Edge of Surrender (3 page)

Her eyes widened. “You mean . . . ?”

He nodded at the alley below. She took a tentative step toward the ledge to peer over. She swayed backward, and he caught her around the waist.

“Emma.”

She looked up, her face white with terror. She didn't think they could make it.

“You hesitate, you die,” he told her. “It's that simple.”

Those big brown eyes stared up at him, and he felt a pinch in his chest.

“Do you trust me?”

Her pretty mouth fell open, but she didn't answer him.

“Do you?”

He saw the battle going on, and for the hundredth time, he realized he'd played this all wrong. He reached for her hand, but she pulled away. “Hell, no, I don't trust you. Are you crazy?”

He sighed heavily and shook his head. “Emma, honey . . .”

“Don't
honey
me, you—”

He grabbed her hand and jumped. “Feet first!” he yelled, but she probably couldn't hear him over her bloodcurdling shriek.

They landed in an open Dumpster on a heap of black garbage bags. One of the bags burst on impact, and the smell nearly knocked him out.

“Whoa, that's rank. You okay?” He turned to Emma, who was leaning back against the pile.

She blinked up at the sky, then blinked at him.

“Emma, you all right?”

She sat forward, eyes widening again as she took in her surroundings. With a trembling hand, she peeled a slimy ketchup packet from her arm. “I'm . . . I'm . . .” She looked up at him. “Did we just jump off a building?”

Grabbing the side of the Dumpster, he hauled himself up. He threw a leg over to straddle the box and held a hand out for her. “Come on.”

She stared at him.

“
Now
, Emma. They're right behind us.”

His words seemed to slap her out of her shock, and she rolled to her knees and picked her way across the lumpy bags. She reached up for his hand.

“Straddle the side of it, like me. I'm going to jump down first so I can help you, all right?”

He dropped to the asphalt and waited for her to position herself, which wasn't easy in her snug-fitting skirt. She swung her legs over and stared down. It was a short drop, but she was shaking all over and probably not thinking clearly because the stench made it tough to breathe.

She jumped, landing in a heap at his feet. He pulled her up as shouts drifted down from the rooftop.

Ryan dragged her behind the cover of another Dumpster. They pressed their backs against the brick wall of the building.

“Did they see us?” she whispered.

He didn't know. But the voices sounded confused, so he took that as a good sign. When the shouts faded, he grabbed Emma's hand.

“Let's move.”

THREE

S
he didn't know what time it was. Or what day. She didn't even know what city they were in as they jogged on the sidewalk along a congested street. Ryan had her hand clamped in his, and Emma struggled to keep up, but she kept glancing over her shoulder to see if anyone was after them.

They reached a strip mall, and he tugged her through a parking lot.

“Ouch!” She stopped and looked down at her foot.

“Shit, where are your shoes?”

She looked at him. Really
looked
at him for the first time.

He wore jeans and heavy work boots that somehow didn't slow him down at all. His black T-shirt was plastered to his chest with sweat, but that was his only sign of stress. He wasn't even breathing heavily.

He took his phone from his pocket and checked the screen, then tucked it away.

“Come on.” He caught her hand and pulled her toward a convenience store. She followed his lead, too shocked and shaken to protest whatever plan this was.

The store was cold inside and smelled like hot dogs, and Emma became acutely aware of her own unique fragrance, a combination of sweat and fear and rotting garbage.

Ryan stopped in the candy aisle and nodded at the restrooms. “Go clean up. I'll meet you in front, okay?”

She limped down the aisle, looking anxiously around the store as she made her way to the bathrooms. She stood in front of the sink for a ridiculously long time, scrubbing her hands and arms and feet with soap until her skin felt raw. Then she spent a few minutes finger-combing her hair.

Her reflection scared her. Her hair was a wild mane again, like it had been the day Ryan found her in the rain forest. Her white silk blouse was soiled and torn, and she had a smear of red down the side of her Donna Karan skirt. Not blood. Or ketchup. Maybe barbecue sauce? She tried to rub it away but only managed to make the stain worse.

