Table of Contents

POWER

Copyright

Welcome

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

A Note from Sandra

POWER

(In Wilde Country)

Book One: Special Tactical Units Division

By SANDRA MARTON

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2015 by Sandra Marton

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

WELCOME

WELCOME TO POWER, Book One of my hot new series, STUD. What is STUD? The letters stand for Special Tactical Units Division. STUD operatives are chosen from Navy Seals. They receive training that is even tougher and more demanding, and they are deployed wherever the United States needs men who can carry out the most dangerous assignments, in conditions that are always secret.

For those of you who are dedicated fans of my Wilde Family series…yes, POWER is also about the Wildes. You’ll meet some of your favorite Wilde characters in these pages, but this is primarily the story of Alessandra Bellini Wilde and STUD Lieutenant Tanner Akecheta.

Alessandra is in the Caribbean country of San Escobal. She’s working with a new, underfunded organization to protect endangered jaguars. When she’s kidnapped by a brutal pair of bandits, Tanner is the STUD operative sent to rescue her. It’s a lone-wolf operation. Tanner is sure he knows what Alessandra will be like—a poor little rich girl, brainless and spoiled—but he’s had enough of waiting to be cleared for duty after a bad wound he suffered in a firefight in Afghanistan. Finding and saving Alessandra will take him back into the kind of action he lives for.

Tanner is dropped into the jungle in the middle of the night. There are dangers everywhere. Domestic terrorists. Snakes. Crocodiles. But the real danger he’ll face isn’t from fierce predators, human or animal. It’s the danger of discovering he wants Alessandra more than he’s ever wanted any woman…and, in the end, it will be the danger of losing her that will almost destroy him..

CHAPTER ONE

Camp Condor, Santa Barbara, California:

THE MORNING DAWNED soft and perfect, the sun turning the air warm and the sand hot as it climbed over the blue Pacific.

By six, Tanner was running on the beach, his naked torso gleaming under the rays of the sun. His cotton cargo shorts were soaked with sweat despite the breeze coming in off the ocean. He figured his feet were just as sweaty, tucked as they were in socks and a pair of old combat boots, but what was the point in running if you didn’t ask your body to give all it could possibly give?

That was the same reason he was pounding through the sand high above the surf line, where it was soft enough to give muscles and sinew and bone a real workout, instead of down near the water where it was hard-packed.

A quick check of his watch told him he’d been at it for half an hour.

So far, so good.

His stride was long and even. His breathing was deep and steady.

Everything was perfect.

Or almost perfect, as long as he ignored the dull throb in his calf.

The pain had started a few minutes ago, not bad enough to stop him, just bad enough to make him aware it was there, something he was trying his best not to do.

Been there, done that, he thought grimly.

Acknowledging the pain was a way of letting it take over. It would sharpen. Deepen. It would affect everything, his stride, his speed, his balance. He’d go down on his ass.

A cripple, not a STUD warrior.

Tanner’s hands bunched into fists. He ran faster.

At first, the docs had said he might lose the leg altogether.

“No way,” he’d said, and they’d said okay, if he wanted to try to let it heal, they’d permit it, but only if the wound didn’t get infected again.

They just hadn’t understood that he was not going to let that happen.

He’d taken all their damned pills, endured their needles and surgeries. Once he was on his feet again he had put four months, six days and thirteen hours into recovery, and yeah, he knew the time down to the minutes and seconds, same as he knew that what the docs called fantastic progress wasn’t enough.

He had not been pronounced fit enough to return to his unit.

He might have been, as a regular sailor. Not that he didn’t have anything but respect for those guys, but after almost three years of SEAL training, then deployment to Afghanistan, Iraq and other places where the fighting was ugly and the politics dangerous, then two years as a STUD, he was a hardened, finely trained warrior, and STUD warriors didn’t have to be one hundred percent fit.

STUD demanded two hundred percent.

That had been made clear the day he’d been recruited.

Two years ago, he’d been summoned to his CO’s office, but when he got there, the guy sitting behind the desk, though also a captain, was someone Tanner had never seen before. He was small, wiry-looking, the kind of guy you’d have figured for a desk job, which was pretty funny considering he later learned just how wrong that early assessment had been.

Tanner had snapped to attention.

“At ease, Lieutenant,” the stranger had said. “I’m James Blake.” He’d nodded at the file folder on his desk. It was Tanner’s. “I’ve been going through your records.”

What was Tanner supposed to say to that? “Yes, sir,” had seemed the safest reply.

Captain Blake had pushed the folder aside.

“Actually, I’ve been through these records half a dozen times. They confirm what I’m sure you already know. You’re one hell of a SEAL.”

Another statement that seemed to rate a response, but again, Tanner couldn’t think of any beyond another “Thank you, sir.”

Blake had risen to his feet.

“You ever think of leaving?”

“Leaving what, sir?”

“The SEALs?”

That time, the answer was easy. The question was the equivalent of asking if he’d ever thought of not breathing.

“Never,” he’d replied, and quickly added “sir.”

“You ever hear of STUD?”

Tanner assured him that he had. What he didn’t say was that they’d all heard of it, the guys in the teams. STUD was an acronym for something called Special Tactical Units Division, an elite task force of handpicked SEALs.

Assuming, of course, STUD actually existed.

There was little solid data on STUD, but then, nobody assumed there would be. Uncle Sam still knew how to keep some secrets.

That this mild-looking captain was asking if he’d ever heard of STUD was either the start of a joke or affirmation that the outfit was real.

Half an hour later, Tanner had the answer. STUD was real, and he was being invited to join it.

“It’s strictly your choice, Lieutenant Akecheta,” Blake had said, “and I want to make it understood that I can’t offer any guarantees you’ll make it through our Induction Phase. Clear?”

Tanner, tall at six foot two, had stood just a little taller. Failure was not an Akecheta option any more than it was a STUD option.

“Clear, sir,” he’d said.

That day had been the start of the best years of his life. He still loved the SEALs, but what he felt for STUD went even deeper—the sense of belonging, of doing something vital for his country, of following in the path of his ancestors…

“Shit!”

The pain in his calf was sudden and sharp. He stumbled, recovered, leaned down and punched his fist against the scar tissue as if to beat it back.

He was not going to let the pain take him down. He’d been hurt before: a peppering of shrapnel in his shoulder in Iraq, a slash across his belly from a knife-wielding piece of crap on the Syrian-Turkish border. But each time, he’d made a quick recovery.

The wound to his leg was different. He’d taken a high-impact slug one dark night in a mountain village in Afghanistan. Luck and a tourniquet had kept him from bleeding out. He’d sure as hell been luckier than Kenny Briscoe, whose legs had been blown off.

He’d kept telling himself how lucky he’d been all through the flight back to base, through the embarrassment of being awarded a medal for having gotten Briscoe out when all he’d been doing was what any of the others would have done. He’d told himself how lucky he’d been through the three surgeries, the months of rehab…

Through the offer of a desk job.

That had damn near been an insult. Warriors were not meant for desk jobs, and a warrior was what he’d been born to be.

His very name, Akecheta, meant warrior in Sioux, and he’d taken a warrior’s approach to healing. He’d set goals that went beyond those set by his physiatrist, used pain as a way to improve his endurance. He’d had half a dozen meetings with Blake to discuss his progress. At the last one, he’d asked for just a little more time to build himself back to the man he’d been before that night in Afghanistan.

The captain had scowled, scratched his jaw, run his fingers through his thinning hair. Then he’d said yeah, okay, Tanner could have two more months.

“We don’t want to lose you, Lieutenant, but if you’re not one hundred percent, you’re a risk for every man on your team.”

Tanner understood that.

His team deserved the best.

Now, one of those months was gone. He’d worked relentlessly, pushing himself to run, to do pushups, to do ocean swims out beyond the breakers where the sea turned deep and cold. His leg had responded well. It worked the way it was supposed to work.

Most of the time.

It was only every now and then that it didn’t.

There’d be something that went beyond discomfort and then, wham, the knifelike pain and his damned leg would go out from under him…

Like now.

“Fuck,” he snarled, and went down in a graceless heap.

His heart was hammering. His leg was burning. He was shaking. Even so, he dragged in a breath, tried to struggle to his feet…

A shadow blocked out the sun.

“So what’s this, dude? A scene from Braveheart? Maybe a bad attempt at Shakespeare on the Beach?”

Tanner grunted. “Very amusing, Olivieri. Now do me a favor and go away. Can’t you see I’m working on my tan?”

Chayton Olivieri, who had grown up with Tanner in the Dakotas, dropped to the sand beside him.

“Really? ‘ Cause, you know, your face is kinda pale for a guy workin’ on his tan.”

Shit. Chay wasn’t going to give up. There was no way out except to deal with it.

“Hell of a thing,” Tanner said. “Calling a Lakota brother a paleface.”

Chay laughed. Tanner did his best to make a similar sound. After a few seconds, Chay reached for the canteen hanging from a loop on his belt

“Hot today,” he said.

“Is it? I hadn’t noticed.”

Chay brought the canteen to his lips. “Man, that’s good.” He drank, drank again, then held out the canteen. “Don’t suppose you’d want some water.”

Want some? Just the sight of the canteen made Tanner suddenly aware of how dry his mouth was. He’d brought water with him, of course, but he’d finished it at least a mile ago.

“No, but what the fuck, I have a kind heart. I’ll take a couple of sips so you don’t have to be burdened carrying all that extra weight back to camp.”

Chay handed him the canteen. Tanner tilted back his head, lifted the canteen to his mouth and guzzled the cool liquid. Halfway through, he paused and offered the canteen to Chay, who shook his head. Tanner drank again and felt better almost immediately. The few minutes’ rest, the water…

That was all he’d needed.

Absolutely, it was.

Chay waited a few seconds, then cleared his throat.

“So what was this? A five-mile run?”

“Seven,” Tanner said, “but who’s counting?”

“I thought you were supposed to be working up to five.”

“The way you work up to something is to do it.”

“Never occurred to you that you were getting dehydrated?”

Tanner sighed. “No, Mom, I guess it didn’t.”

“Can the ‘Mom’ crap, okay?” Chay glared at him through narrowed eyes. “You’re an asshole.”

“Hell, dude, don’t hold back. Just say what you’re thinking.”

“It’s eighty-three degrees out here, hot for Santa Barbara, and you’re running along the beach. Not even running down by the water. You’re running up here, where the sand makes each step twice as hard.”

“Wow. The man knows physics.”

“And you’re not barefoot or wearing running shoes. You’re wearing combat boots.”

“Jeez. I am? I didn’t notice.”

Chay glowered at Tanner.

“Didn’t you ever hear the saying ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun’?”

“I am a lot of things, but I am neither rabid nor English, and you seem a little confused about the time. It’s seven a.m., nowhere near noon.”

“It’s almost eight, and that’s not the point.”

Tanner thought about arguing, but what good would it do?

“Okay. I get the message. ”

“I don’t think so. You know what the docs say. Don’t push.”

A muscle bunched in Tanner’s jaw. “It’s great advice, dude. You should take it.”

Chay folded his arms over his chest. “Don’t be an idiot, Akecheta. I’m right, and you know it.”

“Don’t you ever get tired of being right?”

Chay’s mouth twitched. “Can’t say as I do.”

Tanner sighed. Then he reached for the canteen again and gulped down more water. “ I know you mean well.”

“You’re still in recovery.”

Tanner got to his feet. His calf felt as if somebody was digging into it with a hot poker and he cursed and rocked back on his heels. Chay rose quickly, reached out as if to grab his friend’s arm, but didn’t. After a couple of seconds, Tanner looked at him.

“Here’s the thing,” he said quietly. “I have one month left to get past this. That’s four weeks. Thirty days. After that—”

“You will get better.” Chay paused. “But just in case… What’s wrong with becoming an instructor for STUD? You’d be great at it.”

“Maybe I’ll become an instructor in ten years. Right now, I’m not even thirty. I can’t see myself behind a desk.”

“A lectern.”

“Jesus Christ, Olivieri…”

Tanner stopped in midsentence. How could he be angry with this man? They had grown up together. Survived crap childhoods together, played high school football together and, against all odds, not only won scholarships to the same university but graduated together, gone into the teams together, been recruited for STUD together.

Chay was more than his oldest friend. He was the closest thing Tanner had to family. To a brother. And Tanner knew that what Chay felt was a brother’s concern.

“I’m okay,” he said quietly. “I mean, I have to do this. You know?”

Chay drew a long breath, then let it out. “Yeah. I know.”

Tanner smiled. Punched him lightly in the shoulder. “So, were you out for a stroll? Or did you come looking for me?”

“Actually, I was looking for you.”

Tanner grinned. “Sweetie. I didn’t know how much you cared.”

Chay grinned too. “You wish.”

“Okay,” Tanner said, “enough for this morning. Let’s run back.”

“You mean, let’s walk back.”

“How about we compromise and jog?”

“At the waterline.”

“Pussy,” Tanner told him, but he bent down, took off his boots and his socks, jammed the socks into the boots, tied the laces together, and slung the boots around his neck as he and Chay headed for the damp, tamped-down sand that abutted the ocean. Lacy white froth rolled over his toes and he sighed with pleasure.

“I hate to admit it, but this feels good.”

“What you mean is, it feels great.”

“Yeah. Okay. It feels great.” The friends fell into an easy pace. “Were you looking for me for a particular reason?”

“Yup.”

“And that reason was…?”

“I’ve got a pair of hot babes lined up for tonight. The kind who think STUDs always live up to their name.”

Tanner looked at Chay and waggled his eyebrows. “What’s the problem? You aren’t man enough to handle them both?”

Chay punched him in the arm. “That’s what I get for my generosity?”

“You came all the way out here to tell me that? You could have waited until chow time.”

“I know, but…” Chay glanced at Tanner. “There’s something else. The captain wants to see you.”

“Blake?”

“How many captains we got?”

“Did he say why?”

“Nope.”

“Huh. Last time he called me in, he chewed me out about not keeping some dumb-ass medical appointment.”

“You?” Chay said with a roll of his eyes. “Not keeping a medical appointment? Dude. I’m shocked.”

“But I’ve been keeping them lately,” Tanner said, ignoring the gibe. “I had a check-up with the physiatrist just last week.”

“You mean you kept the appointment with your rehab doctor?” Chay raised an eyebrow. “Will wonders never cease?”

The gibe was well earned. Tanner had blown off half his scheduled appointments. Why deal with her when he’d come up with his own rehab workout routine? “I had some papers to fill out. I’m sure I handed them in. Pretty sure, anyway.” A wave rolled in, soaking both men to the knees. “I can’t think of what Blake would want.”

“Maybe he just can’t get through the day without seeing your ugly face.”

“Or…” Tanner all but skidded to a halt.

Chay stopped, too, and swung toward him. “Or what? You look as if the sun just came out after a long winter.”

“Maybe I aced that checkup.” He ran his hands through his dark hair. “I mean, I know I did pretty well. Ran the treadmill for fifteen minutes. Did fifty squats. Passed some stupid balance tests. Don’t look at me that way. I know I didn’t look so good a few minutes ago, but I was fine in the doc’s office.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely.” Tanner grinned. “Maybe it’s over. Yes. I bet it is. Blake’s gonna return me to full duty.”

“I hope so, but you don’t really know. I mean, he said to report to him ASAP, but—”

“Forget the but’s, Olivieri. I’m on my way back to duty. I know I am.”

Tanner’s smile turned into a grin. He held up his hand. Chay hesitated, then high-fived him. Then Tanner swung away from the ocean and ran towards the STUD compound.

CHAPTER TWO

THE COMPOUND SPRAWLED over a forty acre stretch of what would have been prime Southern California real estate, but the land Camp Condor sat on was untouchable, a gift donated by a patriotic billionaire who also just happened to be a former STUD. His massive beach house, all glass and stone set on a low rise, was now the admin and classroom building.

There was no class in residence, so the place was quiet. If there’d been a class going through its sixteen-week training session, men would have been sweating hard and generally working their asses off.

Downtime was rare for STUD newbies.

Tanner remembered what his four months here had been like.

The weeks he’d put in at Condor had been as tough as any he’d lived through during BUD/S at Coronado. Tougher, maybe, because at BUD/S, you were working your tail off to prove yourself worthy of becoming a SEAL. Here, you were already part of the best-specialized ops force in the world, which meant the obstacles you had to overcome to become a STUD were even more difficult.

There were some guys on campus, a handful rehabbing the way he was, others taking advanced courses in everything from Arabic to esoteric forms of close-quarter combat with poetic names that suggested ancient Asian lineage. After Tanner had been schooled in several of those methods, he’d decided the fanciful names were meant to distract you from the reality of being taught how to put your opponent down, up close and permanent.

He greeted a couple of people, but he kept moving.

Blake was about to return him to the land of the living.

Why else would he want to see him?

Tanner ran up the four steps of the admin building, paused on the porch just long enough to tuck his socks in his pockets and jam his bare feet into his boots, then opened the front door on a foyer that probably still looked pretty much the way it had when the place had been its billionaire donor’s weekend retreat. Italian tile floors, high ceilings, chandeliers that would have looked right at home in Versailles.

The captain’s offices were to the right, the classrooms to the left.

Tanner’s first morning here, Blake had shown up to welcome them. They’d been a small group, twenty hard-bodied, hard-eyed men exchanging wary glances. A couple of guys knew each other. Tanner and Chay, for example.

They’d all jumped to their feet when Blake entered the room.

He’d waved them back into their seats.

“We don’t stand on formalities here, gentlemen,” he’d said. “We’re equals, no matter what our rank.” Then he’d grinned. “Except, of course, for me.” They’d all laughed and relaxed a little, which Tanner figured had been the point of the mild joke. Then Blake had turned serious. “Welcome to the Special Tactical Units Division of your country’s armed services. In other words, STUD—and yes, that’s one hell of an acronym. It’s also accurate. A stud, according to the dictionary, is a rivet. It provides strength and purpose to the whole. It is also a term for a stallion, and stallions are known for having courage as well as heart. We will expect you to have it all, gentlemen. Strength. Purpose. Devotion. Courage. And, perhaps most of all, heart. Show us those qualities and we will welcome you into the toughest, smartest fighting force in the world. Show us you lack even one of those things and you’re gone. Coming in second best here is not an option. Clear?”

The oldest recruit among them, a SEAL who was ancient at the age of thirty, had jumped to his feet.

“Clear, sir,” he’d said.

They’d all shot to their feet, barking out “Clear,” but Blake had held up his hand.

“You’re not loud enough, gentlemen. I want to hear a decisive answer.”

“Clear, sir,” The men had roared, and Blake had grinned and dismissed them.

And Tanner was now about to give that response to the order he’d been waiting for. Are you ready to return to your unit, Akecheta? Blake would say, and Tanner would salute, smile and bark out the word that was already on the tip of his tongue.

Was he ready? Man, was he ever. He could hardly wait.

Tanner strode down the marble-floored hallway toward his captain’s office. This time next week, he and his unit would be in—well, in a place where American forces were not supposed to be, but they’d been in lots of places where American forces weren’t supposed to be.

Not officially, anyway.

Pakistan. Iraq. Syria. He’d put in time closer to home, too, on the doorstep of the U.S. of A in the jungles of small but vicious banana republics in Central America where drug-smuggling, kidnappings and human trafficking were a way of life.

His guys would be as glad to have him back as he would be to ship out with them.

“Kowalski can’t hit the side of a barn, dude,” one of them had said during a Skype call, while Kowalski grinned in the background. “We need you.”

Yeah, he was a damned fine shot. But so was Kowalski. So were all of them. The one certainty was that he sure as hell needed them. They were his brothers, his family, and the fucking truth was that the thought of being unable to be part of that family again had scared the crap out of him.

He paused outside the open door to Blake’s suite of offices. Damn. He was a sweaty, sandy mess; he’d been so eager to get here that he hadn’t thought to stop for a shower and a change of clothes. He looked like something that had been washed up with the tide, and probably smelled like it, too.

“Lieutenant Akecheta?”

Too late. The captain’s aide, a pleasant-faced young ensign, had spotted him.

“Please go right in, sir. They’re waiting for you.”

Tanner stepped through the outer door and hesitated. “I’m, ah, I’m kind of ripe, Ensign. I’ve been out running. Maybe I should take five minutes to shower and—”

“They said to send you right in, sir.”

They? Who were ‘they?’ Tanner knew better than to ask. Instead, he nodded, ran his hands through his hair in what he figured was probably a useless attempt to tame it and followed the aide to the closed door of Blake’s private office. The aide knocked once and opened the door.

The office was large.

Vast might have been a better word. The size of it always awed him.

Tanner figured that it had probably been the former owner’s study. Lots of glass, a couple of big ceiling fans, a long stretch of pale hardwood flooring. The sofa, loveseat and club chairs at one end of the room were the kind that were expensive, but the desk at the other end was a big chunk of wood, pretty beaten up and scarred.

It had probably traveled with Blake from his last posting.

Normally, the room was filled with light.

Today, all the white vertical blinds had been drawn against the sun, creating an artificial darkness. The captain leaned, hipshot, against one corner of his desk. Another man stood lost in the shadows several feet away. Was he military? Tanner couldn’t see what he was wearing. He couldn’t see his face, either, only that he was tall and trim, with military bearing and posture.

“Lieutenant.” Blake stood straight, gestured to his aide to leave the room. The door snicked shut and Blake walked toward Tanner, hand outstretched. “I see you’ve been on the beach, working on your tan. Am I right?”

A joke, like he and Chay had shared, except this time, for no discernible reason, it fell flat. Still, Tanner gave the expected smile and response as he shook the captain’s hand.

“I was, yes sir.”

Blake chuckled, but the chuckle seemed no more real than the joke. Tanner was getting a bad feeling. Maybe this wasn’t about redeployment with his unit. Maybe, Jesus, maybe he was about to be dismissed from service.

“Listen,” he said quickly, “listen, Captain Blake…”

“You’re probably wondering why you’re here, Lieutenant.”

Yes. He sure as hell was. Who was the stranger standing in the shadows? And how come Blake had twice referred to him as Lieutenant when at any other time, he’d have simply have called him Akecheta or even Tanner?

“Lieutenant?”

Tanner cleared his throat. “Yes sir. I am.”

Blake gave him a long, unreadable look. Then he turned to the stranger and nodded. The stranger stepped out of the shadows and started towards them.

The guy was Army.

More than Army. Four gold stars glittered on his shoulders.

Shit! He was a fucking general.

Tanner slammed his heels together, stood straight as an arrow, and saluted.

“Sir!”

The general nodded. He was in his late fifties, maybe a little older than that, streaks of silver at his temples, but he was still vigorous-looking and handsome, a recruiting poster come to life.

Tanner recognized him. Why wouldn’t he? The world was not overflowing with four-star generals. He just couldn’t come up with the name.

“At ease, Lieutenant.”

A command to give, Tanner thought, but not to obey when he had no idea in hell what was happening here.

“I understand you’re recovering from a pretty bad wound.”

Talk about rotten timing… His leg was throbbing like a bad tooth.

“Not really very bad at all, sir,” Tanner said quickly.

“And that you got that wound in a firefight in Afghanistan.”

Tanner shot a glance at his captain. The captain nodded. Tanner looked at the general again.

“Yessir. That’s correct.”

“I understand, too, that you sustained your injury when you went after one of your men who’d been hit and was pinned down by fire from half a dozen insurgents.” The general raised his eyebrows. “It was a brave thing to do, Lieutenant, and it almost cost you your life.”

“I was nearest to him, sir, that’s all.”

“Of course.”

Tanner glanced at his captain again. Blake looked away from him. There it was again, that bad feeling in Tanner’s gut. He took a breath, let it out, and looked straight at the general.

“Sir. Why am I here? Begging your pardon, but I don’t get what this is all about.”

The general nodded. “No. How could you?” He extended his hand. “I’m John Hamilton Wilde.”

Of course. John Wilde. General John Wilde. Distinguished military career. D.C. hotshot. And the owner of a Texas ranch the size of a small kingdom. A man of money as well as power. And here he was, offering a handshake. Just one average Joe greeting another.

Tanner’s survival instincts went on full alert as he took the outstretched hand and shook it.

“You mean, you’re General John Hamilton Wilde,” he said. “U.S. Army.”

Wilde laughed. “They told me you were direct and to the point, Akecheta. I like that in a man.”

“I’m happy to hear it, sir, but I’d still like to know what’s going on here.”

“Akecheta. That’s Lakota Sioux, isn’t it?”

“Yes sir. It is.”

“Means warrior, if I’m not mistaken.”

Tanner didn’t answer. What was the point? The general had it right.

“We just might share some blood, Akecheta. There’s Native American in my DNA, too.”

Tanner didn’t answer that time, either. What in hell would be an appropriate response? I’m Sioux; what are you? Did our ancestors maybe slaughter each other in the glory days of the American West?

The general looked expectant. Apparently some sort of response was expected.

“Yessir. I suppose we might.”

Wilde nodded and turned to Blake. Tanner could almost hear his thoughts. Polite chitchat was over. Time to get down to business.

“Jim?”

Blake cleared his throat.

“Tanner. I know how eager you’ve been to get back to duty.”

Here it was. His medical clearance. But what did it have to do with a four-star general?

“Yes sir.”

“General Wilde has a, uh, a proposition to offer you.”

A proposition? Was he going to be washed out of STUD and handed over to the army like some kind of booby prize?

“Sir. Captain. If it’s all the same to you—”

Blake strode to the door.

“I’ll be outside, John. On the porch.”

“Thanks, Jim. I’ll see you in a little while.”

The door swung shut. Tanner could have sworn he felt the room grow smaller.

“Lieutenant? Shall we sit?”

The general headed for a loveseat. Tanner didn’t move.

“If it’s all the same to you, sir, I’d appreciate knowing what this is about.”

Wilde’s mouth thinned. Tanner knew he’d overstepped. Asking wasn’t done, but neither were closed-door meetings between a STUD lieutenant and a four-star general.

A couple of seconds went by. Then the general nodded.

“Yes. Of course. Jim Blake tells me you were deployed to Central America.”

“That was a while ago.”

“Where did you serve?”

“Guatemala. And Honduras.”

“And a small hellhole called San Escobal.”

“Yes, sir. That’s correct.”

“Guatemala and Honduras are quieter now, but San Escobal…” Wilde cleared his throat. “Blake tells me you were outstanding in handling such situations.”

“What situations, sir?”

Tanner knew there was an edge to his voice. Stupid, yes, but impossible to control. Wherever this was leading, it wasn’t about returning to his unit. Was he going to be offered another desk job? Liaison to some unit in Central America? A warrior whose weapons had been reduced to issuing bullshit directives?

No way would he accept that kind of ball-less assignment.

“Situations that involve operating in dense jungle, dealing with insurgents who call themselves freedom fighters when they’re really savages who value human life only in terms of how much money kidnapping, torture and ransom can bring.”

Wilde’s tone was raw. His jaw was tight, his hands fisted.

Tanner narrowed his eyes. “General. Begging your pardon, sir, but what in hell are we talking about?”

Wilde pulled in a deep breath, expelled it, and walked to Blake’s desk. He picked up a leather briefcase, opened it, took out a folder and offered it to Tanner.

Tanner didn’t move.

It was crazy, but he had the damnedest feeling that taking the folder was going to be one enormous mistake.

“Take it,” the general said sharply.

Eight years in the service, Tanner knew an inescapable command when he heard it. He took the folder and opened it to a sheaf of documents.

The first was a New York Times article about a group known as Bright Star. Estrella Brilliante. The reporter described it as “a growing presence” in the “uncertain political climate” of the small Central American nation called San Escobal.

The second document was from a right wing think tank in Europe. It called Bright Star a Maoist terror group.

The third was from a left wing organization in South America. It labeled Bright Star a force for freedom.

Tanner looked up. Wilde was watching him closely.

“Sir?”

“What’s your opinion, Akecheta? Freedom fighters or terrorists?”

“Neither, General. I know this bunch. They’re bandits with a taste for blood and money. They use the one to obtain the other.”

“But they’re well-armed. Well-financed.”

“Yeah. They are. It suits the political needs of others to support groups like Bright Star, no matter the consequences.” Tanner closed the folder and offered it to Wilde. “Look, sir, I’m flattered you think my knowledge might be helpful, but I have no desire to become a desk jockey. So, thanks, but no thanks. I’m determined to rejoin my unit ASAP, and—”

“Turn to the next document, Lieutenant.”

“Sir. With all due respect…”

“Turn the page!”

Son of a bitch. Tanner felt his jaw tighten, but an order was an order. He flipped to the next document.

And froze.

He was looking at a photograph. Of a woman.

An incredibly beautiful woman.

Clear blue eyes. Dark lashes. Elegant nose. A mouth turned up at the corners in a smile so real that he wanted to smile in return. Her hair, the color of wheat ripening in a sun-filled field, tumbled to her shoulders in a riot of soft-looking curls. She was wearing a dress that was almost the same shade of blue as her eyes. It was what he thought women called a sundress, the top a halter-like thing that exposed strong, graceful shoulders and arms, the skirt belling out from her slender waist and stopping just above her knees.

She’d been photographed standing on the porch of what seemed to be a handsome old house, one hand on her hip, the other wrapped around a post.

Tanner looked up. Wilde’s face was white with tension.

“My daughter,” he said in a low voice. “Her name is Alessandra.” He paused. “Turn to the next page.”

That nasty this-is-a-mistake feeling came over Tanner again, but this time nothing could have kept him from following through.

“Fuck,” he whispered.

It was the same woman. There was no doubt about that. It was she, but everything else had changed.

She stood not on a porch but in a clearing. A jungle clearing. Tanner had spent enough time in jungle clearings to recognize the riot of trees and vines and shrubs. Her hands were behind her. Tied, he knew instantly. She was wearing torn jeans and a stained T-shirt. Her hair was loose; he could see bits of leaf and twigs caught in the tangled strands, but it was her face that commanded attention.

It was battered.

There was no other way to describe it.

One of those beautiful blue eyes was half-shut, the skin around it greenish in color. There was another bruise high on one cheekbone. Something dark—caked blood, he thought—was clumped at the corner of her mouth.

She stood framed between two men. They wore filthy camo pants and combat boots. One was naked from the waist up; the other wore a black T-shirt. They were grinning at the camera. Each had an AK-47 slung around his neck.

Each had a hand on the woman.

One man cupped her breast.

The other’s hand was low and not visible. No question, he was cupping her ass.

Tanner’s belly knotted. He had never seen this pair before, but he knew what they were. Newspapers call them guerrillas or freedom fighters, depending on the politics of the day.

They were neither.

They were monsters, and they were capable of anything.

Anything.

Still, something was wrong with the photo. Bright Star never sent pictures of its soldiers. That was what they called themselves. Soldiers. They sent only pictures of their victims. If these pigs were soldiers and the woman was their captive, which certainly seemed the case, why were they grinning for the camera?

Tanner switched his gaze to the woman.

She looked terrified…and yet, for all of that, her chin was raised, her eyes flashed with what could only be defiance.

He looked at Wilde. “She was kidnapped?”

“Yes.”

“When did you get this picture?”

“Two days ago.”

“How?”

Wilde flushed. “That’s complicated.”

“Begging your pardon, sir,” Tanner said in a way that made it obvious the polite words were a sham, “how is it complicated? Your daughter was kidnapped. How did the kidnappers contact you? By courier? Fed-Ex? UPS… What?”

“The photo wasn’t sent to me. It went to the San Escobal office of the organization my daughter was visiting. They sent it to State, and someone who knows me in State passed it on to me. He knows—he knows enough about me to have thought Alessandra might be my daughter.”

“You’ve lost me, General. Is the woman your daughter or isn’t she?”

“She is, but very few people are aware of that. We’re—we’re estranged, and she doesn’t use my last name. She calls herself Alessandra Bellini.”

There was surely more to the story than that, but details could wait. All that mattered now was the status of the kidnap victim.

“She was taken in San Escobal?”

Wilde nodded.

“What was she doing there? How could you let her go to a hellhole like that?”

The words shot from Tanner’s lips uncensored. He didn’t give a damn. Neither, apparently, did the general, who walked to the loveseat, sank down on it and folded his hands in his lap.

“I told you, Lieutenant. We are—we are not in touch with each other. Alessandra didn’t ask my permission or seek my advice. Even if we’d been, you know, close, even then, she’d have done what she wanted. She’s very independent. She’s always made her own decisions.”

Tanner nodded. What Wilde meant was that his daughter didn’t give a crap for him or for the rules most people lived by.

He knew the type. The offspring of the rich and powerful were often raised to believe the world belonged to them. Being a SEAL meant you met people you wouldn’t otherwise meet, and that included the spoiled, pampered, bitchy daughters of the wealthy.

The problem was, every now and then reality bit them in their well-tailored derrières.

“Lieutenant?”

“Yes.” Tanner looked at the photo again. “You said she’s working for an organization.”

“Yes. The FURever Fund.”

“I’ve never heard of them.”

Wilde snorted. “Neither has anyone else. A bunch of idiots, if you ask my opinion.”

“I don’t give a damn about your opinion. Sir,” Tanner added quickly, at Wilde’s look of shock “I’m trying to determine what you need to do next if you want to get your daughter back.”

The general rose to his feet. “Of course I want her back! That’s the reason I’m here.”

“Yes. Okay. I get that.” Tanner paused. “Did they send a note? A list of demands? Information on how they intend to make contact?”

The general took a plastic baggie from his briefcase. It contained a piece of paper.

“My man at State bagged it, but a dozen people at the wildlife place had probably already handled it.”

Tanner took the baggie and held it up. The piece of paper was a message, written in English and addressed to someone named Tomas Anerson.

Tanner looked at the general.

“Thomas Anderson,” the general said. “The head of the wildlife organization.”

The message itself was brief and to the point.

One hunert thousand dollares you get her live. There is a cafe on the square in San Felipe. Be there too days from now. Only you an the mony. Tell anybody an she dies.

There was no signature, just a crude, almost childlike drawing of a star.

Tanner frowned.

Something wasn’t right. Forget the misspellings. They didn’t matter. What bothered him was the relatively low amount of the ransom demand. Bright Star dealt in millions, not thousands. And the drawing of the star was off, too. He’d seen what the guerrillas used as a logo. It was a five-pointed star, not this crude rendering.

“Lieutenant. Tanner. I need your help. You’re the one man who can get my daughter out of there.”

It was almost true. Why waste time being modest?

He wasn’t the one guy who could organize a rescue, but he was definitely one of only a handful who knew Bright Star, knew San Escobal, knew its fetid, hot, all-but-impenetrable rain forests.

What made him the only man for the job was that the others were the guys in his unit, and they were deployed thousands of miles away.

He’d vowed not to sit behind a desk, but how could he not do it this one time? As it was, even with him coordinating things, the odds were against saving the woman.

Bright Star’s record in returning victims after collecting ransom money for them was not encouraging. That this victim was young, female and beautiful made the chances of things going well about as good as the chances of Tanner’s leg ever being completely normal again.

Not that he was about to admit either of those things to his captain or the general.

He looked up. “Who’s collecting the necessary data?”

“You just saw the data, Lieutenant.”

“What I mean is, who’s in charge of collating it? Interviewing the people at the place where the kidnapping took place. Checking out the town of San Felipe. Checking out the bar where they want the meet to occur.”

“We are dealing with animals here, Lieutenant,” Wilde said sharply. “And you want to waste time checking things out?”

“General. I understand that you’re upset—”

“Did you see that photo, Akecheta? Her face. The way those men are—are touching her…”

Point taken, Tanner had to admit. He picked up the photo again. Not the one sent by the kidnappers; the one that showed Alessandra Wilde laughing and happy.

“What was your daughter doing in San Escobal in the first place? It’s not exactly a tourist attraction. Unless something’s changed that I don’t know about, there are State Department advisory warnings about travel there.”

Wilde shrugged. “Yes, there are.”

“Then why did she ignore those warnings? The beaches are as good in Belize or Guatemala, or in half a dozen other safe places… What?”

“She was there tracking jaguars.”

Tanner blinked. “Jaguars?”

“Jaguars, Lieutenant.”

“She’s a wildlife biologist?” Tanner asked in the same way he’d have asked if Tinker Bell was an astrophysicist.

“She’s designer. A fur designer.”

Tanner almost laughed.

A designer. The title confirmed what he’d already figured.

What Wilde meant was that his daughter was a rich, spoiled brat.

When you served in Special Ops, you all but tripped over women like her, hot for guys like SEALs, even hotter for Special Ops guys who belonged to teams and divisions so tightly classified that they were only whispered about. The one thing people always knew were the bars where the teams and units hung out.

For most STUDs, it was a place in Santa Barbara called The LZ. The Landing Zone. It was where you could chill, down a few beers, rock out to whatever was blasting over the sound system, maybe catch a football game on one of the big screen TVs that hung on the walls.

It was also a chick magnet. Chay had once joked and said there had to be a sign somewhere that said Only Tens Allowed.

The LZ drew spectacular looking women.

The hookups were easy and exciting, but you figured out pretty fast that what really attracted the women wasn’t so much you as it was their image of you.

What got them turned on was being fucked by a guy who was dangerous, a badass dude who—they hoped—had done a lot of really badass things.

At first, Tanner laughed at it. It was funny.

After a while, not so much, especially after he made the dumb mistake of almost falling for a gorgeous green-eyed redhead. Almost falling? Man, he’d been head-over-heels crazy for her. Crazy as in starting to think about their future together.

She was a jewelry designer. Not that he ever saw anything she’d designed. She said she was waiting for the right time.

She was also the daughter of an international banker whose family motto might have been Who Needs Morals When You Have Money?

When she told him she couldn’t spend Thanksgiving or Christmas with him, that she had to be with her family, Tanner had taken a deep breath and said, well, yeah, he understood that…and maybe one of those holidays would be a good time for her to let her family get its first look at him.

“They don’t know about us yet,” she’d said. “I’m just waiting for the right time.”

Chay had tried to warn him that he was in over his head. In fact, it had been the first occasion their whole life that he and Chay had almost ended up decking each other.

Idiot that he was, he’d bought into the rationalization, gone on believing she wanted him for himself, not for the image he represented—until the night he’d been deep inside her and she’d cupped his face between her hands, wrapped her long legs around his hips and whispered, “Sugar? Tell me how many men you’ve killed.”

Since then, he’d never been foolish enough to forget what women like that wanted from men like him. And, what the hell, why not? It wasn’t as if he was looking to settle down, not with the life he led.

