Shoot to Thrill (20 page)

Nathan Daneby.
What would it be like to come face-to-face with the legend himself?
The legend she’d decided to sleep with after knowing for all of five seconds
. Except, it hadn’t been Nathan Daneby at all. It had been Kick impersonating him. And worse, she’d slept with him anyway.

“Will he be there?” she asked, uncertain if she actually wanted to meet the real thing. Talk about embarrassing.

“One can always hope.” Kick’s face was averted but his voice suddenly sounded angry as he shoved things into the backpack.

Hello?

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

Even in the darkness of the cave she could see his shoulders stiffen. “Nope.”

Surely, he wasn’t jealous—

Oh, sure.
She must really be living in some fairyland to think Kick might be jealous of another man just because she admired him.

Suddenly something else hit her. “You’re not leaving! Are you? You’re going to stay and finish your mission.”

“That’s why I’m here, Rainie,” he clipped out. “It’s been a rough start, but nothing’s changed except having to get you to safety first.”

Ah. So no jealousy involved. He was just angry over having to postpone the mission while he got rid of her. That made much more sense.

Okay, then.

“In that case, I guess we’d better go find Marc,” she said, which for some reason earned her a scowl.

But she didn’t have time to think about that, because for the next hour she was too busy trying to keep up with Kick as he scaled the cliff to the plateau, then strode through the darkness toward the closest high outcropping in sight, all the while picking his way carefully so as to leave as little trail as possible. Then they climbed the outcropping. Which was more like a small mountain once they got up close. To be fair, he did ask if she wanted to stay behind at the bottom. But no way was she letting him leave her alone again. So she determinedly shook her head and scrambled up after him.

At the top she practically collapsed in exhaustion.
He’d
been more winded after they had sex. She definitely needed to get to the gym more often.

Pulling the flashlight out of his pocket, he blinked it on and off as he turned slowly in a half circle, facing the general direction where the other parachute had gone down.

A moment later there was an answering flash. A solitary pinpoint of light.

“There!” she said. “Is that him?”

Kick just grunted and clicked out a flurry of long and short flashes. A somewhat longer series of flashes came back.

Finally he nodded, his expression grim. “Yup. It’s Lafayette. And he’s hurt.”

“YOU
have a visitor, Dr. Cappozi.”

Gina glanced up from the microscope she was working at and blinked her eyes into focus. She’d been staring into the damn thing for hours now, evaluating the fragile molecular bonding of the new strain of RSV she needed to perfect before her grant ran out. Pediatric respiratory syncitial virus wasn’t one of the sexy diseases that got tons of research money, and there was a good way to go yet . . . But wouldn’t it be amazing to be personally responsible for eliminating one more threat to children, once and for all?

“Hey, what are you doing here so late, Yolanda?” Gina asked, pinching the bridge of her nose. Yolanda was one of her graduate students, usually gone by dinner. It had to be after nine PM. Didn’t time fly when you were having fun.

“Just finishing up some paperwork, Doc. You want I should let him into the lab?”

“Who?”

“Your visitor.”

Gina jumped off her stool. “Wait.
Him?
” There was only one
him
it could possibly be.

Gregg van Halen stuck his head around the door. “Hi.”

Standing behind one broad shoulder, Yolanda waggled her brows with a knowing grin. “I’ll be going now, Doc. See you Thursday.”

Before Gina could open her mouth to protest, Yolanda had vanished and van Halen had slipped in. A high-tech motorcycle helmet tucked under one arm, he casually leaned his back against the reinforced glass door. Which was the only way out of the lab.

“Mr. van Halen,” Gina said nervously. Not because she was afraid he’d hurt her or anything. He’d had plenty of opportunity to overpower her last night as she’d scraped together the strength to turn down his outrageously tempting offer to accompany her upstairs. Lord, the back of her neck still tingled where he’d brushed his lips over her skin in parting, and she could swear the imprint of his fingers lingered hotly on her hips.

