White Hot (30 page)

He wanted to move on with his life. Take the plunge into the unknown challenges of falling in love.

With Samantha.

He forced himself to pull away from her. “We have to get off this ship,” he said resolutely, the weight of his unshared suspicions urgent in his mind. He unwrapped her
arms from around him, holding her by the wrists so she couldn’t fight him. “But not without the crew. There should only be one man guarding them while the others are distracted by the launcher explosion. I’m going up to free them.”

“You mean we.”

“
Alone
, Samantha.”

She didn’t resist his grip on her. He couldn’t see her eyes, but her voice was firm and steady when she shook her head and said, “We’ve been through this. I’m coming with you.”

He pushed out a sigh. God knew, the last thing he wanted was to place her in harm’s way. But he also realized with dead certainty that he couldn’t stop her.

“No,” he said evenly. “You’re not. You’re going to hijack
Eliza Jane
.”

Be careful what you wish for.

It was a hard-learned lesson Sam would do well to remember in the future.

Just like in the movies, she and Clint had synchronized their watches, then set in motion their quickly devised plan to free the crew. She was now standing just inside the small portside door on the ro-ro deck—the same door Clint had come back in through this morning—anxiously awaiting the designated time to jump down onto the trawler. Clint had told her to give him a five-minute head start. But he’d refused to tell her what he planned to do with those five minutes. Which to her meant only one thing—she wouldn’t approve, and he knew it.

When they’d parted earlier, their last kiss had been heartbreakingly sweet. But afterward, the savage look on his face as she’d watched him turn to go had sent chills down her spine.

Was he planning to do something else, something reckless and life threatening, before heading up to free the crew?

She had a sick feeling he was. And the roiling knot of tension in the pit of her stomach told her it had something to do with those missing detonators.

God.
Nervous wasn’t even in the same universe as what she was feeling right now. For herself, but mostly for him.

Unbidden, her gaze sought the place on the deck floor where she and Clint had come together in a wild conflagration of relief and passion earlier. Heat seeped up her throat to suffuse her cheeks, and her mind flooded anew with uncertainty.

She eased out an unsteady breath and put a tentative hand to her abdomen. Could there really be a new life growing inside her? She knew it had been less than a day, weeks too early to tell, so conjecture was futile. But the question wouldn’t let her alone. Ever since their realization, it had gnawed at the edges of her mind, like a dog with a bone.

What on earth would she do if there was a baby? How would she take care of it? Hell, how would she take care of
herself
, with no job now, and no family to help her?

Would Clint help? Dare she hope? Dare she trust?

Before, she’d been so certain he wasn’t interested in anything long-term with her. That he didn’t even want to continue their relationship, let alone anything as serious as having a child with her. But now? She was not so sure. Hadn’t he said he was falling in love with her?

And when they parted, he’d seemed so…different.

It was almost ironic. Before this, he’d been relentlessly macho and overprotective of her, determined to relegate her to a strictly passive role, making her hide herself away while he took on the enemy single-handed and faced the danger solo. He’d soundly rebuked her each time she’d done anything to help him, successful or not. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t trust her judgment, but that he had an outdated sense of what a man had to be to live up to his own self-worth. Nonsense, of course. But there you go.

But now, just when it seemed he might have changed his mind about letting her into his personal life, possibly even
wanting a true relationship with her, he’d also done a one-eighty and thrust her into the middle of a perilous plan that could easily get her killed, and indeed, he had assigned her a part in the rescue that all their lives depended upon—the crew’s, hers, and Clint’s, as well.

Did it mean he had finally started to let go of his macho sense of control and trust her to take care of him, too, at least in this?

Or was it just that he’d had no choice…?

She squeezed her eyes shut, battling desperately to embrace the hope and ignore the fear that gripped her heart. Fear of being wrong about him. About his feelings for her.

Fear of being betrayed.

Again.

How could she allow herself to trust him? To entrust him with her fragile heart…?

Did
she
have a choice?

For it was impossible to deny her growing feelings for him any longer. It had gone far beyond a crush, or sexual infatuation. This was the real thing, and it terrified her. She simply couldn’t imagine spending a lifetime without him. Without the feel of his body next to hers. Without the tenderness in his eyes as he looked at her. Without the overwhelming security of knowing he’d be there for her, come what may. Every night. Every day.

But
would
he be there for her?

To trust, or not to trust.
It all came down to that.

She dragged her gaze up from the deck and the aching reminder of their lovemaking. And of the momentous decision they would both soon have to make…assuming they survived.

Which brought her round to the present.

She checked her watch and straightened like a shot. Only sixty seconds left before she was to make her jump.

Turning back to the crew door, she twisted the wheel lock and pulled it open a slight crack. The red glint of the sun flooded over her as she peeked out, along with the cold rush of nervousness. She scanned
Eliza Jane
’s empty deck.
Long black shadows danced across the boards in time to the pitch and roll of the waves. The small fishing trawler swung away from the larger cargo ship, pulling the mooring lines taut, then swung back to bump against
Île de Cœur
’s hull with a squeal of rubber fenders. The trawler still looked deserted. Sam was ninety-nine percent sure it
was
deserted. But that one percent uncertainty had her sweating like a Coke can despite the frigid wind that whistled through the narrow crack lifting the ends of her hair.

The rescue’s success—and possibly her own life—hinged on whether in the chaos that still reigned after her fireworks display, and the attack on the Coast Guard cutter, and especially the unexpected rocket launcher explosion, the hijackers who remained alive had forgotten they’d left
Eliza Jane
unguarded.

It was a huge risk to take. With enormous consequences for being wrong.

