re debriefed at the base, I’ll see that you’re flown directly—”

“Rafe, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather take a train.”

A low rumble sounded in his chest. “Right.”

Glenna felt a smile tug at her lips. The noise he had made was more of a grunt than a laugh, but she liked the way it had felt against her cheek. She’d like to hear it again. “Rafe?”

“What?”

But whatever she was going to say ended in a gasp as the door to their prison was flung open. Before it had slammed against the wall, Rafe was on his feet, once more placing himself between her and the weapons that were aimed directly at them.

“Dios,” someone muttered. “You are right. He is one ugly bastard.”




Chapter 3


The guards must be blind, Glenna thought as she limped along the shadowed corridor. How else could they call Rafe ugly? Yes, his scars were unpleasant to look at. The network of white-streaked, ravaged skin was evidence of horrible suffering. Puckered gullies sliced his right cheek and gave the corner of his mouth a sardonic twist. In addition, his nose was large and bent in the middle, as if it had been broken at some point in the past.

But couldn’t the guards see the intelligence in his eyes? How could they miss the strength in the angle of his jaw and the pride in the tilt of his head? Didn’t they notice how he ignored the pain his leg must be giving him in order to lend her support as she walked?

She had known men who were as pretty as purebred puppies but who had ugliness in their smiles. What appeared on the surface didn’t matter if what lay underneath was rotten. And she couldn’t believe Rafe was rotten inside. His deeds were constantly proving otherwise.

The corridor branched into three. The guard who had been leading the way in front of them turned to his right. One of the two who were behind them prodded Rafe in the back with his rifle. Rafe stumbled briefly, his nostrils flaring. Whether it was to control his pain or his temper, Glenna couldn’t tell. He tightened his arm around her waist to pull her more firmly to his side, somehow managing to take even more of her weight off her sprained ankle.

She gave him a small smile of gratitude, but he didn’t acknowledge it. His gaze was flicking all around them, as if cataloguing every possible detail of their surroundings.

Glenna decided to follow suit. She realized the floor was now sloping upward. The scent of damp cement that had permeated the room where they had been held wasn’t as sharp here. They must have been in a basement and were now being taken to the ground floor of the house.

It wasn’t any ordinary house, though. She’d known when their captors had brought them in from the truck that this house was large. She hadn’t realized how large until now.

What had Rafe called the hijackers? Garden variety drug smugglers with delusions of grandeur? The drug business must be booming, if they could afford a place like this.

They reached a thick wooden door. One of the guards turned a key in the lock and they were ushered through. Glenna blinked, trying to adjust her eyes to the light from a huge crystal chandelier that blazed overhead. They had emerged in the corner of a large foyer. A majestic staircase curved along the far wall, opulent bouquets of tropical flowers rested on delicate antique tables, and all of it was reflected in a marble floor the color of a forest. She had no more than a glimpse of a set of intricate wrought iron entrance doors before the guards pushed them through another door into a dark paneled office.

A slim, dark man in a white suit sat behind a massive mahogany desk. He looked up as they came in. “Ah, my visitors have arrived,” he said into the phone he held. An accent tinted his words with a soft lilt. “We shall continue our negotiations, yes?”

The door slammed behind them. Glenna glanced over her shoulder and stared straight into a gun barrel. She quickly turned her head.

The white-suited man was watching her, his fingers working over the telephone receiver with long, lazy strokes. The glossy mustache on his upper lip lifted in a smile. “Allow me to introduce myself,” he said. “I am Leonardo Juarez, your host. And what is your name, delightful lady?”

She didn’t know how to respond to this parody of civility. She remained silent.

Juarez gestured with a flick of his fingers. One of the guards stepped forward and shoved his gun butt into Rafe’s stomach. Rafe made no sound as he jerked with the impact, but Glenna cried out.

“You will answer me next time I ask you a question,” Juarez said, his smooth tone reflecting nothing of the brutality he had instigated. “Now, I would like to know your name.”

“Glenna Hastings,” she blurted out immediately.

“Very good. And the, what is the word, the Frankenstein here. What is your name, sir?”

Rafe held himself perfectly still, his gaze a sliver of steel as it targeted the man behind the desk. “Rafal Marek, master sergeant, serial number seven zero—”

“Yes, yes. Name, rank and serial number. You are Delta Force, I presume?”

“Rafal Marek, master sergeant, serial number—”

“Do not be tiresome. I know the policy of your government. For this situation, they would have sent only their best.” He repeated their names into the phone, then pointed at Glenna and crooked his finger. “Please, come here for a moment, Miss Hastings.”

She saw the guard lift his rifle again. She pulled away from Rafe’s support and limped to the desk.

Juarez smiled and tilted his head, as if he believed the curving of his thick lips was attractive. “It is Miss Hastings, is it not?”

