Taken by Surprise (6 page)

"I've got a plane to catch." He picked up his suitcases and stepped around her. He sensed her turn, felt her gaze following his progress. She didn't reach for him, didn't move to stop him. "Lock the door when you leave."

Jackson walked down the hallway and out the front door of his apartment. He didn't look back. He could take seeing a bit of fear in her expression. The promise he made, his intent to take all of her, would certainly scare a woman like Mallory Stone. He could take seeing anger. She wasn't one to stand placidly by while someone attempted to take control of anything from her. But if he saw more tears in her eyes, if he knew the sole responsibility for putting them there fell on his shoulders, God help him. If he hurt her just now, he would never forgive himself.

* * * *

Cambodian forest

Rhonda heard the thrum of helicopter blades, spotted the distant outline of two military Blackhawks in the slowly brightening sky, and knew they had missed their chance of getting out of the forest tonight. She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and got ready to listen to the stream of curses sure to split the silence. She heard only the faint sound of Michael's slightly labored breathing.

"That was our ride out of here, wasn't it?" She studied Michael's stern expression, realizing pain more than anger caused his lips to set in a grim line. He had been hurt back at the compound. She didn't know exactly where or how extensively. She only knew he sustained at least one injury, and she feared it was far worse than the "ding" alpha males of Michael's type loved to claim.

"Yes." Michael didn't sound angry. He sounded pensive, as if he had already moved on to plan B.

Preston would have been ranting right about now, tossing out every foul-mouthed word in the dictionary, calling the pilots of those Blackhawks every obscene name he could think of for leaving. Michael remained calm, controlled, accepting.

She should stop comparing the two men. The contrast between Michael and her ex topped the charts. Nine years of being subjected to constant negativity and anger over nearly every setback, no matter how big or small, made it difficult to not expect the same behavior from Michael.

"I thought, after that episode with the pangolin back there, we might miss it." The pangolin they mistakenly took for a tango.

They had veered off course after that, zigzagging this way and that, winding their way deeper into the dense forest. The glide of Michael's walk spoke of his profession, of a skill honed in training. It brought her a level of comfort despite the fear of being found. As far as they knew, Xavier was the only one of Phay's men to have followed her into the forest. Because Michael, in turn, followed Xavier, they couldn't have known for sure that someone hadn't come after Michael. They'd left Xavier where he'd fallen, eyes wide in surprise, sporting a perfectly round entrance hole right between them.

Rhonda wouldn't think about that. She wouldn't think about the way it had felt to pull the trigger herself, to fire the shot that took Xavier down before Michael arrived. The bullet she fired caught the vile man in the abdomen. She'd been stilling herself to shoot him again when she heard Michael behind her.

Could she have done it?

Yes. She knew with absolute certainty she could have pulled that trigger again, and even again, if necessary, until Xavier's cold, malicious eyes glazed over in death.

Would it haunt her?

Yes. She knew she would be hearing the echo of the shot she fired, of the kill shot Michael fired for many nights to come.

"What now?" She took a careful step over a patch of particularly thick brush splintered with pieces of fallen branches and tried not to wince. She didn't need to look at the bottoms of her feet to know they were riddled with scratches. It concerned her because even the smallest sore could fester in the forest if not treated. She tossed up which might be better: walking through the forest barefoot or in strappy sandals with a half-inch heel. For now, she wore the sandals again.

Michael checked his watch, glanced at the sky, and tipped his chin. "We change directions." His voice sounded odd, thick.

"And go where, exactly?" He seemed to have no trouble discerning which way to go. She guessed he must have a compass on his watch. That made her feel marginally better seeing as how she was directionally challenged. Without her GPS, she'd be lucky to find her way out of Silver Springs much less through a forest in Cambodia. Or were they still in Thailand?

"Where are we, anyway? I mean, I know we're in the forest. That's pretty obvious, but is this Thailand or Cambodia?"

"Cambodia, not far from the Thailand boarder."

Not far could mean anywhere from a few meters to a hundred miles. Rhonda didn't ask for him to elaborate. It didn't matter much in any case. She knew where they weren't, and that was on US soil. They weren't in Silver Springs. She wasn't with Lucas.