What would she do if confronted by the same choice Clint had faced in the crane cab? Her pulse went heavy at the thought.

Driving the fishing trawler she could definitely handle.

But killing another human being…She didn’t know how Clint had snapped that man’s neck with such calm deliberation. But if there was a guard hidden on the trawler, once again she’d have little choice.

It seemed like all the crossroads she was meeting in her life suddenly had roadblocks across all but one path. Like she’d lost control of her own destiny.

She swallowed, slid a hand into her jacket pocket, and touched the loaded semiautomatic pistol Clint had insisted she take with her, along with the cracked sat phone. He’d also had her fetch and bring her small laptop containing copies of the ship’s logs and her captain’s logbook.

The barrel of the gun was smooth and hard, the trigger an elegant curve against her fingers. This choice, if difficult, at least was clear. For Frank and Ginger and Smitty and Bolun and the rest of her crew, she would do whatever it took to set them free.

She looked at her watch again. Thirty-three seconds to go.

She glanced over at the long rope ladder the hijackers had used last night to reach the trawler. It was still hanging from the rail over the side of the ship, but rolled up, mocking her. Clint hadn’t wanted her to use it, despite its convenience. Getting to it, taking the time to unroll it, the noise it would make, she’d be too exposed and vulnerable.

He was right, but it irritated her that she’d be forced to play Tarzan instead.

The line Clint had used earlier was still tied to the door’s sturdy metal wheel lock. She tugged and tested the knot holding it there. Still tight and secure. Just as it had been two minutes ago.

Slipping on a pair of leather work gloves, she grasped the length of line, worried she might not have the strength to lower herself, hand over hand, the thirty feet or so down to
Eliza Jane
’s deck—without either tumbling into the Bering Sea, getting squished between the two vessels’ hulls, or splatting like a bug on the trawler’s scarred wooden weather deck. She didn’t even want to think about the possibility of accidental impalement on all the fishing equipment scattered around.

Suppressing a groan, she glanced at her watch. Fourteen seconds.

In the few remaining moments, she went over the simple plan again in her mind: rappel onto the trawler, cast off the lines lashing it to
Île de Cœur
, do a search of the vessel to be sure she was alone on board, then station herself on the bridge and be ready to fire up the engines and take off as soon as Clint arrived with the crew.

Assuming he wasn’t killed trying to free them.

No. Not thinking about that, either.

Her heart pounded hard in her chest as she watched the numbers tick down on her watch.

Three, two, one,
go
!

Pushing the door open all the way, she quickly sat, grasped the line tightly in her hands, and without letting herself think, shoved off the edge and swung in a tight arc
out over the sea. Her shoulders protested taking her weight, and her hands stung with the effort of hanging on. As she swung back against the hull, she twisted her body around and lifted her legs to plant her feet firmly on the icy cold metal hull as she met it.

No going back now.

She hung suspended for several seconds, listening over the splash and suck of the ocean waves for shouts of alarm from above—or below. None came.

With a deep, shaky breath, she began to let herself down the rope. It wasn’t pretty, but she made it down to about seven or eight feet above the level of the trawler’s deck. If she went any lower, she wasn’t sure she’d make it over the rail and the jumble of crab traps, gutting tables, and other assorted things between her and the small open area of deck. She halted, clinging awkwardly to the rope, waiting with aching muscles for the motion of the waves to cause the two ships to kiss hulls so she could make the final push-and-drop to the trawler’s deck. If she jumped too soon, she’d miss the trawler and end up as a human sandwich pressed between the two vessels. Jump too late, and she’d miss the retreating deck and land in the icy sea.

She dangled like a fish on a line, praying, waiting an eternity for the trawler to swing out and away, then slowly pitch and bob back toward her. Her arm muscles screamed in protest. Her blood rushed in her ears. It drowned out the sounds of the crisp waves below and the wind whipping past, and the persistent voice in her head telling her she was insane for insisting on helping Clint instead of hiding away to wait for the aircraft carrier to come to their rescue.

But he’d been adamant. The crew must be freed at once, and they all had to abandon
Île de Cœur
without delay.

He was sure the ship was set to blow up.

But if that was true, shouldn’t the Chinese special ops squad posing as hijackers be abandoning the cargo ship, too, so they could get away in time? There was something wrong, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. And had no time to think about it.

Below her, the trawler’s fenders squealed as the two ships bumped at last.
Thank God
.

With gummy bear legs she shoved off, swung out, and with a fervent prayer let go of the line. She wheeled her arms, dropped, and landed with a thud on the rain-wet trawler. She heard the crack of plastic. Swallowing a cry, she rolled as Clint had shown her, a sharp pain stabbing into her hip. Her body smacked into the deck lockers lining the bridge, and she started to roll back toward the rail as the small boat rammed the bigger ship’s immovable hull, jerked back, and tipped sideways over a wave.
Shit.

She grabbed a passing cleat and hung on. It was cold, wet, and slippery. Her body probably wouldn’t fit between the rails but she wasn’t taking any chances on ending up in the water. The trawler leveled off and started its outward drift. She shook off the dizziness and the searing pain in her hip from her ungraceful landing and scrambled to the nearest cover, under a gutting table, that also sheltered her from the fat raindrops that had begun to fall.

Her whole body was shaking, her blood surging through her veins. She took several deep calming breaths, then risked a look up at
Île de Cœur
. Immediately she saw two of the hijackers on the foredeck. One was on a knee examining the twisted remains of the antitank rocket launcher, the other was hurrying back and forth from the pile of debris to the rail, tossing pieces of something over into the sea. She blanched, shivering with revulsion when she realized it was body parts of the man killed by the launcher explosion.