Shoot to Thrill (36 page)

She passed the bottle back to him. “All right. Let’s take a page from their own book. Create a diversion. Were there any explosives in that field pack?”

The first thing he’d thought of, too. “Yeah, but what do we blow up? And how do they not think it’s an attack on the camp so they don’t kill the prisoner?”

Her lips turned down. “True. Okay, how about we stampede the camels through the camp and create a panic.”

“With two camels?”

“Well,
I’d
be panicked.”

He couldn’t help chuckling. “Yeeeah.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Okay. So, we,
um
. . . We take one of
them
hostage and make a trade.” She glanced at him hopefully.

The moon had risen, painting a silvery glow over the brown of the desert, and reflected bright twin crescents in her eyes. She was so beautiful it almost hurt to look at her.

“Uh-huh,” he said, swallowing away the pain of knowing she would never be his. “I was thinking along those same lines.”
Sort of.

She perked up. “Really? So who do we snatch? And how do we—”

“I was thinking more of using
me
as a hostage. Trade myself for the prisoner.” Well actually, more like turn himself into a prisoner. Your basic Trojan Horse bang-and-grab scenario. The only thing he could think of that had a prayer of succeeding. Maybe not exactly fifty-fifty odds, but definitely in the double digits. Possibly. If things went down perfectly.

She blinked, surprised. Clearly undecided as to whether or not he was serious. She nibbled her lip. “Okay,” she said, “that sex thing is sounding pretty good about now. You’re obviously delusional and need a break from the strain.”

She did not, however, start taking off her clothes.

“Look—”

“Are you
insane
?” she demanded, cutting off the explanation—okay, rationalization—he was formulating. “There is no flipping
way
you are doing that.”

“Rainie—”

“No.”

“Just hear me—”

“
No!
” She jumped to her feet and started to pace across the wadi. “How can you even
think
—”

“Get the hell
down
!” He grabbed her arm and yanked her onto her butt.

“
Oof.
”

“Goddamn it, for any of this to work,
you
, at least, need to stay alive.”

“No one’s out there patrolling. You said we’re too far awa—”

“I don’t care what I said. You are not to take chances with your safety!”

“Oh, oh, but it’s okay for
you
to just walk into that nest of terrorists with your hands on your head and expect me to—”

“Damn it, Rainie, we don’t have a choice here! Besides—”

“There’s always a goddamn choice!” Her eyes were shooting flames now, and her fingers held onto his arms so hard it would take the jaws of life to pry them off.

Hello? Who are you and what have you done with the timorous Miss Martin?

This
woman was a warrior.

A strong, sexy, amazing, confident warrior queen.

God, if she turned him on before, this version of Rainie made him want to get down on his knees and howl like a caveman.

Daaamn.

He slid his hand behind her neck and pulled her to him. Before either of them knew what he was doing, he’d covered her mouth with his and rolled her under him. In a motion he had her Bedouin robe over her head and—there was a God—she hadn’t put her clothes back on after last time they made love. She was soft and lush and desperately welcoming, and completely, soul-permeatingly naked.

This time the buttons on his DCUs didn’t give her warrior fingers the least bit of trouble. They were down around his ankles in record time.

And then he was inside her.

Oh. My. Sweet. Lord. This was where he wanted to be. Forever and always. Not tortured and dead in some—

Not going there.
Not now.

He kissed her and kissed her, thrusting his cock in so deep he was momentarily afraid he’d hurt her. But she just moaned low and wrapped her legs even tighter around his waist. “Oh, Kick.”

It sounded so sweet on her lips. But suddenly he needed more. “My real name’s Kyle,” he told her, almost hesitantly.

She looked up at him, her face a portrait of exquisite pleasure. She smiled.

“Kyle,” she whispered into his mouth, and for a second he couldn’t move, hung in suspended animation. No one had ever called him by his real name before while making love. It felt . . .

He broke through his emotional paralysis, pulled out of her and thrust back in. “Say it again,” he wanted.