She looked at herself and sighed. At least she was clean. Relatively speaking. Now she needed to go back out there and make Ryan tell her what the hell was going on.

As she walked back through the store, she noticed the stack of newspapers beside the cash register. So they were in Los Angeles. And it was still Monday. Just those two small tidbits of information had a calming effect.

Ryan was waiting on the sidewalk out front beside the ice machine. He looked her over, then held out a plastic bag.

Emma glanced inside. Flip-flops, thank God. The instant she slipped them onto her feet, Ryan pulled her around the side of the building and backed her against the wall.

“What—”

His mouth crushed down on hers, cutting off all words, all thought. There was only
him
, and his lips and his taste and the perfect feel of his body pinning her. He braced her there, keeping her on her feet even when her legs felt like limp noodles and her head felt so dizzy she didn't know her own name.

He pulled back, and the intensity in his green eyes sent a shiver through her.

“You scared the shit out of me, you know that?” He cupped his hand around the side of her face. “From now on, we do this my way. I will keep you safe if I have to take a bullet doing it, but no more arguing.”

He kissed her again, and her mind reeled from his words and the emotion flooding through her system. She couldn't get enough of him. She wanted to let go, to step away, but instead, she kept kissing him and kissing him until all she could feel was his rock-hard body. He tasted so good. He was solid and strong and insistent, and his body formed a protective wall around her, keeping the outside world away as he pulled her into the private depths of his kiss.

A buzzing noise permeated her thoughts. His phone.

“We need to move.” He stepped back and took her hand from where it was curled around his neck.

“Wait.”

“We don't have much time.”

“Just . . .
wait
.” She tugged her hand free and gaped at him, still out of breath from his kiss. So many questions tumbled through her head, and she didn't know where to start. She brushed her hair from her eyes. “Who keeps calling you?”

“Jake. He's here in LA, and he's been in touch with the feds.”

“The federal government?”

“The FBI,” he said. “Mays never set up that meeting with you this morning.”

She stared at him, trying to process his words. They didn't make sense. “Alexa Mays,” she stated.

“That's right.”

“But . . . she called me. Just last night. She identified herself, and the caller ID said
US GOV
. I saw it with my own eyes.”

Ryan shook his head. “She denies ever talking to you at all.”

“Then who the hell called me?”

“I don't know. Maybe it was a hoax, maybe someone trying to lure you someplace so they could grab you or trying to pinpoint your location using your cell and then distract you by calling you.”

“But—”

“Or another possibility? Someone might have been waiting to ambush you at the hotel. Maybe in your room. When you didn't go inside, they resorted to plan B.”

“How would someone get into my locked hotel room?”

“It's not that hard. Anyway, a lot of government agencies pop up as
US GOV
on caller ID, so it wasn't necessarily the FBI.”

Emma stared at him. Her heart was still pounding from all the exertion, but now her blood turned icy.

Someone from a government agency had called her. Just moments before another someone had tried to run her down in a pickup truck. Or maybe they hadn't been trying to run her down. Maybe they'd been trying to grab her off the street.

She'd thought she'd spoken to Special Agent Alexa Mays, but that had been an illusion, like everything else.

Ryan stepped toward her. “Emma—”

“Don't.”

“You're skittish, I know.”

“Skittish? You don't know the half of it.”

He looked down at her, his brow furrowed with concern. “Jake can pick us up.”

“Jake's working with the feds.”

He nodded.

“I don't trust them. I can't, Ryan. Until I know what's going on, I don't trust anyone.” Her nerves were too raw, and her mind was still reeling. “I need some time to think this through,” she said.

“You want to go off the grid.”

She nodded. He watched her intently, as though he was debating something with himself. Then he took her hand and looked around.

“This way.”

“Where are we going?”