You got it. She was nervous because she was terrified he’d renew his efforts at seduction, and that this time she wouldn’t be able to resist. Lord have mercy, he was everything she
didn’t
like in a man—rigid of bearing, conservative in style, muscle-bound and huge in body, and at least five years older than she was. Yet, there you go. Gregg van Halen was the sexiest thing to cross her path in decades. Maybe ever.

“Don’t you think we’ve moved beyond formal last names?” he said, something dark swirling in his deep voice.

“Definitely not.”

Intellectually, she knew the only reason he wanted to have sex with her was to shut her up. He hadn’t even tried to deny the accusation last night.

“No, you want me to stop asking questions,” she’d said when he pulled her body tight against his and whispered roughly in her ear, “I want you.” “You think if I sleep with you, it’ll be easier to do damage control.”

He hadn’t said a word at her allegation, just exhaled and kissed the back of her neck, then let her go and went back to the waiting taxi. His easy capitulation had produced a long breath of relief.

Which now seemed to be stuck in her throat.

She frowned at him. “How did you get into the building? It’s supposed to be secure.”

“You forget, I have top-secret government clearance,” he said, finally unpropping himself from the door. He dropped his helmet on a counter and came toward her.

Her heartbeat took off like a scared rabbit.
Whoa, hello.
What was
wrong
with her? She usually ate men for breakfast, but this Neanderthal was turning her into a frightened idiot.

“I have news,” he said. “I thought you’d want to hear it right away.” His handsome face turned distinctly grave.

And just like that she snapped to, forgetting all about her own problems and only thinking of Rainie. Fear blasted through her. “Please tell me you found her.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

She gripped the edge of the high counter littered with her experiments. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Gina, I think you should sit down.”

Alarm screamed in her head. “Just tell me.”

“All right.” He moved a few steps closer. She could smell the leather of his jacket. Musky. Masculine. “It seems Ms. Martin volunteered to accompany one of our officers, a certain Kyle Jackson, when he flew to join a mission. As you said, she’s a nurse, and Jackson had some medical issues to deal with.”

Flew?
Gina’s jaw dropped so far it was in danger of hitting the linoleum floor. “You can’t be serious. Lorraine Martin would
never
voluntarily set foot in a car, let alone an airplane. My God, she’d be terrified the whole time and totally useless.”

“Nevertheless”—he shrugged—“she did.”

Gina closed her mouth and folded her arms over her abdomen.
Uh-uh.
That
so
did not happen. This only clinched that her friend really
was
in trouble. And this guy was either part of it, covering it up, or totally clueless. “Thank you. I—”

“There’s more.”

She glanced at him sharply. “What is it?”

“Their plane went down.”

Gina’s heart stuttered to a stop. “
What?
Oh, my God! Is she hurt?”

“I’m sorry.” Van Halen’s eyes met hers unflinchingly. “The plane blew up. Jackson and Ms. Martin are among the missing. Both are presumed dead.”

IT
took them another hour of hard hiking before they made it to the massive jumble of jagged rock that Marc was using for cover.

He wasn’t hard to find. They just followed the sound of colorful Cajun curses.

You didn’t get a lot of Cajuns in New York City, but Rainie recognized enough of the words from high school French that her ears burned.

When they saw him, she understood why he was cursing. The side of his face and head were covered in blood, and he was grinding his teeth so hard his cheeks were chalk white. One arm hung limp at his side. His face was wreathed in pain as he walked unsteadily out from deep among the rocks, dragging the backpack.

“Glad to see you made it,
mes amis
,” he gritted out.

“Likewise, Lafayette,” Kick said, grabbing up the backpack for him. “Jesus, you look like hell. Please tell me that’s not a bullet in your head.”

“
Non
. No bullet. Just a damn haircut,” Lafayette said, swiping the blood from his eyes as he collapsed back against a boulder. “Maybe a few broken ribs.” He swallowed a groan. “And the arm, of course.”

“My God, what happened?” Rainie peered closer. Fresh blood was seeping from a thin gash in the left side of his head. It slashed through his hair from the temple and back about three inches. Talk about a close shave. His right arm was obviously broken. And the way he gripped his right side hinted that the ribs were indeed cracked.

Hell.
The man needed medical attention.