It was just increasingly difficult to play the game. Not the sex part. That was easy. What was tough was the part that involved listening to rich, spoiled babes call themselves designers and consultants and decorators.

Those seemed to be their favorite occupations.

He’d met one bubblehead who called herself a color designer.

“It’s like feng shui?” she’d said in what he thought of as West Coast Speak, where every sentence was a question, “but with colors?”

Tanner had nodded and kept a serious look on his face when what he’d wanted to do was howl.

Now, here was this one, a four-star’s daughter, and she was into furs.

Nasty.

You killed an animal for food, or because it was trying to kill you. You didn’t kill it so some rich broad could wear it—but his opinion of Alessandra Wilde or Alessandra Bellini or whatever she called herself didn’t mean he could just let her die.

“Lieutenant. Please. You have to find her before they—they hurt her.”

Tanner suspected please was not a common part of John Wilde’s vocabulary.

And that photo. The bruised face. The men touching her. She’d been hurt already, he thought, and his stomach rolled. The only question was how much more would they do before they killed her, because killing was what Bright Star was all about—assuming this was a Bright Star kidnapping, and his gut was telling him maybe not.

Should he tell that to Wilde? No. For one thing, he didn’t have any facts to support the supposition. A low ransom figure, a poor drawing… It wasn’t enough.

For another, he’d have to also tell him that if Alessandra had been taken by two bandits working on their own, she might well be in even greater danger.

As vicious as it was, Bright Star at least operated under an organizational umbrella.

“Okay,” Tanner said briskly. “Give me the name of your man at State. I’ll speak with him, make some suggestions.”

A flush rose in Wilde’s face. “State’s not involved.”

“But you said your contact there…”

“I said he sent the information to me. Privately. Not officially.”

“Why the hell not?”

“I told you. State isn’t involved.”

“I don’t understand. What do you mean, State isn’t involved? I’d have thought your first action would have been to pull at the strings you could.”

“They don’t… That Alessandra is my daughter is not public information.”

Tanner folded his arms over his chest. “Meaning what, exactly?”

“Meaning it’s a long story.”

The general’s tone had hardened. He’d gone into command mode. Screw that, Tanner thought. If he was going to take on the job of collecting information and formulating a plan to rescue the woman, he needed to know what was going on.

“Then give me the abbreviated version, General.”

Wilde’s face reddened. There wasn’t a way in the world anyone ever spoke to him like this. They both knew it, just as they both knew that the general was just going to have to deal with a new reality, a reality that was standing in front of him, glowering.

“Alessandra is—she’s a child I had with my, ah, my second wife.”

“And?”

“And…” Long pause. “And, nobody knows I had a second wife.”

“I don’t follow. You divorced your first wife?”

“No.”

“Then what? She died?”

“Yes. And I don’t see what any of this has to do with finding my daughter and rescuing her from the clutches of a ragtag bunch of killers.”

“Wrong.” Tanner’s voice was as grim as the look on his face. “Don’t dismiss them as a ragtag bunch. They’re well financed and their leaders, at least, are well trained. And I still don’t get why you haven’t involved the State Department. They know how to handle things like this.”

“I told you. Nobody knows about Alessandra. About my—my second marriage. It took place in Italy. There’s no record of it here. I’d have to waste precious time on a lot of pointless explanations.”

Explanations the man didn’t want to make. The unspoken words all but echoed through the room.

And yet, Tanner thought, not involving State could be the best course of action for whoever planned and coordinated a rescue. He wasn’t a fan of protocol and diplomacy and red tape, and he sure as hell hated dealing with by-the-book government functionaries making life-and-death decisions when the toughest life-and-death issue most of them ever handled was traffic on the Beltway each morning.

Somebody working off the grid with contacts in Special Forces would best know how to handle this situation—somebody with contacts in the CIA. In the NSA. In the place referred to only as The Agency.

In STUD.

A coordinator like that would have worked in the field. He’d know how to bypass the petty rules established by petty politicians.

And he was the lucky guy Blake and the general had chosen to oversee the rescue of the spoiled estranged daughter of a four-star general. Of a woman who wanted to turn cats into coats.

She’d certainly chosen the right place.

San Escobal was pretty much the jaguar capital of Central America. He’d learned that when he’d served there. A couple of times, he and his squad had been lucky enough to glimpse the big, graceful cats slipping through the trees.

Had she gone there to make the arrangements herself? Maybe she’d wanted to take a personal look at the creatures she was going to pay men to kill. There were laws against hunting the cats, but there were laws against lots of things in San Escobal and one of the reasons people went to such places was because nobody paid attention to the laws.

Amazing. He’d never met the lady, and he already didn’t like her. Still, she didn’t deserve to be raped or murdered or worse. And yeah, there was worse.

“Who else knows about this besides this jungle group and your pal at State?”

“Only you.”

“And Captain Blake.”

“Yes. I told him everything. He immediately suggested you. He said you knew more about Central America, more about the scum operating in its jungles, than any operative he had.”

“Why did you contact the captain instead of someone else? You surely have access to every service that exists.”

“We go way back. Jim and I served on a joint task force in Europe years ago, and now he’s in charge of STUD.” Wilde managed a quick smile. “No point in playing games, Akecheta. We have the world’s best military, but everyone knows STUD is where to turn when you’re knee-deep in shit.”

Tanner walked to the wall of windows and drew open the blinds. Bright afternoon light flooded the room. A long stretch of pristine white sand led to the ocean, where gulls dipped and soared over the water. The sight was beautiful and serene, almost a gut-wrenching contrast to what might be happening in the jungles of San Escobal, more than three thousand miles away.

Slowly, he turned and looked at John Hamilton Wilde.

“I’m on rehabilitative leave, General, but you probably know that.”

“Jim told me. He also said he didn’t think it would keep you from being…effective.”

No. It wouldn’t. You could be effective behind a desk even if you had a gimpy leg.

He knew the right people to contact. He’d get in touch with them, call in some favors, set in motion a process that would, he had to admit, undoubtedly be more efficient than what Wilde could do by going through the usual channels. And he could do it all from here. Satellites would put everything he needed within his grasp.

The only question was who to ask to go in and do the dirty work. The trek through the green hell of San Escobal, the stalking of lowlifes who’d as soon murder a woman as keep her alive. And, toughest of all, the job of getting her out without getting her killed in the process.

It had to be a one-man job by a lone wolf who knew how to remain damn near invisible.

Goddammit.

He wanted it to be him.

It was the kind of work he’d been trained to do, the kind he loved. The excitement. The risk. The danger. There were times it was better than sex.

But it wouldn’t be him. He hadn’t been cleared for duty. No way Blake would let him take this on.

Who, then?

Names went through his head. Caleb Wilde, no longer in the field but still revered at The Agency…and, now that he thought about it, was that same last name a coincidence? It didn’t matter. Caleb was wrong for the job. His area of expertise had been Europe.

Zach Castelianos, who’d been with Force Recon and then The Agency. Zach was running his own outfit now, but his specialty had been Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

He needed someone who knew the jungle. Knew Bright Star.

Chay could do it, but he was only here on a training mission that he had to complete so he could rejoin their unit.

Okay. It was time to stop thinking of who wasn’t available and come up with someone who was.

“Lieutenant? Will you help me?”

Tanner looked at the general. Despite the uniform, the medals, the stiff military bearing, there was desperation in the man’s face.

“I will.”

Wilde closed his eyes, then opened them again. “Thank you.”

They shook hands. Then Tanner grabbed a pen and pad of paper from the desk.

“I want to get started immediately.”

“Of course. Just tell me what you need.”

“That’s what I’m about to do, General. I’ll need a small office here. Nothing elaborate, but it has to be private. And I’ll give you a list of what equipment I’ll require. Computers. I’ll write down the kind I want. Special satellite access. A couple of fax machines. Full access to you at all times. I’m going to check out some men who I think will… What?”

Wilde was shaking his head.

“I’m talking about what you’ll need personally. Pistols. Automatic weapons. Men. How many and with what specialties. And, of course, how to handle insertion into San Escobal. By chopper? Plane? Boat? Or do you think it’s preferable to go in on foot from Belize or Guatemala?”

“I’ll make all those determinations after I decide on an operative. That’s part of my role as coordinator.”

“I don’t want you coordinating this operation, Akecheta, I want you heading it up in the field.”

In the field.

The adrenaline rush was overpowering. For an instant, Tanner could see the green walls of the rain forest, smell the lush scents of it, hear the sounds and feel the heat.

Reality set in.

“You don’t get it, General. It won’t be me.”

“There’s nobody else who can do this job as well as you, Lieutenant. That’s straight from your captain’s mouth.”

Why screw around with modesty?

“I agree, sir, but you misunderstood the captain. I’m trapped here until I get a medical go-ahead. This thing happened to my leg. It’s nothing—hell, it’s no problem at all—but without the doctor giving me a thumbs-up…”

“She’s given it.”

Captain Blake walked into the room.

“You’ve got medical clearance, Akecheta,” he said, shutting the door behind him. “Johnny, I hope you don’t mind, but I figured it might be time for me to show my face.”

Wilde nodded. “You were right. I just told the lieutenant that I want him on the ground in San Escobal and he’s telling me that’s not possible.”

Blake looked at Tanner.

“It’s absolutely possible,” he said briskly. “Turns out the doc made a mistake filling out her latest report on you. She says you’re fit for duty. So does the surgeon who worked on you.”

Tanner felt a muscle flicker in his jaw.

Part of him wanted to pump his fist in the air. Part wanted to connect that fist with his captain’s chin. He’d begged. Pleaded. Done everything but get on his knees in supplication when asking to be returned to duty. The answer, always, had been no.

Now, these two old friends, one of them among the highest-ranked officers in the country, had changed all that simply because they could.

The realization burned his ass.

He’d tell these jerks exactly that. Let them know what he thought of rules that kept a man from doing what he’d been born to do until it suited the needs of others.

“Well?” Blake said. “Are you up for this or not, Akecheta?”

There was only one possible answer.

And it was yes.

CHAPTER THREE

Somewhere over the United States, just after 8 p.m. Eastern time:

FOUR-STAR GENERALS WERE magicians.

They were good at pulling rabbits out of hats.

San Escobal was in the Caribbean. That made south Florida the logical starting point.

Small problem.

The distance between Camp Condor and south Florida was almost three thousand miles.

So the first rabbit out of the hat was fast transport.

That turned out to be no problem at all.

Tanner sat in a U.S. Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet, a two-seater version of the newest, fastest jet that existed. The pilot would bring the jet down at Boca Chica Key in Key West, where an Hughes MH-6 Little Bird helicopter would be waiting.

The other rabbits out of the hat were things he could have gotten on his own, but never with the speed that came of having them requested by a guy with four stars on his shoulder boards.

Paracord. A canvas tarp. A magnesium fire starter. A satellite phone. A GPS. A flashlight. Individual packets of antibiotic ointment. Ditto for sterile wipes. Ibuprofen. Antibiotic capsules. Power bars. A cook pot. Cups. Canteens. Half a dozen Meals Ready to Eat. The MREs were bulky, but foraging off the land was time-consuming. Besides, once he secured the woman, he’d have to feed her something substantial. He had no way of knowing what condition she’d be in, other than to be certain that the ordeal she’d experienced, hard on any civilian, would have been especially hard on a spoiled city girl.

He had his own weapons.

A Hechkler & Koch MP7. STUD operatives had access to an almost endless variety of weapons, but he’d learned to trust the MP7 for its accuracy and firepower. His SIG-SAUER P226 pistol and the SOG-TAC knife that had been with him from the start, through his deployment as a SEAL and then as a STUD.

Everything else would be waiting for him in a backpack on the chopper in the Keys.

Wilde had argued that what he was taking wasn’t sufficient.

“How about a tent? A backup pistol? A machete? Surely you’ll want flares. Anti-venom.”

Tanner said yes to the flares and considered the machete. Whether you called the stuff in San Escobal a jungle or a rain forest, it could be tough to get through. A machete would undoubtedly be useful, but it would add to what was already a bigger load of stuff than he liked. He’d be moving fast, first to find the woman and then to get her out.

STUDs learned to make-do with what was at hand.

Still, he’d agreed to the machete. He knew that it might be the difference between moving through the heavy growth quickly or getting trapped in a morass of vines, branches and trees.

As for taking someone else with him…

Both he and Blake struck that down. Fast.

He’d have satphone access to Chay, who would be his contact, but getting into San Escobal and getting the woman out was black ops, a lone-wolf mission…Call it what you wanted, it all came down to the same thing. The job called for getting in fast and getting out the same way.

He would be on his own, and he liked it that way.

Still, Wilde wasn’t convinced.

“I damn well hope you’re up to this, Akecheta,” he’d said as Tanner had prepared to leave.

Captain Blake had slapped Tanner on the back.

“He is,” he’d told the general. “If anybody can pull this off, Johnny, it’s Tanner.”

The pilot’s voice buzzed through his headphones.

“Fifteen minutes to touchdown, Lieutenant.”

“Roger that,” Tanner said, and took a long, steadying breath.

Right on time. He’d have a few hours to pore over maps, check out the satellite photos he’d requested, even though little would be visible on the ground because of the lushness of the land itself.

He’d made a tough decision about when to go in.

Dropping out of a chopper at night was not the recommended approach, especially into an area of dense vegetation, but zero dark thirty was the best time to get in without being noticed. The drop would be made in a clearing halfway between the place where the kidnapping had taken place and the town where the ransom was to be paid. Tanner had worked the numbers over and over, and he was sure that was as far as the woman and her captors would have gotten by now.

As for Blake’s reassurance to the general that he could pull this off…

Tanner sure as hell hoped he was right.

* * *

San Escobal, deep in the rainforest, 8 p.m., Eastern time:

ALESSANDRA BELLINI sat gagged and bound in a darkness so complete she couldn’t even see her captors, who lay passing a bottle of whiskey back and forth not more than ten feet away.

Alessandra shuddered.

She could feel something crawling across her ankle, something else creeping over her forehead. Her skin itched and burned, her muscles screamed with pain, and those two bastards were having a party.

What time was it anyway?

Not very late. She was sure of that. And what did it matter? She bit back a bubble of hysterical laughter. It wasn’t as if she had someplace to go.

There were sounds in the trees and bushes around her. The sounds of things moving. Small things. Big things. Harmless creatures and ones that were not so harmless.

Better not to dwell on that.

She had to think about how to escape. Or how to survive.

So far, she hadn’t done very well at survival. Otherwise, she’d still be back at The FURever Fund’s compound instead of here, in the middle of nowhere.

Stupid, she thought, and not for the first time. How could she have been so damnably stupid?

Her second night at the compound she’d awakened, desperate to pee.

Sounded simple. But it wasn’t.

There were rules about nighttime peeing. One rule, really.

Use the chamber pot in your tent.

That had been explained to her right away.

“If, you know, you need to use the john at night, you’ll have to use the thing in your tent,” one of the researchers had told her.

“The thing?”

“Yeah. A chamber pot. It’s got a cover and you’ll find a roll of toilet paper next to it.” The researcher had laughed at the look on Alessandra’s face. “Just pretend it’s Victorian times,” he’d said. “When chamber pots were what everybody used.”

The thing was, the organization was new and its goals were great. Alessandra was delighted to be part of it, but she understood that it had problems. Not enough staff. A cramped office in Jersey City. Plus, she thought the name was clever, but possibly confusing. She’d mentioned it to the marketing guy, a nice kid straight out of college who’d looked stricken and said he’d just sunk hundreds of bucks into FURever brochures. Even if they came up with a new name, ditching the brochures would have wasted money they couldn’t afford to waste because FURever’s other problem, its big problem, was that it was underfunded.

The compound was a Quonset hut and half a dozen tents on a cleared patch of jungle five miles from Escobal City. A small room in the hut contained a chemical toilet, the only toilet, it turned out. And the hut was kept locked at night.

“Okay,” Alessandra had replied, “but, really, I can just go a couple of feet into the trees.”

“Better not. There’s no way of knowing what’s out there once it’s dark. I know it sounds gross, but we all use chamber pots. You can empty it into the toilet in the morning.”

He hadn’t been kidding.

There was, indeed, a pot in her tent.

Actually, it was a big round plastic container with a cover. One glance and she’d known she’d never look at a container of potato salad the same way again.

She’d also known she couldn’t use it.

Alessandra wasn’t squeamish. She wasn’t foolishly modest. But the idea of beginning the day among people she hardly knew while lugging a chamber pot in her arms just didn’t work for her.

She was fine during the first night of her stay.

The second night, she’d awakened in the dark, needing to pee.

Desperate to pee.

Dammit! One cup of coffee too many at supper.

What the hell. She’d camped out when she was a kid. Well, she’d camped out once, her first year at college. Okay. She hadn’t camped out, exactly. She and a couple of hundred other students had spent a night in tents in support of a student anti-hunger drive…

Alessandra had rolled her eyes and gotten up from her cot.

She’d gone to sleep in a cotton T and panties. Now, she pulled cargo pants over her panties, slipped her feet into a pair of canvas sllp-ons that were old and tattered, but too comfortable to throw away, grabbed some toilet paper, unzipped her tent door and headed for the nearest bushes.

Once there, she’d undone her pants, tried not to think about snakes, and done what she’d needed to do. She’d used the wad of paper she’d brought with her, pulled up her panties, then her pants…

That was when the nightmare started.

A powerful arm had wrapped around her neck and hoisted her off her feet, bringing her back against a man’s body and into the stench of body odor and whiskey.

She’d tried to scream, but the arm was hard against her windpipe. So she’d kicked, tried to use her elbows as weapons.

“You fight, you die,” the man had whispered in her ear.

She’d fought anyway.

A second man called her a puta as he jammed a filthy piece of cloth stinking of rot and sweat between her teeth.

Seconds later, gagged and bound hand and foot, she’d been tossed over the first man’s shoulder and carried off into the night.

She had no idea how long the men had walked.

Eventually, the man carrying her had dumped her on her feet. He’d untied her ankles, looped a rope around her neck and begun dragging her after him like a reluctant dog on a leash.

She’d stumbled again and again.

It was dark. Really dark. The man in front had a flashlight and there was a moon, but she couldn’t see more than a couple of feet ahead. Each time she tripped, each time she fell, the man holding the rope yanked on it and cursed while she struggled to her feet.

At dawn, they stopped in a small clearing.

He tied the end of the rope around a tree on the clearing’s perimeter.

She’d collapsed to the ground, feet raw, wrists burning and neck sore where the rope had dug into her.

For the first time, she got a real look at her captors. One was tall and skinny. The other was short and fat.

Both of them were ugly and filthy and armed, and scared her straight into the marrow in her bones.

The tall one took the gag from her mouth and gave her a drink of water, though most of the water spilled down her T-shirt because he deliberately held the cup too high.

Both men laughed when the wet T clung to her breasts.

“Nice,” the short one said, and squeezed her nipple so hard she moaned.

“See? She likes us,” said the tall one, and jammed the gag in her mouth again.

They told her what would happen to her if she gave them any trouble.

Then they opened their backpacks, took out food of some sort and a bottle of what smelled like whiskey. They ate and passed the bottle back and forth until they fell into drunken, snoring stupors.

Alessandra had not closed her eyes.

The men woke at dusk, ate and drank again. The short one waved something half raw and stinking of rot under her nose. She’d flinched at the smell and he’d laughed and tossed whatever the thing was into the brush. Then he ordered her to stand. When she did, he untied the rope tied around her neck from the tree, looped it around his arm, and shoved her onto the trail. When he tugged on the rope, she gagged. He cursed, but he loosened it.

Then he barked, “Move!”

As if she had a choice.

This time, she was more aware of time. She didn’t have an accurate way to gauge it, but she knew they’d walked for hours.

She’d stumbled. Fallen. Bruised her knees. Torn her cargo pants. She ached everywhere. The rope around her wrists cut into the tender skin. Her ankles were bleeding where they’d been bound, attracting every bug within miles to dine on her flesh.

All of that was bad, but what was even worse was that she was terrified.

Too terrified, too shocked, too everything to do more than whimper at the pain in her feet and wrists while her mind ran in useless circles.

Her teeth had chattered with fear.

The tall one found that incredibly amusing.

“Listen to the whore,” he’d said. “She plays the castanets.”

More giggles and laughter, and all at once she’d thought, Alessandra, exactly what in hell are you doing?

These were men, not monsters. She had to start seeing them that way.

Skinny and Stubby.

She named them on the spot, told herself they were people, not creatures out of a nightmare, but the truth was it didn’t help much except as a reminder that she’d been on the verge of giving up.

And giving up was something she’d never done, not in the worst moments of her life.

Bellinis were not cowards nor were Wildes. And she had the blood of both in her veins.

It was pointless to think about pain and fear. She had to think about a plan. About figuring out why they’d taken her.

What did they want?

Rape was a real possibility, but except for lewd jokes, pinches and touches, they hadn’t done anything overtly sexual to her. Not yet, anyway. So why had they taken her prisoner?

In late afternoon, they stopped walking. Stubby gave her a cup of water and a chunk of bloody meat he took from his pack. She’d forced herself to eat it.

Skinny produced a camera from his backpack. She recognized the brand. Her mother had owned one, an ancient Polaroid, the kind that took instant photos, and she’d thought how amazing it was that even when things were completely bleak, bits of useless trivia could float to the surface of your mind.

“Look pretty,” he said, “or nobody gonna wanna pay nothin’ for you.”

Then she understood.

They’d taken her for ransom.

Ransom?

The FURever Fund didn’t even have money for toilets. They certainly wouldn’t have the money to buy her freedom.

Maybe she’d smiled at the irony of it. Or looked like she might smile.

Stubby had backhanded her.

“Stan’ up straight,” he’d ordered, and he’d wedged the Polaroid in the branch of a tree and shot a picture with him standing on one side of her, Skinny on the other, both touching her intimately, but she had not flinched and had, instead, glared into the lens of the camera.

When Skinny pulled the developed photo from the camera, he’d snarled a curse and punched her in the belly.

“Soon,” he’d said, “you will not be so brave.”

He’d taken a piece of grimy paper and a pencil from his backpack. The other man had written something on the paper. Then he’d sealed the photo and the paper in an envelope and disappeared into the jungle. He’d returned a couple of hours later, without the envelope, and the men had grinned and high-fived each other.

Another day had been spent stumbling through the jungle. At nightfall, her captors had repeated last night’s pattern. They’d built a small fire. Cooked the carcass of something over it. A lizard, maybe. When it was still half raw, they tore it apart. This time, they hadn’t offered her any, nor did they offer her water.

They’d been too busy drinking.

They still were.

And she needed to pee.

Peeing was turning into the story of her life.

Wait. Wait! A bathroom break could save her.

The men had relieved themselves on the trail several times, not bothering to hide anything they were doing from her.

Earlier, she’d had to do the same thing. She’d gestured her need as best she could. The tall one had finally figured it out and he’d unbound her wrists and let out enough of the rope so she’d been able to step off the trail and go behind a bush, but he’d tied her hands together as soon as she’d reemerged.

What if she could get him to untie her hands and leave them loose?

The men were drinking hard. Soon, they’d pass out.

Alessandra began making sounds behind the gag. They didn’t react. After a while, though, they looked at her.

“Shut up,” Stubby snarled.

She didn’t and he stood up and came towards her.

“Wha’ you want?”

She raised her eyebrows. Made a wriggling motion. He scratched his head.

“She needs the bat’room,” Skinny said.

Alessandra jerked her head up and down.

Stubby rolled his eyes. Then he untied her ankles and unwound some of the rope from the tree. She staggered to her feet. The ground tilted a little; she knew it was lack of water and lack of food, and she fought against the moment of disorientation.

Who knew what they’d do if she passed out?

“Well? Go on, puta. Go behind the bush. No one wishes to see a woman squat.”

She held her hands out in front of her. He grunted and undid the knot at her wrists.

She went behind the bush. Did what had to be done. Finished just in time, because Stubby yanked hard on the rope leash and when she staggered toward him, he grabbed her hands—she felt her moment of hope dim—re-bound them, pushed her to the ground, wrapped the rope around the tree again and tied her ankles together.

Minutes later, he and his pal had been sprawled beside the fire, snoring.

She was trapped.

What would happen when they found out that there was no money to buy her freedom? Her father or her brothers could have paid a ransom for her, but nobody at the coalition knew she had a wealthy father, let alone wealthy brothers.

They didn’t know anything about her.

She’d wanted to succeed on her own.

In a family like hers, you had to prove yourself.

She’d studied design at FIT. She’d told her brothers that the Fashion Institute of Technology had awarded her a scholarship. Not true. She’d waitressed her way through school, won a much-desired internship at a high-end fashion house on graduation and went on waitressing because the internship didn’t pay enough to live on. Her designs were good. Outstanding, her boss said. One thing led to another, and six months later she had a dream job with a much ballyhooed young New York designer.

She’d sketched and pinned and sketched and pinned and tried not to think about the fact that her dream job had begun to seem, well, superficial.

After a few months, the designer called her into his office and told her, with a big smile, that he was moving her up.

He wanted her to join his fur design team.

The strange thing was, she’d never thought about furs before. She didn’t own any; in s vague kind of way, the idea of wearing something that had once been alive made her uncomfortable. Two weeks of sitting in rooms with the gorgeous, glorious pelts of dead animals laid out all around her left her more than uncomfortable.

It left her sick.

Within days, she’d quit her job and explored her career options. There were designers like Stella McCartney who refused to work with animal skins or hides. She could go in that direction.

Or she could do something about what she had learned was an illegal trade in certain kinds of furs.

A month later, she was working with The FURever Fund, feeling as if she might just be accomplishing something.

Not anymore.

She’d gone from being an asset to being a liability.

She’d screwed up, big-time.

And on a far less philosophical level, what would happen when her captors finally figured out that she wasn’t going to make them rich?

She thought again of her family. Her brothers, Luca and Matteo. Her sister, Bianca. Her half-brothers and half-sisters, Travis, Caleb and Jake, and Emily, Jaimie and Lissa. She thought of the pain they’d endure if something happened to her.

She could tell her kidnappers to contact her brothers or her sisters.

Or her father.

No. She would never turn to her father for help. Never.

Her brothers and sisters? How could she let them know what a fool she’d been, getting herself into such a mess? Going to a country that was on the government’s travel advisory list even after the coalition’s director had sent her an e-mail lauding her for what he’d referred to as her courage in planning a visit?

And that dumb decision not to use the chamber pot…

One of her kidnappers started snoring.

Alessandra shuddered. She turned her face away, shut her eyes, gave in to exhaustion…

And, improbably enough, fell asleep

* * *

She came awake, screaming.

At least she would have screamed—if screaming had been possible.

But it wasn’t.

Not only was she gagged, but a hand was clamped tightly over her mouth. A big, hard, powerful hand.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

Warm breath against her ear. A low, husky male voice.

“Do you understand? I’m not going to hurt you.”

Right.

And this was just a camping trip.

She didn’t know who had his hand over her mouth, Stubby or Skinny, but it didn’t matter. He wanted to hurt her. Only a fool would think otherwise.

It was the middle of the night, and one of them had grown weary of waiting.

She jerked against the hand, even managed a soft, terrified hmpf. The hand pressed down harder. Her head was pushed up and back.

“Goddammit, woman! Stop!”

Stop? No way in hell was she going to stop!

She twisted, bucked, even fought. managed to get a piece of the man’s hand between her teeth despite the gag. She couldn’t really bite him, but she felt her incisors scrape against his skin.

His breath hissed.

Good. She’d hurt him.

Not good.

She’d annoyed him was what she’d done.

He shifted his weight, flattened his palm over her mouth and pinched her nostrils shut with the fingers of his other hand.

Terror gave way to panic.

She was going to die. Here. Like this. In the fetid jungle, at the whim of one of her captors…

Except…

She blinked.

Except, in the gray light of predawn, she could see them on the opposite side of the clearing, sprawled next to the embers of the dying fire, both still sleeping, both snoring.

She jerked against the stranger’s hand. Made a sharp, strangled sound.

“That’s right,” he whispered. “I’m not one of them.”

Maybe not. But she needed air. Air…

“You want to live?”

She jerked her head up and down. Her lungs were starting to burn.

“Make one sound, try to bite me again, and I’ll cut off your breathing until you lose consciousness. Got that?”

She gave a frantic nod, and the fingers clamped over her nose loosened. She took a long, long breath. Nothing had ever felt as good as that rush of air into her lungs.

The man put his mouth to her ear again.

“Alessandra.”

He knew her name?

“I’m going to take you home.”

She jerked against his hand.

“That’s right. Home. To the States. Are you with me?”

She nodded.

“I’m going to cut you free. Your hands. Then your feet.” He tugged at the rope around her wrists. “This is tightly tied. That means you’ll feel the knife right against your skin. Do.Not.Move. I don’t want the blade going through flesh. Understood?”

She nodded again and felt the cool kiss of steel between her wrists and the rope.

The rope gave way.

The man edged forward in a tight crouch. She could see the back of his head, the broad shoulders encased in a camouflage shirt as he bent over her feet and severed the rope that bound them.

He scooted backwards and stood up. “I’m going to cut the rope around your neck. Once I do, I want you to stand. Slowly. No fast moves. Okay?”

She nodded.

The blade slid between her neck and the trunk of the tree. She swallowed a sob of relief as the rope fell away.

“Up,” he whispered.

She rose. A combination of fatigue, thirst, pain and fear made her knees buckle.

He grasped her elbow. “Easy,” he whispered. “Take a breath. Let it out. Good. Now, step back. I’ve got you.”

He certainly did.

He’d snaked his arm around her waist. She was in front of him now, pressed to the length of his hard body.

Ridiculous.

She didn’t know who he was or even if she should trust him, but the feel of him against her, the feel of his hand splayed over her belly, gave her strength.

He bent his head so his mouth was at her ear again.

“Another few steps and…”

The snoring from across the clearing stopped. It was as if a giant had hit a switch and silenced the universe.

Her rescuer froze. He put his hand over her mouth, lightly this time, but the message was clear.

Do.Not.Make.A.Sound.

Did the drumming of her heart count, or was she the only one who could hear it? She nodded frantically to let him know she understood. He took his hand from her mouth and drew her even closer.

She was shaking.

Both his arms closed around her.

Instinctively, she turned her head and pressed her face against his shoulder.

He was tall. Six one, six two at least. His body was lean and hard. He smelled faintly of sweat, but it was a clean male smell, nothing like the stink of cheap whiskey, rancid grease and days-old body odor that oozed from the pores of her kidnappers.

An eternity seemed to pass. Then, finally, the snoring started again. It was the most beautiful sound imaginable.

Her rescuer touched her hair, as if to assure her that everything was going to be okay. Then he let go of her. She choked back a whimper. Silly, she knew, but she wanted him to keep holding her.

“Time to move,” he whispered.

She nodded. He took her hand. It all but swallowed hers.

She could feel the tension in his body.

She began to tremble.

“Don’t be frightened. You’re doing fine. Just remember. You will not make a sound.”

A command, not a question.

“If you wake those two pieces of shit over there, I’ll have to kill them—and that might complicate things. Understand?”’

Kill them? Kill them?

Who was this man?

“Nod your head if you agree you’ll keep quiet and do as I say.”

She nodded again. Why not? She couldn’t do anything else… But the truth was, she didn’t understand. Not anything.

He talked about killing as if it would be an inconvenience. He knew her name. He hadn’t hurt her, but he could have.

He was here to take her home.

Really?

Then who had sent him? Where had he come from? Not from the coalition’s headquarters. She was sure of that. There were men there. The director. A couple of wildlife biologists. Construction workers. Nice guys, but she couldn’t imagine one of them either threatening to cut off her breath until she lost consciousness or saying he’d have to kill somebody if things didn’t work out.

“We’re going to walk backwards. Ready?”

She nodded again and they moved back together.

It was still not yet dawn, but the sky, patchy through the canopy of trees, was growing lighter and lighter even as the distance between herself, her rescuer and her captors grew.

She wanted to turn and run.

Her rescuer must have sensed it. His hand tightened on hers, forcing her even closer against him.

“Not yet,” he whispered.

The figures in the clearing grew smaller. Trees, vines, tall bushes began to close in. At last, Alessandra could see nothing but dark green of the jungle.

Her rescuer bent his head to hers.

“Turn around.”

The soft, rough urgency in his voice made her heartbeat quicken. She squeezed his hand. Together they spun around.

And ran.

They were on the same path the kidnappers had taken hours earlier. It was mostly a mix of soft grasses and earth; she knew it muffled the sound of their footsteps even if, in her mind, they were as loud as booted feet pounding over asphalt.

And running was hard. Every inch of her hurt. She’d stumbled and fallen endless times, and the bruises from those moments had been made worse because of how often her kidnappers had amused themselves by dragging her after them instead of giving her the chance to get to her feet. Bugs had feasted on her exposed skin as well as in places she hadn’t thought bugs could get. Her mouth and throat were parched from lack of water. Her wrists and ankles screamed with agony where they’d been bound.

So what?

She was free.

If that meant running until she dropped in her tracks, so be it.

Not hat the man with her seemed likely to let that happen.

The pace he set was brutal, but no matter how often she slipped or stumbled, he kept moving and he saw to it she kept moving along with him.

When she stumbled over a tree root, he caught her and righted her before she could fall. When her shirt snagged on a thorn bush, he didn’t waste time undoing the snag; he simply tore it free.

He was Superman.

Only one problem.

She was gasping for air.

She could hear herself panting. Surely the men they were running from would hear her, too. And even if they didn’t, wouldn’t she be able to breathe better without this hideous rag clamped between her jaws?

Alessandra poked her rescuer in the ribs.

“Mmpff!”

He barely glanced at her. “Yeah,” he said, “I know. You need a break.”

Was that what he thought she wanted?

“Mmpff,” she said again.

“Here’s your choice, lady. Keep up with me, or sit down, take a rest and wait for the bozos behind us to wake up and figure out what happened.”

Dammit! She wasn’t asking him to stop or slow down, she was asking him to get the gag out of her mouth, but why would that occur to Superman? He wasn’t even breathing hard.

“The gag,” she said, except what came out was something like “tuh gah.”

“Listen to me, woman…”

Enough.

Alessandra pulled her hand free of his and slapped it against her mouth.

“Tuh gah,” she said fiercely. “Tuh gah!”

He glared at her, and then he cursed, swung her towards him and took his knife from its sheath.

Her eyes widened.

She jerked back, but he spun her around. She felt his big hands push aside her hair. Felt the whisper of the blade as he slid it between the knot at the nape of her neck and her skin. One quick slice and the rag fell to the ground.

He scooped it up and jammed it in his pocket.

“Better?”

She licked her lips. They felt dry and cracked. Her mouth and throat were raw and she wasn’t sure she could speak.

“Much better.”

The words came out a croak, but her rescuer nodded, grabbed her hand again and they took off again.

She, Superman, and ten trillion aches and pains.

Think about something else.

She’d overcome pain before.

Diving from the cliffs near where she’d grown up in Sicily. She’d probably done that a thousand times, despite Mama’s warnings against it, and then, one morning, she’d gone into the sea wrong and ended up dislocating her shoulder.

She’d survived that, hadn’t she?

Or the barbecue at El Sueño when she’d bitten into a toasted marshmallow before it had cooled enough, and burned the tender inside of her mouth. And what about the first time she and Bianca, both of them new to America, had gone ice-skating at Rockefeller Center?

Bianca had been a natural. Alessandra, not so much.

She’d taken a couple of falls. Her ankles had wobbled.

“I’m going to be black and blue tomorrow,” she’d said, laughing, because, aches and bumps or not, learning to skate had been fun…

Merda!

Was she crazy? Cliff diving. Barbecuing. Ice-skating. Fun things, all of them, even if you got hurt.

But this—running through the jungle, or maybe at this point it was more accurate to describe it as being hauled through the jungle by a man you didn’t know anything about, wondering if the men who’d captured you were hot on your heels, knowing they damn well would be, soon enough…

This had nothing to do with fun.

This was life and death. Her life. Her death. And Superman’s.

Alessandra wheezed.

How long until her captors woke from their drunken stupor and realized she was gone?

It would be full dawn soon. Yesterday, Skinny and Stubby had awakened once the sun was above the tangled jungle foliage. If they did the same thing today, there were only precious minutes remaining until they discovered she was gone.

She felt as if they were running at marathon speed, but she suspected the man with her would have been able to move twice as fast without her.

What would happen if her abductors caught up to them? Her rescuer had said he was here to take her home, but she wasn’t stupid enough to think he was willing to sacrifice his life to accomplish that.

She knew nothing about him except that he was tall and hard-muscled and gruff. What she needed to know was who had sent him. How he’d found her. What was his plan? How would he get them out of this alive?

“Stop.”

The word was quietly spoken, but it was a command. Alessandra lurched to a halt. Superman let go of her hand and she bent double, her hands on her knees, gasping for air like a carp on dry land.

When she could breathe again, she straightened up and looked around.

She recognized this place.

A huge downed tree blocked the path just ahead.

She remembered it from hours before, when she’d come through here with her kidnappers. She’d had difficulty climbing over the tree, especially without the use of her hands, and the two men had found her efforts hilarious. Eventually, she’d managed, but the rough tree bark had left welts and cuts on the tender flesh of her thighs.

“Can you get over that tree?” her rescuer asked.

She nodded, because surely it would be simpler this time with both hands free.

Wrong.

She tried, but she was too exhausted.

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and bit down on the already swollen flesh. A sob of complete despair rose in her throat.

Her rescuer scooped her up and carried her over the tree as if she were weightless.

Her head fell against his shoulder. Being held felt so good. And she was so tired…

He dumped her on her feet. She swayed a little and he reached out and clasped her shoulders. His hands felt hard on her; his touch was impersonal.

“We’re not safe yet. Understand?”

She nodded. Saying yes would have taken too much effort.

“We have farther to go. A couple of hours at least. You go soft on me now, we’re both dead. Understand that too?”

Another nod. Her hair was in her face. She scraped it back with a trembling hand.

“See that those bushes and trees to my right?”

What she saw was what you saw everywhere in the jungle. A jumble of leaves. A riot of flowers. Tree branches. Shrubs. Vines. An indecipherable mess, no different than anything she’d seen before.

“It’s a game trail.”

This time, she managed a sentence, even if she panted the words.

“I…don’t…see…a…trail.”

He let go of her, stepped a few feet away and shoved aside some of the vegetation. “Look again.”

Alessandra looked. She blinked. She squinted. Okay. She saw…something. A dark space within the dense growth.