She nodded.

“American men truly do not appreciate beauty.”

Oh, God. He had the dead, black eyes of a lizard. If he smiled again she was going to be sick.

He crooked his finger once more, motioning her to his side.

Glenna wanted to run back to Rafe. She needed to touch him, to feel his support. He was her anchor in a world gone crazy. But if she went to him, he would likely be struck again. She wouldn’t fall apart, she wouldn’t. Holding her head high, trying to act as stoic as Rafe, she put one hand on the edge of the desk for support and made her way to the other side.

Juarez looked boldly at the thin shell that covered her breasts. He ran his palm down her bare arm. “So soft. I wonder if you are as silky as that garment you wear. Shall I see?”

She swallowed a surge of bile.

“But business before pleasure. What a shame we meet under such…inconvenient circumstances.” He sighed and held the telephone toward her. “Take it.”

She clutched the receiver as if it were a lifeline and lifted it to her ear.

“Let them know you are enjoying my hospitality, Miss Hastings,” Juarez said, taking a cigarette from a silver case on his desk. He lit it leisurely, leaned back in his chair and regarded her through drifting white curls of smoke. “And tell them one of you will be killed tomorrow at midnight if they do not release Arturo. My brother.”



“Do you think he was bluffing?” Glenna asked.

They were back in the underground storeroom that served as their prison, so Rafe couldn’t see her expression, but he heard the truth of what she believed in her voice.

She was no fool. She must realize that the people who were capable of hijacking an airliner and shooting the pilot in cold blood were capable of anything. He didn’t consider lying to her about this—he had more respect for her than that. “No,” he said.

“I didn’t think so.”

He braced his back against the wall and slid down to sit on the floor, stretching his wounded leg in front of him. He needed every second of rest he could get. “From the looks of Juarez’s phone, he has several lines. Those indicator lights on the side would tip him off the minute someone tried to dial out, so we won’t be able to call for help from inside the house. We need to get out as soon as possible. We’ll give them two hours to go about their business, then we’ll move.”

“But my ankle, your leg…”

“With the timetable Juarez has set, it’s our only option, princess.”

“My name is Glenna.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean any offense.”

“No, I’m sorry.” She shuffled along the floor until she reached his side. She sat down and placed her hand on his knee. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I guess I’m just a little…stressed.”

His lips twitched at her understatement. “You’re entitled. You handled the business with Juarez well, Glenna.”

“Do you want to know the truth?”

“Sure.”

“I thought I was going to throw up all over his stupid white suit.”

Rafe grunted, “Maybe you should have. It would have cooled him off.”

“Sure, and then they would have hit you again.”

“Don’t worry about me. This is my job.”

“You should ask for a raise.” She moved her hand from his knee to the silk bandage on his thigh. “How does your leg feel?”

This time, he did lie. He’d checked the wound when their captors had allowed them to use a bathroom after their meeting with Juarez and he’d found it was getting hot, the edges puffy and tender. The infection must have set in the moment he’d been shot. “Fine.”

“The bandage feels dry.”

“The bleeding stopped. I told you it wasn’t serious.”

She patted his thigh gently, then skimmed her hand along his hip to his waist. She spread her fingers just beneath his ribs. “What about here? Are you okay? That guard hit you pretty hard with that gun.”

“No problem. I saw it coming and flexed before he hit me.”

“Flexed?”

“My abs.” He could feel her touch warm him through the fabric of his jumpsuit. What would it be like to feel her hand on his bare skin? “Tightens everything up to deflect the damage.”

“Oh. Is that a Delta Force trick?”

“Not really. Houdini used to do it all the time.”

She stroked her fingertips across his stomach, tracing the contours of the muscles he’d just mentioned. “But didn’t Houdini die when someone punched him?”

His pulse throbbed heavily at her caress. And it was a caress, he couldn’t interpret it any other way. He caught her hand to keep her from exploring further. “He wasn’t ready for it. It ruptured his appendix. Glenna, don’t.”

“What?”

“It’s a reaction to our situation.”

“What is?”

“The way you’re touching me.”

There was a brief silence. When she spoke again, her voice was low and defiant. “I don’t care. I won’t have any regrets. Or don’t you like it?”

“That’s not the point.”

“When Juarez touched me, I felt as if a slimy lizard were crawling over my skin. Is that how I make you feel?”

“Of course not, but—”

“He plans to kill one of us tomorrow. He’ll probably start with me.”

“What makes you think that?”

“That Latin lover nonsense was just for show. A Delta Force commando is more of a prize as a hostage than a special events planner for the Winston Hotel chain.”

Just as he thought, she was no fool. He’d come to the same conclusion himself.

“So why shouldn’t I spend my last few hours touching you?” she finished.

