Safe in His Arms (33 page)

He released her before he started crying like a baby and lifted one leg over the side, using the railing to lower himself down until he felt water, then dropped silently into the shallows. A soft splash sounded but wasn’t more than the waves already rocking the boat. Mandy peered down at him and, at his nod, she lifted a leg over then the other, letting him grab her legs and place them on his shoulders to secure her as she lowered until he had her. He moved her leg over his head, manoeuvred her around his shoulders and lowered her down his body, kissing her once on the stomach just because he had to, then eased her down to stand in the water with him. She smelt like him, he realised.

“Wet boots again,” she whispered, grimacing.

He took her hand and kissed her quickly. Life didn’t give second chances like this. She smoothed her hands over his shoulders and head, her mouth open and eager, allowing him to soothe the fear he’d felt upon waking, alone, in the pit of the ship. Breaking off, he pulled her closer and buried his face in her sweet-smelling hair. He let himself savour her for a moment, then pulled away to point up the shoreline. She nodded quickly and followed his lead towards the beach.

He’d been sure he’d lost her. All he’d been able to think of as he’d fought the ropes was what the men would do to her—a woman that obviously belonged to him. The doubts had nearly killed him. They thought her family, but he worried that wouldn’t keep her safe. Now he held on tight, refusing to ease up or let go of her small hand as they hurried the twenty feet to the shoreline. He expected a shout the entire time. The back of his neck tingled, like it did when he landed in trouble, but none of his instincts warned he was in someone’s sights.

His instincts hadn’t warned him at the sleazy hotel either. He knew why. He’d only had eyes for Mandy.

They made it to the shore, and with a glance down at Mandy to check if she was still okay, Mac encouraged her to race with him up the beach. The sand was soft but she kept up. After about ten minutes, he angled them into the jungle when she started to lag and forced his way several feet inside the darker interior until he slowed to let her rest.

“Did we make it?” she panted, but seemed to be catching her breath easily enough.

“No, not yet.”

They both heard the first shout followed by another then the drill of running feet down the wooden planks.

In the moonlight, he could just make out her flinch. Had they hurt her after all? Shit. “Mandy, did they touch you?”

She jumped and shook her head quickly. “No, no, not at all.”

“Manuel thinks you are his niece.” He watched her face and saw he’d not surprised her. “Do you believe him?”

Mandy’s brow creased slightly. “I don’t know. How should I know? Does it matter?”

Fuck yes, it matters.
He’d been the one to kill Ruben—her supposed father—that night in Miami. That shit mattered.

She stared up at him, her expression turning uneasy, and he realised he’d not answered her. The Gonzaleses were murderers and sick bastards. Mandy was all that was right in this world. What did she think, discovering she came from such a family?

“No, doesn’t matter. You’re mine. Whoever your dad was, I thank him, because without him you’d not be here, but I could care less about anything but you. You’re mine, Mandy. Don’t let this shit cloud that fact.”

Something he said must have been right because her shoulders lost the tension he hadn’t noticed until it was gone. She exhaled shakily and nodded. Her eyes filled with tears, stabbing him with a fresh hit of pain and guilt.

“Don’t cry, baby. I’m going to fix this shit, okay? Now, tell me what else.”

She laughed and covered her mouth. “Isn’t that enough?” she whispered past her hands. “I find out I’m related to monsters right after I kill one.”

“Mandy, don’t think like that, baby. Don’t. You’re everything that is good on this damn fucked-up planet. Don’t think you’re not, okay?”

She nodded silently, watching him like he might vanish. He knew the feeling. “Now, what else?”

She opened her mouth, but a shout, much closer, broke through the jungle.

“We have to go.”

“But Mac, there’s—”

“Shit, we have to move. You can tell me in a minute, okay?” he growled.

She looked distressed but nodded.