“It’s an old game trail,” her rescuer said. “Probably hasn’t been used by anything but pigs for years.”

“New…World…pigs.”

“Right. White-lipped—”

“White-lipped peccaries,” she said. Breathing was a little easier although she was still panting. “But they’re rare.”

He looked surprises for a second, as if he hadn’t expected her to know the name of those animals. Then he let the vines and leaves fall back into place.

“Tell that to the pigs,” he said briskly. “Coming in, I saw plenty of signs of them. The point is, the trail we’re on gets all the human traffic. That’s why we’re going to take the other one. With luck, your bozos will go right past it.”

Her bozos? Alessandra narrowed her eyes. “They’re not my anything.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say. Right now, I want to leave some sign to mislead them.”

His tone was downright unpleasant. What in hell did he mean by calling Stubby and Skinny hers? And what was with this sign business? Who did he think he was? Daniel Day-Lewis in The Last of the Mohicans?

“And what if they don’t?”

“Don’t what?”

She damn near rolled her eyes. “Don’t go right past that trail?”

“They will.”

He flashed a quick smile, except it wasn’t really a smile at all. As exhausted as she was, Alessandra could recognize a look that said little lady, are you actually questioning me? You didn’t grow up in a Sicilian household without being able to recognize the signs that invisibly read Arrogant Male in Residence.

“I don’t even know your name.”

He didn’t answer.

“I said, Who are you? Who sent you? Who…Hey! Hey, that hurts! Stop! Why are you yanking on my hair? Are you crazy?”

Despite the danger of their situation, Tanner damn near laughed.

Alessandra Wilde spoke with a barely there Italian accent, but it didn’t disguise the fact that she was burning with indignation. She was covered in dirt. She had a black eye. Her skin was dotted with bug bites, her clothes were muddy and torn, and her hair was a wild mass of pale gold curls shot through with bits of leaf and twigs and God only knew what else, but he could easily imagine her standing in a fancy restaurant, facing down a maître d’ who’d made the unforgivable mistake of thinking he could seat her at a bad table.

That a woman of her type had survived the last few days was remarkable, but if life had taught him anything, it was that sometimes you were lucky.

And the general’s daughter had been lucky.

Very.

From this point on, however, her survival was dependent on his skills. And he damn well wasn’t going to have to stop and answer to her for every decision he made.

“You want to play Twenty Questions, save them until later. For now, stay put.”

“Stay put?” She heard the note of hysteria in her voice as he moved past her. “Hey. Where are you…”

He strode to the downed tree, took a couple of the strands he’d yanked from her head and wedged them into the scaly bark, then trotted past her and stuck another on a thorny branch overhanging the trail. Last of all, he drew the gag from his pocket and simply let it fall to the ground.

“Oh,” she said.

“Oh, indeed,” he said as he came back to her. His tone was cold; his eyes were hard. “You thought I was going to leave you here.”

It was a flat statement. She didn’t try to deny it.

“I won’t leave you until we’re back in the States. You got that?”

Her gaze met his. He was big and tough looking; his face was striped with charcoal or maybe some sort of paint. There was a grim set to his jaw. She still didn’t know his name. She didn’t know anything about him except that he didn’t seem to like her very much.

But she believed him.

“Yes,” she said.

He nodded, shoved against the green tangle that obstructed the old game trail. Then he held out his hand. She took it, and he drew her through the vegetation and onto the trail. When he let go of the vines and leaves and branches, the opening to the trail disappeared. No more downed tree, no more well-used trail.

It was all gone.

“The path is narrow,” he said. “We’re going single file, me ahead of you to lead the way. It’ll be rough. I’ll expect you to keep up with me. Is that clear?”

“I understand.”

“I hope to hell you do, Wilde.”

“Why would you call me that? My name is Bellini.”

“Wilde, Bellini, frankly, I don’t give a damn what you call yourself. What I want, what I expect, is that you follow my orders. You don’t stop unless I stop. Not for anything. You don’t talk unless I tell you to talk. And keep your eyes open. The last thing I need is you stepping on a snake or a tarantula. Got it?”

What she understood was that he’d pretty much designated her his own personal pain in the ass.

“Yessir,” she said, as sweetly as saccharine.

He narrowed his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means exactly what it sounds like. I am yours to command.”

Oh, the look on his face! She knew he wanted to say something about her being…what was that American phrase? About her being a smart-ass.

But he didn’t. Instead, he swung away from her and started walking.

Alessandra took a long breath, immediately regretted it because it involved swallowing a gnat or some other kind of horrible flying creature, and fell in behind him.

CHAPTER FOUR

IT WAS SLOW going.

Once Tanner figured they were deep enough into the jungle for him to wield the machete without the sound of it carrying to what he hoped were the still-sleeping pricks who’d taken her, he took it from his belt and began swinging it.

The vegetation gave way relatively easily and they picked up speed, but not enough.

The woman was slowing them down. She was doing the best she could—he had to give her that—but she was having a tough time. He could hear her behind him, breathing hard, tripping over roots and vines, swatting at the bugs.

If there was one kind of wildlife that definitely used this trail, it was the kind that flew, crept and crawled.

“This is a jungle, dude,” one of Tanner’s instructors at STUDs training had said when they’d been dropped into a jungle in Belize and one jerk had bitched about the seemingly endless insects. “Did you think somebody would come through and spray it with Raid?”

They’d all laughed, but the truth was that the little shits made things tougher than they already were. They got in your eyes. Your nose. Your mouth. They got into places nobody but you or the lady currently in your bed ever touched. They made you itch, so you scratched—and the more you scratched, the more you itched. Then the places you’d scratched swelled up and sometimes they became infected.

Infection was not something to treat lightly in an environment like this.

Christ only knew what bacterial life forms made the jungle their happy home.

Besides, the last thing he needed was the woman coming down with an infection. Still, no matter what happened, he wouldn’t have to deal with her for very long.

With luck, they’d reach the river by late afternoon.

He’d had a couple of hours between the Super Hornet depositing him at Boca Chica and the chopper picking him up, and he’d spent the time going over satellite photos of the area where Alessandra Wilde had been snatched, where he’d been likely to find her—and had.

As luck would have it, he knew the area. He’d been in this part of San Escobal before, back in the days when a cocaine drug lord had pretty much owned it, but the so-called civil war had changed everything, including who held what territory.

One thing had not changed.

The geography.

The river, especially.

There was one out there, all right, ten, maybe eleven klicks to the west where it cut through the thick foliage like a sluggish brown worm. A couple of villages sat on its overgrown banks. Villages meant fishermen, and fishermen meant canoes.

Tanner was counting on finding one of those canoes. He’d buy it, steal it; he didn’t care which. The main thing was to get to the river, acquire a boat, take it to a place where they could make a relatively easy crossing into Guatemala. The he’d call in a chopper and get himself and the woman out.

It sounded easy, but life had taught him that what sounded easy rarely was.

In this case, success depended on a lot of things, starting with the woman’s kidnappers not finding this trail.

Talking to her, he’d made it sound like that was nothing to worry about, but of course he’d lied. Not about all of it. The part about the trail being well hidden and seemingly unused was true. So was the part about the benefit of leaving clues to convince her captors to go in the wrong direction.

What he’d lied about, or maybe it was better to say what he’d simply not bothered mentioning, was the possibility her captors knew the area as well as he did. Then they’d be aware of the old trail, and if they weren’t complete idiots, they’d figure out that maybe that was the route she’d taken.

Something long, slender and green lay along the length of a branch just ahead. It was a green tree snake, a nonaggressive creature that would as soon slither away as bite.

Should he call the woman’s attention to it?

Which was the wiser move? Point it out? Not point it out? Either way, she’d freak. There was something about snakes that terrified women. Well, men, too. He could still remember the ungodly shriek of one guy on a BUD/S training mission years before when a harmless snail-eater had slithered over his bare toes.

“Snake.”

The whisper came from behind him. Surprised, Tanner looked back. The woman pointed to the tree.

“Snake,” she repeated softly. “Harmless.”

No panic. She was out of breath, sure, but she was calm. And she was giving him advice.

Hell.

She was giving him advice? On snakes?

“I said…”

“I heard you. And I already saw the snake.”

Jesus. He almost winced. He sounded like a petulant kid whose big surprise had been ruined. Yeah, well, he didn’t like her. Why would he? She was in a mess of her own making. She had no business in San Escobal. No righteous business, anyway. So, no, he didn’t like her, but that wasn’t a factor in this mission. He’d rescued people before. That was part of what STUD did. Diplomats, journalists, tourists caught up in somebody’s civil war, and he sure as hell hadn’t liked all of them, maybe not even any of them, because liking somebody had nothing to do with getting them out of harm’s way.

He was here to save her ass.

It was a rather good-looking ass.

Hell. He didn’t like her, but he wasn’t dead. You didn’t have to like a woman to appreciate the way she was put together.

“I just wanted to be sure,” she said.

“Sure about what?”

“The snake. Some people just kill any snake they see.”

Sweet Jesus. Advice not only on snakes, but also on the immorality of killing them.

Apparently, she had no such problem with jaguars.

“No…need…to-…really. Snakes…aren’t…always—”

He stopped. Turned around. Grabbed her shoulders and held her still before she could walk right into him

“Try concentrating on breathing instead of talking,” he said sharply.

Damn. She was panting. Sweating. Their trek along the game trail had turned her into even more of a mess than before. Dirt. Sweat. Scratches on her face from the branches that reached for them like eager hands. On top of that, she was clearly exhausted. They weren’t moving, but she was shaking.

Shit.

She was probably dehydrated.

Tanner slung off his pack, dug into it for a canteen. He unscrewed the top and handed it to her.

“Drink.”

“No time.”

“Right. No time. So instead of wasting it arguing, drink the water.”

She shot him a look, but it was so quick that he couldn’t read it. Was she annoyed? Irritated? Frankly, who cared? He was just getting the job done. After all, he’d agreed to this mission. He’d all but jumped on it. Being out of the safe confines first of a hospital and then Camp Condor and now doing what he’d been trained to do, was the stuff of life.

He watched her tilt back her head, bring the canteen to her lips. She drank, eyes closed, dark lashes a crescent against her high cheekbones.

Dirty or not, she was something for a man’s eyes to feast on.

It didn’t change the fact that she was in a place she didn’t belong, doing shit to make herself think she led a useful life, but she certainly was easy on the eyes.

A drop of water spilled as she drank.

He watched it run down her chin, traverse the long curve of her throat, fall again and be absorbed by her cotton T-shirt.

The shirt was torn just above her breasts.

His gaze fell to her breasts.

Was she braless? Was that the delicate press of nipples under the shirt? Her breasts were small. No. Not small. They were just the right size for a man’s hands and mouth…

“Finished.”

His head jerked up. “What?”

“I said, I’m finished with…”

He snatched the canteen from her outstretched hand. Did she know he’d been looking at her tits? Her expression gave nothing away and besides, what if she did? Back in the real world, catching a man’s eye would have been what she wanted. All that blonde hair streaming down her back, her face covered with artfully applied makeup instead of dirt, her slender body draped in designer clothes that would probably cost what he made in a year…

“Time to get moving,” he said brusquely.

He turned his back on her and started walking. He was going faster now that he’d let her drink some water and take a few minutes rest.

Maybe pretending to know something about snakes was part of who she pretended to be. Anything was possible. Big cats became coats, scary snakes became shoes. It was none of his concern. His concern was getting her back to the States in one piece, and they had miles to go before he even got them off this fucking trail.

* * *

The good news was that near as he could tell, nobody was coming after them.

They took a short break every forty or fifty minutes. They drank some water. She ate a power bar. He waved off her offer to share a bar with him, and he listened for pursuers.

Nothing.

Howler monkeys screamed from the treetops. Birds sang. Insects buzzed. Once, he heard the huffing and tooth-clacking of wild pigs.

“Peccaries,” he said softly, and motioned her to remain still.

But he heard nothing human. No voices, no bodies pushing through brush.

Good news, all of it.

But there was bad news too.

They definitely weren’t making the time he’d hoped for.

Yes, people hadn’t used this trail for a very long time.

Tanner saw lots of animal sign—pigs, coatimundi, ocelot and jaguar had all come this way—but animals used a trail differently than people. If there were obstacles of any kind— downed trees or branches, thorny bushes, mud, piles of dead leaves and rotted vegetation that made for excellent tarantula and fer-de-lance habitat, animals simply went over, through, around, even under them.

People lacked some of those options.

They tended to edge past obstacles by skirting the trail.

Not a good plan out here.

He’d already spotted a tarantula the size of his hand squatting on a rotting log. Contrary to popular lore, tarantula bites didn’t often kill—but they were painful as hell.

He’d also seen a fer-de-lance, the snake’s dark-diamond-patterned skin making it close to invisible as it lay in a pile of dead leaves. The snake had been far enough into the undergrowth for them to avoid it, so he’d paused, reached back for Alessandra Wilde’s wrist and said, very softly, “Snake. Venomous. Stay in my footsteps.”

“I know. Fer-de-lance.”

Okay. Maybe she did know snakes. She certainly wasn’t stupid, this rescued hostage. And she was doing her best to keep up.

He had to give her credit.

She hadn’t complained, hadn’t even asked for longer or more frequent breaks, but each time he looked at her, he could tell that she was close to dropping from exhaustion. Her breathing was labored, she’d sweated through her tattered clothes, and she was limping.

Tanner’s mouth thinned.

Limping seemed to be a trait they shared.

He hadn’t been particularly worried about his leg. At the last minute he’d added a small vial of prescription pain pills to his pack, not so much for himself but because he’d had no idea what condition the woman would be in.

He’d be fine.

The terrain would be rough, but it would be flat.

His leg would stand up to the job.

Wrong.

The wound in his calf was starting to throb. If it went from throbbing to outright pain, they’d be in trouble.

Bottom line was that they needed to stop, and soon. Not for a break. For the night. He’d figured on reaching the river by midafternoon, but it was past that now and he knew they were still miles away. He had to find a place to make camp, but it sure as hell couldn’t be here. The only idea worse than trying to travel through this dense vegetation in the dark was spending the night in it.

A tall palm tree loomed ahead. He eyed the trunk, the lowest and then the highest branches. It would do as a lookout site, he decided, and he swung around.

“Hey,” he said, but the woman was walking with her head down and she kept coming, straight into him. No swaying this time. No tremors. If he hadn’t caught her in his arms, she’d have gone down.

She mumbled something. It sounded like “Sorry.”

Tanner’s jaw tightened.

She had nothing to be sorry about. If she was on the verge of collapse, it was because he’d pushed her harder than he should have the last few miles. He’d told himself it was necessary, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe he’d been venting his personal feelings about women like her. Maybe he’d been judging her.

Maybe?

Well, hell.

His job was to get her out of San Escobal and back to the States. Nothing more.

There was a tree stump off to the side. He kept his arm around her, drew her with him as he checked the stump for bugs and snakes. Then he eased her onto it and crouched before her. Her face was pale and sweaty. Her eyes had a glassy shine.

Shit. Was she running a fever?

He pushed a hank of hair off her forehead, then pressed his palm to it. No fever. It wasn’t the most scientific method, but it worked. Still, once they stopped for the night, he’d get a couple of antibiotic capsules into her.

For now, all he could do was keep her moving.

“Just a little farther,” he said. “Then we’ll take a real break.”

She gave a weak laugh. “You’d be lying on a beach in Guatemala by now without me holding you back.”

He smiled, despite himself. “The beaches in Guatemala are overrated.” He paused. “We need to find a place to spend the night.”

She squinted up at the sky, or what was visible of it through the canopy of trees. “Sunset won’t be for another couple of hours.”

“Right. But we don’t want to be on this trail then. It’s liable to get kind of busy.”

“The peccaries?”

“And other stuff.”

“Jaguars,” she said.

Jaguars. Her wanting to turn them into coats because she had nothing better to do with her life. That was what had started all of this.

Tanner got to his feet.

“Yeah. Jaguars. Though no self-respecting cat is going to show itself to us if it can help it. Even if it did, you seem to have left your rifle back at the place where Mutt and Jeff captured you.”

She looked up.

“Skinny and Stubby.”

“Whatever.”

“And why would I want a gun?”

“It would be hard to drape a live cat around your shoulders.”

The expression on her face said he’d lost his mind. Maybe so. Hadn’t he just told himself that he wasn’t here to sit in judgment on her?

“Okay,” he said briskly. “Stay put. I’m gonna shinny up that tree and see if I can find us a Motel 6.”

She nodded, and for a couple of seconds, all the weariness in the world showed in her eyes. Then she flashed a quick smile.

“As long as it has flush toilets and room service.”

Despite himself, he laughed.

* * *

The place he found was a clearing on a patch of slightly elevated ground.

It lacked toilets and room service, but Alessandra was still ready to call it paradise.

Tall palms stood in a tight cluster, their fronds waving in a breeze just strong enough to discourage mosquitoes and other flying creatures.

Superman grabbed a heavy-looking stick and smacked it against the trunk of the biggest tree. Two small dark things flew out of the top branches and flapped away.

“Bats,” he said.

Bats were okay. There were endless varieties in the rainforest. The only ones that made her shudder were the ones that lived on blood—the vampires—but other kinds, and there were many, she could deal with.

Superman kicked aside a small pile of dead leaves. A centipede made a dash for freedom,

She couldn’t deal with centipedes. Or millipedes. Things with more legs than any creature could possibly need, but she saw the look Supe sent her when the thing scuttled into the surrounding jungle, and she didn’t so much as stir.

She suspected that shuddering would only assure him that she was dislikable, and if there wasn’t such a word, there should be because for all the care he’d taken to get her away from her captors, what emanated from him to her was dislike.

He shrugged off his vicious-looking automatic rifle, leaned it against one of the palms, and did the same with the machete. Then he dumped his pack, squatted down, opened it and took out a cellphone. No. Not a cellphone.

“What is that?” she asked.

He hit a button and held up his free hand. The request—the command—for silence was clear.

“Chay,” he said crisply. “Yes. Subject acquired. No, no problems so far. Good. Out.”

Okay. She knew what the object was. A satellite phone, but just to be sure, she decided to ask.

“Is that a satellite phone?”

“Correct.” He hit a button, then tucked the satphone inside the pack again.

“And who were you talking to?”

“Base.”

“In the States?”

“Yes.”

He reached into the pack and took out something that resembled a folded square of olive-drab canvas. He rose, shook it open, spread it on the ground and then bent to the pack again.

She felt useless, just standing and watching.

“Can I help?”

He shook his head.

“Just stay out of the way. That’s all I require from you.”

He spoke briskly. Impersonally. Two whole sentences this time, but she didn’t like that word, require. It made her feel like a ten-year-old being given an assignment by a teacher. That was pretty much his attitude towards her in general.

But he’d saved her life.

Who was she to protest?

She sank down on the ground cloth and watched as he began taking other things out of the backpack.

Impressive.

The man got an A for neatness.

Everything was carefully arranged. She recognized the MREs. The coalition used them in the field. There were little plastic containers and baggies, some folded stuff she figured was a change of clothes, a cook pot, nylon rope and other odds and ends that made for typical camping gear—but there was nothing typical about this camper.

This was the first chance she’d had to get a real look at him. The long, lean body. Those muscled arms and that chest. The broad shoulders. The stony face. The short, almost black hair. The sculpted face, strong and handsome despite the dark stripes,

Actually, the stripes added something.

They made him look...dangerous.

Dangerous, and, be honest, Alessandra, sexy as hell.

Not that it mattered.

Superman was all attitude. She didn’t like him, and she still didn’t even know his name.

“Maybe that’s all you require,” she said. “But I require a name.”

He looked at her. “What?”

“Your name. I don’t know it.” Her smile was toxic. “And Superman seems a little much.”

“Superman?”

“You know. Man of Steel. Big. Macho. Tough on bad guys. Awkward with regular people.”

To her delight, color rose in his cheeks. She could see it, even under those camouflage stripes.

“Akecheta.”

“Is that your first name or your last name?”

“Last.”

It was like pulling teeth.

“So, Mr. Akecheta, do you have a first name?”

“It’s Lieutenant.”

“Lieutenant is your first name?”

“I meant…” He looked at her. There was a glint of laughter in her eyes. He couldn’t blame her. He probably sounded like a fool. This woman was having a bad effect on him. “I meant,” he said coldly, “I’m a lieutenant.”

“And your first name is…?”

“Tanner.”

“Akecheta. It’s an unusual name. Is it Spanish?”

“No.”

“Italian?”

“No.”

“I only meant, you know, all those vowels…”

“Indian,” he said brusquely as he opened one of the little pill containers and shook two capsules into the palm of his hand. “American Indian. Or Native American. Take your choice.”

“What tribe?”

“What’s the difference?”

Alessandra rolled her eyes. “Che stronzo! I’m just making conversation.”

“Conversation’s a waste of energy.” He held out the canteen and the capsules. “Take them.”

“What are they?”

“Antibiotics.”

“I’m not sick.”

“They’re a preventive. Take them.”

“You can’t prevent illness by taking antibiotics, Mr. Akecheta.”

“Lieutenant. And no, you probably can’t, but maybe you can lessen the effect of whatever bug you’ve picked up.”

“If you’ve picked up a bug.”

His eyes, an amazing shade of hazel, seemed to darken.

“Ms. Wilde. I’m going to be blunt. It has been one fucking hell of one fucking long day and I am most definitely not in the fucking mood for debate. Just take the capsules.”

Her eyes turned icy.

“I think you just broke the record for saying that word.”

He smiled tightly. “What word?” he said, even though he damn well knew the word she meant.

“Fooking,” she said, and blushed.

That little accent. It was barely distinguishable, but it came through loud and clear on a world like fucking.

He wanted to laugh, but he wasn’t entirely stupid. Laughter right now not might not be the best policy.

“I’m happy to know you’re familiar with the Guinness Book of World Records.”

“With what?”

“Ms. Wilde—”

“It’s Bellini.”

“Ms. Bellini. Would you rather I held your nose and stuffed the capsules down your throat?”

Alessandra glared at him. “You could use some lessons in civility, Lieutenant.”

“I’ll be sure and mention that to my commanding officer.”

“You do that.”

She snatched the capsules from his outstretched hand, popped them in her mouth, took the canteen and gulped a drink of water before handing it back. He stowed it in his backpack, then clutched her chin.

“What are you doing?”

“Your lip is puffy.”

“My lip is fine.”

He reached for a small tube, opened it, brought it towards her mouth.

“What is that stuff?”

“It’s just a lip balm. It’ll make you feel better.”

“What if I don’t want…”

Tanner held her still and swiped the ointment over her lips. The balm felt cool and soothing, and she felt almost instant relief.

“Better?”

“No.”

He laughed. She glared.

“How’s your eye feel?”

“Wonderful,” she said sweetly. “How’s yours?”

He tilted her head to the side. Her eye and cheek were an amalgam of black, blue and purple. He felt a rush of fury, but he knew better than to let it take over. He had a job to do and the best way to do it was to keep his emotions neutral.

He danced his fingers over the underlying bones. Careful as he was, she winced.

“Hey! Don’t press so hard.”

“I’m checking to see if there are any fractures.”

“There aren’t.”

“No. Luckily, there aren’t.” He picked up an antiseptic pad. “Close your eyes.” She did, and he cleaned her face with slow, steady strokes. “Which of them did this to you?”

The question was simple, but something in his tone sent a shiver down her spine.

“Does it matter?”

“It does, if we run into them again.”

Alessandra opened her eyes. She stared at her rescuer. He didn’t like her. She didn’t much like him. Still, that question just now, the male assertiveness inherent in it…

“And your wrists…” He clasped her hands and turned them over. His mouth tightened at the sight of the raw, red flesh. He looked up, his eyes narrowed. “We need to deal with all this.”

“All what?”

“Your cuts and abrasions. Otherwise, you run the risk of infection.”

There was no point in arguing. He was right and she knew it. Plus, her face and lips felt better already, thanks to the ointment he’d put on her lips and the way he’d cleaned her face.

She watched him as he rummaged through his backpack.

He was a puzzlement, this man. Tough. Tender. Intense. And, not that it mattered in any way whatsoever, he was also what any woman in her right mind would call a hunk.

Who was he, anyway? All he’d given her so far was name and rank. Would his serial number come next?

“Okay.” He took her right hand in his, bent his dark head and touched an antiseptic pad to her skin. “This might sting a little.”

“Lieutenant?”

“Yeah?”

“Who sent you?”

“Take a guess.”

The sarcasm in his voice was thick enough to cut with a knife.

“The FURever Fund?”

“Try again. And give me your other hand.”

“I’m not in the mood for guessing games, Lieutenant. It’s a simple question. Who sent you to find me?”

“Your father.”

“Who?”

“General Wilde. Your old man.”

“Stubby and Skinny contacted him?”

“They sent a ransom note to your pals at that wildlife place.” He finished cleaning up her left wrist, tucked the used antiseptic pads into a small baggie and stuffed it into his backpack. “Now take off your shirt.”

“What?”

“Take off the T-shirt.”

“Excuse me?”

“Protocol requires a wounds assessment.”

“Protocol requires you to answer my question. Are you telling me the coalition contacted the general? Because there’s no way that could have happened. Nobody’s aware of the—the connection between the general and me.”

“It’s a small world,” Tanner said flatly. “Evidently, somebody at the coalition knew you and the general are related. He got in touch with State, and a guy at State contacted your father. Take off the shirt, Ms. Wilde.”

“It’s Bellini. And they wasted their time. My father isn’t terribly interested in my branch of the family.”

The lieutenant sat back on his heels. His expression was stony.

“Your problems with your old man aren’t my worry. He wants you back in one piece. That’s why I’m here. And we’re wasting time. Get that shirt off.”

Alessandra glared at the man sent to bring her home. No wonder he was so pissed off.

“You’re here,” she said sharply, “because you’re the general’s lackey. He says jump, you—dammit! Let go!”

Tanner’s hands were hard on her shoulders, his eyes hot with rage as they burned into hers.

“I don’t jump for any man,” he said in a low, dangerous voice. “I’m here because I wanted to be.”

“Right. And I’m here because I couldn’t get a reservation at the Ritz.”

“You’re here because you’re a spoiled little girl with too much money and too little to keep you busy, and maybe some guys like to play your game, but I’m sure as hell not one of them.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“All you have to know is that I’m responsible for you until we’re back in the States, and that means you’ll do what I tell you to do when I tell you to do it. Clear?”

“What’s clear,” Alessandra said furiously, “is that you’re not just the general’s flunky you’re also a brainless, muscle-bound bully.”

“I’m going to count to three. If you haven’t taken that shirt off by then, I’ll do it for you.”

“You wait until we’re back home, Lieutenant. You just wait.”

“One.”

“I’ll file charges that will write finito to your cushioned career.”

“It’s cushy, not cushioned. Two.”

Crazy as she knew it was, him correcting her English made her even angrier. She spoke perfect English. Everybody said so. The only time it slipped was when she was upset, really upset, and, goddammit, how could she let this—this lapdog of her father’s upset her?

Except, he couldn’t be a lapdog.

It wasn’t possible to think of him taking orders or even sitting in an office, and what did any of that matter?

What did anything matter, except surviving this nightmare and getting home?

Besides, he was right.

She was a mass of bites and scratches and cuts, and even though she’d had to take a zillion different vaccinations just to come to San Escobal, the coalition had still given her an endless stack of documents to read, most of them about the dangers of botfly bites and killer bee attacks and, worst of all, infections.

“Three,” he said grimly.

Alessandra twisted free of his hands, turned her back and yanked the shirt over her head.

“Do what you have to do,” she said, just as grimly, “and be quick about it.”

* * *

He was quick and he was efficient, and there was nothing in the way he touched her or looked at her that made this anything but the wound assessment he’d called it.

She held her crumpled, filthy shirt against her breasts while he eyeballed her shoulders and back.

He poked. Prodded. Asked, “Does this hurt?” a couple of times, and she said no, nothing hurt, at least not any more than it should have.

She heard the whisper of paper tearing and then the cold swipe of antiseptic on her skin.

“What’d you do?” she asked coldly. “Raid a pharmacy?”

“Turn,” he said, and she complied, the shirt still clutched to her breasts.

More poking and prodding. This time, a couple of the pokes and prods made her jump, and he muttered something under his breath.

“This will hurt,” he said, and, merda, it did, but she knew he was doing what had to be done, pulling out thorns, testing whether a swelling near her collarbone was a simple reaction to an insect bite or plant toxin, or if it was an indication that some creature had burrowed beneath her skin. None had, evidently, because he finally grunted in what she figured was approval and swabbed her with more antiseptic.

She could tell when he found the bruises from Skinny’s fist under her rib cage.

He went very still.

Then he looked up at her and she caught her breath at what she saw in his eyes.

“Which of them did this?”

His voice was low, an animal’s growl.

“It doesn’t—”

“Which one?”

“The tall one.”

“Was he also the one who hit you in the face?”

He sounded casual, as if he were asking who’d made the dinner reservations, but that look in his eyes was still there.

“Yes.”

He nodded and went back to work.

Okay.

She’d made a bad judgment.

This man was absolutely not a lapdog.

He was hard and dangerous, and she knew he would do whatever it took to protect her. Silly, because she was a modern, independent woman. She didn’t need any man to protect her. She didn’t even like the concept and yet…and yet…

His gaze dropped to her breasts.

Her breath caught in her throat.

She wasn’t wearing a bra.

Was he going to ask her to let go of the shirt? Was he going to run those lightly calloused fingers over her breasts?

It was a ridiculous thought to have in a ridiculous situation.

He wouldn’t.

And even if he did, it would only be in the interest of finding out if she had wounds on her breasts. There would be nothing intimate in his touch.

Somebody should have told that to her libido.

Just watching him look at her breasts, all that hot male intensity directed at her, and she felt a rush of dampness between her thighs.

Was she out of her mind? They were fleeing from men who’d held her captive, the jungle was all around them, she was hurting. and her rescuer was a surly SOB who pretty much saw her as a pain in the ass…

He looked up.

Their eyes met.

The world seemed to stand still.

Then he shot to his feet.

“Okay,” he said briskly. “You’ll live.” He dug into the backpack, took out a navy T-shirt and tossed it to her. “Put this on.”

She shook her head.

“No. I mean, thanks, but you’ll need it.”

“I have another. Take it. I don’t want you putting your old stuff over the areas I disinfected.”

His tone was authoritative, his explanation sensible, and whatever nonsense she’d experienced a moment ago was exactly that.

Nonsense.

She took the shirt, turned away from him, let go of her own shirt and pulled on his. It ballooned around her, yards of soft cotton that she suspected would cover her from throat to knee once she stood up.

“Got the shirt on?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now get those pants off.”

Had she actually had even a two-second fantasy about this man? A drill sergeant would have been a better choice.

“Yes, sir,” she said briskly.

She unzipped the cargo pants, or what was left of them. He took out another couple of antiseptic packets.

“Lie back.”

She lay back, her weight on her elbows.

He squatted at her feet.

His entire body tensed.

Her feet were a mess. That the bastards who’d held her captive had forced her to talk until her feet were bloodied and torn filled him with cold rage.

He dealt with them as best he could, but he needed water, sterilized water, to do the job right. He tried to be gentle, but he knew he had to be hurting her even though she took it all in silence.

“I’m sorry,” he said when she winced.

“No.” Her voice was raw with pain, but she managed a quick smile. “Don’t apologize. I understand.”

She gritted her teeth while he took care of her feet, then moved his attention to her legs.

Amazing.

His hands were big and hard-looking, just like the rest of him, but his touch was soothing, almost sensual. The soft brush of his fingers over her skin. The concentrated expression on his face as he bent over her, encircled her ankle with his fingers, lifted her leg…

Heat shimmered in her blood, half embarrassment, half something ridiculous even to contemplate.

She wanted to hook her leg around him and draw him down to her.

She wanted to jerk back, get up and run.

Instead, she played it safe and sassy.

“Next time,” she said, “you might want to send flowers first.”

He looked up.

Her face was pale, except for the rosy flush of pink that had bloomed in her cheeks. He tried not to laugh, but he couldn’t stop the slow smile that angled across his lips.

“Good point,” he said, deadpan. “I’ll suggest they include that in the field manual.”

Which, he thought suddenly, might not be a bad idea.

He’d done lots of wound assessments, but none had involved a beautiful woman wearing only his oversized shirt and a pair of white cotton panties.

Hell.

He could feel his body tightening. Which was ridiculous. Get with the program, Akecheta.

She was a recovered hostage. He was responsible for her. It was as simple as that.

Same as all STUD operatives, he’d had extensive medical training. You never knew when you’d have to save a life, your own or your teammate’s, and part of hostage recovery protocol was to check for medical problems. It really was in the manual. You were expected to perform a Field Medical Assessment. An FMA, to use one of the military’s endless acronyms.

How come his dick didn’t seem to know all that?

Even as he’d done a clinical assessment of her chest and back—Insect bites? Check. Scratches from thorns? Double check. Cuts and scrapes and, goddammit, those black-and-blue marks just under her ribs— even as he’d done all that, he’d been aware of her as a woman.

The graceful arch of her throat.

The rise of her breasts under the T-shirt.

The silken texture of her skin.

What in hell was wrong with him?

He shot her a quick look. Her expression was veiled. She was staring hard at a place just over his shoulder.

He felt a muscle jump in his cheek.

For Christ’s sake, man, you’ve done a dozen of these exams before, some of them on women. Just get it over with.

He grabbed another antiseptic pad, sent his gaze moving swiftly over her legs again. Not too bad. Bites. Stings. Scrapes.

Ah, hell, scrapes on her thighs. That had to hurt. Her thighs were lovely, round and firm, the color somewhere between tan and gold.

Was she that color all over?

Were her breasts, her belly that some shade? What would her skin taste like? Cream. Sweet, silken cream…

“How do I look?” she said.

His head jerked up. “What?”

“I said how bad is it? I mean…I mean…” Her face colored. “Going over that dead tree the first time, you know, sort of, uh, sort of scooting across it… I thought I might have picked up some splinters.”

“No. No splinters.”

“Good.”

Better than good. Bad enough he had to look at her thighs. Touching them might have been an embarrassment to them both.

“Here,” he said briskly. “Take this wipe. Use it. Then smear on some of this antiseptic.”

She nodded, did as he’d told her, and when her fingers disappeared between her thighs, he damn near groaned.

Sweet Jesus, Akecheta, what in hell is wrong with you?

Tanner swung away, made himself look busy going though the backpack.

His long recovery had kept him out of STUD action for months, but not out of female action. The units hung out at a bar half a dozen miles up the coast from Camp Condor. Women hung out there, too, the kind attracted to men who served in Special Ops. Meaning they were, for the most part, ready, willing, beautiful…and hot.

His involvement with Red had ended badly, but it hadn’t dulled his sexual appetite. All it had done was remind him that sex was sex. Take what’s offered, give back what you can, enjoy each other for as long as it lasts, end of story.

There hadn’t been a scarcity of women in his bed while he was rehabbing. If anything, there might have been more of them than usual and no, he didn’t need a shrink to point out the obvious, that when you had to sit back while your brothers were out in the field, proving yourself still capable of sex assured you that you were still a man.

Still, he hadn’t been with a woman for a while. Two, three weeks. He’d been too busy concentrating on trying to get his body back in shape to do much partying.

Okay.

That explained what he was feeling now. It had nothing to do with Alessandra Wilde Alessandra Bellini, whatever name she called herself. It had to do with having an itch that needed scratching, and as soon as he got back to California…

“You can turn around now.”

He took a deep breath, expelled it, and then turned to face her. No problem. All he saw was a woman he needed to take care of.

“Roll over,” he said briskly. “On your belly.”

The backs of her legs were cut and bruised, but not as bad as the rest of her. He applied antiseptic to the small wounds quickly and impersonally, dabbed on ointment the same way.

The crisis, or whatever it had been, was over.

“All done,” he said.

She sat up. He dropped the pale blue scrub pants beside her.

“They’ll be big, but at least they’re clean.”

She nodded. “Thanks.”

“After you’ve changed,” he said, “I’ll bury or burn your old stuff. I’m pretty sure we’ve lost Mutt and Jeff, but why take chances?”

“You mean, Stubby and Skinny.”

“Yeah.” He flashed a quick smile. “Nice names.”

“Hey,” she said brightly, “nice guys deserved nice names.”

He had to give her points for how she was handling this. Experience had taught him that humor always helped, even in the worst situations.

“Did you ever actually hear their real names?”

She shook her head. “No.” She paused. “Do you think they’re still looking for us?”

He didn’t. Or, sure, they might be looking, but probably in all the wrong directions. The ransom note hadn’t suggested the men who’d taken her had much going on between their ears. He was starting to think that snatching her had been opportunistic, that the pair of them had spotted her and figured they could make some easy money.

But anything was possible…including his real concern.

Running into Bright Star.

No reason to tell her that, though. Not yet.

“You know the old saying,” he said. “Better safe than sorry.”

“Thanks,” she said. “For fixing me up.” She nodded at the scrubs. “And for the clothes.”

“Nothing to thank me for.” He got to his feet and tried not to wince. His leg hurt. It had been hurting for hours.

“You okay?”

“Of course I’m okay.”

“You don’t have to snarl at me, Lieutenant. I just thought—”

“Let me do the thinking for both of us, Ms. Wilde. We’ll be better off.”

Her eyes flashed. “It’s Bellini. If you’re so good at thinking, how come you can’t get my name straight?”

Hell. She had a right to be pissed off. He’d all but taken her head off, and it wasn’t her fault his damn leg was giving him trouble. Quickly, he turned away, picked up the rifle and slung it over his shoulder. Then he dug the coiled paracord out of the backpack, measured out an appropriate length and cut it off with his knife.

“Sorry I barked at you,” he said briskly as he looped the canteens and the pot over the improvised carry strap, then hung it over his other shoulder. “But I want to get us organized before sunset.”

“Is that as close as you can come to an apology, Lieutenant?”

He swung toward her. “Do you ever give an inch?”

“No,” she said, chin up, her hands on her hips. “Not if I can help it.”

Amazing. She was bruised, battered, undoubtedly scared and hungry, and she was still ready to take on the world.

“Okay. You want it to be an apology? It was an apology. Right now, I’m going to see if I can find us some water.”

She scrambled to her feet. “I’ll go with you.”

“It’ll be faster if I go alone.” The look on her face made him soften his tone. “I don’t want you to do any more walking tonight. You’ll be safe here and I’ll be back in five minutes, I promise.”