He twined his fingers with hers and brought their joined hands to his chest. “I’ve already explained that. You can’t keep thinking every minute is going to be your last. Life goes on, and that’s the hard part.”

There was a silence. “That’s a strange thing to say,” she murmured.

“Forget it.”

“No. I want to know what you meant.”

“When we get out of here, I’ll tell you, okay?”

“How can we get out? We’re unarmed, we don’t know where we are, neither of us can walk far let alone walk fast and—”

“Don’t give up, Glenna. You’re stronger than that.”

“Am I?”

“Yes. You’ve gotten this far, haven’t you?”

She sighed. “Do you think our government is going to release Arturo Juarez?”

He hesitated. “What’s your guess?”

“From what I saw of this place, these drug smugglers are very rich and powerful. You said the local police were probably involved, didn’t you?”

“It’s the only way to explain what happened at the airport. We hadn’t known Leonardo Juarez was operating out of Rocama. To have a base as well established as this house, his influence must stretch all the way to the top levels of the government. Someone had to have been bribed back at the airport in Jamaica, as well, so the hijackers could get aboard your flight in the first place.”

“It must have been tough to apprehend a member of the Juarez family. I don’t think our government is going to let him go.”

“That’s my guess, too. But either way, I’m not going to let you die. I promise you.”

“Why do I believe you, Rafe?” She pressed her head to the hollow of his shoulder. “I don’t understand. I never believe promises, but I believe you. Is that a reaction to the situation, too?”

“No. I’m just a trustworthy kind of guy.”

She made a sound that was too shaky to be a laugh. “And isn’t it just my luck that we have to meet like this?”

“A woman like you must have someone waiting for her to come home. You must have your pick of men.”

“A woman like me?”

“Refined, classy.” He lowered his head, catching the scent of lemons. “Beautiful,” he added softly.

“Thank you.”

“And once you get home, you’re going to regret what you’re doing now.”

“You’re wrong. I have no one, Rafe. No boyfriend or lover to go home to. Only a day planner full of appointments and an apartment full of books.” She rubbed her lips against his chin. “So don’t tell me about regrets.”

He tipped his head away. “Glenna, don’t.”

“Why? Are you married?”

“No.”

“Then do you have a girlfriend or a fiancée?”

“With this face?”

She braced the heel of her hand against his chest and lifted her head. Her features were no more than a pale blur, but the fierceness in her expression was somehow immediately discernible. “That man shouldn’t have called you ugly, Rafe.”

“Hey, I’m used to it. I know what I look like.”

“That’s got nothing to do with it.”

“Are we talking about the same thing here? Didn’t you get a good look at me in the light?”

“If you mean your scars, yes, I saw that. I had already felt them.”

“What?”

She brought her hand to his face. Butterfly light, she brushed his ruined cheek. “When you were unconscious, I felt them. I can’t imagine how painful it must have been.”

He jerked his head away from her touch.

“I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”

“No.” And that was another lie. The pain she caused wasn’t physical, like the ache in his leg, but it was no less tangible.

She sounded as if she actually cared. She didn’t, of course. The tenderness in her voice and in her fingers was merely a byproduct of this situation. It was textbook hostage-scenario psychology. She was grateful to him, she regarded him as her rescuer, she was mistaking gratitude for attraction.

He couldn’t take this personally. He could have been anyone else and she would have been behaving the same way. Any warm body would do in the dark. She needed comfort, she needed understanding. She sure didn’t need his own body reacting as if this were real. He would be the worst kind of bastard if he took advantage of her vulnerability.

She curled her legs and snuggled against him, pressing her breasts to his chest. “What you look like makes no difference to me, Rafe.”

There, she had just proved him right, he thought. “Glenna…”

“It’s what you are inside that matters.”

God help him if that was the case, because he was as much a monster on the inside as he was on the outside. “Glenna, you don’t know me.”

“You’re wrong. I’ve seen what you do.”

“All I am is a man trying to do his job.”

“Are all you Delta Force heroes so noble?”

He snorted. “I told you before, I’m no hero. And I’m sure as hell not noble.”

“Then there’s no reason you can’t hold me, right?” She lifted his arm and draped it over her shoulder. “You did it before.”

He didn’t want to argue with her twisted logic. “Glenna, we should be conserving our energy right now. Try to rest.”

“Mmm. You said we should wait two hours before we move, right?”

“More like one hour, forty-eight minutes now.”

“Then we have enough time.”

“For what?”

Her breath tingled over his lips. “For this,” she whispered, pressing her mouth to his.

He could blame it on surprise, but he’d known this was coming. He could blame it on his weakened state, but he’d been in worse shape than this before and had remained in control of the situation. So there really was no excuse for the way he sat there and let her kiss him.

Oh, man, it felt good. Her lips were cool and sweet and he could have wished that the moment might last forever. He could have wished it, but he didn’t. He knew better. The deeper they got into this now, the worse it was going to be when they were back in the world.