But he didn't answer as he led her across the parking lot to another strip mall. Daylight was fading, and several of the storefronts glowed with neon signs. She spotted a liquor store, a Korean restaurant, a dry cleaner. A thrift shop was closed up for the day, but all of the other businesses looked open.

Ryan squeezed through a row of cars, tugging on door handles as he went. He glanced at her over his shoulder as he pulled open the door to a battered pickup. The hubcaps were missing, and spots of rust decorated the truck bed.

“Ryan?”

He ignored her as he crouched down and fiddled with the steering column. Emma's heart raced faster as she watched him. Then he slid behind the wheel as the engine sputtered.

“You're going to hot-wire a truck?”

“I just did. Get in.”

She stared at him. “We can't steal a car.”

“Actually, we can.”

“That's called grand larceny!”

“It's called basic E and E. Escape and evasion.” He gave her a hard look. “Get in, Emma.”

She glanced up and down the rows of cars and SUVs, then scurried around the back of the pickup. She pulled open the passenger door, and it made a loud squeak that sent a flurry of nerves through her. What the hell was she doing? She'd never stolen so much as a pack of gum. Her heart was pounding even harder than when she'd been kidnapped, even harder than when she'd jumped off that rooftop. “This is bad. We can't do this. I can't believe we're doing this.”

Ryan threw the truck into gear and shot backward out of the space. “You feel guilty?”

“Yes! This is someone's truck!”

“Yeah? Well, when this is over, you can buy him a new one. Fact, he'll probably thank you. This thing's older than I am.”

He swung onto a road and floored the pedal, and Emma got her first good look around the area. Los Angeles. They were in Los Angeles. She scanned the sidewalks but saw no sign of her kidnappers. She looked up and down streets, expecting to see a black SUV speeding after them.

Ryan pulled up to a stoplight and hung a right. She looked at him behind the wheel, all clear-eyed and confident, as though leaping off buildings and hot-wiring trucks were routine activities.

“Where are we going?”

He cut a glance at her. “As far away from here as possible.”

FOUR

E
mma's eyes fluttered open, and she looked around, surprised to see that it was dark. She'd rested her head against the window for just a moment, but the steady hum of the engine had put her to sleep.

“You awake?”

She looked at Ryan beside her, his arm resting casually on the steering wheel as though he'd been driving this pickup for years.

She sat up straighter. “Where are we?”

“East of San Bernardino.”

He seemed to have a direction in mind. He always seemed to have a direction in mind, no matter how chaotic the circumstances. It was one of the things about him that had impressed her in the rain forest.

Cool air whipped through the truck cab, making up for the lack of air-conditioning. She looked out the window at the rugged canyon dotted with fir trees.

Ryan slowed and pulled onto the shoulder, and she watched with apprehension as he rolled to a stop and put the truck into park. When he turned toward her, the dashboard lights cast his face in a greenish hue.

“I need to ask you something.” He held her gaze. “And I need you to be honest with me.”

Her nerves fluttered as he picked up her hand.

“Did they hurt you?” He searched her face.

“You mean . . . did they rape me?”

He nodded. “There's a hospital not far from here. I can take you in, get you anything you need.”

Emma's chest squeezed. “They didn't hurt me. Not like that.”

“You were drugged.”

She'd given him an overview of everything she remembered about the kidnapping, but after the needle prick, it was mostly a blur. She looked away and focused inward, searching her body, her subconscious, for anything wrong. She'd been through these thoughts earlier, and she'd come up with nothing. “I think I'd know. I don't feel anything like that. And my clothes were all intact, so . . .”

“You can tell me. If you need anything at all, I want you to tell me.”

“I will.”

He watched her for a long moment, and she saw the tension in his jaw.

“Really, I will.”

He squeezed her hand and released it, then put the truck into gear and pulled back onto the highway. Emma checked the mirror. Still no one behind them.

“This road seems pretty remote,” she said.

“Yeah, I'd just as soon avoid the highway patrol.”

“How long have we been driving?”

“About two hours.”