She nodded, but she was nervous about being alone. He couldn’t blame her.

Still, he couldn’t see taking her with him.

She was holding up well—better, really, than he’d expected—but he’d just seen her assortment of bruises and bites. The more rest she got now, the better their chances of reaching the river ASAP tomorrow.

The obvious choice was to leave her with a weapon, but handing over a pistol to someone who knew nothing about pistols would be incredibly dangerous.

The knife, then. It was sharp, equally dangerous in untrained hands, but it was the preferable option.

Quickly, he opened his belt, started to slip off the sheathed SOG-TAC…

“Are you going to give that to me?”

“Yes. Just keep it sheathed unless you absolutely—”

“Leave me the pistol instead.”

Tanner shook his head. “You don’t know the first thing about using—”

“I know how to shoot.” She looked at the pistol on his hip, then at him. “It’s a SIG-SAUER, right?”

He wondered if he looked as shocked as he felt.

“One of my brothers-in-law owns a high-tech security company. His wife had some problems with a stalker a couple of years ago, and then, last winter, my brother, Matteo, and his fiancée…” Alessandra stopped in midsentence. “It’s too long a story to go into. Let’s just say that this past summer the men in our family taught all us women how to shoot.”

She could shoot? This willowy blonde who led a life of ease knew her way around a gun? Tanner took the SIG-SAUER from its holster and handed it to her.

“What’s the first thing you do when you get hold of a pistol you’ve never seen before?”

She gave him a look that said he’d just insulted her intelligence. Then she slid back the magazine, popped it, checked for a chambered round, popped the magazine back in and sighted the gun, two-handed, at a distant tree. Her hands shook a little, but why wouldn’t they? The pistol damn near weighed what she did.

“Shall I fire?”

“No need,” he said, trying not to sound impressed.

She lowered the pistol.

“Satisfied that I know what I’m doing?”

He nodded. She’d handled the thing like a pro.

“Just be careful with it,” he said, because he had to say something.

“I will.”

He started towards the trees. Her voice called after him.

“Hey. Lieutenant?”

Sighing, he turned towards her. “Yeah?”

“One apology deserves another, right? So, here’s mine. I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time. About the name thing, you know… It’s just that—that the relationship between the general and me is—is difficult to explain, and—and—” She paused. “Was it really your choice to come after me?”

“Yes.”

“Because?”

“Because,” he said, with a shrug of those broad shoulders, “this is something I do. Something I’ve been trained to do.”

“You’re part of a search-and-rescue team?”

“No. Not exactly.”

“What are you then? I mean, I know I was wrong, saying you were the general’s lapdog.”

“Is there a reason you refer to General Wilde as the general instead of as your father?”

“Is there a reason you won’t tell me what you do in the army?”

He smiled. “Nice return.”

“I play a mean game of Ping-Pong. When we get home, I’ll take you on. Winner buys the loser dinner.”

“And the loser gets…?”

“A week’s vacation in glorious San Escobal.”

His smile became a grin. That had to be a good sign. Maybe she could get some answers out of him.

For some crazy reason, it seemed important to know more about this tough, gorgeous, moody-as-a-thunderstorm guy.

“Why won’t you tell me what you do in the army?”

“Why do you assume I’m in the army?”

Alessandra rolled her eyes. “Do you always answer a question with a question? I’m assuming you’re in the army because you know my—you know the general.”

A small black ant caught his eye as it ran across the pot cover. Tanner brushed it away.

“I don’t know him at all. Turns out he knows my CO.”

“Your commanding officer.” She flashed him an aha smile of triumph. “I was right. You are in the army.”

“Nope.” He dumped the ant, ran his finger around the inside of the pot just to be sure it didn’t hold any other visitors, then clamped on the cover. “I’m in the navy.”

“You’re a sailor?”

“Why do you say it that way? As if it doesn’t seem possible?”

“It doesn’t. I mean, why would my…why would the general reach out to the navy for help?”

“Because my CO and he are old pals.”

She shook her head. “I can’t quite picture you doing whatever it is sailors do.”

“Sailors do lots of things. But you’re right. I’m not a sailor in the way you probably think of sailors. I belong to a division that deals in specialized field operations.”

Alessandra cocked her head, folded her arms and looked him up and down.

“Meaning, you’re not going to tell me anything else.”

“Meaning, I’m going to go look for that water so I can get back here and put together a shelter before sunset.”

She sighed. “Okay. Keep your secrets. But one last, really quick question…”

“Try to make it one I can answer.”

Her smile was all female. He felt it clear down to his toes.

“Do you, by some minor miracle, have a comb in that bottomless backpack?”

“Dig deep enough and you’ll find a small plastic brush.”

“Thank you again.”

“You’re welcome. Just be careful with it.”

“Trust me, Lieutenant. I know how to use a hairbrush.”

His lips twitched. “You’re liable to pull out handfuls of hair. You’ve got some burrs caught in it.”

Her hand flew to her head. “Where?”

He walked to where she stood.

“Here,” he said, taking her hand, guiding it to a thick tangle of gold. “And here…”

He leaned in.

Close.

Too close.

Their eyes met.

The air stilled.

Then he let go of her hand and drew back.

“Ten minutes,” he said, and he turned and got the hell out of there before he did something they would both regret.

CHAPTER FIVE

THEY’D LUCKED OUT.

There was a small stream just downhill from where they were camped. He heard the soft rush of the water before he saw it, all but hidden by a stand of leafy young trees.

It was good news all around.

He’d have to boil whatever water he collected, of course. It looked clear and clean, but water that looked clear and clean had a bad way of harboring nasty stuff too small to be seen by the naked eye. Boiling the water for fifteen minutes would make it potable.

As for the trees…

Tanner shrugged off the sling, let the pot and canteens fall to the ground. He selected several very young, leafy branches and used the machete to cut them down.

Once he got back to the clearing and turned the tarp into a tent, the leaves would provide soft ground cover.

After the branches were stacked, he checked his watch.

He’d told Alessandra he’d be back in five. It would be more like ten, he thought as he collected the pot and the canteens, but he didn’t want to push beyond that.

A tangle of vegetation covered the sloped bank of the stream. The footing was tricky; it was muddy and slippery under the layer of moss and ferns and leaves. It would be easy to fall, and the now almost-constant throbbing in his calf warned him that a fall might not be the best idea.

He moved with exaggerated care, heaved a sigh of relief when he finally made it down to the stream. Working quickly, he filled the canteens and screwed on their tops, filled the pot and secured its cover, laced all the devices back on his improvised carry strap and started to climb the bank…

“Shit!”

His foot connected with something soft. Mud-covered leaves, moss—it didn’t matter. What did matter was that he felt his leg going out from under him.

Tanner tried to stop it from happening. He thrust out a hand, grabbed a tree branch, felt the branch give way…

His leg buckled, his foot twisted, and he started to go down. Blindly, just before he would have hit the ground, he flung out his arms, wrapped them around the slender tree trunk and clung to it.

Pain, hot and fierce, shot from his ankle straight up to his hip.

The world blurred.

Nausea roiled in his belly.

He heard himself groan.

Still, he managed to hang onto the tree.

At last, his vision cleared. The excruciating pain dulled, if only a little.

Slowly, he worked his way from the first tree to the next, then to the one after that, until, finally, he reached level ground. Hands on his hips, he bent over, dragged in long, steadying gulps of air.

Jesus, he was useless.

What folly it had been accepting this assignment.

Alessandra was better off without him. He had just become the worst kind of liability, a warrior without strength, without endurance.

Tanner slid to the ground beside one of the trees, leaned his head back against its rough bark.

But he knew the terrain. He knew in which direction the river lay and how to find a canoe once they reached it. He knew where they’d have the best chance at making a safe crossing. He knew how to forage from the land, if it came to that, and how to use the satphone to signal for a pickup.

His mouth thinned.

And, yes, she knew how to shoot.

So did he.

But there was one big difference.

He knew how to kill.

With a gun. With a knife. With his bare hands, if it came to that. No matter how many times Alessandra Bellini surprised him, he was sure she couldn’t surprise him with that particular set of skills.

She needed him to get her home, especially because he knew one last thing she didn’t.

She didn’t know anything about Bright Star or that what her captors had done to her might be child’s play compared with what the guerrilla forces would do if they got their hands on her.

Maybe he wasn’t good for much anymore, maybe he wasn’t the man he’d once been, but she was all he had. He’d given her his word that he’d keep her safe and either his word still had some meaning or…

Or he really was finished.

Seconds slipped by.

He told himself he had to get up. Move past the pain. Do what he’d done the day he’d been wounded, concentrate not on the pain but on his job.

That time, it had meant getting Kenny Briscoe to the pickup point.

This time, it meant doing that same thing for Alessandra Bellini. Or Alessandra Wilde. And, man, was she touchy about that name.

He almost smiled.

Touchy, but tough.

Years back, in specialized post-BUD/S training, he’d known guys who’d washed out after a couple of days of jungle survival.

She’d come through that with flying colors, same as she’d come through being beaten.

She was tough, but so was he. And now was the time to prove it.

Tanner felt his calf through the camos. He winced. The wounded area hurt like hell, but there was no blood.

That was good.

He felt his ankle. It was tender beneath the high-topped, tightly laced combat boot, but he didn’t think he’d actually broken anything.

That was good, too.

With deliberate care, he got to his feet.

The carry strap lay within easy reach. He grabbed it, checked to make sure neither the canteens or the pot had given up their precious contents. Then he scooped up the stack of young, leafy branches and squinted through the treetops at the sky.

It was late.

Soon, too soon, the sun would set. And he had a lot to do before that happened.

So what if his leg hurt? Despite what he’d told the physiatrist and Chay and Blake and—be honest for once, Akecheta—what he’d told himself, it almost always hurt. He’d learned to live with the pain, and now was not the time to abandon that talent or ability, or whatever you wanted to call the lie by which he lived.

A thick, sturdy-looking tree branch lay a couple of feet away.

It would make a perfect cane.

Hell, no.

A walking stick. Not a cane. And not yet. He could always cut one tomorrow.

Tanner drew another deep breath, exhaled, and headed back to camp.

* * *

Alessandra was sitting under one of the palm trees, legs crossed, hands on her knees, the pistol in her lap.

She looked like a woman ready for, and ready to handle, anything.

“It’s me,” he called as he emerged from the trees.

She got to her feet.

“You’re back,” she said, smiling as she rose and came towards him.

He nodded. A welcoming committee of one, he thought, surprised at how good it felt to be greeted with that smile.

“Did you find wa…Hey. Are you limping?”

To lie or not to lie. Hamlet wasn’t the only guy with doubts.

“It’s nothing.” He dumped the branches near one of the trees, unslung the rifle, put down the machete and the water containers. “I slipped in some mud. Nothing to worry about. A night’s rest, I’ll be fine.”

Her gaze flew over him. “I was starting to worry.”

He was surprised at how good hearing that felt, too, and wasn’t that nuts? Loners never wanted welcoming committees or worriers in their lives, and he damned well was a loner.

Besides, he was reading more into things than they deserved.

Of course she was relieved he was back. That was as logical as the fact that she’d been worried.

He was her ticket out of this place. It was only natural she’d have been concerned when he didn’t show up as quickly as she’d thought he would

The last thing she needed to hear was that the man charged with saving her was having trouble saving himself.

“Sorry. It took longer than I figured to find water.” He jerked his head towards the containers he’d dumped beneath the tree.

“But I did.”

“That’s wonderful!”

“I’ll get a fire going. Then I’ll rig us a shelter for the night. We’ll eat after all that is done, but for now, why don’t you find one of those power bars in my backpack and chow down?”

“I’ll wait.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

How about getting naked? Just so I can look at you and think about something other than my damn leg?

“What?”

“Nothing.” His mouth had gone dry. “I mean, I see you found that brush.”

She nodded, smiled and put a hand to her hair.

“I did. I brushed so hard, I think I’m probably bald.”

Bald? Not even close.

Her hair, no longer home to burrs and bits of leaf and twigs, fell in long waves of gold, half a dozen shades of gold, from the pale glow of South Dakota wheat to the sunlit yellow of wild poppies of Afghanistan to the darker richness of jicote honey from the forests of Nicaragua.

She was beautiful.

Beyond beautiful.

She was spectacular. She was a woman who’d walk into a room and command instant attention from every man there, all of them wanting her, willing to do whatever it might take to win her.

Not him, of course.

One time, maybe, but he knew better now. Even aside from her predilection for turning animals into fashion statements, she absolutely wasn’t his type.

Unfortunately, his dick didn’t seem to agree.

They were in the middle of hostile territory. She’d been through one hell of a trauma. He was among the barely walking wounded. And yet…

And yet, he wanted her so badly, it hurt.

He had seen the body under the T-shirt and scrubs. The long legs. The slender waist. The rounded hips. He had not seen her breasts, but same as most men, he had one fine imagination. It was more than capable of filling in the details.

And that face.

The lovely bones. The deep blue eyes. The kissable mouth.

And the strength in her. The determination. It was an intriguing combination, the softly feminine exterior laid over that indomitable interior…

“Lieutenant?”

It was probably a damn good thing his head knew that her beauty was only skin-deep. Otherwise, being out here with her, alone, in a situation that made for forced intimacy, he could easily end up taking her to bed—and then what, after he returned her to the real world?

“Lieutenant?”

Tanner blinked, brought her into focus. Her head was tilted; she was looking at him, eyebrows raised in question.

“Is something wrong? You’re staring at me.”

Idiot!

He bent to the backpack, opened it, dug through it.

“Sorry. I was checking to make sure I didn’t miss any cuts when I cleaned you up before.”

“I don’t think you did, but I have to admit, I’d love to get clean. You know. Soap. Hot water…”

She painted a picture he didn’t want to think about. A deep tub. Scented water. Candles. She, naked, lying back in the water, he between her legs…

Man. He was killing himself.

“The best I can offer you,” he said briskly, “is some warm water after supper. Meanwhile…” He burrowed deeper into the pack, as if he didn’t know each and every item it contained. “Let’s see what we have.” He took out the fire starter and, again, the paracord. Then he got to his feet, keeping most of his weight on his good leg. “Fire, first. We don’t have much time until it gets dark.”

She shuddered.

“It’s the one thing I don’t like about the jungle,” she said softly. “How fast night closes down, I mean.”

Night. The two of them in that tiny shelter…

Tanner turned away from her, picked up a branch, squatted down, took out his knife and began slicing off narrow, shallow strips of wood.

“Can I help?”

“No.”

“There must be something I can do.”

“No.”

“But thanks for offering,” she said.

Tanner looked up. Her expression was unreadable, but the folded arms, the fingers tap-tapping, said it all.

Okay. So yes, maybe he was being an idiot.

He nodded at the fire starter. “You can get that for me.”

She plucked the small tool from where he’d left it, handed it over as she knelt beside him. She smelled of vanilla. Of jungle flowers. Impossible. He knew he sure as hell didn’t. All this time, making their way through the all-but-impenetrable jungle? She ought to smell like sweat.

“Why are you cutting such strange-looking slivers of wood?”

He cleared his throat.

What he needed was to clear his head. The fire, food, some hot black coffee would do that.

“For kindling,” he said. “They’re called feathersticks.”

“Ah. I get it. You want something that can catch a flame as easily as possible.”

“Exactly.”

She sighed and sat back on her heels. “I’m not much good at making fires.”

“When would you have to be anything at making fires?”

“I have a fireplace in my apartment.” She laughed. “This is in Manhattan, you know? A fireplace is a big thing. It’s what the realtor concentrated on when she showed the place, as if a brick-lined hole in the living room wall was supposed to make me ignore the roaches in the kitchen.”

Roaches? In an apartment lived in by a general’s daughter? Well, why not? Anything was possible. He rented a house in Santa Barbara. Four rooms and a sagging porch, but you could see the ocean from that porch, and he’d once turned around and discovered a fox sharing the view with him.

“So I tried and tried to learn how to build a fire. I even asked Matteo to teach me.”

“Matteo,” Tanner said, without looking at her.

“Luca, too.”

“Luca,” he said. The knife slipped and missed his thumb by an eighth of an inch. He could just picture guys named Matteo and Luca. Tall. Dark. Perfectly groomed. Lots of money. Lots of charm. No stinky sweat coming off them.

“My brothers.”

“Your brothers,” he said, very casually, and if the fucking knife slipped again, he’d be minus a finger.

“Uh-huh.” She poked at a couple of the feathersticks that had fallen too far from the little heap he’d created. “They were huge helps.”

“Matteo and Lucas,” he said, because maybe he’d misunderstood the first time.

“Luc-ah, not Lucas. Yes.” She gave a soft laugh. “They told me to buy those log things. You know, logs that aren’t really logs? You light a match, touch it to the paper and, whoosh, you have a fire.”

Tanner sheathed the knife and reached for the magnesium fire starter.

“No roommate around to build a fire for you?”

He said it lazily, as if it were the most unassuming question in the world, but a tension within him whispered that there was nothing unassuming about it.

“No.”

“No man in your life to phone and say, hey, come on over and build a fire for me?” His tone had grown even lazier, the tension inside him even stronger. Ridiculous, considering that this was just small talk and her answer wouldn’t mean a damn to him one way or the other. “What’s wrong with those New York dudes?” he said, trying to make the question sound light.

Alessandra shrugged. “Nothing’s wrong with them. I just haven’t found one who’s interesting enough to keep around.”

“Even to start fires?”

“Especially to start fires.”

Their eyes met.

Such simple words.

Except they weren’t simple at all. He knew it, and he was pretty sure she did too.

If they’d been in a bar back home, he’d have known precisely where to take this conversation.

The truth was, part of him knew where he wanted to take it now…

Whoosh.

A tiny flame shot up from the feathersticks. Tanner took a long, steadying breath, turned all his attention to coaxing the fire to burn.

“Great,” he said, as if he’d performed a minor miracle. “Fire’s going. Shelter’s next.” He stood. Too fast, too hard, and before he could think to prevent it, a hiss of pain slipped from between his lips.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No. I mean, what just happened?”

“I told you. Nothing.”

“Give me a break, Lieutenant. You stood up, you turned pale.”

“It’s the contrast of the flames and the camo on my face.” Tanner rubbed his hand over his jaw. “Once the water’s hot and I wash it off—”

She shot to her feet.. “I hate how you do that!”

“Do what?” he said with all the innocence he could manage.

“You know what,” she said sharply. “Treat me as if I’m just along for the ride. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m in this mess too. Deeper in it, maybe, because I’m the fool responsible for it.”

“You’re not a fool. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time, that’s all.”

“Yes, but it was poor judgment, being out of my tent when I should have been in it.”

“That too,” Tanner said, brushing off his hands and reaching for the pot of water.

“That too? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

“Madre di Dio! You said something. I want to know what you meant.”

He shrugged, set the pot in the fire, then dug two MREs from the backpack.

“Never mind. It’s too late for it to matter.”

“Too late for what to matter? Mannaggia, but you piss me off!”

He had no idea what mannaggia meant, but he doubted it was any more polite than her saying he pissed her off.

Such angry words from such a soft-looking mouth were what pissed him off. Plus, there was the indisputable and infuriating fact that he was attracted to a woman who exemplified everything he disliked.

He turned away and tore open the MREs with more force than such an easy job required.

“Just drop it, okay?”

“I am not going to drop it! I’m tired of this game. One minute, you’re Mr. Nice Guy. The next, you’re—you’re Mr. Nasty.”

He almost laughed. “Mr. Nasty?”

“You can’t seem to make up your mind how to deal with me and I want to know why. Is it because I took you away from your weekend? Did you have other plans? Is some big-eyed, big-boobed, small-brained bottle blonde pining for you?”

This time, he did laugh. Big mistake. Her eyes flashed and she stepped closer and slapped the MREs out of his hand.

“I’ll let you in on a secret, Lieutenant. I’d rather be someplace else, too. I’d rather be anyplace instead of here, trying to be polite to a man who doesn’t know the meaning of the word!”

Enough. Tanner moved forward. She had to tilt her head back to look at him, and for some crazy reason, that suited him just fine.

“Trust me, lady,” he growled. “If I wanted to be impolite, you’d know it.”

“You mean, this is you at your polite best?”

“This is me. Take it or leave it.”

“I don’t really get a choice, do I? It’s either you or Stubby and Skinny.”

She was trembling with anger. Well, fuck. He was angry too. He’d signed on to rescue a hostage, not to make nice-nice to a spoiled brat.

What’s spoiled about her, Akecheta? a voice inside him whispered, and it made him even angrier that he really didn’t have an answer.

“That’s pretty much it.” Tanner bent down and snatched up the two MREs. “It’s the price you’re paying for being stupid enough to come to a place like San Escobal.”

“Really,” she said coldly. The word was clearly not a question.

“Really,” he said, just as coldly. “But then, your type never considers the consequences of your actions.”

“My type? My type? What in hell are you—”

“Bored little rich girls.”

“Rich girls? Rich girls?” Merda. She was speaking in italics. Until this second, she hadn’t even known that was possible.

“Boarding school,” Tanner said, tearing open the endless, dumb, ridiculous bags that were always tucked inside Meals Ready to Eat, as if people would actually eat the damn things if they had a choice.

“You think I went to—”

“Someplace posh. The Upper East side of Manhattan. Or maybe upstate Connecticut.”

She laughed. His gut tightened. So what if he sounded like a jackass? The last thing he needed was her laughing at him.

“Then Smith. Or Vassar. Wellesley, maybe, where you majored in dance or art or something else that’s equally useless.”

“You,” she said flatly, “are crazy.”

“And then, all of a sudden, you were out in the world and you needed something to do that would make you sound important, so you looked at all the stuff you own, everything with initials or names sewn on or engraved on, a bunch of crap nobody in her right mind needs or wants, and you said, Hey, I can be a designer too!”

She blinked. “What are you talking about?”

A good question. He didn’t know, so how could she? But he was on a roll now and, hell, a man didn’t stop when he was on a roll.

“So that’s what you decided you were. I bet you even have your own label. What’s it called? Lemme guess. Alessandra’s Artistic Attic, maybe. Something like that. Alliterative. And with artistic and attic spelled with q-u-e’s, of course.”

“Are you nuts?”

Yeah. He probably was. Otherwise, why was he going at her like this? She and the way she lived were not his problem. He didn’t give a damn about anything but getting her out of here…

Man, what a lie!

He gave a damn about more than that.

Forget what she was. Forget that he’d had his fill of women like her.

What was making him crazy was that he was attracted to her, goddammit, that despite everything he wanted to tear off her clothes and fuck her brains out. More than that. He wanted to make her want him the way he wanted her, and wasn’t that pathetic?

It was time to put his cards on the table. State the truth, that he didn’t like her, hear her admit she didn’t like him either, and agree to a cold-but-workable truce.

Tanner closed the couple of inches that remained between them. He lowered his head until they were damn near nose to nose.

“I don’t like you,” he said with icy precision. “You don’t like me. It’s a problem, we’re stuck with it for the next couple of days, and we need to deal with it.”

“Damned right,” Alessandra said, just as coldly.

She glared at him.

He glared at her.

Then he cursed and swept his arms around her.

Would she push him away? Would she laugh in his face?

Both were definite maybes, but she didn’t do either.

Instead, she rose on her toes, curled her fingers into his shirt, and lifted her mouth to his.

CHAPTER SIX

THE KISS ENDED almost as soon as it began.

He let go of her.

She let go of him.

Their eyes met.

Her heart thudded at what she saw in the depths of his.

Hunger. Desire. Sexual need so raw it was almost savage.

Would he reach for her again? Frame her face with his hands? Force her to hold still and accept the ravenous heat of his mouth?

Not that it would take much force.

Not that it would take any force.

She wanted—she wanted—

Unconsciously, she touched the tip of her tongue to the center of her bottom lip. His gaze followed the motion. A sound broke from his throat, something that was almost a growl, and then he swung away from her. He took a couple of deep breaths—she could tell by the rise and fall of his shoulders. Then he walked across the small clearing and bent to his pack.

“Sun’s almost down,” he said calmly. “Got to get that shelter up.”

The shelter? He was talking about something as mundane as a shelter after a mind-blowing once-in-a-lifetime kiss? Because it had been exactly that, and it wasn’t as if she had never been kissed before.

“I could use a hand, Bellini.”

She blinked.

He’d tied one end of a length of paracord around the trunk of one of the palm trees.

Okay.

One of two things had just happened.

She’d hallucinated. Or he’d kissed her, and now he was telling her that the kiss had been meaningless. Or she’d imagined it, which took her, full circle, back to the kiss having been a hallucination.

“Hey. I could use some help.”

There was a little tone of impatience there. Amazing. He kissed her until she was close to falling off the edge of the world and then he walked away, business as usual, and said he could use some help?

So could I, big boy.

Uh-oh. She was not a one-night-stand kind of female and yet—

And yet, if that kiss hadn’t ended when it did…

Alessandra blew out a long breath. Where was your studying-to-be-a-shrink big sister when you needed her?

Something, at least, had changed. Her lieutenant was still an edgy pain in the ass. A gorgeous pain in the ass, but he was at least asking her to do something useful.

She could think of a couple of things that would be useful, but not one of them involved putting up a shelter.

“Bellini? You deaf or something? You gonna give me a hand or not?”

Mamma mia! Was he going to feed her one-liners all night?

Alessandra rolled her eyes, crossed the small clearing, and went to offer aid and assistance to Superman.

* * *

The shelter was simple.

Tanner tied a line between a pair of palms that stood about twelve feet apart. Then he draped the tarp over the line and flared out the edges, holding them down with stones from the clearing.

Despite his request—okay, his demand for help—he didn’t let her do much.

She helped him stretch the tarp over the line. Then she held the edges of the tarp steady while he weighted them down.

That was it.

He didn’t say much, either.

Yes when she asked if he wanted her pull the tarp toward her. No when she asked it he wanted her to pull the edge tighter. A grunt when she asked if the shelter was going to stay open at both ends, or maybe it was a sneer, not a grunt.

“I’m only asking,” she said.

“Yeah. Well, this isn’t the Waldorf.”

Brilliant. And back to basics. Superman the Surly.

Once, she’d thought she’d felt him looking at her, but when she turned around, she realized she was wrong. He’d been busy with the paracord line, frowning and measuring as if their existence depended on whether it was tied an eighth of an inch lower at one tree than at the other.

The leafy branches went under the improvised shelter in lieu of a mattress.

“That’ll do,” he said as he stood surveying the result, his hands on his hips and his feet apart.

Alessandra nodded and tried not to think about those two open ends or that there’d be nothing between them and the ground except a bunch of leaves.

She’d spent the last couple of nights under far worse circumstances, tied to a tree while her abductors snored just a few feet away. This would be fine. Really, it was an improvement—or it would have been if a tarantula hadn’t walked into the shelter just after they’d laid out those branches.

Tanner had carefully scooped up the creature and carried it into the trees.

“Go on,” he’d said. “Find somewhere else to spend the night.”

She wasn’t a fan of spiders, especially ones the size of saucers even though she knew they didn’t bite unless you startled them, and she couldn’t repress a quick shudder.

“Don’t like tarantulas?” Superman asked, the edges of his lips curling ever so slightly.

“I like them just fine,” she said, lying through her teeth.

Clearly, he liked them. Enough to save them rather than kill them.

Interesting.

He was also opposed to killing snakes unless it was a matter of life or death. And yet she had no doubt he’d use his rifle, his pistol or the huge knife sheathed at his hip against anyone who tried to hurt her.

He’d kissed her as if the end of the world was imminent—and, yes, of course, he’d kissed her. She had a good imagination—it was what had drawn her to clothing design in the first place—but no woman on the planet could have imagined a kiss like that.

The heat of his mouth.

The strength of his arms.

The power of that big, hard-muscled body against hers…

“…for supper?”

Alessandra looked up. He was sitting beside the fire. The pot of water was heating in the flames, and he’d picked up the two MREs he’d taken from his pack a little while ago.

“Sorry? I didn’t get that.”

“I said, you get your choice.” He held out the bags. “Chili with Beans, or Spaghetti with Meat Sauce.”

“Chili, if that’s okay with you.”

“You sure?”

She nodded. “I’m a vegetarian,” she said, as she sat down across from him.

“Ah.”

The ah was meaningful. Growing up with brothers taught you lots of things, including that there were ahs that meant sure, that’s fine, and then there were ahs that meant just listen to that dumb female.

“Ah?”

Tanner shrugged as he tore the bags open. “Which is it this time?”

“Huh?”

“It’s hard to keep up with the trends.”

He was taking smaller bags out of the large bags. Apparently, supper was going to be bags of reconstituted sawdust, but her mouth began watering anyway. All she’d eaten in days were those power bars he’d given her.

“What trends?” she asked, forcing her attention away from the thought of food. She was messy enough without adding drool to the equation.

“Fad eating gigs hustled by The Guru Of The Day. I don’t know them all. The last I heard of was one called the Palo Alto diet.”

“The Palo Alto…” She raised her eyebrows. “Do you mean the Paleo diet?”

“Yeah. Whatever.”

“Meat, broccoli, tomatoes, no pasta… I wouldn’t call it a fad, though I’m certainly not for it. But, you know, if that’s your thing…”

“But it isn’t yours.” He was doing something with one of the bags. Opening it, pouring the contents of another bag into it, now adding water. “So, what’s your diet supposed to deliver?”

“Lieutenant, I’m not following you. Are you asking me why I’m a vegetarian?”

“Right. Long life? Mental acuity?”

Okay. He was arrogant about pretty much everything. No surprise there.

“I’m a vegetarian because I don’t believe in killing animals and eating them.”

That stopped him. He looked up from the MREs.

“You don’t believe in killing animals and eating them?”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

“But you make an exception when it comes to what you put on your back.”

“What in hell are you talking about?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s not ‘nothing.’ You just said something about me and I want to know what it meant.”

“Your supper’s ready.”

“Do not try to change the subject! What did you mean by that re—”

He handed her a plastic spoon and one of the bags he’d been fiddling with. The top was open, and the smell wafted up to her nose.

The frown on her face morphed into a smile of delight directed first at the MRE and then, to his surprise, at him.

Over the years, he’d taken women to dinner at all kinds of places. Pizza joints. Burger shacks. Restaurants where just reading the right-hand column of the menu gave you sticker shock.

He’d never had a woman flash him a smile that said what she was about to eat was surely going to be as good as anything Julia Child had ever cooked.

“If this tastes even half as wonderful as it smells…”

He wanted the chili to turn into lobster. No. She was a vegetarian. He wanted it to turn into whatever it was vegetarians considered a feast. Pad thai, maybe. A chocolate ice cream sundae.

To hell with that.

What he wanted was to pull her into his arms and kiss her until she was breathless. Until she melted into him as she’d done all too briefly a little while ago.

He wanted to taste her again, that soft, wild sweetness that reminded him of the raspberries that grew in the Black Hills back home. He could have feasted on that taste all night. If she hadn’t stepped away… If he hadn’t let go of her…

“This,” she said, “this is a Meal Ready to Eat?”

Say something.

“Yes.”

“It smells like food. Real food.” She laughed. “I was kind of expecting, you know, dog chow.”

Say something else.

“Yeah, well, maybe you want to reserve your opinion until you taste it.”

She dipped the spoon in, brought it to her mouth, slipped it between her lips, shut her eyes and sighed with unrestrained pleasure.

Tanner’s body turned to stone.

His brain turned to mush.

Dammit, what was wrong with him?

She was a good-looking woman. And, yes, despite everything, she had traits that, he had to admit, he admired.

So what?

Doctors didn’t come on to their patients. Teachers didn’t flirt with their students. STUD operatives didn’t get involved with those for whom they were responsible.

He was a pro.

And he was responsible for her. That was his job. Thinking about fucking her brains out didn’t have a thing to do with that job.

It could even be dangerous. For her, for him, for them both. He was supposed to have all his senses locked on his surroundings, not on sex.

He watched her eating the MRE.

She ate with gusto. No dainty spoonfuls. No delicate bites. She was hungry and she wasn’t afraid to show it.

A drop of chili landed on her thumb and she brought her hand to her lips and sucked the chili off.

He bit back a groan.

Hungering after a woman with such intensity wasn’t his thing, never had been, not even with Red. Sure, he saw a hot broad, he thought about taking her to bed, but it didn’t occupy his mind to the exclusion of everything else.

Besides, Alessandra Bellini wasn’t hot.

Okay. She was.

But she wasn’t that hot.

No makeup. Dirt on her face. A baggy T and equally baggy scrubs.

He’d never dealt with a woman quite like her before. Yes, she was a powerful man’s daughter. And yes, she had no real focus in life. A designer. Right. Weren’t they all?

Still, there was more to her, something he hadn’t yet figured out.

All that toughness. The determination. The insistence that she could do anything he could do, and he couldn’t flatter himself by believing it had anything to do trying to impress him.

How come?

Women were always trying to impress him, starting way back in high school, when he’d discovered that standing six feet two inches tall, having thick black hair and hazel eyes was a surefire ticket to success.

And what was with the jaguar thing? He’d dated women who wore fur—it wasn’t as if he was a reformer of some kind, although the waste of that kind of killing troubled him—but how did her being a vegetarian square with that?

He could ask her, but, really, there was no point. She’d probably come up with some Zen explanation that would make his head explode.

Besides, it wasn’t his business. What she did with her life had nothing to do with him.

It wasn’t as if they’d ever see each other again after they got back to the States.

She looked up, as if she’d felt him watching her. He broke eye contact, dug his spoon into the food and began eating. He had no appetite, but he needed the calories, the protein, the carbs, the nutrients some dietitian had carefully determined were necessary to keep a man fit for combat and survival.

When he’d finished, he began collecting all the small bags that had been packed inside the main one.

He looked at Alessandra. She’d opened a little bag that contained chocolates and she was eating them one at a time, eyes closed with pleasure. He watched her slick the tip of her tongue over her bottom lip and he thought that if a man was going to die of heart failure, this might be a fucking fine way to go.

It just wasn’t a good way to start the night.

No. It would be okay. She’d sleep under the tarp. He’d sleep here, by the fire.

“Aren’t you going to eat yours?”

“What?”

“Your chocolates.”

“Oh.” He picked up the bag of candy that had been part of his meal and tossed it to her. “All yours,” he said briskly.

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

“Thank you.” She smiled. “I always have something sweet before bedtime, but I didn’t think that would be possible out here.”

If only he had a handlebar mustache. Now would be the time to twirl it and tell her how easily something sweet before bedtime could be arranged.

All his blood pooled in his groin. He swung away, fast. Turning his back on her was the only safe bet.

“The brass thinks of everything,” he said lightly. “Do you want coffee?”

“You know, I thought I would, but…” He heard her yawn. “On second thought, maybe not.”

“No. Me neither. That’s good.” He squatted down, hissed as he plucked the hot pot from the fire and set it on the ground. “That means we have this water for washing.”

“With what?”

Good question. He looked around, saw the T-shirt she’d exchanged for one of his.

“This okay?”

She nodded, and he dipped the shirt into the hot water, wrung it out and then dipped it in again before he offered it to her. She ran it over her face and throat, and made a little mmm sound at the welcome feel of it.

“What I’d give for a real bath,” she said as she gave the wet shirt back to him.

What he’d give to see her take a real bath or, better still, to take that bath with her, but he’d already thought about that before and if it had been a bad idea then, it was worse now.

Man, if he kept going like this, he was a dead man walking.

“Thanks,” he said, and scrubbed his hands and face hard, hoping he’d gotten off most of the camo paint.

“Warrior paint? Or military paint?”

He looked at her. “What?”

“I just wondered…” She blushed and shook her head. “Sorry.”

“The stripes, you mean?”

“I shouldn’t have asked.”

“You mean,” he said, deadpan, is it what they teach in Sneaking Through the Jungle 101? Or did I dance around a campfire first?”

Alessandra buried her face in her hands. “Oh God, I never should have…”

“It’s standard-issue military camouflage paint.” He grinned. “But now that I think about it, my great-great-great-grandfather probably would have approved.”

She took her hands from her face. “Are you making fun of me, Lieutenant?”

“He was a warrior. A war chief. He fought at Little Bighorn.”

“Really?” She folded her hands in her lap. “I don’t know as much as I should about American history, but I know about that. It must have been an amazing day for him and his people.”

Tanner nodded. The story had been passed from generation to generation. His own father had told it to him countless times. At first, he’d hung on every word. By the time he turned thirteen, he’d hated the tale. He’d started to see it as the one thing his old man could be proud of and it had happened more than one hundred years before.

Eventually, of course, his perception had changed…

“What was his name? Your great-great-grandfather?”

“You left out a ‘great.’ His name was Running Bear. But after Little Big Horn, the people called him Akecheta. Warrior.”

“And you’re named for him.”

Hell. Why had he told her all that? At least he could keep quiet about the rest, that the name had been given to him after he’d participated in a sacred Sun Dance.

“Something like that.”

She gave him a long, searching look.

“So, we both come from military families.”

This was a pointless conversation. Next thing, she’d want to exchange family photos. Tanner folded the empty MRE bags into small, neat squares and stowed them in his backpack.

“Time to get things moving,” he said briskly. “We want to be stowed away when all the light is gone.”

“But with one big difference. You spoke of your great-great-great-grandfather with pride. That’s not the way I feel about my father.”

Okay. The discussion still wasn’t over. There had to be a way to end it, some subtle way to change the topic.

“Listen,” he said, “I don’t know what the situation is between you but if it helps, you should know that your old man was very upset about you.”

“Why wouldn’t he be? We’re probably still some deep, dark secret.”

“We?”

“My brothers, my sister and me.”

“As I said, I don’t know anything about that, but—”

“My father, the general,” Alessandra said with forced lightness, “the guy with the four shiny stars and a bunch of medals, was a bigamist. He was married to our mother and to another woman at the same time.”

Tanner sat back on his heels. “Wow.”

“Yeah. That’s pretty much how we see it, too.”

They fell silent. Tanner wanted to say something more intelligent than “wow,” but he couldn’t come up with anything. He knew what he was probably supposed to do. Ask her how such a thing had affected her, what did she feel, or at least offer a tidbit of personal information in exchange, but he wasn’t into navel-gazing, and he’d already told her more about himself than made sense.

He was a man who kept his thoughts and feelings private.

Women didn’t like that about him. More than one had called him removed. Remote. Cold.

Even Red had.

“You’re burning hot in bed, sugar,” she’d said, “but you’re an iceman everywhere else.”

Yeah, well, if that meant he didn’t talk about himself, so be it.