Gods, what her son must be going through! She started to ask Michael how much he told Lucas. Did he tell her son about her abduction? The thought of Lucas sitting around some strange house with only his grandmother to offer anything familiar made Rhonda's throat close. She pushed the thoughts away, didn't ask the question. She had learned a lot about her son since leaving Preston, the biggest of which being that Lucas was strong. Whatever he knew, whatever he believed, he would be okay until she could get back to him. She firmly believed that. She
had
to believe it.

Michael stopped, turned to face her. His gaze slid down her front, scrutinizing even as it awakened every erogenous spot in her body. By the gods, the man's eyes were devastatingly potent. Preston never looked at her with such hunger, such undisguised need. No man had, except this one. No man ever awakened such a desire in her that she couldn't control, except this one.

"Do you remember the team of SEALs that helped rescue Timmy and Ryan Magee on the docks?"

Rhonda nodded. She remembered that day all too well. Timmy's kidnapping at the hands of Veng Kim Phay, her best friend Tina's near insanity-induced fear for her son. She remembered the slew of agents and military personnel present to save the boy. She remembered the second time she saw Michael, standing larger than life and a thousand times sexier with admiration sparkling in his exotic eyes as Tina lit into an FBI agent on scene. She remembered the way that admiration morphed to an almost tangible lust as he turned and saw Rhonda walking his way.

"That same team is on an op not far from here," Michael told her. "It's a classified but related mission. There's a secondary extraction point set for them at 1730 hours."

Rhonda did the quick military translation. "That's five thirty tonight, right?"

"Right, just under twelve hours from now."

"I'm guessing it'll take us that long, too." It sounded like a long time, but she knew they would really be pressed to make it there before time ran out. Moving on foot through the dense forest, constantly watching their backs as well as their fronts, would make the journey slow and treacherous.

His lips twitched, but he didn't smile. "It might."

"Will they know to expect us? You lost communication with them, didn't you?"

"My earpiece got damaged in the fight back at the compound. Ziegler, Team Six's lieutenant commander, is a friend of mine. We know each other pretty well. He'll know when he finds out I'm not on one of those Blackhawks we saw leaving that I'll head his way. It's the E & E we set up in the planning."

E & E—escape and evasion, Rhonda didn't need him to translate. "Does that mean we don't have time to stop, even for a few minutes? You're hurt." She didn't ask. She told him. Not that she needed to. She could see the blood starting to dry on his left arm. She noticed him barely moving his right arm, too. She heard the pain in his tone. No, the fact that he was hurt certainly didn't come as a newsflash to either of them.

He lifted a brow. "And you aren't?"

Rhonda rolled her eyes. "Fine. I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

Amusement glinted on his handsome face. "Ladies first."

"Always the gentleman. My feet are stinging, so I'm guessing they're probably not in the best of shape. I would rather not take off the sandals again. I'm not sure
I
want to see how bad they're scraped at this point. Better to finish the damage and then look for Band-Aids later."

All playfulness vanished. A muscle in his jaw ticked. "What else?"

"That's it. I mean, I might have a scratch here or a bruise there, but that's about as serious as it gets."

"And on the inside?" Tension zipped around him. She felt it, even with the distance between them. He stood with his arms at his sides, right hand hanging limp, left still gripping the handle of his gun. His focus on her didn't waver as he waited for her to answer.

She knew what he was asking. No way would she get into
that
discussion right here, right now. In the last—oh, who in hell knew how many days, weeks, months?—she watched a man she thought to be her friend walk away without a backward glance. She watched another friend die, saw an agent tortured. She felt more fear at the hands of Veng Kim Phay than she knew a person could withstand. She
shot
a man and was now tracking through a forest with the one man who not only started it,
caused
it, but made her want to curl up in his arms and pretend none of it had ever happened.

"As long as I'm still breathing, that will heal, too," she told him stoically. "Your turn."

