Danger Close (The Echo Platoon Series, Book 1)

by Marliss Melton

  The question caught Maddy off guard. The memory of making love with Sam those first two times brought a flood of heat to her cheeks. They'd both been too enraptured with each other, too caught up in the moment to think about safe sex. Ever since then, Sam had been scrupulous about using a condom. "I don't... think so," she slowly replied.

  Keen blue eyes probed her uncertain expression. "Your HCG levels are normal," he informed her, "which suggests that you're not, but perhaps it's too soon to tell. Should you find yourself pregnant, I would advise you to abort," he added gently. "There's no telling how the neurotoxin might have affected an embryo."

  Maddy swallowed against a dry throat. "I'm sure I'm not," she told him quickly. Sorrow swamped her at the thought of having to abort a baby conceived in love.

  "Very well. It was remarkable to meet you," Dr. Troost added, extending a handshake. "I have this strange feeling it was meant to be."

  "I know it was," Maddy said with certainty.

  "Good luck finding your uncle," he added. "Here is my card," he added, slipping her a business card from the pocket of his white coat. "You may share it with law enforcement personnel should they require a statement or copies of your medical files. I'd be happy to testify on your behalf."

  Maddy glanced down noting his email address. "Thank you, doctor. Perhaps I could ask you more about your experience with the Amazon Conservation Team? I'm a conservationist myself, working with the Global Environmental Fund."

  "Are you, now?" he exclaimed, becoming less stiff and more relaxed by the moment.

  They chatted for several more minutes until an orderly appeared to wheel her out of the ER and down a hall into an elevator. Maddy caught a glimpse of Sam behind a wall of glass. "Oh, there's my... boyfriend," she said, the words sounding strange to her ears. She pointed him out to the orderly. "Please get him for me."

  "It's against hospital regulations, lady," said the orderly kindly. "The doctor will tell him in a moment where to find you."

  * * *

  "Sam!"

  Sam lifted his face out of his hands, wondering if he was hearing voices. He'd been lost in thought, praying every prayer he could remember from his childhood and reliving the gut-wrenching helplessness he'd experienced from the moment he'd seen Maddy being dragged by her horse.

  The guide and a representative from the horse-riding tour had helped him transfer Maddy's limp body into a four-wheel drive vehicle. They'd raced to the only hospital on the island, seven miles away. Every second of that ride, Sam had clung to Maddy's hand and begged her to hang on.

  A vision of Lyle Scott bursting into the ER's waiting room brought him back to the present. The billionaire looked even more careworn and rumpled than the last time Sam had seen him in the Marriott lobby in Asunción. The tail of his light-weight cotton shirt was untucked. His fair skin had been burned by the sun; his hair was windblown. Sam pushed to his feet to greet him.

  "Where is she?" Maddy's father demanded, not bothering to shake Sam's hand or embrace him as he had in the past. "Where's Maddy?"

  Sam glanced at his watch, though the sky's pink hue outside the windows had already informed him how much time had passed. "She's still in the ER. I brought her in about five hours ago," he conveyed, too worried to feign optimism for her father's sake. "They won't let me see her."

  "Well, that's about to change," Scott growled, turning toward the check-in desk.

  Just then, a gaunt doctor with intelligent blue eyes that shone behind his spectacles approached them. "I'm Dr. Troost," he said with a hint of an accent. "You're both here for Madison Scott?" He looked them each in the eye.

  "Yes," said her father before Sam could speak. "How is she?"

  "Recovered," said the doctor simply. "At first I thought her a victim of sarin poisoning, but the symptoms were slightly different. I'd seen something similar in my work in the Amazon."

  Sam's incredulity rose as he heard the doctor say that she'd been poisoned by a plant unique to South America. Luckily, the antidote to the poison was a simple enzyme, one that reversed the effects immediately. Relief turned Sam's bones to liquid, making it hard for him to stay standing.

  "She will need to be monitored another twenty-four hours, but she appears fully recovered," the doctor added into their stunned silence.