“Call of nature,” Alessandra said brightly as she rose to her feet.

He nodded. “Don’t go too far. And check for—”

“Critters. I know. I’ll be right back.”

He nodded again.

She was probably moving away to avoid his silence. So what? He was the silent type. Give away too much of yourself, you might as well paint a big red X on your forehead.

That had been the big lesson of his childhood, learned first when his mother went out the door one morning and left behind a note that said she needed something more in her life. Relearned when his old man dealt with it by losing himself in cheap whiskey until he wandered away one snowy night and died on the quiet plains.

After that, Tanner had been lost for a while.

The spirit, the memory of his long-dead great-great-great-grandfather, was what had saved him.

He’d already known all those stories and he’d written them off as overblown nonsense told by a man who’d had nothing but hand-me-down tales to live by.

But when he’d gotten in trouble one time too many after his father’s death, a tribal elder had confronted him.

“You have the blood of warriors in your veins,” the old man had said.

Tanner had laughed and said he had the blood of a drunk in his veins. The elder had grabbed him by the ear and told him he was a disgrace to the people and to his ancestors.

Then he’d sat him down and told him about his great-great-great-grandfather, told him the past his own father had omitted.

Turned out his great-great-great-grandfather had not always been a hero.

In his teens, he had been a boy who’d sought nothing but trouble.

“He was lost, the same as you,” the elder said. “His mother was dead. His father was a drunkard. He wallowed in self-pity. And then, because he had nothing better to do, he went on a vision quest. He was alone in the sacred hills for three days and nights, and when he returned, he pledged himself to the Sun Dance.”

“Don’t tell me,” Tanner had said sarcastically. “The vision quest and the Dance, a couple of stupid old customs, changed his life.”

“Only a man who questions without understanding that which he questions is stupid, Tanner,” the elder had said quietly.

Two months later, on his sixteenth birthday, Tanner figured he had nothing to lose.

He went up into the hills, alone. No food. No water.

At first, nothing happened. And then, on the third night, an animal came to him. It was a wolf, a sacred animal that symbolized freedom and courage, but the thing was, there were no longer wolves in the Black Hills.

A hallucination, maybe?

Whatever, the experience had left him a little shaken.

When he returned home, he pledged himself to the Dance.

And, when the time came, he danced. For four endless days and nights. He danced until he was bleeding, until he was exhausted, until the world was no longer real.

But he endured, unlike some of the men and boys who had begun the ceremony with him.

And after it was over, when he lay panting and almost delirious on the sacred ground, the elder had come to his side.

“From now on,” he’d said softly, “you will be known as Tanner Akecheta. Tanner the Warrior. Your great-great-great-grandfather’s spirit lives within you, young man. He would be proud to know you.”

It had been the turning point of Tanner’s life. Everything that came after—the academic achievements, his success on the football field, college, being selected first for the SEALs and then for STUD, had happened because of that vision, that dance, but he never talked about it or about his great-great-great-grandfather.

Why would he? It was all private, not to be shared and besides, who would want to hear these things? Only Chay, but he and Chay were like brothers.

He would certainly not talk about himself to a woman.

Except that was exactly what he’d just done.

He hadn’t told her a lot, but he’d told her more than he should have.

Tanner added wood to the fire.

Maybe it was the darkness closing in. Maybe it was the forced intimacy of a dangerous situation.

A muscle knotted in his jaw.

Or maybe it was just her. Alessandra. There was a complexity to her that baffled him.

Not that he was interested in her in any significant way. Well, sexually, sure. What man wouldn’t be? As for the rest… It was just that she was—that word again—complex. He’d always liked puzzles, and that was what she was. A puzzle. The way she stood up to him. The faint Italian accent that materialized whenever she came close to losing her temper.

The resiliency that had gotten her through being kidnapped and held captive by a pair of brutes.

He’d seen grown men sob as they fell into the arms of their rescuers.

Not this woman.

Still, there was a softness to her. Was what you saw on the outside a barrier against the world? If it was, who was the real woman behind that barrier?

What would a man find if he got past it?

And, Jesus, why was he wasting time and energy on cheap philosophizing? It was definitely time to secure their campsite, call it a night, get some much-needed sleep, she in the shelter, he out here by the fire…

She, still in the underbrush.

He got to his feet. He’d been foolish, letting her go off on her own. Snakes, spiders, God only knew what else might be out there, just waiting for dinner.

“Bellini? What’s taking so long?”

“Dio! If you have to ask me such a dumb question, Lieutenant…”

A sound, something like a deep, rusty bark, echoed through the jungle just as she stepped into the clearing.

She spun towards the wall of green behind her.

“Did you hear that?”

Better safe than sorry, Tanner thought, reaching for his rifle.

“Easy. It’s a jaguar, but he’s a long way off.”

Wide-eyed, she turned in a slow circle. What a wonderful irony, that the woman who wanted to turn cats into coats was terrified because one was in the area.

“How far?”

“It’s hard to tell. A quarter mile, half a mile, maybe. We’ll keep our eyes open, but the odds are good that if he should catch our scent, he’ll do his best to avoid—”

“I’d give anything for a glimpse of him!”

The words came out on a long, excited rush of breath. He looked at her. Hell. She was excited, not fearful.

“They’re not tame pussycats,” he said sharply. “They’re big. Smart. Cornered or frightened, they can be dangerous. And I can assure you that he isn’t interested in being on display for you or anyone else.”

“He’s probably just coming off a hunt,” she whispered. “Most people think they’re nocturnal, but they’re not. They’re crepuscular.”

She sounded like one of those programs on National Geographic.

“Crepuscular,” he repeated.

“Uh-huh. It means—”

“I know what it means. They hunt at dawn and dusk. I’m just surprised you know it.”

That stopped her.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Her tone bordered on the incredulous. Or maybe on mockery, which was even worse. “I’ve been studying jaguars for months. I spent days hiking the Cockscomb Basin Jaguar Sanctuary in Belize. I met with the director of the Belize Zoo. She knows more about jaguars than anybody. I went inside an enclosure with her and one of her cats, but I’ve never actually encountered one in the—”

“You went into a jaguar enclosure?”

“Well, into an enclosure within the enclosure. It’s hard to explain, but—”

“Damn right, it’s hard to explain. You did all that, and you want to turn them into coats?”

Tanner had never actually seen a person’s mouth drop open before.

“I want to do what?”

“Jesus! Never mind. It’s none of my—”

“Who told you that?”

“What’s the difference?”

“Was it my father?” She slapped her hands on her hips. “He always was an ass.”

“Look, this is a pointless discussion. My job is to get you home, not judge you.”

“Liar!”

He had turned away, ostensibly to lean the rifle against the tree again, but really to end a conversation that would get them nowhere. The sound of that word, liar, made him face her.

“Watch what you say to me, babe.”

“Do not ‘babe’ me, Lieutenant. And do not try to claim you haven’t been judging me. You have. All along.” Those big blue eyes narrowed. “You think I came to San Escobal to kill cats?”

“I just told you, I’m not—”

She covered the few feet between them and slapped her hands against his chest. Hard. He had seven, eight inches on her and at least seventy pounds, but she caught him off guard and he stumbled backwards.

His leg didn’t take the misstep well and he tried not to wince.

“Hey. Take it easy.”

“I work with The FURever Fund!”

“So?”

“Do you know anything about them? Anything at all?”

She gave him another shove, but this time he was ready for it and he grabbed her elbows and steadied her.

“Who you work with has nothing to do with me.”

“How about Defenders of Wildlife? The World Wildlife Fund? The Wildlife Conservation Society?” She glared at him, her eyes full of fire. “Ever hear of any of them, Lieutenant?”

Uh-oh. A slow-dawning reality was beginning to penetrate his brain.

“Maybe.”

“Maybe? Maybe?”

“Okay. I’ve heard of them. So what?”

“They protect animals.”

“And?”

“And,” she said, the words dripping scorn, “The FURever Fund does the same thing. It’s new. It’s relatively small. Its focus is on the preservation of big cats.” Her eyes narrowed. “Jaguars.”

“Jaguars,” he repeated stupidly.

“Do I really look like a woman who’d want to kill a creature for its fur?”

What she looked like was the most beautiful woman imaginable.

He owed her an apology. An explanation.

To hell with that, Tanner thought, and he gathered her into his arms, bent his head to hers, and claimed her mouth.

CHAPTER SEVEN

WHAT IN HELL did Superman think he was doing? Did he figure he could get out of this by kissing her into silence?

Ridiculous.

The arrogant idiot.

He owed her an apology. Okay. Maybe not. Why would she give a damn what he believed about her? The point was, she was not into machismo and she was certainly not into hot, sweaty sex with a stranger, and if that was where he thought this was—where he thought this was—where he thought…

Dio!

Who cared what he thought?

Alessandra’s brain blanked out everything but the kiss.

The hot demand of Tanner’s mouth.

The strength of his embrace.

The beat of his heart against hers.

And, oh, the hard thrust of his erection against her belly.

She moaned.

He drew her closer.

Her hands slid up his chest, to his shoulders; she wound her arms around his neck, dug her fingers into his dark hair, and the world tilted.

He groaned with satisfaction, cupped her ass, lifted her into him, changed the angle of the kiss, took it deeper, darker, hotter.

She sucked on the tip of his tongue and he groaned again. The sound was one of raw, pagan want. Her body responded with a rush of molten heat between her thighs and she fisted her hands in his cotton T and leaned into him.

He said something low and harsh as he thrust his leg between hers.

Oh. Oh yes. Yes…

She rubbed against his leg.

He slid his hands under her shirt.

His hands were big. Warm. Rough from work.

He stroked one hand down her back. Lower. Lower. Slid it inside the waistband of her scrubs. His fingers on her naked flesh.

She shuddered. Shoved up his shirt. He made a little sound in the back of his throat as she explored him. The tautly muscled shoulders and pecs. The swift beat of his heart. The toned, exciting washboard abs…

He pushed her hands away.

She whimpered in protest until he tore his shirt over his head and yanked her into his arms again. She caught her breath at the feel of him. Hot skin. Hard muscles.

He caught her wrists.

“Wait,” he said in a low growl. He grasped the hem of her T-shirt. “Raise your arms.”

A second later, her naked breasts were against his bare chest.

He pushed her hair aside and kissed her neck. Nipped her throat. Soothed the tiny wound with a lick of his tongue.

She heard herself sobbing. Pleading. She wanted more. This wasn’t enough. It wasn’t…

His hands cupped her breasts.

His thumbs flickered across her nipples.

Her legs buckled and he swept her into his arms, carried her into their tiny shelter and lay her down on the bed of soft palm fronds.

He stood above her, silhouetted by the light of the fire. He was beautiful, a magnificent male animal, and she had never wanted a man, never wanted anything as she wanted him.

He toed off his boots. Undid his belt. Unzipped his camos. Shoved them down. His penis, swollen and proud, tented his jockeys.

“Tanner,” she whispered.

It was the first time she’d used his name.

She said it softly, but it swept through him, gave meaning to his need, his urgency, his desire…

And just as suddenly dragged him back to cold reality.

Had he lost his fucking mind?

She was his responsibility.

Jesus, why mince words?

This wasn’t a date. Not of any kind. They hadn’t met in a bar or at a party or even online. They’d met, if you could call it that, because she’d been a captive and he was the soldier whose mission was to rescue her. And, as a solider, especially as a STUD operative, he was sworn to a code that put honor before everything else.

There wasn’t a damned thing honorable in seducing the woman he’d been sent to protect, a vulnerable woman, and if Alessandra Bellini was not a vulnerable woman he didn’t understand the meaning of the word.

“Tanner?”

He looked down at her, and his heart twisted. A nice image, spoiled by the fact that his dick was still doing its own thing, and that thing had nothing to do with his heart.

How in hell had he lost focus? How had he gone from taking care of her to taking advantage of her?

She was so beautiful. Those dark blue eyes. Hair like a spill of sunlight over her creamy shoulders. She raised her arms to him and her breasts, small and perfect, lifted as if they were an offering.

He wanted to reach for her, roll her under him, take possession of her body and maybe even her soul, lose himself and everything that had haunted him all these past months…

Shit!

Tanner tore his gaze from Alessandra, scrambled for his camos and pulled them on.

“The fire,” he said roughly. “ I have to—I have to—”

She was looking at him as if he’d lost his mind. The truth was, he’d just found it, but there was no way to tell her that.

Instead, he swung around, stepped into the night and hoped to God he could forget the last glimpse he had of her, the expression on her face that went from desire to bewilderment, the way she quickly folded her arms over her breasts in an age-old gesture of female shame.

It would have been better if she’d flung something at his head and called him a son of a bitch, because he deserved at least that—and more.

* * *

When the pewter haze of dawn chased away the blackness of night, Tanner finally fell into restless sleep.

He dreamed of Alessandra as he had last seen her, half-naked and altogether beautiful. In one dream, he went to her and took her in his arms. In another, she slapped his face when he tried it.

The cries of a troupe of howler monkeys shot him bolt upright. His hand closed around the SIG-SAUER—he’d slept with it next to him—and he was instantly alert, thanks to years of training.

He was also in a lot of pain, thanks to his fucking leg, but there was no time for pain and he got to his feet, holstered the pistol and worked on stretching the leg as best he could.

The good news was that the fire was still going and when he checked, there was enough water left to pour into the pot and put up to boil.

The better news was that Alessandra was still asleep.

He could see her inside the shelter, sprawled on her belly, wearing his shirt and the scrubs. They’d have to get moving soon, but he’d wait a little while before he woke her. And if that marked him as a coward, what the hell. He was a lot of other things. Why not a coward, too?

Carefully, he retrieved his boots, got a clean pair of socks from his pack, put them on, then put on the boots and stepped into the trees to relieve himself. A couple of minutes walk brought him to the stream. He went down the steep bank carefully, wincing as he balanced his weight on his bad leg. Twisting it again would be a really bad move. Quickly, he splashed his face with the cool swift-running water, then dunked his head and drove his fingers through his wet hair. His face was bristly, the way it always was in the field, but it wasn’t yet at the itchy stage that could drive a man nuts. He had a disposable toothbrush in his pack. Two, actually. When he got back to camp, he’d use one, give one to Alessandra…

“Okay,” he said into the morning quiet, “that’s it, dude. What are you, the King of Procrastination? Get back there and deal with whatever’s waiting for you.”

Rage. Coldness. Sarcasm. Accusations. Whatever she could dish out, he could take.

Tanner plodded back to camp, dreading the moment that was coming, waking her up and…

Damn.

She was already up, standing outside the shelter. Her hair was pulled back from her face, tied at the nape of her neck with what looked like a strip of cloth. One of the plastic cups from his backpack was cradled in her hands, its contents steaming into the already humid air.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said, “but I checked your pack and found some freeze-dried coffee.”

Her tone was calm. Nonchalant. As if nothing unusual had happened last night. He felt like breathing a sigh of relief. Maybe they could handle this like two adults after all.

“No,” he said. “That’s fine.”

“And you have two toothbrushes. I hope it’s okay that I used one.”

“No,” he said again, “that’s fine, too.”

She nodded. “I noticed a couple of coconuts on the ground. Do you want to open one? I’d have used the pistol to shoot it in half, but I didn’t want to run the risk of damaging it beyond use.” Her teeth flashed in a big smile. “The very last thing I want to do is make problems for you, Lieutenant.”

“No,” he started to say, “that’s…”

She knew the instant he got the message.

Not only did he choke back another “that’s fine,” but that hard, handsome face, no longer striped with camo paint, became striped instead with crimson.

Superman was embarrassed.

It was a joy to see.

Last night, after he’d walked out, she’d wanted to curl up in a corner and die of humiliation. Or, even better, fly out of the shelter and slam her fist into his square, stubbled jaw.

Of course, she hadn’t done either. And after a minute or—okay—more like an hour of wasting time feeling sorry for herself, despising herself for what had almost happened with a man who’d obviously had second thoughts about it happening, she’d calmed down.

It hadn’t been difficult to come up with an explanation of how they’d ended up climbing all over each other.

She wasn’t into hookups, but this wasn’t Manhattan, which was kind of ironic, because New Yorkers referred to the single scene there as a jungle. This was a real jungle, okay, a rainforest, if you wanted to be technical about it. Whatever you called it, this was a dangerous place.

And sex was a life-affirming act.

That certainly explained her side of it.

His? Well, hell, he was male. Sex was on their minds from the minute they opened their eyes in the morning to the minute they closed them at night.

So, back to the obvious question. Why had he walked away?

Sudden impotence? Alessandra almost laughed into her coffee cup. Not with the enormous bulge she’d seen behind the fly of his Jockeys.

A change of heart?

His heart had not been involved.

Then again, neither had hers.

Last night had been about lust, plain and simple.

And, really, what did it matter why he’d walked away? He’d walked. End of story. And it was a damn good thing he had or she’d surely have ended up hating herself this morning.

When it came to doing something that was hell on your self-image, the only thing worse than a one-night stand would be the morning after. And she wasn’t going to take the easy way out, either, because that was probably what he’d expected. An angry scene. Tears and accusations.

What for?

What had happened last night was finished. Finito. Now, all she had to deal with were a few more hours of trekking through the rain forest and she’d never have to see Lieutenant Tanner Akecheta again.

That would be something to celebrate!

He’d turned away. She watched as reached for the machete and sliced open two coconuts.

The weather was, as always in this part of the world, hot and humid, and he was sweating. His cotton T-shirt clung to him, defining the play of muscles in his shoulders and biceps.

Such a waste that a man so spectacularly beautiful should be such an arrogant bastard.

He stood up and swung towards her. She looked away as quickly as she could, but not quickly enough. Their eyes met, and then his slid over her.

Dammit.

She was sweating, too, and though the shirt she wore—one of his—was several sizes too big, she suspected it would not hide the sudden peaking of her nipples under his cool gaze.

Except, his gaze wasn’t cool.

It was hot and dark when it finally met hers again, and it stole away her breath.

What would last night have been like if he hadn’t walked away?

Her heart thudded so loudly that she was afraid he could hear it.

“That coconut looks good,” she said, just for the sake of hearing something other than the pulsing of her own blood.

A muscle danced in his cheek.

“Yes.” His voice was low. “It looks incredible.” Their gazes met again and he held out his hand. “Take what you want.”

She hesitated. What kind of game was he playing? She wouldn’t be taken in. Not again.

She took a piece of coconut and said “thank you” the way she’d have said it to a server who’d offered her a menu.

When they’d finished eating, he made two cups of instant coffee and handed one to her along with an antibiotic capsule. He turned his back and swallowed something, too. It wasn’t one of the antibiotics. In fact, it looked a lot like something her mother had once been prescribed for pain.

Was the lieutenant in pain?

He had admitted to twisting his ankle after she’d noticed him favoring it. Was he hurting? Should she ask? A better question was, should she care?

No. Not really.

If he was in pain, it was his problem, not hers. There wasn’t anything she could do about it even if she wanted to.

The morning was heating up, and storm clouds were riding high overhead.

Alessandra finished her coffee. He reached for her cup.

“Time to get moving,” he said.

She nodded and started for the tree line.

“Alessandra.”

She kept walking.

“Alessandra!”

“I’m going to pee.”

“Yeah. Fine. But before you do… I owe you an explanation.”

Tanner hadn’t intended anything even close to that, but looking at her a few minutes ago, knowing he still hungered for her and that she hungered for him, he’d decided he had to say something.

Now, going by the look on her face as she swung towards him, he wasn’t so sure.

“You don’t owe me anything.”

“Yeah. I do.”

She folded her arms. “Are you always so sure of yourself, Lieutenant?”

The way she’d gone back to using his title made him wince.

“The only thing I’m sure of is that we’re in an unusual situation.”

She made a show of looking around.

“You think?”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” he said, ignoring the touch of sarcasm. “We’re facing some dangerous stuff. And, see, I’ve studied these things…” Shit. Did she have to look at him as if he was crazy? “The bottom line is that I understand that rescuing you might make you see me, uh, might make you see me…”

“As a hero.”

Uh-oh. Nobody’s tone should ever be as flat as that.

“No. Not exactly. It’s just that when you add everything together—”

“You think I might have had sex with you to show you my gratitude.”

Hell. He swallowed hard.

“No. I mean… No. But I can see where that might...”

“You’re probably right.”

“What?”

“The Stockholm syndrome in reverse. You know. The captive transferring her positive feelings to her captor, except I transferred them to the man whose job was to rescue me. Why else would I have even considered being with you, Lieutenant?” Her eyes narrowed. “I’ve never been into self-centered guys who probably blow kisses to their own images in mirrors.”

“Hey. Just wait a min—”

“And I’ve certainly never been interested in soldiers. Click your heels together, do as you’re told, salute and say ‘yessir.” She shot him a blistering smile. “So well-trained.”

Enough, he decided, and folded his arms over his chest.

“It’s ‘aye aye, sir,’” he said coldly. “If you want to be accurate.”

“And I think you’re pathetic,” she said, just as coldly. “If you want to be accurate.”

Tanner breathed in, breathed out. He wanted to grab her and shake her, or maybe grab her and finish what they’d started last night, but he damn well wasn’t foolish enough to do either.

“Don’t go too far,” he said brusquely. “And don’t take too long. I want to get moving. The sooner we reach the river, the better.”

She looked at him. No smile this time, not even a nasty one.

“Aye aye,” she said.

Then she saluted. Clicked her heels. Turned sharply and strode into the trees, where she pulled down the scrubs, did what had to be done, cleaned herself with a wipe she’d put in her pocket, hoisted the scrubs up again…

And gasped as a big, filthy, all-too-familiar arm wrapped itself around her throat and hoisted her off her feet.

The hand attached to the arm held a long, sharp knife that was pressed to her throat.

Her kidnappers had found them.

“No soun’,” Stubby whispered, his foul breath hot against the side of her face. “You unnerstan’? No soun’ or you die.”

Alessandra was already on her toes. She wrapped her hands around his arm, trying to stand even taller in a desperate quest for breath.

“You hear me, puta?”

She gave a frantic nod.

“Smart girl,” Skinny said as he stepped from the dense foliage. He had a long, lethal-looking rifle cradled in his arms.

“I’ll walk the whore into the clearing,” Stubby whispered. “Get the sojjer’s attention. You go round, come up behind him and kill him. Bueno?”

“Then we have some fun, huh?”

Stubby chuckled. “We jus’ need to keep her alive for Estrella Brilliante.” He put his lips to Alessandra’s ear. “They get you now, puta, ’cause you make too much trouble for us. You gonna have a good time with them.” He jerked his chin at his partner. “Get goin’.”

Skinny grinned and vanished into the foliage.

Stubby put his mouth to her ear again. She felt the cold sting of the knife slide down her throat.

“You feel that?”

She nodded.

“We walk into the clearing together. You do anything, say anything, I cut you. Deep.” He chuckled. “But not deep enough to keep my amigos in Bright Star from payin’ me good money for you, puta, you unnderstan’?”

She jerked her head up and down. She understood, completely. He’d hurt her, badly, and then the guerrillas he’d talked about could do what they wanted with her.

Stubby chuckled.

“Smart girl. Now walk.”

She walked.

One cautious, slow step at a time, heart racing, frenziedly trying to think of a way to warn Tanner of what was happening, of what was going to happen to him.

She paused just before the clearing. Stubby slid the tip of the knife under her T-shirt. The fabric parted; the knife was at her breast. She felt the coldness of the blade, then a faint trickle of something warm.

“Jus’ a little cut, puta. But I can do more. Remember that. Now move!”

She could see Tanner standing in the center of the little clearing, his pack over one shoulder, his rifle about to be slung over the other shoulder…

Alessandra slammed her elbow into Stubby’s belly with as much force as she could. He grunted; the air rushed from his lungs and his hold on her lessened just enough to let her dodge to the right.

“Tanner,” she screamed, “behind you!”

The world exploded.

When it was over, both her kidnappers lay motionless in spreading pools of blood.

Her knees buckled, but before she could do down, Tanner had her in his arms

CHAPTER EIGHT

SHE WAS HURT.

Bleeding.

There was a cut in her shirt had been slashed open. He could see a trail of blood on her skin.

Tanner sat her on the ground, her back against a tree, and knelt before her.

“Alessandra,” he whispered.

His hands shook as he parted the slit in the cotton shirt.

His belly knotted.

She’d been cut. Not cut, not really. The fat pig had pricked her with his knife, not enough to do damage, just enough to draw blood.

Tanner dumped his backpack, opened it, fished inside it and, yes, there were still little packs of wipes left. He opened one with his teeth.

“Honey? Can you hear me? This is gonna sting.”

Alessandra’s eyes met his as he cleaned the tiny wound. She wanted to tell him she was okay, that the only thing that mattered was that he was still alive, but all she could manage was to raise her hand and press it to his jaw.

He cursed softly, turned his face into her palm and kissed it. Then he tossed aside the wipe, reached for a packet of ointment, opened it and gently massaged the contents into the cut on her breast.

“It’ll be fine,” he said. “You’ll be fine.”

The words were as much for his own reassurance as for hers. She nodded, whispered “Thank you,” and he cursed again and drew her against him, felt the race of her heart against his.

“Dammit,” he said, his voice raw and harsh, “he could have killed you! What in hell were you thinking, calling out like that?”

A tremor swept through her. “The other one…He was going to s-shoot y-you.”

Tanner groaned, cupped her head and brought her face to his shoulder. She burrowed into him and he shut his eyes, held her, inhaled her scent.

His own heart was galloping. If it went any faster, he’d be useless to them both.

Everything had happened so fast.

A rustling sound behind him. Alessandra’s shouted warning. The sight of her tumbling into the clearing with one of the pigs who’d kidnapped her behind her…

He hadn’t had time to think, only to react.

He’d fired at the fat prick, spun around and taken out the skinny one. The kills were a given; he was a STUD sniper, and in moments like these, his response was as disciplined as breathing.

His response to the sight of Alessandra sinking towards the ground was not.

Racing to her, sweeping her into his arms and holding her close wasn’t in any operations manual.

“I was—I was heading back to the clearing. And—and then there was an arm around my neck and—and—”

“Shh.” Tanner kissed her hair, her forehead, her mouth. “Everything’s okay now.”

“They said they would kill you. And—and give me to Estrella Brilliante.”

He stiffened. “Bright Star.”

“Yes. That’s a guerrilla group, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” He stroked his hand over her hair. “Did they say anything else? Maybe about a rendezvous point with Bright Star?”

“No. That was all. Just that—that they had to keep me alive for—”

She shuddered, and he framed her face with his hands and looked into her eyes.

“Bright Star won’t touch you. I’ll keep you safe, sweetheart. I swear it.”

She nodded. Her breathing had steadied and she’d stopped trembling.

That was good.

Better than good.

She was amazing.

How could he have written her off as just another spoiled, rich brat? She was smart as hell, strong and courageous, and he was alive because she’d risked everything for him.

Bright Star.

Goddammit.

They could be anywhere by now. Even with Alessandra armed, the two of them would be outnumbered, what, ten to two? Twenty? Thirty?

Returning to the game trail wasn’t a good idea. Based on the direction the kidnappers had come from, they’d figured out his ruse, and there was no way of knowing what info they’d given to the guerrillas or where they were supposed to meet up.

Alessandra and he needed a different way to reach the river and they needed to get moving ASAP.

He drew back and framed her face with his hands.

“Honey.” She looked at him. Her eyes still held the shock of what had happened, and he wished he could spend the rest of the morning just holding her like this, but he couldn’t. “We have to get started.” He stroked a strand of hair back from her forehead. “You okay?”

She nodded. He leaned in and brushed his lips over hers.

“We’re going to have to take a different route to the river. I don’t know where Bright Star’s supposed to come on the scene, but in the not-so-good old days, this part of the rainforest was their territory.” He paused. “First, though, I have to, ah, I have to handle some housekeeping issues.”

Her eyes met his. “The bodies, you mean.”

It killed him she had to deal with this, but he respected her too much to play games.

“Yes.”

She swallowed hard. “That’s the first time I ever… I mean, learning to shoot was, you know, it was almost an academic exercise, but being in the middle of—of—”

“I had no choice.”

“Of course you didn’t!” She spread her hands over his chest. “I just keep thinking, what if you hadn’t been so quick? So focused? They would have—”

Tanner kissed her.

She sighed and slid her hands up his shoulders, into his hair. He wanted to stay like this forever, but right now time was everything.

“We have to move,” he said, drawing back so he could see her face.

“I know.”

“So here’s the deal. I’ll do what I have to do. You…” She, what? The worst thing would be to let her stand around watching him drag the bodies into the underbrush and cover them as best he could with leaves, branches, whatever would keep the guerrillas from stumbling over them if they came this way. “You check the area where I put up the shelter. The ashes of the fire, too. Make sure we didn’t leave anything behind.”

She nodded. He took her hand, brought it to his lips, then stood and drew her to her feet…

Shit!

He slapped a hand against the tree. It was the only thing that kept him from going down on his ass.

“Tanner?” Alessandra’s voice was sharp with panic. “What’s the matter?”

His fucking leg. That was what was the matter. He’d moved fast, pivoting to take down the one gunman and then the other. Now he’d turned too quickly or put his weight on the leg wrong, and a sharp pain shot from his ankle straight up to the wound in his calf.

“Answer me, dammit! Something’s wrong and…” Her face lost all its color. “Did—did a bullet…”

“No. No, it’s nothing like that.”

“Then what is it? And don’t even think of lying to me. We’re in this together, you’re hurting, and I want to know why.”

She sounded tough.

Hell, she was tough. It was one amazing trifecta. Smart. Tough. And beautiful. And she was right. There was no sense in lying. They were in this together…but that didn’t mean he couldn’t downplay things a little.

“It’s an old injury, that’s all, and it’s giving me a little trouble.”

“How about taking another of those pills for pain? Don’t try that innocent look on me, Lieutenant. I saw you sneak one this morning.”

Tanner clasped her shoulders.

“Bellini,” he said, “which of us is the mission leader here?”

She blinked. Then, as he’d hoped, she managed a small smile.

“You going to pull rank on me, Lieutenant?”

“Yes ma’am, I am. I’m in charge. That means I give the orders. You get to say…What are those two words again?”

“Two words?”

He tried hard to look stern, but it wasn’t easy.

“Don’t tell me you forgot ’em already.”

“Two… Ah.”

“You remember them now?”

“I do.”

“Well? Let’s hear them?”

Another quick smile.

“Aye aye,” she said softly.

“Aye aye, sir,” he said, just as softly.

“That’s three words.”

“Yeah, but I’m letting you off easy. No snapping to attention. No salute.” He lowered his head, rested his forehead against hers. “Worrying is my department. Understand?”

She nodded. Put her palms against his chest. Rose on her toes and pressed her lips lightly to his.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“There’s nothing to thank—”

She kissed him again. He fought back the urge to take her in his arms.

“Okay,” he said briskly. “Go ahead. Check the area. I’ll deal with the cleanup, but first, I’m going to try and reach Chay.”

“The man you called when we first made camp?”

“Yes. Chayton Olivieri. He’s the contact for getting us the fuck out of here.” Tanner took the satphone from his backpack. “I hadn’t intended to call again until we were on the other side of the river, but Chay’s the guy who can give us the data we… Chay? You there?”

“Tanner? Man, you okay?”

“Fine. So is the subject.”

“Good to hear.” Chay’s voice lowered. “Her old man’s driving me crazy. Her whole family, in fact, including a blonde. Her sister. Name of Bianca. Wants her home yesterday.”

“Yeah, well, I’m workin’ on it. Which is why I’m calling. I need some eye-in-the-sky info from you.”

Chay, seated in a small office at Camp Condor, reached out and nonchalantly swung the door shut. The blonde—Bianca—was pacing right outside it, and she shot him what he’d come to think of as The Look just before the door closed.

“You got an unexpected problem?”

“Bright Star.”

Chay said something short and pungent in Lakota.

“You got that right,” Tanner said, and explained the situation.

“Give me five,” Chay told him, but it didn’t really take that long.

There was going to be a change in the extraction site.

“There’s a steam near you.”

“I know.”

“It’s your best route to the river and then to the ocean.”

“The ocean? What happened to going out through Guatemala?”

“I don’t know, dude. Some political thing, probably. Anyway, the stream leads to the river, and you’ll follow the river to a mangrove swamp that’ll lead you to the ocean.”

“Details?”

“Later. Just get to the river first. The stream is shallow. Lots of vegetation on the banks, lots of overhanging trees. In other words, good cover. Stay in it for a couple of miles. It’ll widen, then narrow again. Ford it right before it splits, at the coordinates I just gave you, and that southwest branch will be the river. All told, you’re looking at four, five hours.”

“Meaning, it’s gonna take longer.”

“Meaning, you have far less chance of running into anybody.”

“Because?”

“Because nobody much uses it that stream.”

Tanner waved away a large, buzzing insect. “Because?” he said again.

“A minor detail.”

“Which is…?”

“Crocs.”

“Wonderful.”

“Only where the stream widens. Just keep your eyes open and you’ll be fine.”

“You’re just full of advice, aren’t you?”

“One more thing.”

Tanner puffed out a breath. “Let’s have it.”

“Weather’s coming in. Rain.”

“Yeah, what a surprise. It’s late summer, this is Central America. Who’d expect rain?”

“Heavy rain, smartass. By mid-to-late afternoon. You won’t want to be on the river then.”

“Okay. Got it.”

“Here’s the good news. SAT Recon says there’s a couple of canoes tucked into the bank where you’ll be crossing. They’re nobody’s. Or anybody’s, depending on how you look at it. There used to be a fishing village there, but no more.”

“Don’t tell me,” Tanner said dryly. “The natives got eaten by the crocs.”

“Very funny. Cross the stream, find the canoes, head downriver and go these new extraction coordinates. You listening?”

“Go.”

Chay rattled off map coordinates. Tanner repeated them.

“Good,” Chay said. “Make contact when you get there. By then, I’ll have lined up a safe place in the area for you and the general’s daughter to wait for the chopper.”

“Alessandra. Her name is Alessandra.”

“Right. Sure. Alessandra. Point is, I’ll come up with something good.”

“Prime real estate, I’ll bet.”

Chay laughed. “At least there aren’t any headhunters in Central America. Good luck, dude. Over and out.”

* * *

The stream was shallow and heavily shaded, just as Chay had promised.

It was also swift flowing, with an uneven, rocky bottom.

Tanner cut tree limbs into makeshift walking sticks that helped him and Alessandra get down the slippery bank without difficulty. Once the two of them were in the stream, the sticks were also a handy tool to use probing the bottom for safe footing.

The water wasn’t really cold, but it felt that way by comparison to the air.

At first, the chill was soothing to Alessandra’s battered feet. To Tanner’s injured leg, too. But after a while, the temperature as well as the difficulty of feeling their way along the uneven bottom became wearing.

Tanner knew he could deal with it. Yeah, his leg hurt like hell, but years of harsh SEAL and STUD training made this the equivalent of a walk in the park.

Well, almost.

Even hurting, he knew he could keep going for hours.

His concern was for Alessandra.

He could hear her splashing along behind him. Occasionally, she said “oof” or “dammit,” but whenever he offered to take a break she said no, she was fine, she didn’t need one. He knew that she did and that he’d have to make the decision to stop, at least for a while.

When he figured they were maybe an hour from the point at which Chay had told him the stream would widen—and crocs might appear—he turned to face Alessandra.

She was panting. Her face, except for her cheeks, was chalky.

“Okay,” he said cheerfully. “Time for a five-minute break.”

“I don’t—”

“I do.”

She looked at him. Then she nodded.

“Okay,” she said, and he could hear the exhaustion in her voice.

He walked the couple of steps back to her and reached for her hand.

“You’re doing fine,” he said softly. “Just fine.”

She flashed a smile.

Just looking at her made his throat tighten. She’d pulled her hair back from her face and secured it with a piece of paracord. The T he’d given her was now torn and stained. She’d rolled the scrubs to the tops of her thighs, but even he, who knew nothing about women’s fashion, knew that short shorts weren’t supposed to be cut like flour sacks.

She was, in other words, a mess.

A gorgeous mess.

Part of it was basic. The lovely face. The to-die-for body.

The truth was, lots of women met that kind of description. What put her in a category all her own wasn’t what you saw. It was the woman herself, the unique qualities that made her who she was.

She was a rarity in the world he knew. In the world most people knew.

“Tanner? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Because I’ve never known a woman like you. Because I don’t want us, whatever ‘us’ is, to end once we leave this hellhole.

But he couldn’t tell her that. There was enough pressure on her already. Besides, the way things were going, she was headed for home. He was—why lie to himself? —he was headed for another fucking stay in another fucking hospital, and each time he came out of one of those places, he was less the man he’d been before going in…

“Hey!” She gave an uncomfortable little laugh. “Do I really look that bad?”

“Sorry,” he said briskly. “I, ah, I was thinking… See that boulder up ahead? Why don’t we turn it into a couch? You know. Sit down. Get our feet out of the water for a couple of minutes. Take out the canteens. Eat a couple of power bars.”

“Sounds perfect.”

He clambered onto the boulder, then helped her climb up beside him. He checked the knife cut. It was fine, but he felt a rush of fury when he thought back to what could have happened.

“What?” she asked.

He bent his head and kissed the cut.

“Nothing,” he said softly.

He dug into his pack, took out two canteens and two power bars.

“Yum,” she said, when she opened a bar and bit into it.

He smiled.

“Gourmet dining,” she said, smiling in turn as she licked her fingers.

He grunted out an answer.

It was hard to speak in coherent sentences when all he could think was how much he wanted to be the one sucking each of her fingers into the heat of his mouth.

Damn good thing she wasn’t a mind reader.

He gave it another couple of minutes. Then he jumped down from the rock and held up his arms. “Okay, Bellini. No more goofing off. Time to get back to work.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Aye aye, Lieutenant.”

She stepped into his upraised arms.

He didn’t intend to kiss her.

But he did.

And when she all but melted into him, only a saint or a monk wouldn’t have drawn her even closer and deepened the kiss, and he was neither.

She tasted of the coolness of the water, the sweetness of the power bar, the heat of the sun, but most of all she tasted of herself.

It was a taste that was dizzying.

He felt himself harden against her. She felt it too. He knew it because she whispered his name, rose on her toes and got even closer.

Everything stilled.

And then a howler monkey screamed from a nearby tree and they sprang apart.

Dammit.

Tanner clenched his jaw.

They were in danger. She was in danger, and where was his brain?

Somewhere in the vicinity of his fly.