He said her name, a caution, a warning. But instead of pulling back, she slid her tongue along his parted lips.

The intimate contact jolted him. Had he thought she was cool? No, there was passion in this woman. He’d known that from the moment he’d focused his binoculars on her face. He’d wanted to know what was beneath her layer of control. Now she was showing him.

But she thought he was noble, she thought he was a hero. She wouldn’t be kissing him if she knew the truth.

He clasped her cheeks. He started to ease her head away.

She made a low sound in her throat and thrust her tongue into his mouth.

Rafe shuddered. Instead of pushing her away, he slid his fingers into her hair and returned the kiss. One hour, forty-one minutes, he thought. Then they had to stop. Then they had to move.

In the meantime, he was enough of a bastard to give her what she wanted.




Chapter 4


It was what she wanted, Glenna thought. His kiss was like the beauty of his eyes or the silkiness of his hair, an unexpected glimpse of the man beneath the scars. Strong. Sensitive. Fascinating.

He kissed the same way as he talked, straight-ahead and to the point. His lips were firm, moving over hers in a sensuous exploration as he rubbed and tasted, making her head spin. And yet he was gentle when he slipped his tongue into her mouth. He probed slowly, as if he were giving her a chance to change her mind.

But Glenna had no second thoughts. No, she didn’t think of anything other than how good it felt to have Rafe’s mouth on hers and his fingers in her hair. She needed this contact with him to push away the horror that was waiting, crouching in the corners of their prison like the rats that scurried in the shadows…

She squeezed her eyes shut so tightly she saw bursts of red behind her lids. No, she wouldn’t let the fear win. She wouldn’t remember the feel of Leonardo Juarez’s hand on her skin or the blank stare from his reptile eyes. She’d block out the sensation of the pilot’s blood on her cheek and the bullets that had whined past her head. She wouldn’t dwell on the death that threatened them. She would focus on Rafe, her rescuer, her rock. She opened her mouth, urging him wordlessly to give her more.

He understood. He gave her more. His fingers tunneled into her hair, cupping her head as he leaned over her. He held her steady as his exploration turned to conquest. His tongue plunged alongside hers in a rhythm that sent echoes through her body.

She trembled. It was only a kiss. Just a kiss. But heat pooled between her legs so swiftly it was painful.

The blatantly carnal response might have shocked her if she’d allowed herself to think. Her experience with sex consisted of tame, pleasant lovemaking on clean sheets, but that life was too far away to matter. And what she felt was more urgent than sex, more primitive than desire. It was the mindless urge to mate.

It was madness to feel this here, to feel it now. But she had faced her own death this afternoon. There was a good possibility that she would die tomorrow. The old concepts of right and wrong didn’t apply. She was alive. She was following her instincts. This was keeping the fear at bay. She didn’t even feel the pain of her scraped knees rasping over the cement floor as she hiked up her skirt, flung her leg over Rafe’s and straddled his lap.

He was hard. Everywhere. She put her hands on his chest, spreading her fingers over the tight weave of his jumpsuit, tracing the ridges of his muscles with her thumbs. This time he didn’t stop her. He pressed his back against the wall, grasped her hips and tugged her closer.

Dimly she realized he had repositioned her in order to ease her thigh away from his bullet wound. He’d taken that bullet while he’d tried to save her. He’d risked his life for her. The thought didn’t check her spiraling arousal, it only shifted it to a more elemental level.

She leaned into him, brushing her breasts across his chest. It felt good, oh, so good, but it wasn’t enough. She pulled up her blouse, then reached behind her and fumbled to undo her bra, her fingers shaking in her eagerness. The closure parted with a soft snap.

He pulled back his head, breaking the kiss. “Glenna.”

She recognized the caution in his tone, but she didn’t listen. She only heard the undertone of need that echoed her own. She grasped his wrists, trying to move his hands from her hips to her bare breasts but he didn’t budge.

“Glenna, we have to stop.”

“Rafe, touch me.”

“You’re reacting to the stress,” he said, his voice rough. “You’re on a high. You don’t really want—”

“I want you, Rafe.”

He expelled his breath on a short, muttered obscenity. But he didn’t move his hands. Instead, he curled forward and pressed his face between her breasts.

The beard stubble on his jaw scraped over her tender skin. His breath was hot on her chest. Then he turned his head and his breath whispered over her nipple.

Glenna gasped, her nipples swelling and hardening instantly. Her flesh was so sensitive the mere movement of air made her shudder. She bit her lip, some corner of her brain that still functioned telling her not to scream, but when he didn’t move, when he didn’t take what she’d bared for him, she was unable to stop the whimper of longing. She released his wrists and grasped his head, guiding herself toward him. “Rafe…please…”

As tenderly as a sunlit breeze, his lips traced the curve of her breast.