“Landed badly trying to avoid the rocks,” he said, his grimace flashing into a surprisingly convincing grin. “Didn’t quite succeed. Good thing you’re a medic.”

“Nurse practitioner, actually. And without supplies,” she muttered. “Unless you count aspirin.”
And condoms.
But there were at least bandages and antiseptic. That would help.

He shrugged, and let out another curse at the movement. “Jus’ do what you can,
cher
. I’m tough, me.”

She could believe it. The man was nearly as tall as Kick, and muscular in the way of a guy who liked to work out. Or maybe he’d spent time on a Louisiana chain gang breaking rocks.
Yikes.

She sent Kick a look, and he gave her a nod of encouragement.

Right. “
I’ll need the first aid kit.”

Kick slid the pack from his back and dropped it next to her, then went onto a knee next to the one he’d taken from Marc. “You’ve got the SATCOM, righ—Ah,
hell
, no.”

Marc winced. “Yeah, we’re screwed,
boug
.”

She looked up from the first aid kit. Her heart stalled. The second pack was in tatters.

“Landed even harder on the rocks than I did.”

“The radio?” she asked anxiously.

“Doesn’t look good.”

“Maybe y’all can get it to work. I kept drippin’ blood on the thing. Figured better to wait.”

Kick pulled it out of the pack and swore softly. “Housing’s cracked.” He tried the switch. Nothing happened. “Any idea how to fix these things?”

“
Désolé
. Electronics, never my strong suit.”

“Mine, either.”

To her surprise, they both glanced at her. “Don’t look at me,” she said, and started cleaning the bloody wound on Marc’s head.

Kick swore long and hard. “So much for the rescue helicopter.”

“Guess we’ll jus’ have to hoof it,” Lafayette said.

Kick swore again.

“What’sa matter, Jackson? ’Fraid you can’t keep up?”

“Hell, don’t relish dragging your sorry ass across half of Africa, is all.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked. “You can’t mean
walk
! With his ribs and arm like this?” Not to mention the terrorists in the Jeeps.

Kick handed her a roll of bandages. “No choice. For obvious reasons, our best option is to head for the DFP refugee camp in the Nile Valley.”

“
Mais, non!
” Marc protested. “That’s in the opposite direction from the insurgent camp.”

“And your point is?”

“I’m good to complete the mission,” Lafayette argued.

“The
mission
?” Rainie cut in, appalled. “Are you in
sane
?” Dedication was one thing, but this was ridiculous. “Not even counting the broken ribs that could slip and puncture a lung, you see this ugly bump here? That’s a displaced fracture of the radius. In this heat, it could easily go septic. Either of those things happens and you’re a very dead man.”

“I let terrorists blow up our embassy,” he ground out, “I may as well be dead, me.”

“Not going to happen,” Kick said. “I’ll make sure of that.”

A chill went down her spine at the steely bitterness in Kick’s voice. In his eyes the pupils had swallowed up all the blue so they were like black holes in his face.

“Wait, now,” she said uneasily. “You said we’re going to the DFP camp.”

The two men exchanged a look. Marc said, “You go get the bads,
ami
. I’ll take care of her.”

She choked. “I hate to break it to you, but you’re in no shape to take care of yourself, let alone anyone else.”

“She’s right. You can’t risk those ribs by carrying a heavy pack, and your shooting arm is broken.”

Even in the darkness she could see Lafayette scowl, wiping sweat from his brow. “There’s a village about twenty clicks to the east. You leave me there.”

“And take the woman with me? No fucking way,” Kick said. “And no fucking way am I leaving her anywhere that isn’t safe.”

She blinked at the ferocity of the statement. She wanted to believe that fierce protectiveness was for her, Rainie. Too bad he’d said “the woman” instead of her name. She suddenly got the feeling something else was going on in his mind. That he was thinking of a different mission. One where “the woman” might not have survived.

She took a cleansing breath.
None of her business.

“How far is it to this DFP camp?” she asked, resolving to do everything he asked and be as little trouble as possible.

“About seventy-five miles, give or take.”

Whoa.
“
Seventy-five?
” She was in decent shape but . . . good Lord.