Scowling, he grabbed his pack, slung it over one shoulder.

“Moving out,” he growled. She didn’t react. “Did you hear me, Bellini? I said we’re moving.”

She stuck out her tongue.

He laughed.

She grinned, and when he started walking, she fell in behind him.

* * *

The stream widened, just as Chay had said it would.

One minute, they were plodding along single file.

Then they came around a tight bend and suddenly the water stretched out before them at least twenty feet wide and, from the color of it, twice as deep as the stream behind them.

And, yes, there were the crocodiles.

Tanner stood still and pointed to the distant bank where half a dozen of the huge, prehistoric-looking animals lay on the muddy slope, sleeping in the sun.

“Crocs,” Alessandra whispered.

He nodded.

He’d told her Chay had warned they might be there, but actually seeing the ten and twelve foot reptiles wasn’t the same as talking about the possibility.

Were they in the water?

Tanner scanned the stream, looking for eyes and snouts—which was pretty much all you could ever see of the unpredictable creatures when they were in the water.

Nothing.

Or nothing he could locate.

Alessandra moved up close against his side.

“What now?” she whispered.

He eyed the stream bank closest to them. Getting up it would be a scramble, but it looked flat at the top and it was covered with low-growing greenery, low enough so he could be pretty sure no crocs were lurking in its cover.

“We climb,” he whispered back. “Be as quiet as you can. Those guys look as if they’re happy to go on with their afternoon naps, but we don’t want to take any chances.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

He turned his head a little, lowered his mouth to hers for a quick good-luck kiss.

“You take the lead.” he said quietly. “I’ll be right behind you.”

That way, he could grab her if she started to slip, or he could be the mouthful a croc bit off if things went bad.

She nodded again. Then she took a breath and began climbing.

Tanner took a last look across the wide stream. One of the big animals had raised its head and was looking straight at him.

“Watch yourself,” Tanner said, “or I’ll turn you into a suitcase.”

Even Alessandra gave a soft laugh.

Then she half-climbed, half-clawed her way to the top with Tanner right behind her.

* * *

After that, traveling was easy.

The stream was visible from the top of the bank. When it narrowed again, a series of small rapids eventually dwindled into the kind of puddle no self-respecting croc would want to call its own. Tanner and Alessandra made their way down and walked the muddy path alongside the water.

Twenty minutes later, they came to the place where Chay had said they were to cross. The water here was thigh-deep, but a downed tree made for a handy bridge.

Once they’d forded the stream and walked another few hundred yards, the stream split, the left fork narrowing even further, the one to their right widening and deepening, the current quickening.

They had reached the river.

It took scant minutes to locate a couple of long-abandoned canoes tucked in among a tangle of bushes.

Tanner grinned. He owed Chay a beer. Hell, he owed him a case.

The canoes were old and full of debris, leaves and, in one case, a dead snake and a rusty coffee tin. He emptied everything from both canoes, selected the one that looked to be in the best condition and dumped a pair of paddles into it. Alessandra climbed in, he pushed off, then he got in and they were on their way.

They fell into a steady paddling rhythm, she in the front, he in the stern. The canoe wasn’t the best he’d ever sailed—it had a tendency to steer to the left—but he was able to control it without much difficulty. It also had a small leak and Alessandra used the rusty coffee can to keep the water that seeped in from becoming a problem.

They were making excellent time, but from the looks of the darkening sky and several distant peals of thunder, Tanner knew that the weather Chay had warned him about was coming in.

They were almost at the coordinates where they were to exit the when a jagged streak of lightning split the sky and they were hit by torrential rain.

Within minutes their visibility was blocked by rough waves that threatened to overturn their fragile craft. Tanner had trained for such situations, but Alessandra…

“Get down,” he shouted. “And hang on. I’ll do the steering.”

She kept paddling.

“Alessandra! I said—”

“I heard what you said, Lieutenant. Do I look as if I’m made of glass? Keep paddling and so will I.”

She was a fool. She was impossible. She was all the things any man would respect, all the things any man would—would—

Tanner dug his paddle into the water.

Ten minutes or maybe an eternity later, he figured they were close enough to where they were supposed to leave the river to chance it. He couldn’t check the coordinates; he needed to hang on to his paddle or the wind would take it. But between gusts of wind, he could make out what looked like an indentation in the shoreline.

One way or another, they had to get off the water.

As if to emphasize the grim realization, fingers of lightning sizzled from the charcoal sky.

They had to seek shelter on land or be claimed by the storm.

Tanner leaned forward.

“Paddle for shore,” he yelled.

Alessandra nodded and dug her paddle in.

The river, the rain and the wind did their damnedest to defeat them. Then, just when Tanner began wondering if he’d really seen that tiny cove, the canoe bumped into something.

A tangle of mangrove roots.

He stood up. Grabbed for a tree branch, missed it, cursed, made a second grab and felt the roughness of the bark under his fingers.

Grunting, straining, struggling to keep his balance against the current and the wind, he pulled the canoe into the relative safety of the small cove and its stand of mangrove trees. Then he turned towards Alessandra.

“Get out of the canoe,” he yelled. “Fast.”

She scrambled out. He followed, grabbed the boat’s bow and dragged it further into the cove so he could snug it into a small cavern of roots.

He flashed Alessandra a smile. “Good job, sweetheart.”

She grinned and shot him a thumbs-up. What could he do but lean in and kiss her? Anything less wasn’t possible.

They took a couple of minutes to catch their breath. For now, they were sheltered from the worst of the storm, but that would only be temporary. The river was already lapping at the tangled mangrove roots, waiting to engulf them.

Tanner tilted Alessandra’s chin up and looked into her eyes.

“You okay?”

She nodded.

“Let’s see if we can get a little farther from the river before I check our coordinates.”

They fought their way twenty feet in, fifty feet in, until they were standing on swampy but solid soil. Tanner got out the GPS and the satphone. They worked as well in the midst of an end-of-the-world storm as they did on a sunny day.

The GPS brought good news.

They were where they were supposed to be.

A call to Chay made the news even better.

They were less than two klicks from the ocean and the place where they would take shelter until a helicopter could be sent in to extract them.

“You’re heading for a house.” Chay ratted off the coordinates. “I think you’ll like the accommodations.”

“Yeah,” Tanner said wryly, “I bet.”

“No joke, dude. It’s on the beach.”

“Right. A beach house. In the fucking middle of nowhere?”

“Some tech billionaire owns it. Bought a shitload of land, figured to turn it into—get this—eco-friendly housing for those who long for simplicity.”

Tanner snorted. “In other words, Bullshit Acres for the Rich and Famous.”

Chay laughed. “Anybody ever tell you subtlety is one of your finest traits? Yeah, that about sums it up, but we shouldn’t be too hard on the guy. He’s a client of one of your hostage’s brothers. Half-brother. Stepbrother. Something like that. Travis Wilde. Hotshot financier, used to be a hotshot pilot for Uncle Sam. It’s veritable family of hotshots. Anyway, the finance wizard knows the tech billionaire. He also knew about the property, asked if we could use it, and his tech pal said yes.”

Tanner shot a look at Alessandra. She came from the kind of family most people only read about in the papers.

“And if you’re wondering about Bright Star…”

“Yeah?”

“I can’t verify their involvement.”

“Or their lack of involvement,” Tanner said grimly.

“Affirmative. Look, we’ll get you out ASAP, but you’re gonna have to wait out the weather. It’ll get worse before it gets better, and you know the choppers can’t fly in this crap. Get to that house. To get inside—”

“Don’t tell me. There’s a Welcome mat with a key underneath.”

“Close enough. There’s a keypad. Battery operated. The code is one-two-six-four-seven. Got it?”

“One-two-six-four-seven.”

“There’s an alarm system, also battery operated, as well video cams and monitors.”

“Also on battery?”

“Yeah. The cams are everywhere. So are the monitors. Did I mention there’s also a generator in the utility room?”

“Did you mention what it is you’re smoking to come up with all this?”

“The tech guy gave us the details and the Wilde dude says the techie’s word is always good.”

“Let’s hope so.”

“Affirmative on that, Akecheta. Good luck. And out.”

“Out,” Tanner said, and turned to Alessandra.

She was soaked. Her hair hung down her back in wet spirals; the T-shirt clung to her breasts, revealing their rounded shape as well as the delicate pucker of her nipples.

Venus, rising from the sea.

And this wasn’t the time for poetic musings.

Between the wind and the rain, the temperature had dropped a significant number of degrees. Sure, this was a rainforest, but hypothermia, generally thought of as a problem only in cold climates, was a real possibility.

Tanner yanked his own shirt over his head and wrapped it around Alessandra’s shoulders.

She tried to push it away.

“You need it. You’ll be cold.”

“Ill be fine.”

“Tanner…”

“Bellini.” Deftly, her brought the sleeves together and knotted them over her breasts. “How else am I gonna show off my manly physique?”

She laughed, just as he’d intended. Smiling, he stroked her wet hair back from her face. “We have to move. We have maybe half a mile to go and then, Chay says, we’ll see a house.”

“A real house? Four walls? A roof?”

“That’s the claim. One of your brothers arranged for us to use it. It belongs to one of his clients.”

“Which brother? Luca? Matteo?”

“A guy named Travis.”

She smiled. “Ah. Yes. If anybody knows someone with a house down here, it would be Travis.” Her smile faded. “They know? My family knows what’s happened to me?”

“So it would seem.”

She sighed. “And now they’re worried.”

“Of course they’re worried.” Tanner tipped her face up to his. “But not for long, sweetheart. I’ll have you home before you know it.” He smiled. “Chay says this house is supposed to be pretty nice.”

“Anything that gets us out of this rain would be nice.”

As if in response, the water from the swollen river suddenly surged around their ankles. Tanner clasped Alessandra’s shoulders.

“Keep an eye out for snakes.”

“Okay.”

“And stay with me no matter what. If I go too fast, just say so. Got that?”

“Got it,” she said, and this time, it was she who leaned in and kissed him.

CHAPTER NINE

MOVING THROUGH A tropical swamp of any kind was never easy. There was always the constant threat of snakes, insects and, depending on where you were, alligators or caimans or crocodiles lying in wait.

Mangrove swamps had the added danger of the tangled tree roots that could end in a sprained or broken ankle, and that would be absolute disaster.

Tanner was already among the walking wounded. His entire leg throbbed like a son of a bitch. So far, at least, he could still put weight on it and he didn’t feel feverish, but he knew he wasn’t one hundred percent, either.

He had to be one hundred percent for Alessandra,

She matched him stride for stride. No complaining. No asking for a break. She kept walking, her hand in his, but he knew she was exhausted.

Where in hell was that beach house? Not that he was expecting anything even close to a beach house. Forget what Alessandra’s brother or his billionaire pal had said. The odds on the place being anything more than a shack were, he figured, zero to none.

Alessandra stumbled over a mangrove root. She said something swift and musical in Italian, but he had the feeling there was nothing musical about its meaning.

Tanner lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “Whatever you just said goes double for me.”

“How many times can I be stupid enough to trip over these things? I mean, I know they’re there…”

“Easy.”

He drew her into his arms.

She let out a long, deep sigh and leaned against him.

“You’re limping,” she said, “but I’m the one doing the complaining.”

“You’re not complaining. And I’m not limping.”

She tilted her head back and looked at him.

“You are.”

“I’m not. I’m just exercising my feet. You know, put one down for a little longer than usual, lift the other a little faster than usual…”

She laughed. He raised her face to his and kissed her lightly on the mouth. Then he took her hand and they began walking again.

A few minutes went by.

“I can see daylight through the trees,” Tanner said. “Well, what passes for daylight in a storm like this. I think we’re almost out of the swamp.”

“And then?”

“And then, we should be at our destination.”

“A house,” she said wistfully.

“A house,” he said, and then he caught his breath and drew her to a halt. “And there it is!”

“Really?”

He pointed straight ahead.

A wide field of uncut wild grasses stretched before them, bending and swaying under the lash of the wind and the rain, and beyond the grassy field, on a knoll perhaps two, three hundred feet away, rose a house.

It had the four walls and roof Alessandra had hoped for. It wasn’t big, but it didn’t have to be. It was a house, and it was theirs.

Alessandra gripped his hand. “Tell me it’s not a mirage.”

Tanner grinned. “It’s real. And it’s all ours, until they come and get us.”

She laughed and stepped out of the trees, but he pulled her back

“Not so fast. You’re going to stay put while I check things out.” She started to protest, but he stopped her. “No arguments, Alessandra. I’m doing this alone. If something goes wrong, head back into the swamp.”

“No! I am not going to let you—”

“Goddammit, woman, I’m not asking, I’m telling. Things go bad, you make for the river. Hide, wait for a lull in the storm. Then get into that canoe and paddle like hell.” He hesitated. “And if Bright Star turns up, if they take you—if I’m gone—remember that the name of the game for all these bastards is money. You’re worth more to them alive than dead.” He reached out, stroked her wet hair back from her face. “You do whatever they tell you to do, Alessandra. Understand?”

Tears glittered in her eyes.

He dug into his pack, took out the satphone and handed it to her.

“Chay’s number is programmed in.”

“Tanner. Listen to me…”

He shrugged off the backpack and let it fall to the ground. Then he unholstered the SIG-SAUER and handed it to her.

“Use it if you have to. No hesitation. No second-guessing. Just do what you have to do.”

The tears were running down her face.

“Please. I don’t want to leave you…”

He pulled her to her toes and kissed her.

It was a hard, deep kiss that said everything he wanted to tell her, and when she threw her arms around him and returned his kiss with all the sweetness and passion a man could want, he knew that he stood on the threshold of something that was, in its own way, even more dangerous and exciting than the life he had created for himself at STUD.

One last kiss. Then he unslung his MP7, cradled it in his arms, cleared his mind of everything except the task ahead and left the relative safety of the swamp for the long, open stretch of grass.

The rain drove against his face with the force of a million tiny needles. The wind whipped the tall grass around his legs as he ran a zigzag course towards the house.

He’d made this kind of run scores of times before.

It was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. You never knew if you’d reach your target or be cut down halfway to it. Always, you ran for yourself, but also for the men with you.

Their lives were as important as yours.

Now, something new had been added.

He was running for Alessandra.

Her life was everything.

He could not let anything happen to keep him from returning to her. Maybe that was what kept him on his feet, kept him from feeling the pain in his bad leg and letting it collapse under him.

The house stood silent against the steel-gray sky. Behind it, the wind whipped a stand of trees into a frenzy. A couple of hundred yards away, the ocean frothed against a desolate stretch of sand.

When he reached the house, he flattened himself against the wall beside the door. He took a couple of breaths, let them out, then keyed the code Chay had given him into the lock.

The door swung open.

Virtually everyone on the teams and in STUD agreed that nobody ever really grew accustomed to this one moment. Walking into a yawning space where nobody knew what awaited you…

No matter how many times you’d done it, you could still feel your heartbeat accelerate, your balls tighten, your mouth go dry.

Every nerve ending in your lizard brain knew how vulnerable you were at that moment.

MP7 up and ready, Tanner entered the house.

He was greeted by a silence broken only by the moan of the wind and the beat of the rain.

Instinct told him it was the kind of silence that said he was alone, but even though instinct was important, he’d learned it was sometimes unwise to rely on it.

He’d known too many good men who’d thought a house was empty when it wasn’t.

He was in a long hallway. Polished wood floor. White-painted walls. Bright abstract paintings on the walls.

Civilization, after the savagery of the last few days.

He elbowed the door shut. Then he moved forward, one cautious step at a time.

An arched doorway to his left opened onto the living room. Leather sofa. Leather lounge chairs. Shelves of books. A fireplace with wood neatly stacked on the hearth. A wine rack. A couple of small, elegant sculptures. A wall of windows, covered by closed metal security shutters.

A bank of small security monitors, showing nothing but empty rooms and the storm outside

Chay was right. So far, the accommodations looked mighty fine.

Back in the hallway, a door to the right stood open revealing a half-bath. Dark blue tile, white fixtures, white towels.

A right-angle turn and the hall widened. Became a small dining room. Modern furniture. More windows, also shuttered. Beyond the dining room, a kitchen. Small, modern and very efficient-looking. Two walls of shiny appliances. A bank of monitors.

Tanner was hardly an expert on kitchens or cooking, but this one all but bristled with invisible dollar signs.

The entire place did.

Tech billionaires sure knew how to live.

There was a utility room off the kitchen. He took a quick visual survey. A back door that would open onto the beach. Shelves of food. Soups. Juice. Coffee. Cookies, crackers, rice…

His mouth watered.

And, as Chay had said, there was a generator in the corner.

He’d seen generators before, back home on the res, things that stood outside and ran the lights or maybe a fridge—if you were lucky. This generator was a shiny, permanent installation. It would run an entire house. It was the reason all those expensive appliances were here in the middle of nowhere.

That meant hot water. Hot food.

So far, this place was the next best thing to paradise.

Tanner went down a hallway that led away from the kitchen. It ended in a bedroom with an enormous bed. More windows, all shuttered. A skylight over the bed, ditto. A wall of closets. He opened and checked them all. Clothes. He could only hope some would fit.

Another bank of security monitors.

And a tiled bathroom, complete with a big glass shower stall.

The thought of a hot shower almost made him groan.

The thought of sleeping in that bed made him smile.

The thought of Alessandra in that shower and then in that bed with him almost dropped him to his knees, and what in hell was he doing, thinking of something like that when all his attention should be on his surroundings?

Anyway, that wasn’t going to happen.

They’d kissed a few times. Touched.

Crap. Who was he kidding? They’d been within a breath of having sex last night, and only the last-minute realization of what a mistake that would have been had stopped him.

It hadn’t stopped him wanting her.

He burned with wanting her.

Yeah, but you didn’t fuck around on a mission, no pun intended.

Plus, she wasn’t a woman who was into one-night stands, and that was the only thing this could ever be.

The real world was a helicopter ride away and then all this would be nothing more than a memory.

Okay. The house was secured. Time to go and get Alessandra.

Tanner retraced his steps, started down the hall towards the front door…

And saw the door slowly opening.

Shit!

He flattened himself against the wall. Raised the MP7, slid his finger alongside the trigger guard…

“Tanner?”

Alessandra stood in the doorway, the heavy pack at her feet, the SIG-SAUER clutched in both hands and extended before her. It was perfect shooting posture, except he didn’t want her ready to shoot. He wanted her safely hidden where he’d left her.

“Goddammit, Alessandra!”

“Tanner.” Her voice shook; she let the pistol slip down, one-handed, and dangle against her thigh. “I thought—I thought you were—”

“What in hell are you doing?” He was on her in a second, grabbing the pistol, securing it in his holster, his MP7 once again riding upright against his chest. “How’d you get in here?”

“I heard you say the security co—”

“I could have fucking killed you. Jesus, I almost pulled the trigger!”

“You were gone so long. I thought something had happened to you.”

“Really? You thought something had happened to me?”

He knew he was shouting. So what? He was grateful he was able to speak at all.

“Yes. I thought—”

“You already said that.” He reached for the pack, dragged it into the house, slammed the door, caught her by the shoulders and hoisted her to her toes. “What were you supposed to do if something happened to me?”

“Don’t you understand? I was afraid that—that you were hurt. Or dead. Or—”

“You were supposed to run. Get to the river. Get into the canoe. Get your ass out of here. What part of that couldn’t you remember?”

“And leave you,” she said in an unsteady whisper.

“Damn right!”

“Leave you to bleed. To die. Leave you, and never know what happened to you—”

He was furious. Hot with rage. A simple command, and she hadn’t followed it. A straightforward set of instructions, and she’d disobeyed them.

He wanted to shake her. Slap her. Do whatever it took to make her think logically.

“Damn you,” he said, “damn you, Alessandra…”

And then she was in his arms.

His mouth was on hers.

Her soft, lovely body was pressed to the long, hard length of his.

She was kissing him back even as she wept, and the world blurred.

His heart was pounding. He wanted to strip off his clothes and hers, take her right here against the wall.

No.

That was how he’d done things last night. She deserved more. Deserved better…

“Tanner.”

She whispered his name against his mouth.

God. She was going to ask him to stop. And he would, even though it would kill him…

“Please,” she said, “please, please, please. Make love to me. Tanner…”

He growled her name. Caught her up in his arms and carried her down the hall to the bedroom, his mouth on hers, her sweet taste filling him.

He lowered her to her feet. Shrugged off the MP7, his belt and the weapons of death it carried.

And suddenly realized he didn’t have a condom.

The realization made him groan.

“Sweetheart,” he said, “I don’t have a con—”

She covered his mouth with her fingers.

“We don’t need condoms. I’m protected.”

Tanner sent up a silent thank-you to any deities that might be in the vicinity. And

knew, as he reached for her again, that those words would be his last rational act.

She went into his arms, her mouth seeking his, her hands burrowing into his hair. He wanted to kiss her forever, sink his teeth lightly into the delicate fullness of her lower lip, feel the tip of her tongue dance against his, but his heart was thundering, his dick was so swollen it was almost painful.

He drew back.

“Don’t stop,” she said and he took the hand she held out to him, kissed the palm, then yanked off his shirt. Toed off his boots. Unzipped his pants, got them off along with his shorts.

His erection sprang free. He was big. It had always been a point of stupid male pride, but now he was bigger than ever and hard as stone, harder than he’d ever imagined a man could be.

She was already pulling off her shirt and he tore it from her hands, dropped it, shoved down her scrubs as she stepped out of her shoes.

He stopped just long enough to look at her.

She was naked under the shirt and scrubs. And beautiful.

More than beautiful.

Her lovely rounded breasts. The sweet indentation of her waist. The elegant curve of her hips. And those legs. Long enough to wrap around him as he took them both on an endless ride to the stars.

He was moving too fast. He knew it. Knew it…

“Hurry,” she said, and he was lost.

He took her in his arms. Backed her against the wall. Bent to her and sucked one sweet rosy nipple into the heat of his mouth while his thumb played over the other.

She was moaning. Saying his name. Rising towards him, wrapping one leg around his.

He lifted her. She wrapped both legs around his hips.

“Alessandra,” he said in a hot, hard voice.

She looked at him, her eyes as dark as the sea, and he drove into her.

She cried out, sank her teeth into his shoulder, and he felt her womb convulse around his dick.

He rocked into her again. Felt her coming again, and he put one hand between them and caressed her swollen clitoris as he thrust deep inside her.

She was moaning. Sobbing. Saying his name, Tanner Tanner Tanner again and again and again, and no woman had ever said his name like that, had ever felt like this, had ever made him feel like this, and he couldn’t hold back, couldn’t wait, couldn’t do anything but let go, let go, and soar with her into a place where nothing mattered except this.

* * *

Slowly, very slowly, he became aware of things.

The sound of her breathing. The feel of her against him, her skin silky and hot. The glorious smell of her, of sex and woman.

He knew he had to move.

His body was pinning hers to the wall and he was much too heavy for her. His leg ached. It was a miracle it hadn’t given way.

Yes, but summoning the energy to do anything just didn’t seem possible.

She sighed, whispered something. His name, maybe. He couldn’t tell, couldn’t hear anything but the pounding of her heart and his.

And, gradually, the voice in his head saying, Jesus H. Christ, dude, what did you do?

“Alessandra. I’m—” He cleared his throat. “Listen, I’m—“”

“Do not,” she said fiercely, “do not say you’re sorry.”

Sorry? Hell, no. How could he be sorry about what had just happened? Slowly, he lowered her to her feet and pressed his forehead to hers.

“I meant I was kind of fast. A little rough.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh. And if I was—”

“Rough,” she said, her expression as innocent as a schoolgirl’s. “A little fast.”

His expression was glum.

“Yes.”

“Well, then,” she said, pushing a lock of dark hair off his forehead, “I guess we’ll just have to do this all over again. So I can decide if you were too fast and too rough, I mean.”

His expression changed in a heartbeat; he gave a low, sexy laugh.

She could almost feel her toes curl.

“An experiment,” he said. “Terrific. I’ve always loved science.”

His arms tightened around her. He kissed her, one big hand at the base of her spine, the other cupping the back of her head. The kiss was slow and tender, but when she sighed and rose to him, he hardened against her.

Her lips curved against his.

“Experiment time,” she whispered.

Tanner scooped her into his arms and carried her through the bedroom and into the bathroom. He stepped into the glass shower stall and put her on her feet. There were five sprays in the stall, one overhead, the others set into the tile walls.

He turned on the one above them and a gentle fall of warm water cascaded from the ceiling.

“Nice,” Alessandra said.

“Much better than nice.”

She smiled up at him.

God, she was so beautiful.

Water beaded her dark lashes, glittered like jewels in her hair.

Need for her pounded through him, but he wasn’t going to make love to her here. He wanted her in that big bed in the adjoining room, her golden hair spread over the pillow, her body open to his touch and taste…

He groaned, swung away from her, reached blindly for a container of body wash on the built-in corner shower shelves, filled his hand with a silky liquid that smelled of vanilla and turned her away from him.

“Mmm,” she sighed, as he began washing her.

Mmm, indeed.

Because working the stuff into her skin sure as hell wasn’t taking his thoughts off the only place they wanted to go.

Okay. He’d just have to rub more briskly…

But there was the long, lovely length of her spine to caress. The rounded curves of her ass. Her thighs.

The sweetness between her thighs.

She made a breathless little sound as he stroked her, and all his resolve vanished.

The need to have her take him deep within her became all that mattered.

“Part your legs for me,” he said, his voice raw and rough.

She moaned. And did as he’d asked.

He added a dollop of lotion to his palm.

Cupped her.

Opened her.

Stroked her clitoris and felt her wet heat against his palm.

She fell back against him.

Tanner bent his head, kissed the side of her neck, bit the flesh there and she cried out, her body arching against his.

He turned her toward him. Captured her mouth with his as he ran his hands over her shoulders, her arms, her breasts.

“Tanner.” His name was a broken whisper on her lips. “Tanner,” she said again, and he slanted his mouth hungrily over hers, his tongue sliding against hers as he cupped her breasts and feathered his thumbs over her erect nipples.

“Tell me,” he said fiercely. “Tell me what you want.”

She reached between them, curved her hand around his thick length.

“You,” she sobbed, “you inside me, inside me, inside—”

She wrapped a leg around his and he lifted her, penetrated her, drove into her again and again until she cried out and lost herself in ecstasy.

He caught her to him, drove deep one last time and then he groaned her name and let go of everything, all he was, all he’d ever been, and shot over the edge of the universe with Alessandra in his arms.

* * *

After, they stood under the spray, he holding her close against him, she with her arms wound around his neck.

Minutes went by. Then he drew back just far enough so he could see her face when he lifted it to him.

“Are you okay?”

She sighed.

“I am very okay, Lieutenant.”

He grinned and scooped her wet hair behind her ears.

“Because if you’re not, if we have to do this again just to be sure you’re good with it, I’m ready to make the sacrifice.”

“Really.”

“Really.” He nuzzled her throat. “I mean, a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.”

“Mmm. That’s a motto to live by.” She drew back a little and stroked her hands over his chest. “What are these?”

“Scars.” He caught her hands in his and kissed them.

“From what?”

He shrugged. “Just, you know, scars.”

Okay. He didn’t want to talk about them. The scars seemed unusual, almost as if someone had made two small, straight slits in his pectorals.

He had other scars, too. One on his left shoulder. Another on his flat belly. And she’d had a glimpse of red puckered skin on his calf. Was that the reason he was limping? He’d made it pretty clear he didn’t want to talk about that, either.

The thing was, she wanted to know more about him. Everything about him. They’d been together such a short time, yes, but she felt closer to Tanner Akecheta than to any man she’d ever dated, even for weeks at a time.

Not that she and Tanner were dating.

She knew better than to call having sex, the best sex of her life, “dating.” But they would date. When they left this place. She wanted to see him in the real world, be with him in the real world…

“Hey.” Tanner ran his fingers into her hair and tilted her face to his. “Why so quiet?”

She shook her head, pushed aside his dog tags and pressed a kiss to the center of his chest.

“I’m just thinking.”

“About?”

She smiled. “About the likelihood of us turning into prunes.”

He laughed. “Excellent point, Bellini.” He reached for a container of shampoo, opened it, took a sniff. “More vanilla.”

He dumped some into his hand. She brought his hand to her face and inhaled.

“Lovely.”

“How about I wash your hair?”

“Oh, that would be wonderful.”

It was.

The feel of his hands combing through her hair, taking out the tangles, then rinsing it clean, was wonderful.

He thought so, too.

The feel of her hair under his fingers. And the sighs, the sweet little purrs she made… After a while, they drove him crazy because he imagined her making those soft cries while she lay under him in bed.

He scrubbed himself down. Head. Torso. Body. Legs. He rinsed them both off. Then he turned off the water, wrapped her in an oversized bath towel and carried her to the bedroom. He lay her down on the bed and drew up the covers.

“Sleep for a while,” he said softly. “Then we’ll get something to eat.”

“Mmm.” She gave a huge yawn. “What about you? Aren’t you going to lie down with me?”

He pressed a light kiss to her hair.

“I have to call in first.” He kissed her hair again. She smelled of vanilla and, inexplicably, of wildflowers. “Five minutes.”

“Promise?”

“Promise. Not a second more.”

But she was already asleep.

Tanner stood looking at her. A muscle knotted in his jaw.

Then he got the satphone from the pack and went into the hall.

Chay picked up so fast Tanner knew he must have been waiting for the phone to ring. “Dude, everything okay? Where are you? Took you a while to make contact.”

“Yeah,” Tanner said again, rubbing his forehead. “Everything’s fine. We’re at the house.”

“Excellent. Look, you’ll have to stay put for a while. The weather’s no better. This thing’s turned into a full-fledged hurricane.”

Tanner nodded as if Chay could see him.

“No surprise,” he said. “The rain’s coming down in buckets and the wind’s wicked. Got to be blowing sixty, seventy miles an hour.”

“I’ll let you know when the cavalry’s gonna ride to the rescue, but figure eighteen, twenty-four hours. Sorry about that, man.”

“Any word on Bright Star?”

“There’s some activity about forty klicks from your location. Not sure what it is. This fucking storm…”

“Okay. Let me know if you have more info.”

“Wait a minute… Hey. Hey, Blondie, I’m talkin’ to you. How many times I have to tell you, you can’t be in here.”

“Blondie?”

“Wait a second…” Tanner heard a door slam. “Okay. Blondie. Yes. The hostage’s sister. One of her sisters. There are Wildes and Bellinis comin’ out of the woodwork here.”

Tanner rubbed his forehead again. He could picture the scene, all the Bellini and Wilde hotshots waiting to take his woman from him and return her to their world…

His woman? His woman?

“Tanner?”

He swung around. Alessandra stood at the end of the hall, wrapped in what looked like a cotton blanket. Her hair had dried into soft, loose curls. Her lips were still rosy from his kisses.

He’d always thought one of the dumbest sayings in the world was that somebody’s heart turned over. Hearts pumped blood. They didn’t turn over or swell with emotion…

“Akecheta?” Chay asked. “You still there?”

Tanner cleared his throat. “Still here,” he said briskly.

“Okay. Stay safe, dude. Out.”

“Out,” Tanner said, and disconnected.

He went slowly towards Alessandra, slipped his arm around her and brought her to him for a long, long kiss.

“I thought you were asleep,” he said softly.

“I woke up and you weren’t there.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I missed you.”

They walked into the bedroom, his arm tightly around her. He put the satphone on a table beside the bed. Then he sat down and drew her forward until she stood between his legs.

“I missed you, too.” Slowly, he undid the knot she’d tied between her breasts. The soft blanket fell away and he filled his eyes with the sight of her. “God, you’re so beautiful!”

Her lips curved in a smile. “Bug bites and all?”

“Bug bites and all,” he said, smiling back. Then his smile faded. He dipped his head and kissed the slope of one breast, kissed his way to the rose-pink tip and closed his lips around it.

Her hands clasped his shoulders.

Her head fell back. She breathed a soft, delicate sigh.

Tanner kissed her other breast. Sucked the waiting bud into his mouth, and her sigh became a moan of pleasure.

His hands swept down her body. Lingered on her hips.

“My beautiful Alessandra,” he whispered.

He bent his head and kissed her belly. His kisses trailed down her skin, lower, lower, until his face was against her thighs.

“Open for me,” he said.

She sobbed his name as he nuzzled against the soft golden curls at the apex of her thighs. He put his mouth to her. Touched his tongue to the delicate flower that awaited him within the sweet petals of her sex.

His head was spinning.

He knew women liked this. He’d always enjoyed doing it, but mostly for the pleasure it brought to a woman. This—this was different. Tasting Alessandra, inhaling her scent, caressing her this way…

He could feel his balls tightening, the pressure in his groin becoming almost unbearable. He was almost out of control with desire, except that in all his hard, disciplined adult life, he had never been out of control.

A cry rose from her throat. She buried her hands in his hair.

“Stop,” she said brokenly. “Tanner. I’m going to—I’m going to come. But not without you. Not without—”

He looked up. Saw her face, the sweep of crimson in her cheeks, the darkness of her eyes.

“I want you to come,” he said in a thick voice. “I want to see it happen. I want to see what it is I do to you.”

She said his name over and over as he did wicked, wonderful things to her with his tongue, his teeth, his fingers. He watched her. Saw her begin to tremble, saw her toss her head from side to side.

It almost drove him over the edge.

Hang on, he told himself, dammit, hang on.

She screamed. He felt the power of her orgasm as it swept her away, and the earth tilted.

“Now,” he growled and he pulled her into his arms and they tumbled back on the bed together. He rose above her, clasped her hands, raised them high over her head and entered her on one deep, driving thrust and she came again, weeping, sobbing, sobbing his name.

“Tanner,” she sobbed.

He let go, gave himself up to the whirlwind that had seized them both and as he exploded deep inside her, he leaned down and kissed her and whispered a word in the language of his people.

“Wastelakapi.

It meant beloved.

He had never said it before, not in his entire life.

CHAPTER TEN

THEY FELL ASLEEP in each other’s arms, Tanner on his back, Alessandra in the curve of his arm, her head on his strong shoulder and her hand spread over his heart.

Her sleep was deep and dreamless, but she came awake in a rush of adrenaline, bewildered by the strange surroundings.

The big bed that wasn’t hers.

The rain beating against the now unshuttered skylight overhead.

The sound of the wind, prowling outside the house.

Her heart raced.

And then it all came back.

The struggle to get down the river. The exhausting march through the swamp. The perfect house, seen through the mangroves as if it were a mirage.

And Tanner.

Tanner, she thought, and the memory of him making love with her in the hall, in the shower, in this bed sent a rush of warmth through her blood.

She rolled over, needing the sight of her lover…

But he wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere in the room.

The bathroom door stood open and she could see that he wasn’t in there, either.

She sat up.

Where was he? Had he gone outside into the storm? The rain was still heavy. The wind still prowled the house like an angry wraith. If he’d gone out alone…

Alessandra shot from the bed. Her clothes. Dammit, where were her…?

“Try the closet,” a deep voice said.

She spun around.

Her heart almost stopped beating.

He stood in the open doorway, hipshot, arms folded over his chest.

He was barefoot, shirtless, wearing only a faded pair of jeans that clung to his lean hips and long legs in a way that surely would have reminded any woman lucky enough to see him why they liked seeing guys wear jeans.

Guys who looked like this, anyway.

Guys with muscled shoulders and washboard abs, the kind that came of necessity instead of vanity. The scars she’d noticed last night, the little ones on his pectorals, the puckered flesh in his shoulder, made her want to put her mouth to them and soothe them with her kiss. She wanted to kiss the other scars, too, the ones she’d only glimpsed. The thin red line low on his belly. The angry-looking one on his calf.

She wanted to kiss them, too, even if it was crazy. You couldn’t heal wounds with kisses…

But you could try.

He was beautiful All of him. The short dark hair. The stubble on his jaw that felt so incredible against her nipples and between her thighs. His smile, the kind that promised things women dreamed about.

And his eyes.

Those gorgeous eyes.

They were moving over her now, hot with appreciation, dark with promise, and for the first time, she realized she’d been so caught up in looking at him that she’d forgotten she was naked.

Automatically, she swept one arm over her breasts. Silly, of course, because the rest of her was still bare.

Besides, after the night they’d shared, nothing, absolutely nothing about her body was unknown territory.

But, oh, the way he was looking at her. As if he’d never wanted a woman the way he wanted her. As if she were…

“Beautiful,” he said as he stood straight and then came slowly towards her.

“Lieutenant,” she whispered, and he laughed softly as he gathered her into his arms.

“Such formality, Bellini.” He bent his head, kissed her throat. “Do you need a reminder of why you don’t have to call me lieutenant anymore?”

She smiled as she ran her hands up his arms to his shoulders.

“I have another name for you, too, remember?”

He looked up and laughed. “I remember, but I don’t think I’d do much for blue tights and a red cape.”

“Mmm.” She looped her arms around his waist. “But those little red shorts…”

“Better than camos?”

She stood on her toes and pressed a kiss to his chin.

“Different, anyway.”

“The guys in my unit would agree to that.” He brushed his lips over hers. “I hate to disappoint you, honey, but I am far from being anybody’s idea of Superman.”

“That’s your opinion. Besides, I didn’t think of you as Superman only because you’re strong and brave.”

“And good-looking,” he said, laughing. “Don’t leave that out.”

“Umm. And occasionally pigheaded.”

“ Me?” he said. The word oozed righteous indignation, but it was tempered by the gleam in his eyes.

“You, my Caped Crusader.”

“You’re getting your superheroes mixed. Supe’s the guy with the handy-dandy phone booth. Batman’s the Caped Crusader.” He kissed her again, a little longer, a little deeper. “And I am not pigheaded.”

“Okay. Not pigheaded. Just the strong, silent, I-do-not-need-or-want-anyone’s-help type.”

Tanner sighed. “Okay. The thing is, I just wanted to get you to safety. And then keep you safe. Maybe I got a little, you know, overfocused…”

Alessandra leaned back in his arms.

“You can overfocus on me all you like,” she said softly.

The look in her eyes. The curve of her mouth. All at once, his dick reminded him of what his brain seemed to have forgotten.

She was naked in his arms.

“You’re asking for trouble, lady.”

She started to tell him he was right when, with the worse possible timing, her stomach gave a loud growl.

He laughed.

“Your belly’s asking for trouble, too,” he said. “It’s threatening rebellion unless we get some food into it.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “And I just happen to have something interesting going in the kitchen.”