He understood. That didn’t surprise her. There was a bond between them. She’d sensed it from the first moment she’d looked into his eyes. “More,” she said.

“Glenna—”

“Now. I need…more.”

He rolled her nipple on his tongue, then drew it into his mouth and sucked.

She was panting now. She heard the soft noises she made and was helpless to stop. She grasped his shoulders and raised her body so she could rub against the long, firm bulge at his groin. She felt no shame. There wasn’t room for it.

Rafe tipped back his head and moved his hands to her waist. He lifted her up enough to stop her movements. “We can’t, Glenna.”

She trembled. Dammit, they could. They had to. This could be her last chance. It could be her final night on earth and she wasn’t going to waste it. She’d tiptoed through her life. She wanted to let go, to feel, to love, to lose control. “Rafe, please! Don’t stop. Don’t make me beg.”

He swore again. He lifted her off him completely, laying her on her back on the floor. Then he stretched out beside her, brought his mouth back to hers and slipped his hand under her skirt.

At the first touch of his fingers, she started to shake. She was so close to the edge. So close. When he moved his thumb, she cried into his mouth and let the passion take her. Release surged over her in wave after shuddering wave.

Yes. Yes! She sobbed, squeezing her thighs shut on his hand, holding him there, prolonging the moment. Yes, oh yes, oh yes. This was good. This was real. The rest wasn’t. The rest she wouldn’t think about. Only this man. Only Rafe with his battered face and his gentle gaze and his magic, magic touch.

The waves built and crested again, carrying her hips off the floor. Glenna flung out her arms and arched upward, holding her breath, her body tensing, shaking, straining…

She shattered suddenly. The tension drained, leaving her limp and sobbing. She was still sobbing as Rafe straightened her clothes and pulled her into his arms.

He stroked her hair, his large, strong hand cupping her head. “Shh,” he whispered. “It’ll be all right.”

She nuzzled into the hollow of his shoulder. He was still rigid. “Rafe, we can’t stop yet…you didn’t…”

“Go to sleep.”

“I can’t.” She lifted her hand to his chest. Her arm felt boneless, as if her strength had drained along with her tension. She tried to focus her thoughts, but it was as if the passion had shut down her mind.

And that’s what she’d really wanted.

Had he understood that, too? “Rafe…”

“Glenna, trust me. You can.”



Rafe checked the clock in his head. Only eight minutes left and the two hours would be up. He would have to wake her soon.

On the other hand, would it make that much difference whether they moved in eight minutes or eighteen? His timetable had been arbitrary. Their odds wouldn’t be much different if they waited a while longer. Glenna needed the rest.

And the truth was, Rafe wasn’t looking forward to waking her. As long as she was lying so soft and trusting in his arms, her hand riding his chest, her head nestled into the crook of his neck, he could delay the inevitable regrets.

What he had done was inexcusable. She had an excuse, he didn’t. He’d never intended to let things go so far. He’d taken advantage of her. Sure, she’d practically begged him, and yes, he’d given her more than one opportunity to stop, and okay, she’d benefited from the release of tension. She’d been pumping adrenaline, strung out with nerves, in no condition for an escape attempt, but now that she had caught some sleep, her mind and body would be better equipped to handle whatever might happen.

But he hadn’t been thinking about that when he’d touched her. No, he hadn’t kissed her because he figured that would help her relax. His motives had been purely selfish.

He wanted her. Plain and simple. Nothing noble about that. Being left in a state of acute discomfort hadn’t detracted from the pleasure he’d gained from giving Glenna pleasure. Even knowing that she’d used him hadn’t made any difference.

And she had used him, he reminded himself. He could have been anyone. People reacted to stress in a wide variety of ways. Over the years, he’d seen it all. Some got hysterical, screaming and crying out their fears. Some withdrew into the total escape of catatonia. Some did what Glenna had done, desperately channeling all the flight-fight hormones that were stirred up by the fear into an equally primitive emotion—lust. He’d felt it himself when he’d rolled on top of her, back when he’d first awakened in this room. She probably didn’t even understand what had come over her. He couldn’t take it personally. As he’d already told himself, any warm body would have served her equally well in the dark.

Unlike her, though, he had no illusions. He knew what was going to happen if they ever got out of here. As soon as she got back to her high-powered job and manicured men, she’d realize how low she’d sunk. She’d be aghast at her behavior. She’d look on him with revulsion. She’d pretend she’d never done anything so sordid as make love with a virtual stranger—an ugly stranger—on a concrete floor.