Wow, she'd really conked out. Talk about an adrenaline crash.

“I'm sorry this happened,” he said quietly.

“Me, too.”

He cut a glance at her, and she read the look on his face: guilt.

“You sound like you feel responsible,” she said. “Don't.”

He grunted.

“I mean it.”

“You were under my protection.”

She gaped at him. Was he serious with this? “You took me to a safe house. I walked out. What happened after that is on me.”

The muscles in his jaw tightened again.

“I mean it, Ryan.”

He slid a look at her. “Why did you, anyway? Walk out on me?”

She sighed. “You pissed me off.”

“Which thing, exactly?”

She rolled her eyes. “What happened this morning.” Damn, was it really only this morning? Time felt amorphous. “You broke a promise. You called my father behind my back and told him to fly out here.”

She was angry for other reasons, too. Like him basically telling her he regretted sleeping with her, that he shouldn't have let it happen, as though it was all up to him.

Silence settled over the truck. She looked at him. No apology forthcoming, but then, she hadn't expected one.

“So have you had a chance to think about why this is happening?” he asked.

“I wish I knew.”

“You do know.”

She shot him a look.

“Come on, Emma. You're a smart girl. You have to have some idea why all this shit's going down.”

She looked out the window again. “Don't call me a girl. I'm twenty-six years old.”

“I know.”

“It's belittling,” she continued. “I can't believe your girlfriend lets you get away with that crap.”

“You know damn well I don't have a girlfriend.”

“I don't know anything ‘damn well,' because you haven't seen fit to tell me. You know all about me from reading my State Department file, and yet I know almost nothing about you.”

“Not true,” he said.

“True.”

“I told you about Callie.”

“Callie?”

“My little sister.”

She felt a stab of guilt. His sister had died of leukemia when he was a kid. He'd told her that during the night they'd spent in the jungle when they'd been talking to pass the time.

At least, that's what she'd thought he'd been doing, simply passing time. Was it possible he'd been trying to get to know her? She refused to believe that, because it gave her hope, hope that there was more between them than a temporary bout of lust brought on by life-threatening circumstances. He didn't necessarily feel anything for her. She was the one who'd been reckless enough to let her emotions get involved here.

A pair of headlights came up behind them, and he slowed to let the car pass. He was keeping right to the speed limit, no doubt because they were in a stolen vehicle.

He glanced at her. “You really think I'd take your clothes off last night if I had a girlfriend?”

Her cheeks burned at the memory, and she looked away. He'd given her two exquisite orgasms without even shedding his clothes. And then he'd slammed on the brakes. She'd practically had to beg him to sleep with her.

He was watching her now, waiting for an answer.

“I don't know,” she said.

“I'm not like that.”

“Which is precisely my point. I don't know
what
you're like, because you've told me next to nothing about yourself.”

“What do you want to know?”

She didn't reply.

“Seriously. Ask me anything.”

“Okay. What's Crew?”

Silence.

“See?”

“It's my team.”

“I got that,” she said. “But it's not just a regular SEAL team, is it?”

“No.”

She waited, but he didn't elaborate. She'd known he wouldn't. He was just proving her point.

“We don't exist. We take missions that don't exist.” He gave her a dark look. “Like yours.”

The mission to rescue her from the wreckage of that crashed airplane, he meant. Her government had sent in a team of special-ops warriors to find survivors and whisk them to safety amid a hail of bullets.

“Which brings us right back to the subject you're trying so hard to avoid,” he said. “Come on, Emma. You're a smart
woman
. Don't tell me you don't have any idea what's going on here.”

———

Ryan waited, his gaze trained on the highway. He'd wait all night if he had to, but he planned to get answers.

“I don't know anything for sure,” she said. “It's all just a hunch, really.”

“A hunch based on two years working in a U.S. embassy. Based on two years of knowing Ambassador Conner. Based on being aboard the plane the ambassador was supposed to have been on when it was shot out of the sky. It's not just a hunch, Emma. It's a highly educated guess, and I want to hear it.”