Wanted to test it. Roll it around on his senses. The sound of his real name wrapped in a moan of need. Test the way it made him feel. The unbelievable reality of someone truly wanting Kyle Jackson, of someone calling it out loud, not with hate or disgust, but with love.

“Kyle,” she breathed, that love so obvious in her beautiful green eyes that it almost made him believe in miracles. Except if this truly were a miracle, he wouldn’t have to go out there tomorrow and sacrifice his life for a man he didn’t even know.

Or maybe . . . Maybe this was the punishment and penance demanded of Kick to redeem all the bad he had done in his lifetime. Maybe if he did this one noble, unthinkable deed, sacrificed the only good thing that had ever come to him, gave up the only woman he’d ever loved, maybe then his sins would truly be forgiven.

“I love you, Kyle,” she whispered.

And his heart bled.

I love you, too, Lorraine Martin,
he wanted to say to her. Over and over. But didn’t dare. Instead, he bit his tongue and held her tight, tight, tight. Wishing he didn’t know for certain what he must do. Tonight. Before she woke up and stopped him.
More than you’ll ever know.

KICK
moved.

Rainie awoke abruptly. One nanosecond she was asleep, dreaming of making sweet, wonderful love to Kick—Kyle—and the next nanosecond she was awake, filled with the certain knowledge that he was slowly, gingerly, trying to extricate his protective arm from around her body.

Goddamn it.

He was actually planning to do it. To go to the insurgent camp to exchange himself for that damn prisoner he’d probably hallucinated to begin with. Honest to God, what did he think those terrorists would do when he showed up and asked them to let their prisoner go and he’d take his place?

Laugh in his face, and then shoot him in the head. That’s what they’d do.

Worse, he’d planned to do it without telling her.

Before he’d moved five inches, she grabbed his arm. “I don’t
think
so.”

“Baby—”

“Don’t you
dare
‘baby’ me, Kyle Jackson.” Even in the moonlit darkness she saw him wince.

She couldn’t
believe
he would do this. After last night. After they’d both let their emotions tumble out and light up the night with more sparks than the meteor shower that had rained over them in the magical lull between two amazing sessions of lovemaking. He hadn’t said the words she longed to hear, but his feelings had shone through in living color.

But now this. She didn’t know whether to cry, or shake him in frustration until his teeth rattled.

“You were going to leave me here, weren’t you? While you go off and sacrifice yourself in some kind of PTSD- induced guilt-fest.”

“Wow, that was harsh,” he said, looking wounded. “And no, I wasn’t leaving. Not for good, anyway. Not yet.”

“Oh, great. You aren’t killing yourself until tonight. That makes me feel
so
much better.”

He let out a huff. “I have no intention of killing myself, Rain. I’ve been thinking. About your idea with the explosives. About a diversion.”

She glared at him for a long second. “You really think they’d fall for it? I mean, you said yourself, it’s the oldest trick in the book.”

“Then we better pray they don’t know how to read.”

She backpedaled. “I know it was my suggestion, but there has to be another way.” How could a desperate Hail Mary like that possibly work? Especially with only two of them to execute it? Two dozen against two weren’t great odds. Especially when it was really more like two dozen against one and a half because of Rainie’s total lack of training.

“If there is another way, I can’t think of it,” he said. “And it’s hard enough leaving you unprotected out here without you making me feel even more guilty about it. So please, enough with the recriminations, okay?”

She sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said, and she was. That crack about PTSD was uncalled for. However . . . the fear behind it was all too real. She knew him. He’d play the hero and end up dead.
Deep breath. Let it out.
“But you have to promise to take me with you this morning.”

“Rainie, there’s no need to—”

She
knew
it. “I swear to God, Kick, if you don’t let me help you set this up, I will shoot you myself.” At his expression of incredulity, she added, “Dude. You seriously don’t want to test me. I’m an ER nurse and know exactly where to place a bullet to incapacitate but not kill, and I’m getting damn good at tying stuff to camels.”

He actually choked out a laugh. She narrowed her eyes but he held up a hand, sobering. “Fine. You win. This is going to take both of us to succeed, so you should probably be in from the start.”