He stared at her for so long she thought he wouldn't let it rest. When he did answer her, he surprised her with what sounded to be the complete truth. No alpha male exclusions or modesty involved. "A bullet grazed my left arm. It didn't penetrate, but it took off a chunk of skin. It stings, a lot, and will probably get infected if I don't get some kind of bandage on it ASAP. Your feet will, too. We'll need to find those Band-Aids and an antiseptic ointment as soon as we get to safe ground."

"And your right arm? You aren't moving it, and you're holding your gun with your left." It hit her then, and she couldn't conceal the surprise in her tone. "You can shoot left-handed."

"Nearly as good as I can with my right."

"Lucky for us, huh?"

"I hit the ground trying to avoid the bullet that grazed me. I must have dislocated my shoulder."

Rhonda winced. "I bet that hurts like a bitch."

"To put it mildly."

"I ought to hit you in that shoulder for walking around with it like that." She didn't know how long it took them to get from where they left Xavier's body to here. An educated guess added to the growing light of a new day put the track at approximately an hour. "What you did back there when I, um, stopped to potty." She glared at his obvious attempt to stifle a laugh. She couldn't believe she needed to go. Of all the times for her to get over the finicky need for a real bathroom that had stayed with her since childhood. "You were resetting it, weren't you?" She thought she'd heard him make a sound somewhere between a grunt and a growl, seen the sweat sliding from his temples when she returned to him, but he merely started walking.

"Trying to. I don't think I got it back in place."

Rhonda took a deep breath, let it out slow. "I didn't faint at the blood. Let's see how well we do with this one. Okay, tell me what to do."

"Are you sure?"

"This going to hurt you more than it will me. Sure, I'm sure."

"I bet Lucas loves hearing that," Michael muttered, then cursed when her step faltered.

Rhonda made herself recover quickly, pushing her son from the forefront of her mind. As badly as she wanted to think of him, to be with him, she couldn't afford to focus even an ounce of her energy on him now. Doing so would not get her out of here. It wouldn't get her home to her boy.

Still, that single moment he slipped into her thoughts made her smile. She couldn't help but share. "He got a Lego set a couple of weeks ago.
Star Wars
," she elaborated and caught Michael's unsurprised smile. Lucas practically lived and breathed
Star Wars
, and Michael knew it all too well. "We were playing with the robots after we put the set together, and one of the robot's arms somehow got turned this awkward angle. Lucas said he dislocated it." She laughed, a quick burst of watery sound because the memory started to bring on the tears. "I'm thinking you're probably hurting more than poor old IG-88 right now."

"I bet Mommy did a medic's job at fixing poor IG-88."

"I did. Good as new. I'm not sure the same process will apply here, though."

"Rhonda—"

"Tell me what to do," she said again, steamrolling over whatever he started to say because she could see the seriousness settling in his expression. She didn't want to hear it. She didn't think she
could
hear it right now.

"Wait. Do you need to sit down first, lay down?" At six foot, he stood five inches taller than her five-seven frame, which put her at perfect level with his shoulder. But she had never dislocated anything. The pain might be enough to make even the strongest man's knees buckle.

"I'll stand. Put one hand above my elbow, grab my wrist with the other and pull."

Rhonda slanted him a look. "You're kidding, right? Aren't you supposed to hold your arm at a ninety-degree angle at your chest and coax the shoulder back into place or something?"

"Is that what you did for the
Star Wars
bot?"

"Actually, yeah."

"Good process. That's how I got it in as far as it is. It would probably work, but this way will set it quicker, especially if you're doing it."

She shot a pointed look at the gun in his left hand. "You want to put that away. Reflexes being what they are and all, I'd rather you not be holding a gun when we're doing this." She saw by his expression that he felt he possessed more self-control than to accidently fire a weapon even under intense pain. He probably did. That didn't increase her willingness to take the chance.

She waited until he settled the SIG in the waistband of his BDUs at the small of his back. The Glock she had taken from Dregs's lifeless body and used on Xavier already rested there. Michael had relieved her of it when they started walking. She wished he hadn't, would've felt better being armed herself, but she hadn't thought to argue at the time.