He glanced over, and she was watching him warily. Her hair was all wild again. And her shirt was dirty and rumpled, and damned if he didn't want to pull her into his lap and kiss her.

But they had some things to get out of the way first. Such as why someone kept trying to kill her.

“You admit the plane was shot down,” she said.

“We both know it was shot down.”

“Ambassador Conner should have been on that plane, but he got tied up at an economic forum in Singapore.”

As the personal assistant to the ambassador's wife, Emma would have been familiar with both the Conners' schedules.

“People have speculated that the plane crash wasn't really an accident,” she said, “but a botched assassination attempt on an American ambassador.”

Ryan nodded.

“I think they're wrong.”

“You do?” He didn't bother concealing his surprise.

“In fact, I know it.” She looked at him. “I don't think the attack was botched at all. I think the goal of the attack was to kill Renee Conner. And they succeeded.”

———

Ryan looked at her, and she could tell he didn't believe her. “The ambassador's
wife
was the target,” he stated.

“Yes.”

“Your direct boss.”

“Yes.”

“What makes you think that?”

She looked away.

“Come on, Emma.”

She sighed. “A lot of things. For one, it had happened before.”

“Someone tried to kill her?”

“Someone put an IED in her Mercedes a few months ago. Her driver spotted it. We brought the embassy bomb techs in to disarm it, so nothing happened.”

“I didn't know that.”

“Nobody did. It was kept secret.”

“How come you know?”

“I was at the embassy when the call came. I saw everyone scrambling. And I'm friends with one of the Marines on her security detail.”

He frowned.

“And it turns out that incident wasn't the only time, either. My friend told me they recovered another IED from Renee Conner's vehicle a few weeks later. Not her husband's vehicle,
hers
. And from some of the paperwork that crossed my desk, I know Renee was in the process of hiring some additional security from the States, beyond what the embassy provided.”

“You mean outside contractors?”

“Yeah.”

“Who?”

“I don't know. I just know that she was looking into it.”

He got quiet.

“What?” she asked.

“Does the FBI know all this?”

“I have no idea.”

“Did you tell the task force investigating the crash?”

“I thought I had a meeting with Alexa Mays, but that turned out to be a hoax, so . . .”

“So you finally get a meeting with someone inside the investigation so that you can share this theory of yours,” he said, “and next thing you know, you're having near-death experiences.”

“That about covers it.”

“And now you're feeling a little paranoid.”

“Just a little.”

Silence settled over them. Emma stared out the window with a knot in her stomach. It had been there for weeks now. The only time it had gone away, in fact, was during those hours she'd spent at the safe house with Ryan. Something about his presence gave her a sense of security, a sense that no matter how screwed up everything got, it would ultimately be okay. Maybe it was because he was a SEAL. He was a battle-hardened fighter who could survive pretty much anything.

Or maybe it was something much more complicated, something she shouldn't allow herself to dwell on if she wanted to get through this crazy experience with her heart intact.

A highway sign came into view, and Emma didn't recognize any of the towns listed. They really were off the beaten path, which suited her fine.

She looked across the truck at the man who'd helped her out of so many dangerous situations she was losing count now. He seemed deep in thought over everything she'd told him.

Deep in thought was good. Much easier to ignore than the way he'd been earlier, sliding those heated glances over her when he thought she wasn't looking. Or—even harder to ignore—the tender way he'd looked at her when he'd pulled over and asked if she'd been raped. A lot of men wouldn't have had the guts to ask, but Ryan didn't shy away from anything, no matter how uncomfortable. He faced problems head-on. It was yet another thing she admired about him. She had quite a list going.

Emma settled her head against the side of their stolen truck, the truck she fully intended to replace if she ever got through this.

Ryan glanced at her. “Thanks,” he said.

“For what?”

“Telling me your theory.”

“Yeah, well, thanks for saving my life. Again.”