He dipped his head, burying his nose in Glenna’s hair. He inhaled her scent to block out the odor of the storeroom. Traces of her tangy-sweet perfume, hints of shampoo and the underlying scent of a warm female. Heady stuff. Almost made him wish…

He yanked his thoughts back on track before they could veer in that direction. They hadn’t made love, he reminded himself. They’d done a sexual act, that’s all. Not even a very good one, considering how quickly it had been over.

And it was over. No doubt about that. He couldn’t afford to be distracted by this woman again. He had to focus on getting her out safely. That was his job.

He pressed a kiss to her forehead. Six more minutes. Then they would move. He stroked his hand across her cheek…and his fingertips brushed the tracks of her dried tears.

Damn, he was a bastard. But what else was new? He moved his hand to her shoulder and gave her a gentle shake. “Glenna?”

She stretched briefly, her breasts pressing into his ribs, then she snuggled her head more tightly against his neck.

Rafe gritted his teeth and shook her again. “Glenna, wake up.”

She stilled. Her breathing changed from the slow, deep inhalations of sleep to shallow bursts. “Rafe?”

He could hear the confusion in her voice. He could imagine the dazed expression on her beautiful face. If they were anywhere else, he’d wake her up with a kiss and coax her body into awareness and—

No. If they were anywhere else, she wouldn’t even be with him. “I’ve been listening to the guards outside the door,” he said. “One of them left fifty minutes ago, so that leaves only two.”

She took her hand from his chest and rubbed her face. “I…I must have fallen asleep,” she said, her voice muffled.

“Yeah. I’m hoping the guards did, too, but even if they didn’t, the odds have improved.”

“I can’t believe I slept.”

“Feel better?”

“Yes, I—” She stopped suddenly. Her body tightened. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. She pushed herself out of his embrace and rolled away.

Well, that didn’t take long, he thought. He sat up, resting his arm on his bent knee. “Glenna—”

“Oh, my God. I can’t believe I…we…”

He was grateful for the darkness. He didn’t want to see the look on her face. “Forget it. Things happen. We have more important problems to worry about.”

She was silent for a while. “I’m sorry, Rafe,” she said finally. “I…I took advantage of you.”

That stunned him. She was apologizing? To him? “Glenna, I’m the one who owes you an apology.”

“No, you don’t. It was—”

“A mistake,” he said gruffly. “I shouldn’t have gone so far.”

“I wanted you to.”

“You were stressed-out and didn’t know what you were doing.”

“You’re wrong, Rafe. I know what I’m doing. I’m living.” Her fingers brushed his sleeve. Her voice steadied. “And I won’t have any regrets. I promised myself that.”

Yeah, right, he thought. “Like I said, you’re stressed-out. How’s the ankle?”

“My…” There was a shuffling sound. “It’s still sore.”

“Do you think you can walk on it?”

“I guess. Not far.”

“We’ll need a vehicle once we get out of the house.”

“Yes, I remember you mentioned that before.”

“Once we see where we are, we’ll make our way to an alternate extraction point and wait for my team.”

“Wouldn’t they have left by now?”

“They’ll come back.”

“Rafe?”

“What?”

“Whatever happens, I want you to know how grateful I am for everything you’ve done.” She slid her fingers down his sleeve to the back of his hand. “I’d never have gotten this far without you.”

“I don’t want your gratitude, Glenna.”

“It’s more than gratitude I feel for you, Rafe.”

He ground his teeth to keep from swearing. She might say she wouldn’t have any regrets, but the more she built this illusion in her head, the harder she was going to fall when it was over.

And the more she acted this way, the more he might start to wish it could be real…

Dammit, he didn’t have time to deal with Glenna and her tangled emotions now. He’d leave that to the army shrinks.

The six minutes were up. He pushed to his feet. At the change of position, the wound in his thigh throbbed suddenly, a reminder of the infection that was continuing to get worse. He took long, slow breaths until he brought the pain under control, then moved to the door.

It was quiet on the other side. He didn’t hear any conversation, but he didn’t hear snores, either. He couldn’t assume this was going to be easy.

He ran his palm down the door until he came to the lock. It was a run-of-the-mill hardware store dead bolt, keyed on both sides. Not much of a challenge if he had the right tools, but he hadn’t found anything useful on his previous survey of the storeroom.

He sensed Glenna’s presence behind him even before he caught a whiff of her perfume and felt the warmth that came from her body. Her voice was no more than a whisper in his ear. “What’s the plan?”

His pulse thudded at the tickle of her breath. That bothered him. He couldn’t afford to be distracted, he reminded himself. “We’re going to use the element of surprise. When I give you the word, start screaming.”

“Why?”

“Say you saw a mouse. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”

“No, I mean why do you want me to scream?”

“Distract the guards. Get them to open the door so I can jump them.”

“Wouldn’t they be expecting that?”

“I’ll move fast. I’ll make sure they don’t hurt you.”

“It would be easier to pick the lock and open the door ourselves, wouldn’t it?”