The mention of something interesting in the kitchen was enough to make her belly give another snarl. Tanner laughed again and she scowled and punched him lightly in those six-pack abs.

“Don’t you dare laugh at me, Lieutenant.” Her scowl morphed into a supersweet smile. “What do you have in the kitchen?”

He kissed her mouth. Her throat. Then he cupped her bottom and lifted her into him.

“Sustenance,” he said in a low voice. “Because you’re going to have to keep up your strength.”

Suddenly, it was difficult to breathe.

He dipped his head. Kissed her, hard. Then, even though it took everything in him to do it, he turned her towards the closet that stretched the length of the wall.

“Find something that fits and get into it before I forget about ever letting you out of that bed, Bellini. You understand?”

She knew he was trying to ease the hot tension between them, but the hoarseness in his voice made her knees weak.

Still, what he’d said was true. They did have to eat. It felt as if they were in a glorious world of their own creation, but they weren’t. Reality was just outside the door. Anything might happen to them at any moment, and you didn’t have to be a military operative to know that full bellies were better than empty ones.

“Go on,” he said gently. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”

She did as he’d asked and went to the closet.

Men’s clothing hung to the right, women’s to the left. The women’s section of the rack held a couple of pairs of crisply laundered jeans. A handful of shirts. Sandals, flip-flops and a pair of worn hiking boots stood on the floor.

It wasn’t a lot, but it was more than enough.

There was no underwear, not in the closet or in any of the dresser drawers. She’d have to go commando under the jeans and shirt she chose at random.

A tremor danced through her.

She shut her eyes and imagined Tanner finding out that nothing separated his hands, his mouth, his body from hers except a thin layer of cloth.

The thought excited her.

Every thought about him excited her.

She paused with a shirt and a pair of jeans draped over her arm.

It wasn’t as if she never had sex before. Okay. She hadn’t had a lot of it. And it had never, ever been like this.

Once, during a sort of Girls’ Weekend at El Sueño, the Wilde ranch, the talk had turned to sex. Actually, it had turned to SEX, all caps, and the Wilde sisters, all of them happily married, had agreed that they Wouldn’t Really Talk about Their Husbands and Sex…but, one of them, maybe Emily, had said sex with her man was…

Incredible. Fantastic. Amazing. Wonderful. Indescribable.

All the words applied, depending on which sister you’d listened to.

Bianca, single the same as Alessandra, had taken on that little air of Shrink in Attendance that drove Alessandra crazy, looked at her fingernails and said, yes, of course, sex was one of life’s great pleasures.

“A tiny bit overrated, perhaps, but still something very special.”

Actually, what she’d said was that sex was a bit overrated but transformational nevertheless.

Transformational? Well, why not? Bianca had a habit of talking in Shrinkese.

Everybody had looked at Alessandra. Say something, she’d told herself, and what she’d finally come up with was that sex was nice.

And it was.

You met a man, somebody who wore a serious suit and had a serious job, he took you to serous places. Dinner at a restaurant where it took months to get a reservation unless, of course, you were him A Broadway show where he had orchestra seats, first row center. Or perhaps a by-invitation-only showing at a Soho gallery.

You dated for a while and then you might have sex.

Might was the operative word.

That had been the pattern of her life since she’d been curious enough to lose her virginity to Aldo Vincenzi in the backseat of his father’s Alfa Romeo on her seventeenth birthday.

But what had just happened…

Sex had never been like this. Hot. Exciting. Sex that turned you on just remembering it.

Sex that made you come.

What would her lieutenant say if he knew she’d never come before?

Her breath hitched.

Sex with a gorgeous bad boy. The kind of sex, the kind of lover most women only dreamed about.

Except, Tanner was so much more than that.

She loved talking to him. Bantering with him. Lying in his arms and doing nothing more adventuresome than listening to the thud-thud of his heart.

She loved…

The jeans and shirt fell from her arms.

Ridiculous. Impossible. This wasn’t a romance novel. You didn’t fall crazy in love with a man in just in a couple of days, especially if he was pretty much a stranger.

Of course you didn’t.

* * *

Superman’s “something interesting” in the kitchen was a feast.

A bowl of fruit. Okay, the fruit was from a can, but no bowl of fruit had ever looked better or tasted more delicious. Big, fluffy pancakes with maple syrup. And just in case the pancakes weren’t enough, toasted bagels from what tuned out to be a working freezer.

He’d topped the bagel halves with blueberry jam.

“If you were a New Yorker,” Alessandra said primly as she popped the last bit of a jam-smothered bagel into her mouth, “you’d know that you never put jam on bagels.”

“Says the lady born in… What part of Italy was it?”

“A village in Sicily nobody ever heard of.”

She licked a drop of jam off her thumb.

Tanner reached across the table, snagged her hand and brought it to his lips.

“Lieutenant Akecheta at your service, ma’am,” he said, letting his tongue take the place of hers.

“And such excellent service it is, Lieutenant,” she said, while her heart skipped a beat.

He grinned. Oh, what a gorgeous grin he had.

“We aim to please, ma’am.”

She laughed. So did he. Amazing, she thought, that acts of terror and brutality had brought her to a moment of such incredible joy.

“You know, Lieutenant, I think it’s time I made a confession.”

Tanner sat back, his arms folded over his chest. “Go for it, Bellini. I’m ready.”

“When you didn’t realize that FURever was about protecting wildlife?” She sighed. “It was the name. Not you. I’d tried to tell them that the name was, you know, cute, but maybe misleading…What?”

“Nice try, honey, but it was definitely me. I had this stereotype in my head. Beautiful woman. Spoiled silly…”

“You’re the one who’s spoiling me. And I have to admit, I love it.” She smiled as he leaned forward and reached for her hand. “Your turn,” she said.

“My turn for what?”

“To tell me where you’re from, for starters.”

Tanner let go of her hand, from the table, got the coffeepot from the counter, took two blue mugs from a shelf, and filled them.

“There’s no cream. Sorry.”

“That’s fine. It’s coffee. Real coffee.” She leaned into the steaming mug that he handed her, took a deep sniff and sighed. “Smells delicious. So, where are you from?”

“South Dakota.”

“Except for Texas,” Alessandra said, “I’ve never been in any state except New York and California. What’s South Dakota like?”

He sat down, raised his mug to his lips and blew lightly on the steaming coffee.

“Big. Wild. Beautiful. The Badlands. The Black Hills. Endless stretches of prairie. And ranches.”

“Ah.” She smiled over the rim of her mug. “Cowboys.”

“And Indians.” He grinned at her. “Them’s my people, Ms. Bellini.”

“Sioux.”

He shrugged and sat back in his chair, his big hands wrapped around the mug.

“What’s left of us. What’s pretty much the last of the Sioux nation lives in the Dakotas.”

“Did you grow up on a ranch?”

“More or less.”

She could almost see him shutting down. She knew she should back off, but she was hungry to know more about him, so she decided to ignore the warning signs and press on.

“Which was it? More? Or less?”

Tanner sighed, got up, grabbed the coffee pot and refilled both their mugs before sitting down again.

“My father had a small spread. Just enough land to keep a few horses. I guess you could be generous and call it a ranch.”

“And your mother?”

“She left us.”

Alessandra stared at him. “She left?”

“Yeah. It was a hard life. She liked pretty things…” His words trailed away. He raised his mug and drank more coffee. “My old man didn’t do too well after that. He took to drinking. Well, he’d always been into whiskey, but once she was gone he drank more and then, you know, the predictable happened.”

“He died,” she said softly.

“Yeah.” Tanner blinked, cleared his throat. “I keep this up, we’ll start to hear violins playing in the background.”

“How does a boy left to get through life on his own end up in an elite service? Because that’s what STUD is, isn’t it? An elite service?”

He sighed. “Anybody ever tell you that you’re as persistent as a mosquito at a nudist colony?”

She grinned. “Nice analogy, Akecheta, but it’s not going to get you off the hook.” Her grin vanished. She reached across the table for his hand. “I just want to know you.” Her face colored. “Not only in bed, you understand?”

His heart did that tightening thing he was starting to get used to.

“I did something I’d never believed in,” he said, clasping her hand in his. “I went on a vision quest. It’s a kind of spiritual journey to help you see inside yourself. And I took part in a ceremonial dance. The Sun Dance. It takes you even deeper into yourself. When it was over, I was somebody else. School took on meaning. A college degree became a goal. And after that, becoming a SEAL and then a STUD…” He paused, shook his head, and gave a bewildered laugh. “Amazing. We met, what, three days ago? And you know more about me than any human being on this earth.”

“I want to know everything about you,” she said softly.

He looked into her eyes. Then he got to his feet, went around the table and bent to her. She looped her arms around his neck and he kissed her and took her back to bed.

* * *

They made love.

And slept in each other’s arm.

When they woke, Tanner checked in with Chay.

“No changes,” Chay said. “Weather’s still coming in. And we lost the bunch of guys that might have been Bright Star.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Tanner sighed. Chay was right. Maybe it was good. Maybe it wasn’t.

“Okay,” he said. “Got it. Over.”

“Hang in there, dude. Out.”

Tanner stowed the satphone, turned to Alessandra and drew her into his arms.

“Looks as if we’re gonna be here for a while.”

“Well, we have plenty of food.” She reached out one hand, ran the tip of her index finger lightly down the center of his chest. “We’ll just have to come up with some creative ways to pass the time.” She leaned forward. Kissed his sternum. “Maybe we can find a deck of cards and play gin.”

“You know how to play gin?”

“No,” she said, and grinned. She moved lower. Kissed his belly button. “Or we can play some other game.” She nuzzled the covers down, exposing his penis.

It had just been very, very busy, but that didn’t stop it from giving an impressive twitch.

“For instance,” she said, looking up at Tanner, “just see what’s happening here. What an amazing toy. Changes shape, changes size…

She giggled as he rolled her onto her back.

“You,” he growled, “are a bad girl, Ms. Bellini. And ve haf ways of dealing with bad girls.”

“I hope so,” she whispered.

Tanner moved onto his side and took her with him. He folded one arm beneath his head and held her close in the curve of the other.

“Tell me about yourself. When were your parents divorced? Were you a little girl? Was it hard to see them split?”

She sighed, folded her hands on his chest and propped her chin on her hands.

“They didn’t divorce.”

“But your old man said—”

“He lied.” Her voice took on a bitter edge. “Lying is what my esteemed father does best.”

“Honey. If you don’t want to talk about it…”

“Like I told you, he had two wives. At the same time. One in Texas. The other in Sicily. Neither knew about the other, and none of his children knew, either.”

“Jesus.”

“He says he loved each wife too much to give her up, but the truth is he dug himself so deep into a hole there was no way for him to climb out without ruining his precious career.”

“When did you find out?”

“When our mother died.”

“When you were already grieving for your mom? Man. You must have been devastated.”

Alessandra sighed. “Things happen. I know how pointless that sounds, but it’s true.”

Tanner brought her hands to his lips.

“You have to keep moving forward,” he said. “One of the docs told me that when I was feeling sorry for myself because the wound in my calf just wouldn’t heal. I told her she was looking at life through rose-colored glasses, but she was right.”

“The wound in your calf,” she said softly. “The one that’s making you limp.”

“I’m not…” He expelled a long breath. “Yes.”

“What happened?”

He shrugged. “I was in a firefight and I got hit.”

“Why do I think it was more complicated than that?”

He didn’t answer. She sighed. She didn’t know a lot about men, but she knew about her brothers. Sometimes it was best to back off.

“And this?” she asked, lightly touching the scar on his shoulder.

“Souvenir of Afghanistan,” he said, with another lazy shrug.

“There’s a scar on your belly, too.”

“Knife wound.” He drew her close and kissed her. “The guy who gave it to me would have been better off using his knife to butter his bread.”

She knew he wanted her to laugh, but she couldn’t. Thinking of him being hurt was too painful.

“And these,” she said, running her finger lightly over first one small scar on his pectorals and then the other. “What kind of weapon could make scars like these?”

At first, she thought he wasn’t going to answer. He caught her hand. Held it against his chest. A few long seconds of silence passed. When he finally answered, it was in a low voice.

“Not weapons,” he finally said. “A knife.”

“I don’t understand. These are knife wounds?”

“They are what remains of small cuts into my skin, done by a tribal elder, who then threaded strips of rawhide through them and tied them to the sacred pole used in the Sun Dance.”

He felt her body stiffen, and heard her small whisper of… Shock? Horror? Disgust?

Akecheta, he thought grimly, what a monumental fool you are!

Why had he told her this? The dance was not a thing he had ever discussed with anyone outside the tribe. There were far too many who still thought of Native Americans as barbaric. Had he just given credence to that stereotype?

“It’s a sacred ritual. It began two centuries ago, and then the federal government outlawed it. They said it was barbaric.”

“But your people said it was sacred.”

Tanner nodded. “It’s a ceremony of renewal. Of conviction. It reminds the dancers of their connection to the earth, to the circle of life. And, if you are very, very lucky, it renews your sense of self.” A muscle flickered in his jaw. “I needed that renewal of self. I needed to find my way out of the darkness and into the light.”

Slowly, she drew her hand from his. He let it happen. If he had said too much, if she needed to put some space between them, he would not stop her…but when, instead, she moved even closer and spread her hand gently over first one scar and then the other, his heart lifted.

“Is it still outlawed?”

“No. The government finally saw the dance as what it was and is, an important sacred rite for the tribes of the Plains.”

Her hand was over his heart.

“And did dancing take you into the light?”

Her tone was soft and sweet. He rolled towards her and slid his hand into her hair.

“I’d been a lost kid, sweetheart. The dance, my commitment to what I experienced during it… My life changed.”

Her lips curved in a gentle smile.

“What you mean, Lieutenant, is that you changed. You changed your life.”

“Yeah,” he said, in a way she’d learned meant he was embarrassed and didn’t want to talk anymore.

That was fine with her.

She didn’t want to talk anymore, either.

She wanted to kiss him. Make love with him and to him. Tell him with her hands and mouth and body what she couldn’t tell him with words.

She loved him.

This strong, gentle, amazing man. She loved him.

I love you, she thought, and she brought her mouth to his.

To his throat.

To the scar on his shoulder and the ones on his chest.

To his flat belly.

“Alessandra,” he said, “wait…”

Why wait, when kissing him everywhere, as he had kissed her everywhere, was what she longed to do?

His penis hardened. Rose against his belly. It was as beautiful, as powerful as the rest of him, and she lowered her head and kissed the tip.

He whispered her name

She licked the silken length. Licked it again. Then she closed her lips around the head and her mouth took him deep just as her body had done.

His hands fisted in her hair. He gave himself up to her and then, when he could take no more, he withdrew from her mouth, cupped her shoulders, rolled her on her back and knelt between her thighs.

“I want to come inside you,” he said in a raw voice, and she arched towards him and he plunged into her and seconds later she cried out. He felt her muscles contract around him and then he stopped thinking and the world shattered.

* * *

The storm was merciless.

The rain beat down on the house. The wind tried to tear it apart.

But whoever built the place had anticipated tropical storms. The house stood fast against whatever the elements hurled at it.

The afternoon passed slowly.

They made lunch, and had it in front of the living room fireplace. Bowls of tomato soup from a can. Macaroni and cheese. It came from a box, but Alessandra found little canisters of spices in the pantry and turned the old standard into a masterpiece.

That was what Tanner called it, anyway.

“A masterpiece,” he said, scraping the last bit of mac from his bowl. “Where were you while I was in college, existing on packages of ramen noodles?”

She laughed.

“I was probably a few years behind you, existing on those same noodles.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean, why?” She brought the spoon to her lips and sucked the cheese from it. “To save money, same as you.”

“Your father didn’t pay for your education? But he earns a general’s pay. And that big ranch in Texas…”

“El Sueño. Well, we didn’t know that. He did offer to help with costs, but I didn’t want his help. None of us did. We already knew something was strange about his relationship with our mother. We didn’t want much to do with him by then.” She worked the spoon around the bowl, lifted it to her mouth and sucked off the last of the cheese. “What?” she said, when she saw the expression on Tanner’s face.

“Nothing. Everything. I’m just thinking what a dumb, self-important SOB your old man is…” He grabbed for Alessandra. She dropped both the bowl and spoon, squealed, and absolutely made no real effort to get away as he tumbled her beneath him before the fire. “I’m also thinking that if you don’t stop sucking on that spoon, I’m gonna show you that you’d have a lot better time with me than with a cold piece of stainless—”

Bzzz.

Tanner froze.

Bzzz.

“Sorry, baby. The satphone…” He sat up and reached for the phone which he’d left on a table beside the couch. “Chay?”

“Akecheta.”

Chay’s voice was crisp. This was business coming up and Tanner knew it.

“Talk to me,” he said, rising to his feet.

Chay talked while Tanner paced.

“The eye of the storm will be over you in an hour. Blake’s sending in a couple of choppers to get you and the woman out.”

“Fine for me, but for her… It’s night. Dark.”

“No choice. Bandits on the move, dude. Two dozen, maybe more. Heading for you. ETA ninety minutes, maybe less.”

“Crap. Bright Star?”

“Affirmative.”

“What’s happening?” Alessandra asked softly.

She had come up beside him, her face turned up to his, her eyes filled with concern. Tanner put his arm around her and drew her tightly against him.

“Timeline’s gonna be close,” he told Chay.

“No question. Also no choice. You won’t have enough firepower or manpower to stop them.”

It was true. Tanner knew it. He also knew the risks of running such a tight operation. If the guerrillas somehow got there at the same time as the rescue helicopters…

“I’ll let you know when the Hueys are a couple of miles out, but you’ll hear them comin’ in. The landing zone is that sea of grass between the mangrove swamp and the house. Got it?”

“Got it.” Tanner cleared his throat. “Olivieri? Tell the chopper guys—tell them to be careful with her. Tell them—”

“Tanner.” Chay’s voice lowered. “You know they’ll do this right.”

“Yeah. Sure. Of course they will.”

The call ended. Tanner stood with Alessandra in the curve of his arm.

“Tell me,” she said.

So he told her. When he’d finished, she stepped in front of him and dug her fingers into the fabric of the T-shirt he wore.

“Helicopters? More than one?”

“Yes.”

“But they’ll take us out together,” she said, she said, her eyes searching his. “Won’t they?”

He nodded. “Sure.”

“Because I’m not going without you.”

He smoothed the golden curls back from her face. He wanted to tell her what she wanted to hear, but he had to make sure she was prepared for a glitch in the plans.

The years had taught him that there was always the chance of a glitch, no matter how carefully a mission was organized.

“We’ll go together,” he said softly, “unless we can’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? There’s no way I’ll—”

He kissed her. It was the only way he knew to stop her from making a vow he would never let her keep. She was going home, no matter what.

“Tanner.” He could taste the salt of her tears on her lips. “If anything happened to you…”

“We have less than an hour,” he said. “Much less. I’ll want us to be ready to roll in half that time.” He lifted her face to his. “You want to waste it talking, or you want to spend it with me inside you, where I belong?”

His words, the way he looked at her… He’d managed to reduce all they’d discovered about each other and about themselves to the only thing that mattered.

Being together.

Being one.

“Make love to me,” she said fiercely. “Now. Right now. Just kiss me and touch me and bury yourself deep inside me and tell me that nothing, nothing, will keep us apart.”

His mouth captured hers, all heat and passion and hurry.

He got her jeans down. Unzipped his. No niceties. No finesse. Neither wanted that.

He drew her down to the floor. She wrapped herself around him and he drove into her.

She sobbed his name.

He whispered hers.

She came fast and hard; he felt her muscles contract around him and that was all he needed to go with her.

After, he held her against him. Waited until his heartbeat and hers slowed. Then he framed her face with his hands and took her mouth in long, sweet, tender kisses.

Letting go of each other was difficult, but each knew there was no choice.

The expected eye of the storm was suddenly overhead. The rain became a drizzle; the wind turned into a whisper.

There was no time to waste.

They rearranged their clothes in silence.

Tanner laced up his combat boots; Alessandra zipped up the boots she’d found in the closet. He collected the few things he’d taken out of his backpack. Slung the MP7 over his shoulder; snugged his belt and the holstered SIG-SAUER around her hips.

Then he clasped her shoulders.

“STUD will get us out before the insurgents show up,” he said, and silently hoped to hell he was right. “Just in case they don’t… If you need to pull that pistol, you also need to shoot to kill. The things people ask cops and soldiers about why they didn’t shoot a bad guy in the leg is just bullshit. The entire reason for using a weapon is to take down your enemy. For most shooters, that means aiming for the biggest target. The torso. Understood?”

Alessandra nodded. Her heart was beating fast and loud. Some of it was fear of what might be waiting for them outside the house, but most of it was fear that she would never again see this man, the man she loved.

“We’ll be fine, honey,” Tanner said softly. He smiled, put his fingers under her chin and raised her face to his. “My guys wouldn’t have it any other way.”

She smiled back, but her eyes filled with tears.

“Promise me you won’t put yourself in harm’s way,” she said.

It was a promise he couldn’t make, and they both knew it.

Instead, he kissed her and held her to his heart.

“Tanner,” she whispered, “when we get home…”

Everything would change. He knew that, too, but this wasn’t the time to talk about it.

“For now,” he said, “let’s just concentrate on getting out of the Mangrove Hilton.”

She gave a watery laugh. “When we fill out the guest survey, we should mention they never left chocolates on our pill—”

The satphone rang. Tanner grabbed it.

“Akecheta,” Chay said, urgency in his voice. “Your rides are almost there, but so is Bright Star. LZ is changed. It’s now the beach, not the field. Go there, pronto. Understood? Tanner! Do you read—”

The sound of choppers moving in drowned Chay out.

Tanner swung towards the nearest bank of security monitors. Yes, there they were. A pair of Hueys, low over the beach. He grabbed Alessandra’s hand. They raced down the hall to the utility room and the back door…

“Shit!”

Staccato bursts of small arms coming from the field in front of the house became part of the cacophony of sound.

Tanner clasped Alessandra’s hands.

“I’m going to unlock the back door,” he said. “The second it’s open, you run for the helicopters.”

“What do you mean I run for them? Where will you be?”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“Tanner. I’m not going anywhere without—”

“Alessandra,” he said sharply, “Listen to me. You will run. You will not look back, you will not hesitate. You will run like the devil is on your heels.”

“No!” She shook her head. Her eyes were wild. “No. I am not leaving you. I am not—”

“Goddammit, I’m not giving you a choice. You will get your ass out of here. Understood?”

“Tanner. Please.”

Tears ran down her cheeks. She lifted a hand, touched it to his jaw. It took all his strength not to turn his face and press his lips to her palm, but he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. What he could do, would do, was whatever was necessary to save her life.

“I’m not giving you a choice,” he said, the words harsh and blunt. “I have never not completed a mission, and that isn’t going to change just because you and I fucked.”

He saw her flinch. Saw the pain in her eyes. He wanted to call back the words, drag her into his arms, tell her the truth, that he loved her, that he would love her forever…

“Now,” he said, and he flung the door open.

She looked at him one last time. He knew he would always remember that look, that it would haunt his days and nights until he saw her again, until he could tell her that he had lied…

Because he would tell her.

Of course, he would tell her…

Tanner put his hand in the center of Alessandra’s back and pushed her out the door.

“Run, damn you,” he shouted.

She stumbled forward. He wanted to go after her, see her safely to the chopper, but he knew that the only way to protect her was to keep the guerrillas busy enough so they couldn’t get past him.

One last look.

She was almost at the bird. An arm reached out, the hand open and extended to her.

She grasped it.

Tanner spun around, raced to the front door and threw it open.

Men were coming through the tall grass, firing at the house. Without hesitation, he began firing back.

A dark shadow passed overhead.

It was a helicopter.

Alessandra was safe.

It was his last thought before he got hit, went down, and everything went black.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Walter Reed Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland:

THE WORLD CONSISTED of a narrow bed, a panel of blinking lights and the poking and prodding of shiny instruments.

And pain.

Jesus, the pain.

It was in his leg, same as the last time, except it wasn’t the same.

It was worse.

Much worse.

It was endless. Unrelenting. It was a white-hot flame, a blazing poker that pierced his flesh, his muscles, his bones. It made him want to scream each time he rose to consciousness, but he knew better than to scream.

If he did, the docs would decide things had gone too far.

He knew where that would lead and no way was he going to let that happen.

His leg was fucked, but it was his leg and, goddammit, they were not going to take it from him.

It was the only thing he lasted long enough to say between bouts of consciousness.

“Do not take my leg.”

He said it over and over, over and over. The doctors would say We’re doing the best we can, Lieutenant, and he’d say, “Goddammit, do not take my leg!”

Then he’d be gone again.

He lost track of the number of times they operated. Of the drugs they gave him.

Last time, he’d fought the drugs. He’d seen what happened when the drugs took you. Guys in the ward. Guys on the res. Addiction was addiction whether you had it dripped into your arm in a hospital or you shot up on the street, and he wasn’t that going to go that route.

This time…this time, he pressed the button on the PCA hooked into him until they told him he’d used up his allotted dose of happy juice and he’d have to wait to get more.

Really? Then what was the point of a patient controlled analgesic delivery system? he growled, except the words came out a pathetic whisper and all he got for his plea was another visit from an overworked resident who did more poking and prodding until Tanner bit through his lip to keep from screaming.

It was better when he was under.

The pain was gone, sure, but it was more than that.

When he was under, he dreamed.

Of her.

Alessandra.

Alessandra, in his arms. Alessandra, smiling at him across the kitchen table. Alessandra, standing before the mirror, naked, and him coming up behind her, pressing his body against hers, his hands cupping her breasts, his mouth against the nape of her neck, her sweet sigh as she leaned back against him…

“Lieutenant.”

The feel of her. Her softness. Her scent…

“Lieutenant Akecheta. Can you hear me?”

A woman’s voice.

“Alessandra?” Tanner whispered.

A cool hand swept over his forehead.

“He’s burning up,” the voice said.

“Alessandra. Sweetheart…”

“Temp is one-oh-four,” a brisk male voice said. “I want him in surgery. Stat.”

“Sweetheart. I didn’t mean what I said.”

“Hush,” the female voice said. Gentle fingers meshed with his. “You’re going to be fine, Lieutenant. Just fine.”

“I didn’t mean it,” Tanner said, “didn’t mean it. I love you, Alessandra. I love you…”

“Hang on, dude. You hear me? Just hang on.”

Chay’s voice. Chay’s rough hand gripping his.

“Alessandra,” Tanner whispered. “Tell her…Tell her…”

He was moving. Flying down long corridors. Lights blazed overhead. Doors swung open. He was in a room with white tile walls.

“Easy,” a voice said, and something icy-cold rushed through his veins, through his body. It was taking him down, down, down…

And then he fell into darkness.

* * *

Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida:

ALESSANDRA SHOT to consciousness, gasping for air.

She had been dreaming.

A house. A helicopter. Men swarming across a field. The sound of small-arms fire…

And Tanner. Abandoned. Alone. Tanner…

“Tanner?” she said. “Tanner, where are you?”

The people gathered around her hospital bed looked at each other.

“What’d she say?” whispered her sister, Bianca.

The Wildes and Bellinis shook their heads.

“Something about a banner,” Travis Wilde said.

“It sounded like hammer,” Luca Bellini said.

“She said ‘camera,’” Matteo Bellini said. “She probably took pictures down there. In wherever the hell she was. San Salvador.”

“Santo Domingo,” Emily Wilde said.

“San Escobal,” Jacob Wilde said, “and what does it matter? She’s full of ether. Nothing she’s gonna say will make sense.”

“They haven’t used ether in a million years,” Caleb Wilde growled. “But Jake’s right. She’s babbling nonsense. People do, after anesthesia. What counts is that she’s okay.”

“More than okay. The neurosurgeon says she’s doing extremely well.”

The Wildes and Bellinis turned towards the doorway as their father, the general, entered the room. He looked haggard, but so did they all. They’d been gathered in this hospital room for a week, ever since Alessandra had been transferred here from a trauma center in Miami.

“That’s wonderful,” Jaimie Wilde said. “Then, she’s going to—to—”

John Hamilton Wilde joined his children at his daughter’s bedside.

“There’s still some danger, but he assured me that he relieved the pressure on Alessandra’s brain and that the chances of a full recovery are excellent.”

Luca stabbed his fingers through his hair.

“Of all the things to happen,” he growled. “That Alessandra should have suffered a concussion in that damned helicopter…”

“The helicopter was under fire. It was close to a miracle they were able to pull her aboard. There was no time to belt her in.”

“Si. We know that.” Matteo swallowed hard. He looked down at his sister, so small and still in the hospital bed. “She’ll be fine,” he said. “She’ll be just fine.”

“Damn right,” Lissa Wilde said, chin lifted, eyes flashing as if she were daring anyone to disagree.

Alessandra stirred. Sighed. “Tanner,” she murmured.

Bianca reached for her hand.

“She just said it again. Banner. Hammer. Camera. Something like that. Father? Any idea what she’s saying?”

The general stared down at Alessandra. His precious daughter, who had been given a second chance at life. That meant he also had a second chance. He could provide her with all the things he had not given her in the past.

She, the same as all his children, deserved only the best, and the best did not include a man who fought shadow wars, who was trained to kill, who would surely never be able to give a woman security and comfort and fidelity.

“Tanner,” Alessandra whispered.

“Father?” Bianca asked. “Do you know what she’s trying to say?”

“No,” John Hamilton Wilde replied. “I have no idea at all.”

* * *

Bethesda, Maryland:

TANNER WAS up and walking.

He was off pain meds, and he’d had enough of being in the hospital. “I’m fine,” he told his doctors. “Or I will be, once I’m out of here.”

The doctors were a little skeptical.

True, his leg was healing well. It was his attitude that worried them. He seemed depressed, but they figured that would be normal for a guy who’d had to give up the career he loved. A couple of his nurses thought it wasn’t the loss of his career he was mourning so much as it was something else. Either way, there really was no reason to keep him hospitalized and they finally discharged him on a crisp fall morning.

He called for a taxi to pick him up. Then he stood outside Walter Reed and felt better just breathing in air that didn’t smell of antiseptic.

The taxi took him to Washington National Airport.

Getting through security took a while. From now on, it probably always would. That was part of the price you paid for having a titanium rod and a bunch of titanium screws in your leg.

Yeah, he thought, as he settled into his seat on the plane, but the good news was that he still had a leg. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that he’d told them they’d have to tie him down to so much as try to remove it.

Whatever the reason, he’d kept it.

The bad news was that he’d lost the career he’d loved. His days as a STUD were over.

Blake had been decent about it.

He’d shown up in person to deliver the news, even though Tanner had already figured it out for himself. When you’d not only set off metal detectors and would predict rain as accurately as a barometer, you were no longer of much use to the military.

“What we would like,” Blake had said, “is to work something out so you’d come in a couple of times a year. Speak to new STUD classes. Teach them the skills you have.”

Yeah. Right.

Tanner could just see himself caning it across the floor to a lectern, looking down at a bunch of eager young faces while he droned on and on about the life he’d once led.

“Sounds good,” he’d said, but he and Blake had both known he was lying.

It was time to acknowledge the truth about his moribund career…

And about Alessandra Bellini Wilde.

What they’d had together had not been real.

It had been wartime sex.

Well, okay. Not wartime, but it came down to the same thing.

Sex when your life was on the line was different from regular.

He’d come back from missions totally hyped, needing more than a hot shower and a hot meal—needing a woman under him, a woman reminding him that he was still alive, still in one functional piece.

The only difference this time had been that the woman had been right there with him. Available. Eager. Hot.

And smart and funny and tough and tender and, Jesus, he missed her, he missed her…

She was okay. He knew that. He’d been barely conscious when he’d asked Chay if she was all right and Chay had assured him she was.

But where was she? Why hadn’t he heard from her?

Once he was off the drugs, up and moving, he’d waited for her to call. To show up on the ward. Surely she’d figured out that he hadn’t meant what he’d said in those last couple of minutes.

Right. But what if she hadn’t?

Anything was possible.

He’d told himself he should have thought of that sooner, but it wasn’t too late. He could call her.

Call her? He didn’t have her phone number. He didn’t have her address.

Wait. She’d said she lived in Manhattan.

Alessandra Bellini. Or Alessandra Wilde. Or, because she was a smart woman, she might have just listed herself as A. Bellini. Or A. Wilde. Yeah, but what if she didn’t have a phone? A regular phone. There were no directories for smartphones.

The next time Chay came to visit, he told him what he needed.

Tanner,” Chay said, “listen, dude…”

“You told me she was all right,” Tanner had said. “She is, isn’t she?”

“Yeah. She’s fine.”

“Just get me her numbers.”

Getting telephone numbers wasn’t difficult when you had STUD’s resources. Chay gave him two the next morning.

“One’s a cell. The other’s a land line.”

“Thanks, man,” Tanner said.

“No problem.”

Not true.

It was a problem. First working up to making the call, then planning what he’d say. In the end, though, all the planning turned out to be meaningless. The cell was no longer operational. That figured. It was probably still in San Escobal.

The land phone, however, was still good.

He punched in the number, waited while the phone rang…and heard Alessandra’s voice say, Hi, you’ve reached 555-765-1430. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you.

The message he left was messy. A bunch of mostly incoherent words, spoken by a desperate man. In the end, he stopped in the middle of a sentence, took a hard breath and said, Call me. Please. I need to talk to you. Call me, sweetheart. Please.

But she didn’t.

Yeah. Okay. He hadn’t left a phone number. So he called back and left the number for the nurses’ station on his floor. But she still didn’t call and he thought maybe she hadn’t listened to her messages. Or maybe he’d pressed the wrong button and inadvertently erased the one he’d left her.

Amazing, the lies a man could tell himself, Tanner thought as he boarded the plane bound for home.

Still, lies could only take you so far.

The truth had been hand-delivered the very next day. It came in the form of a note, polite and to the point, handwritten on linen stationery that bore General John Hamilton Wilde’s letterhead.

Dear Lieutenant Akecheta:

My daughter thanks you for your call and says to tell you she wishes you well and that she knows you will understand how busy she is at this time. She joins me in offering you our deepest gratitude for everything you did for us.

The both of us are happy to hear you are recovering from your injuries and wish you well in all your future endeavors.

Sincerely yours…

He’d read it twice, but the meaning never changed.

It was over.

They’d shared a few days together. Nothing more than that.

Besides, he couldn’t blame her for walking away from him. He wasn’t a man anymore. Not the one she’d been with.

He was back to being Tanner Akecheta from the res in South Dakota.

And she…she was a general’s daughter.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please prepare for takeoff.”

Tanner buckled his seat belt, turned his face to the window, and spent the next few hours doing his best not to think of anything beyond what in hell he was going to do with his life once he got home.

* * *

The El Sueño Ranch, Texas:

ALESSANDRA TOOK a final look at herself the mirror in her bedroom at El Sueño.

It was time to get moving. Her family was waiting for her downstairs. She knew they were eager to celebrate.

She was home. She was safe. She had survived.

As for the rest…

“Stop it,” she told her reflection.

There wasn’t a reason in the world to keep reminding herself of what an idiot she’d been.

The time she’d spent with Tanner Akecheta was in the past. A past that had all the substance of a dream. How could it be more than that when she’d only spent a handful of hours with him?

As for loving him…

More idiocy.

Take one man. Add one woman. Put them in a dangerous situation, drop them into an isolated setting, and what did you have?

Alessandra picked up her brush and ran it through her new chin-length hairdo.

The Movie of the Week.

That was what you had, and if the man was brave and strong and tender and caring and…

“Alessandra?”

Alessandra whirled around and saw the general standing in the partly open doorway.

“I knocked several times, but—”

“Oh. Sorry. I, uh, I was just—just trying to get used to looking at myself with such short hair.”

John Hamilton Wilde smiled as he walked into the room.

“It’s lovely.”

“Well, at least letting it curl like this helps hide the bald spot.”

“The hair will grow back.” His smile widened. “Actually, this reminds me of the way you looked when you were little and you and your sister decided to give each other haircuts.”

“I don’t remember that.”

The general nodded. “You were six, I think, and Bianca was seven. Your mother wrote and told me about it. She sent me a photo—”

“It wasn’t Bianca and me,” Alessandra said. “You must be confusing us with your American daughters.”

“No. I don’t think I…” Her father sighed. “Perhaps I am.”

“There’s no ‘perhaps’ about it, Father.”

“Alessandra. I know I wronged you, but I’m trying to make up for it. The past is the past. Can’t you put it behind us?”

He was right. Of course, he was right. Hadn’t she just been telling herself the same thing? The problem was, telling yourself something wasn’t the same as actually making it happen.

For instance, she kept telling herself to stop thinking about Tanner.

Great plan. The question was, how?

He was in her thoughts when she woke in the morning, in her thoughts when she went to bed at night. She reached for him in her sleep and when she dreamed, she dreamed of him. His kisses. His laugh. His touch. His determination to protect her and keep her safe even when she bitched and argued and gave him a difficult time…

“Alessandra?”

Her father’s voice was soft. She blinked, looked at him and saw the concern in his eyes.

“What’s wrong, daughter?”

“Nothing.” She flashed a bright smile. “I’m just, you know, I’m just still a little tired…” Her smile faded. “Are you sure he never called?”

The general’s mouth thinned.

“Are we back to that? No. The lieutenant never called.”

“When I was out of things. Unconscious. It’s possible he phoned and spoke with one of the nurses…”

“He did not. There was no reason for him to call. He knew you were in safe hands.”

“Or maybe he phoned my apartment in New York.”

“Alessandra. We’ve been over this before. I checked your voice mail when I flew to New York, remember? I offered to stop by at your place, collect your mail, retrieve your messages…”

“And there was none from him.”

“Exactly.” The general’s tone gentled. “Lieutenant Akecheta had a job to do, and he did it.”

“I know. I just—I just would liked to thank him myself. In person.”

The general put his arm lightly around his daughter’s shoulders.

“He got your note,” he said gently. “I told you that, too, remember? I sent it to his commanding officer as soon as you gave it to me, and he delivered it to the lieutenant. He called and told me so. And the lieutenant said to send you his best.”

His best.

Alessandra turned her back to her father.

“Yes.”

“It’s just unfortunate Akecheta had to ship out on another mission almost as soon as you and he returned from San Escobal.”

She knew all of that.

Her father had explained it as soon as she’d regained consciousness. That the lieutenant had come through without harm. That her father had recommended him for promotion. That he’d shipped out almost immediately.

On another mission.

Which was what she’d been.

A mission.