She sagged in relief. “Good. I really wasn’t looking forward to shooting you.”

His gaze softened. “Yeah, like you could have done that.”

Then he kissed her, and with his lips on hers so warm and loving, she knew without doubt that . . . yeah, she could. She’d do anything in the world, anything at all, to keep him from dying.

Because
he
would do anything in the world, anything at all, to keep that hostage from dying.

He was a better man than she would ever be.

And she wanted him. In her life.

Yeah, for always.

THEY
ate a fortifying if fairly yucky breakfast of MREs and lukewarm sun tea, then Kick gathered the supplies he needed and stowed them carefully in his DCU pockets. Today he was wearing cammies head to ankle, looking handsome and dangerous as all get-out. He’d made Rainie wear one of his extra cammie T-shirts with her jeans, and today she covered her hair and arms with the khaki parachute-silk
kaffiyeh
he’d made for her after the crash, rather than the brightly visible white Bedouin head shawl.

“We’ll only take one of the camels, to save time,” he told her, “and leave it hidden while we nail down the plan details and place the explosives.”

They’d talked it out, and the idea was to rig up a diversionary explosion which Rainie would set off tonight, creating an opening for Kick to rush into the chaos and grab the prisoner. Meanwhile, she’d circle around to the other side with the camels and pick up Kick and the hostage there, then all three would ride hell-bent for the Egyptian border. STORM would already have been radioed beforehand and the air strike coordinated. With any luck that would catch the insurgents before they lit out in pursuit of them.

Pretty standard—and predictable—strategy. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the time, supplies, or numbers to get more creative. It was their only shot.

When they reached the hills, Kick hobbled the camel and they climbed up to the top of the ridge to study the camp below. She was nervous as hell being this close. She still remembered the mouth-drying terror she’d felt that first day hiding in the cave after the plane crash, and those awful men nearly finding her. Not to mention Kick’s horrific story.

The good news was that this time she wasn’t on the verge of a panic attack. She really was better.

Kick passed her a bottle of water.

“If we do this, what about abu Bakr?” she asked.

Kick grimaced, pulling out his binoculars. “With any luck I’ll run into the bastard during the rescue and can nail him then.”

Despite her continued ambivalence on the subject, she knew he would hate not completing his real mission. She’d come a long way on this journey, not just in mileage, but in mind-set. She’d killed a man herself. And come to accept that sometimes there’s no choice. It’s you or them. How could she condemn Kick for his past sins? Or agonize over what they were about to do? Killing these terrorists would save hundreds of lives, possibly thousands.

But for Kick, killing abu Bakr was highly personal. Revenge for his friends’ terrible deaths. And yet, here he was, willing to forsake that mission in order to save the life of one unknown prisoner. Her respect for him was definitely off the charts.

“I have to trust the air strike will take care of him if I can’t. The most important thing now is saving that prisoner’s life, and preventing the attacks on the Khartoum embassies.” He raised the field glasses again. “One thing . . . whatever abu Bakr’s planning, I have a sneaking suspicion it involves something inside that cement hut in the center of camp.”

She peered down at it. “Why do you say that?”

“It’s the only substantial structure in the whole camp, and the only thing besides the prisoner that has a constant guard. Something important’s in there. I can smell it.”

She recognized that stubborn tone of voice. “Don’t even think about trying to check it out, Kick. There isn’t time.”

“I know. I just wish—”

“Yeah, there are a lot of things I wish, too.” He glanced over and she met his eyes, allowing the full extent of her worry for him to show in hers. “Please don’t take any chances. I can’t make it without you.”

“Sure, you can,” he responded quietly. “If you haven’t learned that much over the past week, I sure as hell have. You can do anything you put your mind to, Rainie. There’s no doubt about that.”

She wondered if he’d deliberately interpreted her words in the narrower context of her making it out of the Sudan alive. Or if it had even occurred to him that she might mean it in a bigger sense. A whole-life sense.

But before she could say anything more, he rolled over, dug in his pocket, and handed her the funny-looking goggles he’d used briefly at the refinery. “Here. Better start getting used to these.”