“Sure, if I had the tools, but—”

“What about some hairpins?”

He twisted to face her, lifting his hands to her hair. “Do you have some? I didn’t feel any when I…” When I kissed you, when I ran my fingers through your hair as I wanted to do from the moment I saw you… He dropped his hands. It was over. It shouldn’t have happened in the first place. He couldn’t afford to think about it. “I didn’t feel any an hour ago.”

“I lost most of them on the trip here. I took the rest out before you regained consciousness because my hair was such a mess….” She drew in her breath unsteadily. “What a stupid thing to have worried about.” She caught his hand and tugged him forward. “Help me look. They should still be on the floor somewhere.”



Both guards were leaning back in their chairs, the olive-green caps they wore shading their eyes from the bare lightbulb that hung from the corridor ceiling. As soon as the door cracked open, the closest man jumped to his feet and swung his gun toward them.

Rafe was on him before he could pull the trigger. He knocked the gun aside and drove his stiffened fingers into the man’s solar plexus as the second guard was getting to his feet. As the first man toppled, Rafe spun around and struck a swift blow to the side of the second man’s neck. Within seconds, both guards were sprawled unconscious on the floor.

Glenna blinked at the sudden ferocity of Rafe’s movements, then hobbled toward him when he gestured her forward. Maybe escape wouldn’t be as impossible as she’d feared. Now that they’d gotten past these guards—

Instead of going by, though, Rafe was leaning over the fallen men.

“What are you doing?” she whispered, grasping the back of one of the empty chairs for balance. “They’re out cold, aren’t they?”

“Buying us some time,” he said. He reached for the man’s belt and yanked it off.

“What?”

He gestured to the unconscious man in front of her. “I’d prefer not to kill them, so I want to tie them up and gag them to keep them from raising the alarm when they come to. You can help by taking off his belt.”

It made sense. She should have thought of it herself, but she didn’t have any experience in matters like these. No, arranging a fund-raising banquet or coordinating a conference didn’t have much to do with the skills involved in breaking out of a drug lord’s basement prison…

She focused on Rafe and somehow managed to tamp down the bubble of rising panic. He was moving swiftly and purposefully as he bound one guard’s hands behind his back with his belt. He emptied the man’s pockets, coming up with a lighter, a small ring of keys and a folding knife. After he crumpled the man’s cap into a rough ball and wedged it into his mouth, he fastened the gag in place with one of the guard’s boot laces, then grasped him under his arms and dragged him into the storeroom.

Glenna bent over and reached for the remaining guard’s belt buckle. It was a challenge to open because her fingers were shaking. But she couldn’t fall apart. She would think of Rafe. He had promised he’d get them out of here. She believed him. He wasn’t like the other men she’d known. They had a bond…

I’d prefer not to kill them.

That’s what he’d said. That meant he would have killed them if he’d had to. Of course. He was a soldier. That’s what soldiers did.

But his touch had been so tender, and he’d given her what she’d needed and held her while she’d slept and—

Oh, God, she couldn’t think of that now. If she did, she’d be no help to either of them. She pulled the belt free from the belt loops just as Rafe returned.

He bound and gagged the guard the same way as the other one and dragged him into the storeroom. When he reappeared, he was carrying a pair of boots and the guard’s clothing. “I left the laces in these ones. Take them,” he said, holding them out to her.

“Why?”

He dumped them into her arms and stooped over to pick up the guards’ discarded rifles. “You don’t have shoes and that skimpy top and skirt you’re wearing aren’t practical for jungle survival.”

She juggled the bundle of clothing and grasped the boots before they could fall to the floor. “Jungle…”

“We need to cover every contingency. We’re not in New York, princess.” He took the ammunition clip from one of the rifles and tucked it into another pocket on his jumpsuit. He slung the other rifle over his shoulder, slipped his arm around her waist and guided her down the corridor. “You can change later,” he said. “The first priority is getting us out of here.”

His tone was curt, his grip on her waist firm, yet he did his best to take most of her weight as they moved. She realized she had to be a burden to him. He had to be aware that he could probably get away faster without her. She stole a glance at his face.

Because of the wound in his left leg, he held her on his right side, just as he’d done when they’d been taken to meet Juarez. Glenna had a good view of his scars, but she still couldn’t see any ugliness. She saw his strength and his concern for her.

They reached the place where the corridor branched into three without encountering anyone. The corridor on the right led into the main part of the house. Rafe stopped and tilted his head to listen.

Glenna thought she heard footsteps until she realized it was the pounding of her pulse. She bit her lip and tried not to give in to the urge to run back.

He lowered his lips to her ear. “When they brought us here after they caught up to us at the airport, which way did they come?”

“From the left, I think.”

“Were there many twists? Changes in direction?”