He pulled her along. They needed speed to put some space between them and the cartel. On an island barely ten miles wide, and, if he remembered right, only forty miles long, that was going to prove to be a fucking problem. He needed to figure out where they were. The island was broken up into diverse climates. They’d been in the lush jungle on the north shore of the island and had travelled inland to the mountain plains surrounding Mauna Loa where he’d stashed the truck. Now it looked like they were either on the eastern side of the island, or back at the northern end. Shit, did it matter? If he could get them back to Mauna Loa, he’d figure it out.

He took her hand and started off, pushing as much of the vegetation out of his way as he could.

Mandy crashed through the jungle behind Mac, so frightened she wasn’t even worried about her breathing. She knew they were in trouble, that the situation had just gained a horrible, menacing component—Trigger. He was a trained SEAL, just like Mac, but unlike Mac he wasn’t burdened with a woman.

Mac kept her going, slowing then speeding up with such skill she knew he was pacing her but she knew she’d never have made it this far without it. It felt like they’d gone five miles, possible less, maybe more. She just couldn’t tell. The stopping and starting was wearing on her. As soon as she gained her runner’s breath, he’d stop them, make her wait for silent intense minutes, for what, she didn’t know, then start up again.

“Here, shh—I think we’re parallel to a road, let me check. Stay here.” He pressed her down and she sank to her knees, so tired she simply nodded. She couldn’t walk another step, her lungs burned, her throat felt tight, but she knew she would move, she’d run, if it meant getting out of this. People never knew what they could or couldn’t do until pushed. Who’d known she could act good enough to fool a wicked bitch and a drug lord? Or kill a man?

She stifled a laugh and shook her head wearily. All around her was paradise, soft, cool breezes from the ocean, the sounds of birds singing, and she was dirty, sweaty, hurting, and scared. The last two days had forced her into situations that even in her worst nightmares she’d never dreamt existed. All she wanted was to curl up in a ball next to Mac. And pretend none of this had ever happened.

“Okay.” Mac suddenly appearing again frightened her but she was too tired to do more than try to get to her feet again. “No, stay down. It’s a road. I don’t hear anyone, but that shit means nothing.” His hushed, rough voice scared her more than anything did. He sounded so hard. “We’re out ahead of them, but I want to cross over the road and hit the other side. I found a stream and it leads to a waterfall. We’ll make for that and hopefully the sound of the water will hide our movements.”

“Won’t it also hide them?” She’d seen
The Last of the Mohicans
. She’d never understood why those guys had thought they could hide behind a waterfall. No way was Mac going to jump off some cliff into water and leave her to the savages.

“It will, but not from me.”

She bent her head and cupped her face in her hands, elbows loose and tired on her knees. “Oh, God, I know that is supposed to reassure me, but—”

“Trust me, Mandy, that’s all. Just trust.”

“I do, Mac. I do,” she reassured him. She recognised the look on his face. He was going to take out the entire cartel. She took his hand and couldn’t help the tears that rushed her eyes. Mandy pressed her face to his open palm. Her shoulders shook with the force of her tears.

“Ah, baby, damn, don’t cry. Don’t do that, sugar.” He sounded panicked and pulled her close, taking his hand away to brush her face with his palm. “Look at me, come on, Mandy. Don’t cry, it will be okay. I can—”

“I know you can, that’s what makes me so sad, Mac,” she stuttered. “I know you can. I don’t want you to have to any longer. I want you to quit the SEALs and stop—”

“Shhh, I’m not a SEAL, baby. I retired. Shit, don’t cry harder. I just need to fix this, sugar, damn,” he broke off when she wrapped her arms around him.

He’d quit the SEALs? He wasn’t in the military any longer?

“Mandy, shh, baby, we need to move,” he reminded her.

She sniffed and wiped her face on his shirt. “Okay, but, Mac, I have to tell you about the attack.”

Mac froze. She felt the tension in his body as his muscles hardened. “Mandy, baby, now is not the time—”

“Yes,” she whispered brokenly. “Yes, it is. Trigger was my attacker. He’s in on this. He threatened to kill me.”