It all added up. Made perfect sense. What didn’t make sense was that she should still ache for him.

For a little while there, she’d convinced herself she loved Tanner, but she was well beyond that now. She’d been grateful to him. Awed by him.

Hot for him.

None of those things were love.

Hadn’t Tanner tried to tell her that? His last words to her had put everything into perspective.

I have never not completed a mission, and that isn’t going to change just because you and I fucked.

She just hadn’t wanted to believe him any more than she’d wanted to believe he’d gone out of her life without a phone call, a note, even an email…

“So,” the general said briskly, “are you ready for the party? Lissa’s been cooking and baking all day.”

Alessandra forced a smile.

She wasn’t ready. Not really. It was one thing for your head to tell you something had not been real and quite another for your heart to accept it.

She missed him. Her lieutenant. Her Superman. Her lover…

“Alessandra? Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she said briskly, “of course. I’m looking forward to this. All of us together.”

“Even me,” the general said quietly. “I’m so grateful to have been included this weekend. I mean, I know my efforts got you safely home—”

His efforts? “Lieutenant Akecheta got me safely home,” Alessandra said a little sharply.

“Well, of course, but… All I’m trying to say is that I haven’t done enough for you. For any of you, but for you and Bianca, especially.” He hesitated. “Maybe it sounds old-fashioned, but a man in the position to do so should give his daughters every possible advantage.

Great. Was this guilt-trip time? Did the general feel bad about not having been there for them when she and Bianca were growing up?

If he did, the guilt had come a little late.

“Bianca and I have done fine on our own.”

“You have, indeed. University degrees. Careers.” Her father smiled. “And someday you’ll have husbands. Men to be proud of. Leaders of this nation. Captains of industry.”

Alessandra stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

The general laughed. “Forgive me, dear child. I must be getting old.” He came closer to her, then offered her his arm. “Will you do me the honor of permitting me to escort you downstairs?”

Alessandra hesitated. She wanted to trust her father. To respect him. Someday, perhaps, to love him.

The problem was that old habits died hard.

She had to stop being foolish. As she’d told herself only a little while ago, the past was the past.

“That would be lovely,” she said, and she put her hand lightly on his arm and let him lead her from the room.

* * *

The party was wonderful.

Lissa, who was a professional chef, had outdone herself. Shrimp ceviche. Tiny Szechuan dumplings. Barbecued chicken and pork and beef, “because hey, this is Texas, y’all,” Jaimie said, laughing.

Not that Lissa had forgotten that Alessandra was a vegetarian.

There were platters of veggie lasagna. Veggie stir fries. Salads of every kind. Trays of caramelized root vegetables .

There was, said Emily, enough food to feed half the town, and that was good because the Wildes seemed to have invited half the town. Alessandra’s kidnapping had been kept secret. Her return had not. Even the general had gone public—well, public with his military superiors—and though none of them knew quite what he’d told them, the fact that he had two families was no longer to be kept hidden.

There was lots to drink and a band had been brought in from Dallas, so there was lots of dancing too. Alessandra spent what seemed like hours on the improvised dance floor in the arms of first one brother and then the next, going from Luca to Matteo to Jacob to Caleb and, finally, to Travis.

“It’s so good to have you back,” Travis said, dancing her around the floor while the band played “Sad Songs and Waltzes,” an old Willie Nelson tune.

“It’s good to be back,” she said.

“That STUD operative… the lieutenant who rescued you.” Travis took her into a slow turn. “Chay Olivieri said he was the best, and I guess he was.”

“You met him? Chay Olivieri?”

“Yes. He and I worked out the details for you to hole up in that house on the beach.” Travis drew back and smiled down at her. “Sounded like a pretty nice place.”

“It was wonderful. I really should write a note to your friend and thank him for lending it to us.”

“Not necessary, but I’m sure he’d be happy to hear from you.”

“I’ll do it first thing tomorrow. Is it okay if I give it to you to send?”

“Absolutely. My pleasure.”

“Thank you.” She gave Travis what she hoped was a smile. The music, the party, everything was beginning to be more than she could handle. People were so kind, so thoughtful, but the one man who should have been here wasn’t. “Not that I’ve been doing too well lately with writing notes and having them delivered.”

“Meaning?”

“Nothing.”

“Alessandra. What’s the matter? Come on. That’s what big brothers are for, remember? Little sisters are supposed to tell them their troubles.”

She laughed, just as she knew he hoped she would, but, dammit, her laugh didn’t fool him, not for a second.

“Hell,” he muttered. He waltzed her across the room, out the open patio doors and into the moonlit garden where he stopped dancing, clasped her shoulders and looked down into her eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Her voice wobbled.

Travis pulled a pristine white handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket and handed it to her. “Go on. Cry. Blow your nose. Then tell me what’s going on.”

I told you, nothing’s…” She bit back a sob. “I thought I’d hear from him.”

“From who?” Travis sounded baffled. “My pal in Silicon Valley? Chay Olivieri?”

“Tanner Akecheta. The lieutenant. I know it was silly, but I thought—I thought—”

“Alessandra.” Travis hesitated. “Look, I don’t know what happened between the two of you…”

“Nothing happened,” Alessandra said, and began to weep.

Travis ran a hand through his dark hair.

“Man. See, I’m not very good at this…”

“No. Obviously, neither am I.” Alessandra wiped her eyes. “I mean, maybe I said more than I should have in that note. Or maybe I didn’t say enough. Either way, he could have answered. Just a couple of words. I know he shipped out right away, but… What?”

“What note? To whom? Who shipped out?”

“Tanner. I wrote to him as soon as I could. His commanding officer hand-delivered it, well, our father gave it to him and to hand-deliver, but Tanner was shipping out and he never replied and I thought—I really thought, if he’d just taken a minute—”

The expression on Travis’s face stopped her in midsentence. He had gone tight-lipped. It was a look she’d seen before. All the Wilde and Bellini men got that look when they were angry.

“Let me get this straight. You wrote a note to the lieutenant, gave it to the general, and he gave it to the lieutenant’s CO, who gave it to the lieutenant.”

“Yes.”

“And you know this, how?”

“Father told me. The commanding officer at Camp Condor gave Tanner my note. Tanner was being shipped out, but he—he sent me his best wishes…”

“Fuck!”

“Travis?”

“I’m sorry, Alessandra. Jesus H. Christ, I’m sorry, but that no-good SOB, that lying bastard…” Travis bent over, put his hands on his thighs, breathed in and then breathed out. “Okay. I’m good. I’m fine. And I apologize for all the cursing, but…” He stood up straight, reached for her hands and held them tightly in his. “He lied.”

“Who?”

“Our father. The general. We should have known that he was incapable of change.”

“What did he lie about?” Alessandra’s voice trembled.

“Everything, probably, but here’s the part that matters. The lieutenant never got a note from you.”

Alessandra swayed. Travis grabbed her, led her to a stone bench and drew her down onto it beside him.

“How do you know that?”

“He kept asking his pal, Chay, if you’d tried to call him while he was in the hospital.”

“Tanner was in the hospital?”

“Yeah. He was in bad shape for a while. Kind of touch and go. His leg… Christ. You don’t know any of this?”

Alessandra shook her head. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

“He was desperate to talk to you. Chay got him your phone numbers. Your cell was kaput, but he left a message on your voice mail in New York. Chay didn’t know much about the call, except Akecheta told Chay he ended up just begging you to contact him.”

Alessandra buried her face in her hands. “Oh God, “she whispered, “oh God…”

“Then he got that letter from you and the general.” Travis’s voice went low and icy. “I’m gonna bet anything in the world you didn’t know about that letter.”

She looked up at him through tear-blurred eyes.

“What did it say?”

“”Basically? Goodbye and good luck, and don’t let the door hit you in the tail on your way out.”

“You’re right. I never—I never—”

Travis took her in his arms and held her. She cried silently. Then he felt a shudder go through her. She drew back. Her eyes were wet, her makeup was streaked, but there was a look to her that told him she was Wilde to the bone.

“He didn’t ship out.”

“No.” Travis hesitated. “He’s not even in the service anymore. His leg…”

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know, but I can sure as hell find out.”

Alessandra nodded. She rose to her feet. Travis rose, too.

“Find out, please.” Her eyes met her brother’s. “Because I have to go to him.”

Travis smiled. “Yes,” he said gently, “of course you do.”

“Right away. Tonight.”

“I understand.”

“I’ll need a taxi to take me to the airport.”

“You won’t need a taxi. I’ll take you.”

“Thank you. Once I know where Tanner is, I’ll check the airline schedules.”

“You won’t need the airline schedules either. Between the Texas Wildes and the Sicily Wildes, we can get a private plane on the tarmac ASAP.”

Alessandra nodded again. “Then, there’s just one last thing.”

Travis’s smile faded. “Confronting our four-star rat of a father.”

“Yes. Except, on second thought, I don’t think I ever want to see him again.” Her hands fisted. “He played God. He always did. He treated us all as if—as if we were pieces on a chessboard.”

Travis looped his arm around Alessandra’s shoulders and began walking her along the patio, towards the rear door of the mansion.

“Let me make a couple of calls. I bet I can locate your lieutenant in just a couple of hours.”

Her lieutenant. Alessandra felt her heart swell.

“You go upstairs and pack.” Travis paused. “And leave dealing with the general to me. Okay?”

They’d reached the door. Alessandra turned towards her brother, rose on her toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“I’m proud to be a Wilde,” she said softly.

Travis felt a burn in his eyes.

“Yeah,” he said gruffly, as he embraced Alessandra. “And we’re proud you are.” He stood back. “Now, go on. Dump whatever you’ll need in a suitcase. With any luck at all, I’ll have you at the airport well before dawn.”

* * *

He was right.

Things moved fast when you were a Wilde.

Travis gathered the brothers together in one of the guest wing suites. Told them what had happened. There was a lot of ugly language, a lot of one brother holding the other brother back, and then they all calmed down and got to work.

Travis phoned Chay.

It took a while to track him down, but once he did, Chay gave him the information he needed. Travis had gone home. He told him the name of the town in the Dakotas where he and Tanner had grown up and the name of the ranch Tanner’s old man had owned.

“I don’t know if you’ll be able to reach him,” Chay had added. “I’ve tried calling a couple of times, but he’s not answering.”

The brothers checked with their pilots.

Luca’s pilot and plane were the closest. They were, in fact, at the Dallas airport, ready to go because he and his wife, Cheyenne, had intended to fly out in the morning.

“You’re flying out tonight instead,” Luca told the pilot. “With my sister on board. You’re taking her to the airport at Sioux Falls, South Dakota.”

Matteo arranged for a rental car for Alessandra, but only after what initially looked like an endless battle over her insistence on making the trip alone and his insistence that he would not permit it.

The word permit proved to be a mistake.

Angry words. Angry looks. Until Jacob stepped between brother and sister and said, albeit reluctantly, that it was Alessandra’s choice to go alone and they would all have to honor it.

Hugs. Kisses. Tears. And promises she would phone and keep them posted throughout her journey.

Caleb programmed the route she’d drive after landing in Sioux Falls into his iPhone.

She promised she’d be fine. And, yes, she’d keep in touch once the plane touched down.

And she told them she loved them all.

The Wilde sisters got wind of Something Happening and crowded into the suite just as things were all coming together.

Travis promised to tell them the entire story. Right then, there was only time to say it involved the lieutenant who’d rescued Alessandra.

Throughout it all, nobody told the general anything.

They didn’t have to. He was too busy playing the genial host to have noticed his children were among the missing.

Finally, Travis drove Alessandra to the airport.

In fact, they all did.

Brothers. Sisters. It was a multivehicle procession. And they all waited on the tarmac until Luca’s plane was a pinpoint of light against the black Texas sky.

Then, they turned to each other.

It was time to go back to El Sueño and tell the man who’d sired them that nothing had changed.

He was the same no-good SOB he’d always been, and he was not welcome in their lives.

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE FLIGHT WAS short.

“Two hours and a few minutes,” Luca had said. “You can sleep through it.”

That sounded like a fine idea.

Alessandra was exhausted. The past few weeks had taken their toll. Tonight’s awful revelations had added to it.

Sleep, even a couple of hours worth, seemed an excellent plan.

Luca’s plane was luxurious. Leather reclining chairs. Cold drinks. Hot coffee. Sandwiches and chocolates. A pleasant attendant who had met Alessandra many times before.

Still, she couldn’t relax.

Questions whirled through her head.

How badly had Tanner been injured? How was he dealing with not being a STUD anymore? Would he want to see her? According to Chay Olivieri, he did, but maybe he’d only wanted to make sure she’d returned home safe.

That had been his job, after all. Getting her home safe.

Mostly, though, she kept wondering what she’d say to him.

I sent you a note, but my father made sure it never reached you.

My father told me you’d never tried to contact me.

Easy stuff.

But what about the difficult stuff? Would she be able to keep from flinging herself at him and telling him she loved him?

She’d offered him her heart the last couple of days they’d been together and he’d rejected it. No, she’d never come right out and said she loved him, but every touch, every kiss had surely told him how she felt.

And the brutal thing he’d said to her at the end...

She’d already figured out that it might have been deliberate, to get her on the helicopter and out of harm’s way, but what if she was wrong? What if he’d spoken the awful truth? What if she hadn’t meant to him what he’d meant to her?

What he would always mean to her.

After endlessly going over every possible scenario, she fell into restless sleep, but she woke abruptly less than an hour later.

She looked out the window.

It was dawn. And they were flying over what seemed like a sea of dark green interspersed with occasional dots of blue.

“That’s South Dakota,” the attendant said, leaning over to peer through the window with her. The woman smiled. “We don’t usually take this approach to the airport. You’re getting an extra-special tour. We had to detour a bit to avoid some weather.”

Alessandra nodded. The land below seemed vast and beautiful. Tanner was someplace down there.

Tanner…

“Breakfast?” the attendant asked.

“No. No, thank you. Just coffee, please.”

She went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, washed her face, tried to tame her short curls with her hands. When she came out, her coffee was waiting. She drank it quickly and then she sat back and told herself to be calm.

Whatever was going to happen, whatever Tanner would say on seeing her, would happen soon.

The car waiting for her was a four-wheel-drive SUV. The kid who delivered it planeside wished her a sleepy good morning even as the sun rose higher in the early morning sky.

He tossed her the keys.

Alessandra reached into her carryall, took out the iPhone Caleb had given her, and bells went off.

The carryall was full of smartphones.

She did a quick count. Every member of the Wilde clan seemed to have tucked a phone inside it.

It made her laugh. It was the first time she’d laughed in what felt like forever.

Because Caleb’s phone was the one in her hand, it was the one she answered. Yes, she was fine. Yes, the weather was clear. Yes, the SUV had been waiting for her. Yes, she would keep in touch.

The questions kept coming. There was only one way to stop them. She hated telling the small lie, but if she kept talking, she’d never do what she’d come here to do, and finding Tanner was all that mattered.

“Caleb? Caleb, you’re breaking up…”

One by one, she shut off all the phones, even Caleb’s. The SUV had its own GPS and she decided to rely on it and on the old-fashioned paper map she’d found in the console.

Alessandra put the SUV in gear and drove off.

* * *

The Flying Eagle ranch, Tanner’s father’s ranch, had consisted of fifty acres of woods and prairie dotted with a couple of small lakes and streams.

Tanner hadn’t thought much about the place when he was growing up except to know that he wanted to get out and leave it behind.

Over the years, his feelings had changed.

He’d realized it hadn’t been the ranch he’d wanted to escape. It had been his life.

The land was rugged and beautiful. After he joined the SEALs and after he became a STUD, he’d returned to it whenever he could.

Spending time on the land, in the rugged forests and peaceful prairie, had become a kind of spiritual renewal.

And he’d made the ranch his.

He’d put sweat equity into the house and outbuildings, and brought them back from the disasters they’d been under his father’s stewardship. Then he’d started adding acreage. For as long as he could remember, an unbroken stretch of several hundred acres to the north had been for sale.

Gradually, he’d bought it up.

He’d figured that by the time he’d return to it for good, he’d have what could be a working ranch.

He ‘d even known what he’d do with it. Breed and raise Appaloosas. As a kid, he’d worked odd jobs for an old guy who raised them and he’d discovered that he not only liked horses, he was good with them.

All that had been tucked away for the future.

What he hadn’t expected was that the future would suddenly turn into now.

He had been home, if that’s what this was, for almost two weeks. The first few days, he’d kept busy. Laid in groceries. Bought a horse. Not an Appaloosa—the old guy who’d kept them was long gone, but he found a good Quarter Horse and he was pleased with it. He’d put hours into tuning up the old Silverado he’d bought a couple of years back, and he chopped wood for the big living room fireplace in advance of what would soon be winter.

That hadn’t been easy.

He still limped. He still ached. But using a chain saw and swinging an ax made him feel as if he had a useful place in the world, and helped wipe away the memory of the time he’d spent trapped in a hospital bed.

The problem was that nothing would wipe away the memory of the time he’d spent with Alessandra.

He did his damnedest to put it all in perspective.

A handful of days with a beautiful woman. The ever-present element of danger. Add in great sex and any man might kid himself into thinking it meant more than it really had.

That was what he told himself over and over, but it didn’t take away the sleepless nights or speed the passage of what felt like endless time, and maybe that would have been okay except there were moments he felt the walls closing in, which he knew was the way his mother had felt, along with the need for some kind of temporary oblivion, which he knew was what had led his father to booze.

Three days ago, with the whisper of fall in the air, he’d rolled out of bed, saddled his horse and ridden into the hills, never stopping until he’d reached the highest point of elevation on his land. It was a particularly beautiful spot, a grassy knoll surrounded by tall stands of ponderosa pine and Black Hills spruce, with a seemingly limitless endless view of prairie below.

A shadow had fallen over him. He’d looked up to see a golden eagle circling low on a current of wind. The magnificent bird had seemed almost motionless. Then it had flapped its wings and flown off, leaving behind a long tail feather that drifted slowly to earth.

Tanner had caught the feather in his hand.

He hadn’t touched an eagle feather in decades. Not since the Sun Dance. Eagles and their feathers were sacred to the dance.

He’d looked at the feather. Touched it with his fingertips.

And suddenly he’d known what he had to do.

He’d unsaddled the horse. The animal would do fine. There was plenty of grass to graze and a stream running with cold, sweet water a few hundred yards away.

Then he’d collected small rocks and stones, arranged them in a circle. He’d stripped off his clothes, left them in a neat pile, tucked the feather into his hair and stepped into the circle. Sitting down cross-legged hadn’t been easy. It had hurt, but he’d known it was vital to let himself experience the pain.

He’d sat very still, hearing the wind in the trees, feeling the sun on his naked shoulders. After a while, he’d closed his eyes and laid his hands, palms up, on his thighs.

Morning had given way to afternoon, afternoon to night. Owls hooted. Coyotes howled. The horse whinnied softly and came to stand quietly beside its master, just outside the stone circle.

Morning came again, and afternoon, and night.

On the third morning, just at dawn, Tanner stirred.

He felt—there was no other word to describe it—the presence of something passing high overhead. He looked up. It was not an eagle this time.

It was a plane.

Hungry, thirsty, exhausted, his thoughts were not as precise as they would otherwise have been, but he knew seeing a plane here was unusual.

This wasn’t the normal route to or from the airport.

Years ago, his vision quest had brought him a wolf. Surely planes didn’t qualify as spiritual messages.

Still, something inside him stirred.

He rose to his feet. His leg felt cramped. His balance was a little shaky. But he felt better. Cleansed. Alive.

And angry.

At himself. At the man he’d almost let himself become.

He dressed quickly, whistled for his horse, stroked its neck and muzzle when it trotted to his side. He saddled the animal, mounted it, touched his heels lightly to its flanks and started for home.

What had he been thinking, running away as he had? Because he had run. From the hospital. From the life he’d always known, the man he’d always been…

The woman he would always love.

She hadn’t responded to his phone calls or to his note. So what? There were a dozen reasons that could explain why she hadn’t. How come he hadn’t confronted her? Demanded that she look him in the eye and give him those reasons?

And that letter from the general.

My daughter joins me in offering you our deepest gratitude…

Alessandra had offered him much more than that. Her sense of humor. Her intellect. Her courage. Her body. And, unless he was completely crazy, her love.

How come he hadn’t confronted her about that, too?

Superman, she’d called him, but his behavior since the accident qualified him more as Mighty Mouse.

Tanner tapped his heels harder against the horse’s sides. He leaned over its neck, clucked to it, urged it into a trot, then a canter, then a gallop.

Maybe planes weren’t omens, but they sure as hell were reminders.

A plane had brought him here. Now another would take him to New York. To the woman he loved.

The woman who loved him.

He was sure of it.

* * *

It had taken a little luck and a lot of backtracking to find Tanner’s ranch.

The GPS wasn’t the problem. Neither was the paper map. It was the terrain that was the problem, dirt roads heading off in a dozen different directions, roads without names or with names that had nothing to do with the annoying voice of the GPS.

Alessandra had listened to it say Recalculating enough times to make her start to talk back to it, and not politely.

Finally, when she figured she had to be getting close, she stopped at a gas station, marched inside and asked the guy behind the counter if he knew where she could find the Flying Eagle ranch. He scratched his grizzled jaw, hitched up his sagging pants…

She felt as if she’d wandered onto a movie set.

“You’re almost there,” he said, and he stepped outside with her, pointed a gnarled finger north, then west, then north again, told her to look for a low butte, a thicket of quaking aspens, a small pond and right after that, a right-hand turnoff into the woods.

“Go three, four miles, you’re there.”

Alessandra prided herself on speaking fluent, almost completely accent-free American English, but quaking aspens and buttes were not in her vocabulary. This was, she decided, not the time to feel foolish about asking for explanations.

The old man sighed. A butte was a flat-topped hill. Quaking aspens were tall, straight, white-barked trees whose leaves seemed to dance in the slightest breeze.

Alessandra thanked him, let him pump some gas into the SUV, and got back behind the wheel.

Half an hour and two wrong turns later, she saw a wooden sign that bore the name Flying Eagle Ranch. It stood beside a narrow, unpaved road that led into a stand of enormous pines.

She put the SUV in neutral, told her heart not to race, and turned onto the road.

It arrowed through the pines for what seemed a long time, but eventually she saw it.

A house.

Several outbuildings.

A corral.

Flying Eagle Ranch.

Chay had given Travis a description and he’d passed it on to her. A small house, Chay had said, built of logs. A wide porch. Outbuildings at a short distance behind the house. And there’d probably be an old black Silverado truck parked out front.

Everything matched the description, but there wasn’t a truck in sight.

Was it in one of the outbuildings? Or wasn’t it here?

She stepped from the SUV, reached back inside for the light denim jacket she’d carried on the plane. It was cool here; a breeze blew lightly through the trees.

Alessandra slipped on the jacket.

How still things were.

Even the rainforest, where they’d been miles from civilization, had not been quiet. Monkeys had screamed from the trees. So had bright-plumaged birds. Small creatures had scuttled through the bushes.

Here, the silence was complete.

She drew herself up. She was procrastinating, an excellent English word, and she had not come all this distance to procrastinate.

“No more dawdling, Alessandra,” she said aloud. “Just march up to the porch, knock on that door, and tell Tanner what happened. What really happened.”

Except…except, what if she told him all about the general’s lies, his interference, and Tanner said he was glad she’d told him the truth, but it didn’t change anything, that what they’d had together had only been temporary, that he’d just been doing his job…

Alessandra took a deep breath.

She had come here for the truth and if any of that turned out to be the truth, it would be better to know it than to spend the rest of her life mourning a memory.

She walked to the porch. Went up the steps. Reached for the brass door knocker and banged it against the door.

Nothing happened.

She banged it again.

Still nothing.

Now what?

She wrapped her hand around the doorknob. Gave it a slow turn…

The door swung open.

She was staring into a living room. Polished oak floor. Log walls. A big stone fireplace with logs neatly stacked on the hearth. There was a rug in front of the fireplace, something bright and, based on her knowledge of fabric and design, probably hand-loomed. The furniture was simple and handsome. A rocker. A big club chair.

A coffee table held a stack of magazines. She walked closer. The magazines had names like Appaloosa and Profitable Horse Ranching.

There was a couch, too, drawn up before the fireplace. It was long and deep. It looked like a place a big man would sit to relax after a hard day’s work.

An afghan was neatly folded over the back.

Okay.

What should she do? Go back outside, get into the SUV and wait for Tanner to show up? Get into the SUV and drive back thirty or forty miles to where she’d seen a small café and an equally small motel?

Or sit down on the couch right here, pick up one of those magazines and wait.

“Wait,” she said, because if she didn’t, she might just lose the courage that had brought her here.

So she picked up a magazine at random. Curled into the corner of the couch. Yawned. And, after a while, yawned again.

Her eyes felt heavy. It was difficult keeping them open. Another yawn. She reached for the afghan, drew it over herself. Put her head back, just for a minute. Closed her eyes, just for a minute…

Sleep swallowed her up.

* * *

Half an hour later, Tanner rode down through the trees behind the house.

There were a few things to do before he could leave.

He had to arrange to board his horse. The guy he’d bought him from would probably be okay with that. And he had to close up the house. It was still early fall, but you never knew what the weather might bring in these parts. He’d want to shutter the windows, make sure the place was capable of standing up to a storm.

When he reached the rear yard, he dismounted. Patted the horse on its flank. Picked up the trailing reins and led the horse to the big barn behind the house.

“Good boy,” he said softly, and reminded himself that the animal needed a name. He’d been calling it Horse, but it deserved better than that.

Once inside the barn, the horse headed straight for its stall. Smart horse. He’d learned where he belonged very quickly.

It had taken Tanner a lot longer to know that he belonged wherever Alessandra was and that she, by God, belonged with him.

He’d been foolish to buy into anything else.

Or maybe he hadn’t, but she’d have to look him in the eye and tell him she didn’t love him this time, because he wasn’t settling for letters that didn’t really say anything at all.

He unsaddled the horse. Hung the gear away. Brushed the horse down. Got him some oats. Turned on the hose and added fresh water to the trough.

Then he patted the horse again, headed out of the barn, walked briskly to the back door of the house, stepped into the kitchen, went through into the living room…

And saw Alessandra, curled up and asleep on his couch.

His head swam.

He hadn’t eaten in days. He’d stopped at a stream and downed endless gulps of water, but maybe the fast had gotten to him because this couldn’t be real, this couldn’t be the woman he loved.

He went slowly towards her.

His heartbeat rocketed.

It was Alessandra. A different Alessandra.

She had cut her hair.

A halo of golden curls surrounded her face.

Her lovely face.

Tanner swallowed hard. He squatted down beside the couch. Stretched out his hand to touch her, but his hand shook.

Should he wake her? Should he sit right here and wait until she opened her eyes?

And then he stopped thinking, murmured her name, touched his hand to her hair, her cheek, her shoulder, and her eyes flew open.

“Tanner,” she whispered.

He smiled. “Sweetheart,” he said, and whatever he’d intended to tell her when he saw her, whatever she’d intended to tell him, was forgotten as she laughed and wept and went straight into his hard, strong, welcoming arms.

EPILOGUE

THEY WERE MARRIED at El Sueño on a bright day in late November.

The family gathered at the ranch the week before.

“I want everyone to get to know you,” Alessandra told her groom.

“Sounds great,” he said.

What he said to Chay was, “Five brothers? Four sisters? Their husbands and wives and kids? I’ll be lucky if I come through it alive.”

Tanner not only came through it alive, he came through it with a new family.

Weeks before, when he and Alessandra were still in San Escobal, he’d figured the Wildes were high profile.

He’d nailed that for sure.

They were high profile.

They were also amazingly nice, interesting people.

Caleb was an attorney, but he had once led a very different life as an operative in a top- secret government outfit called The Agency. So had Jaimie’s husband, Zach, who also owned a rather specialized security outfit. Tanner had known both men by reputation and it was great to know them now as family. Matteo, who was also a lawyer like Caleb, had been drawn into Zach’s world some months ago. Now, he was a legal eagle in partnership with Zach.

The four of them—Tanner, Zach, Matteo and Caleb—settled into the study one evening with a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue, talked tradecraft, and ended up exchanging stories that made them laugh in a way only men who’d endured the things they had endured would find funny.

Luca was a builder. An architect. When Tanner mentioned he had a house he was thinking of expanding, Luca’s eyes lit.

“Tell me about this house,” he said, and hours later, he and Tanner were still huddling over sketches and plans.

Travis, the financial guru, ended up sputtering over something he read about interest rates in the Financial Times one morning at breakfast. He looked up, found them all rolling their eyes.

Everybody but Tanner.

“If you have a minute,” Tanner said, after the others had all wandered off, “I’d like to ask you a couple of questions.” Travis’s expression was blank. “Hey,” Tanner said quickly, “forget that. I’m sure you don’t want to talk numbers when you’re on vacation—”

Travis grinned and put his arm around Tanner’s shoulders. “I always want to talk numbers, dude, but the rowdy bunch here is tired of listening to me. What would you like to know?”

And then there was Jake, who had left the air force not because he’d wanted to, but because he’d lost an eye on a mission and you couldn’t fly with only one eye. He had returned home wounded in spirit as well as in body. He and Tanner had gotten into a quiet conversation that had gone on for a couple of hours when actor Nick Gentry, Lissa’s husband, knocked at the partly closed door and asked if their pity party was open to newcomers.

Tanner looked up, eyes gone cold, only to hear Jake burst into laughter.

“In case you hadn’t noticed,” Jake said, “old Nicholas here has a leg so bad it would probably make yours look good.”

Tanner scowled. Now that he thought about it, maybe he’d noticed Nick favoring one leg over the other, especially at the end of the day.

Nick grinned, put his foot up on the edge of a chair and reached for his cuff.

“Bet you ten bucks my scar’s nastier than yours.”

There was a brief hesitation. Then Tanner grinned back at him bent down and grabbed the cuff of his jeans.

“You’re on.”

Several bottles of beer later, they were still laughing and debating which of them had the sorriest story to tell.

“Men,” Lissa said, when she heard the howls drifting out of the library.

But her smile was filled with love, as were the answering smiles of Jaimie and Lissa and Alessandra.

It had taken Tanner all of five minutes for him to love all the Wildes.

Bianca…Bianca was a little different.

Beautiful. Well, all the sisters were beautiful. Smart. Again, nothing unusual for a Wilde woman.

It was her cynicism that set her aside. That, and the way she watched over Alessandra as fiercely as a tigress with its cub.

“She adores you,” she told Tanner one evening when they ended up on the porch alone.

Instinct told him this was not the time for a clever answer.

“She does,” he said quietly. “And I adore her.”

Bianca nodded. “You’d better. Because if you ever do anything to break her heart, you’re a dead man, Akecheta.”

Tanner looked at her. “I’ll cherish her to my last breath,” he said. “And that’s a promise.”

Bianca nodded again. Then she rose on her toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I believe you,” she said, and he knew he had passed some kind of test.

And, of course, he fell hard for El Sueño. Long talks with Jake revealed some interesting practices his soon-to-be brother in law had put into play. The Flying Eagle Ranch would be a much smaller operation, but Tanner could do in South Dakota a lot of what Jake had done in Texas.

By Friday, the week he’d worried about had become a week he’d never forget.

“So,” Alessandra asked as she lay in his arms late that night, “what do you think about the Wildes?”

Tanner rose up on his elbow and looked down at the sweet face of his lover.

“I think I’m a lucky man,” he said softly, “to have the chance to become part of it all.”

She smiled. “You’re already part of it. They’re all crazy about you.”

He grinned, caught one of her curls and let it wind around his finger.

“Even Bianca?”

“Especially Bianca. We’ve always taken care of each other, you know?”

“Yeah.” Tanner bent his head and brushed his mouth over Alessandra’s. “Kind of like Chay and me.”

“Uh-huh.” Alessandra cupped her hand around the nape of his neck. “He’ll be here early tomorrow, right? I know he’s flying in from overseas.”

“Yes.” Tanner kissed her throat, nuzzled the comforter down to expose her breasts.” But right now, I don’t feel like talking about Chay. Or Bianca.”

Alessandra gave a little gasp as his lips closed around her nipple.

“No?”

“No,” he said, and then he moved above her, kissed her again and a heartbeat later, he was deep inside her and she was whispering his name and coming apart in his arms.

* * *

Their wedding day dawned bright and cloudless. It was the kind of perfect late fall day that only north Texas can produce.

At least, that was what the Texas Wildes all said.

The Sicily Wildes agreed the day was spectacular, but they insisted it was no more spectacular than a fall day in Sicily.

They argued back and forth with laughter and love, and then, all at once, it was time for the ceremony.

Luca, Matteo, Jake, Caleb and Travis gave the bride away. If the judge who performed the ceremony found that unusual, he didn’t say so.

Bianca, Emily, Jaimie and Lissa were the bride’s maids of honor. That was unusual, too, but this, after all, was an unusual family.

Chay was the groom’s best man.

“Chayton,” it turned out, was his full name.

Bianca had made the discovery. It seemed she’d done a bit of research on the Lakota language and learned that Chayton meant hawk.

“You checked him out?” Alessandra asked.

“It’s what I do,” Bianca replied, her tone a little testy. “I’m a researcher, remember?”

“You’re interested in him,” Alessandra said with delight.

“Are you pazza? I had enough dealings with Chayton Olivieri when you were in San Escobal to last a lifetime. He is arrogant and opinionated, and he always, always wants to be in charge. Why would any sane woman be interested in a man like that?”

Maybe because arrogant, opinionated, take-charge guys were also incredibly sexy, Alessandra thought, but she decided to keep her opinion to herself.

The ceremonial vows, written by the bride and groom, made all the women weepy and the men did a lot of throat-clearing. After, there was music and dancing, vintage champagne and amazing food. Then, just before sundown, Alessandra and Tanner changed out of their wedding finery and into jeans, cotton T-shirts and soft leather boots. They were driving to South Dakota to go wilderness camping as long as the weather held out, which everybody thought was nuts, considering all they’d gone through in San Escobal. But being alone together under a star-filled sky was what they both wanted.

“What?” Chay had asked innocently. “You guys don’t want to go to the Caribbean?”

Everyone had laughed.

Everyone except General John Hamilton Wilde, who wasn’t there. He had not been invited to attend his daughter’s wedding.

What he had done to her, to the man she loved, defied forgiveness. They wanted nothing more to do with him, and all the Wildes asked Jake and Travis to figure out what the ranch was worth. The number was staggering, but they all agreed to put in what they could. Travis would arrange for a loan for the balance…

But that turned out to be unnecessary.

The day before the wedding, a legal document arrived by courier. It was from the general, and it ceded ownership of El Sueño to his children.

After the wedding dinner, the guests cheered and showered the bride and groom with rose petals as they ran down the steps of the mansion to Tanner’s Silverado. He lifted her by the waist and settled her into the passenger seat, then went around the truck and climbed in behind the wheel. He reached for the gearshift, looked at Alessandra, changed his mind and kissed her instead.

Everyone applauded, but only she knew how it felt to hear him say “You are mine forever, wastelakapi,” and she wound her arms around his neck and returned his kisses with all the love in her heart.

At last, the Silverado drove off.

The Wildes and their guests went back inside the mansion.

Chay and Bianca stayed right where they were.

“Well,” Chay said, “what’s that old saying? All’s well that ends well.”

“It isn’t a saying.” Bianca tossed her head, sending a tumble of dark gold curls down her back. “It’s a line from a play by—”

“Shakespeare.” Chay tilted his champagne flute to his lips and drank the last few drops. “Actually, it’s the title of one of his comedies, but I never thought it was very amusing.”

Bianca stared at him. “You didn’t?”

“I’m more into the Greek comedies. By Aristophanes. Theophilus. Those guys, you know?” He looked at Bianca, at the lovely eyes wide with disbelief, at the soft-looking pink mouth half-open with surprise. Amazing that he’d been able to drag those names from his subconscious because he sure had buried them deep after suffering through World Lit 101 his first semester at college.

He looked at her again.

What the hell, he thought, and he did what he’d wanted to do since the first day she’d shown up at Camp Condor with her I-Am-In-Charge-And-Who-In-Hell-Are-You attitude. He wrapped one arm around her waist, dragged her against him and captured her mouth with his.

He’d meant it as a kind of joke, but one taste, one touch of her lips and he felt his entire body harden.

And when, just for an instant, she seemed to melt into the kiss…

She slapped her hands against his shoulders.

He drew back.

“Do not,” she said, “do not ever do that again.”

Chay grinned. “Not until you ask.”

He trotted up the steps and into the house.

Bianca waited. She had to wait, because her heart was racing so hard she was afraid people would hear it.

What was the name for men like Chayton Olivieri? Alpha males. That was it. She’d come across the term in her Sexual Psych class.

Alpha males.

She was surrounded by them, and now her very own sister had added a new one to the family.

“Not me,” Bianca said into the silence. “Never me.”

Head high, she gathered up the skirt of her long lavender gown and headed back to the party.

A NOTE FROM SANDRA

DEAR READER:

Thank you for spending time with Alessandra and Tanner. I hope you enjoyed reading their story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Some of you have already asked about my next STUD book, PRIVILEGE. I’m happy to tell you that it will be published this coming winter.

As many of you have surely guessed, PRIVILEGE is the story of smart, beautiful and outspoken Bianca Bellini Wilde and gorgeous, sexy, STUD warrior Chay Olivieri. Bianca has begun treating patients as part of her post-graduate program in psychology. Chay is just back from intense combat in a country he’s not permitted to name. They are as different as oil and water, but when Bianca’s life is threatened by a serial killer, Chay is the only man who can keep her safe. It’s all very professional—until one dark night when Bianca goes into Chay’s arms and their world explodes in hot, hungry, all-consuming passion.

Want be notified when PRIVILEGE is released? Sign up for My Newsletter. I’ll never share your name or email address with anyone, and I won’t fill your inbox with unwanted mail! I’ll just give you the information you want…and I may even run a couple of contests for newsletter subscribers only.

Looking for a list of my books and links to where you can find them online? Be sure and visit My Website. You’ll also see all my beautiful covers and have the chance to read excerpts from many of my books.

Finally, here’s a suggestion. If you enjoy a book, post a brief review at the site where you bought it. That’s a good thing to do for all the authors who bring you pleasure. It’s the only way we have of knowing that we’ve made you happy, and of ensuring that we go on writing the kinds of books you like.

See you soon!

Sandra

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Table of Contents

POWER

Copyright

Welcome

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

A Note from Sandra