“I don’t…” She swallowed hard and clutched her bundle of clothing to her chest. The image of Rafe’s limp body being dragged by two of Juarez’s henchmen rose without warning. Oh, God. She’d blocked that out. They’d been so rough. “Yes. Quite a few. It was awful. They kept bumping you into the corners and—”

“What else did you see? Any doors?”

“I saw a big room that looked like a lab.”

“What about the exit? How far is it?”

“There was a door that was set into a cement wall outside. It wasn’t wood like the ones upstairs. It was steel.”

“What was nearby?”

“It was dark and—”

“And you were scared out of your wits. I understand.” He spoke slowly, his words calm although she could feel tension humming through his body. “Think about where they parked. Picture that.”

She felt the truck jerk to a stop after it backed into place beside a platform, and she remembered Rafe sliding toward the tailgate… “A small loading bay with a set of steps. There were people all around. They might still be there.”

“Yeah. People in the drug business tend to work nights, especially if they’re running a refining operation in that lab you saw. That might not be the best way to—” He stopped abruptly and looked down the center corridor. “Someone’s coming. We can’t go that way.”

To her surprise, he started down the corridor on the right. “Rafe, this will take us into the house,” she said.

“I didn’t see any guards stationed there. They’re probably more concerned with keeping people out than keeping them in. Could be our best bet.”

The sound of voices came from behind them, then gradually started to fade. They must have turned the other way. Rafe didn’t slacken his pace. Glenna did her best to keep up with him, but by the time they reached the thick wooden door that led to the house, he was essentially carrying her on his hip. He set her on her feet and shifted the rifle from his back to his hands. “Hang on to my shoulder and stay behind me,” he ordered. He took the keys he’d found on the guard from his pocket. The fourth key he tried unlocked the door.

The crystal chandelier beside the staircase had been dimmed. In the semidarkness, the slender legs of the delicate antique tables along the wall looked skeletal, the flowers ghostly. Glenna took a deep breath and followed Rafe through the doorway, then winced at the noise as the wooden door clicked shut behind them.

A light shone from beneath the door of the room where Juarez had met them. Glenna imagined him lurking there, his mustache lifted in that oily smile as he waited to mock their escape attempt and take them back to that basement cell with the rats in the corners and the guards outside and—

Rafe grabbed her hand and pressed it against his shoulder, snapping her out of her temporary paralysis. Keeping his gun ready, he moved along the curve of the staircase in the opposite direction from Juarez’s office. Glenna gripped his shoulder for support and followed. The marble floor was cold beneath her feet. She hadn’t had time to notice it before, but now she was noticing everything. Her pulse was accelerating, her senses becoming so acute she was imagining footsteps again.

No, it wasn’t her imagination. She looked to their left, squeezing Rafe’s shoulder as she whispered a warning. A large figure moved on the other side of the wrought iron entrance doors.

Rafe spun around, clamped her to his chest and dove into the shadow beneath the curving staircase just as the doors clanged open.

Glenna couldn’t see who walked past. She couldn’t see anything. Somehow Rafe had managed to place himself between her and the rest of the foyer, sheltering her completely behind his black-clad body. She didn’t even dare to breathe as heavy footsteps vibrated across the marble floor.

A door opened. She heard Juarez’s voice call out a greeting. “Hello, Captain Aznar. You’re late. I wasn’t sure you were coming tonight.”

“I got held up in a meeting with those damned soldiers,” a low voice grumbled. “We have to change our plans.”

“No need. Everything is still progressing…”

A door closed and the voices cut off.

Rafe slid backward quickly, dragging her with him. “The front door is out,” he whispered. “Juarez’s visitor probably has a driver waiting for him.”

“Then what—”

“We head for a room at the back and find a window.” He returned her hand to his shoulder and started forward again. “As long as we keep clear of that loading bay you saw, with any luck we’ll be long gone before anyone thinks to bring us breakfast.”

He made it sound easy. It wasn’t. Three more times they had to make use of Rafe’s quick reflexes, his black clothing and the shadows to conceal themselves as they worked their way toward the back of the sprawling house. But at last they found an empty guest room that overlooked nothing but trees. Rafe detached the alarm wires that were around the window frame, opened the window and dropped to the ground with a grunt, then held out his arms to help Glenna.

By this time, Glenna’s ankle was too painful to allow her to do more than hop. She hadn’t realized that he was aware of her growing discomfort, since he hadn’t allowed them to slow down, but of course, he was. He pressed her into the wall under the window, using his body to shelter her and to hold her up as a pair of men with rifles walked past. As soon as the men disappeared around the corner of the house, Rafe scooped her into his arms. He carried her to a pale strip of a road that curved toward the blackness of the rain forest. “Stay here,” he said, setting her down behind the concealment of a bush. “I’ll find us some transportation.”





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