Mac tightened his hands on her shoulders almost painfully and stared down at her with a look she’d never seen before. Murder. That’s what it was. Trigger was dead.

“He didn’t rape me, Mac. He tried, but he didn’t. He couldn’t.”

He winced painfully and cupped her face like he thought she might break. “What else?”

“He’s here, asking for something from the cartel—”

“No, Mandy, what else happened with Trigger?”

She sniffed back the tears and said, “He tried to rape me but he couldn’t. I think he’s…gay.” Mac jerked back and frowned down at her. “I think, well, Mac, I think he kinda likes…you.”

She bit her lip and watched Mac’s eyebrows raise then lower in a scowl. He tipped his head like he hadn’t quite heard her then slowly shook his head. “Yeah? That so?”

“You’re mad.”

“Mad? I’m pissed off. Trigger hurt you, trying to force you away from me, and he has the hots for me? What do you think I am? Happy?”

Well, putting it that way, she could see why he was upset. Kinda made her mad too, but she’d expected something else from Mac. What, she didn’t know, but he was calm and she guessed when Mac was calm he was the most dangerous.

She exhaled heavily and wetted her lips. “Well, I just figured it out. I didn’t know before, you know, that it was Trigger.”

Mac snorted. “Baby, I know that. You’d never keep that from me. But my guess is you knew something back at the base.”

She nodded and winced. “I just didn’t know it was him. I recognised the voice, nothing more. I didn’t know, I froze and didn’t turn around to see who it was, then I worried about…”

Mac zeroed in on her face and nodded tightly. “You thought I’d kill him and get myself thrown in jail.”

Mandy sighed. “Yeah, that about covers it.”

“Shit, baby, give me some credit here.” He pulled her close and hugged her tight. “I might have, though. He’s a dead man. You know that, don’t you?”

“Mac, I just want this done. I want us to go home. Get a home and have this be done. I want this to be over.”

“It will be, sugar. It will be.”

She pressed her face against his warm chest and breathed him in. He felt so strong, so steady, and sure. “Just get us out of here. Then no more missions?”

“Hell yeah, just get this done. Then I’m all yours.”

She pulled back to look up at him. “I will remember that promise, Mac.”

Mac winked. “Do that. Now get that pretty ass up, and let’s go before we lose the advantage over—”

A blast splintered the tree near their heads and Mac pulled her arm hard and stumbled through the trees, dodging under brush and dense trees. He didn’t take them to the road. Instead, they raced in a straight line until they broke out into a clear spot. He shoved her down under a plant and got in near her. Seconds later a man charged into the clearing. Mac tensed and, before she knew what he planned, he tackled the man to the ground. She held in a scream behind her hands as he pounded the man into the dirt, rose up above him, and twisted his neck with a loud sound. She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to breathe past the nausea.

“Come on.” Mac barely sounded breathless. He had blood on his hands and two assault rifles on his shoulders. He pressed a pistol into her hand and met her eyes. He looked wild, so wild and lost that her lips trembled for him. She reached up and touched his jaw. He winced and pulled her close, smothering her in his arms. “I didn’t want you to see,” he husked.

“I love you, Mac.”

He groaned like she’d hit him and pulled back to stare down at her with an intense look that scared her. “Say that again.”

“I love you,” she whispered.

His expression twisted in pain and he hauled her into his arms, kissing her quickly and releasing her to force her hands around the gun. “The safety’s on. You take that off when you need to use it.”

She nodded. “Did you get a phone?”

He glanced up quickly, a surprised then angry look flashing over his face. Diving back out of the coverage she heard him because she was listening, otherwise his muffled movements were nearly silent. She held her gun, easing her finger over the safety.

He broke back through their hiding spot and grinned. “You’re smart, baby.”

She muffled a laugh that came out more like a cry. He did something with the phone, waited a second then pocketed it as soon as it beeped. She opened her mouth to ask what he’d done but he said, “We need to move. I’ll make a call as soon as we get some space.”