  "Poison," Lyle finally repeated, clearly as shocked and dumbfounded as Sam was.

  "She said something about her uncle forcing her to drink some wine?" One of the doctor's eyebrows rose over the other.

  Lyle looked at Sam, his eyes wide with remorse. "She mentioned the possibility back in Asunción, remember? None of us took her seriously."

  "Because she said she didn't drink any," Sam recalled. "Apparently, she did. Why didn't we see any signs of this earlier?" he asked the doctor.

  Troost grimaced. "The poison has a delayed response," he explained. "It takes a day or two to affect the nervous system. If she consumed very little, it would have taken even longer. Still, without the antidote, her heart may eventually have stopped beating. She is lucky to be alive."

  "My God," Lyle Scott exclaimed, putting his hands to his pale face.

  "She's in room 213. You may visit her now." The doctor gestured to the elevator.

  "Thank you." Lyle spared a second to pump the doctor's hand before charging toward the elevator. Sam followed on his heels, his knees still distinctly squishy.

  Her heart may eventually have stopped beating.

  Shock seeped into his bloodstream, forcing him to lean against the elevator wall as he went suddenly lightheaded. Over the ringing in his ears, he could hear Lyle Scott's ragged breathing. The man was having as hard a time digesting the news as he was. He regarded him sidelong. "I'm sorry," he started to say.

  "This should never have happened," Lyle said at the same time.

  While Sam knew none of this was his fault, and while Lyle's comment hadn't been directed at him, guilt burned a hole in his gut. He felt as though he'd let her father down.

  Room 213 stood across from the elevator. Lyle gave a swift knock before pushing his way inside. Sam followed more slowly.

  "Daddy!"

  He hung back, giving father and daughter time to reunite—again. This was starting to be a trend.

  Maddy looked none the worse for wear, though she now wore a hospital gown in lieu of the bikini that had driven him wild for what it didn't reveal. Under the gown, she had to be wearing a heart monitor because he could see her heartbeat blipping on a device mounted to a shelf behind her. Her tangled hair was still probably full of sand. Christ, he'd never get over the shock of seeing her being dragged by her horse, as limp as a ragdoll.

  She clung to her father, patting him consolingly on the back as he clung to her, white-knuckled, clearly fighting to keep his composure. "It's okay, Daddy. I'm okay," she crooned.

  Catching Sam's eye as he lingered near the door, she sent him a smile that warmed him clear to his toes and compelled him to shuffle closer. "Sam, I'm so sorry," she apologized, taking the blame for what had happened. "It must have been the wine at Uncle Paul's. I only had a sip or two at most."

  "That son of a bitch," Lyle railed, pulling his haggard face from Maddy's shoulder standing at his full height. Sam could see him trembling suppressed rage. "I swear to God I'm going to make him pay for this!"

  "Can't we get him on attempted murder now?" Maddy asked. "It's obvious he tried to kill me."

  Lyle shrugged and shook his head. "Only how do we prove it was the wine? You could have ingested poison by eating something here that was tainted." He glanced in Sam's direction causing Sam's gut to tighten reflexively.

  "What evidence do we have so far?" Maddy asked.

  Lyle Scott visibly reined himself in. "No, no. We're not going to talk about this now." He patted her hand. His gaze swung to the heart monitor pulsing quietly and steadily. "You've just been through hell, honey. The doctor said your heart could have stopped."

  "It's been beating funny for days now," she admitted, glancing guilti
ly at Sam, whose jaw muscles jumped as he clenched his teeth. "I didn't want to alarm anyone, but I started having symptoms the night Ricardo pulled me out of Uncle Paul's house." She looked back at her father. "Why don't you have a seat and we'll discuss what you've found."

  Lyle heaved a sigh then went to collapse into the arm chair. Sam sat on the end of Maddy's bed, unable to tear his gaze from her beloved face, still reeling at the thought of her heart stopping. He laid a hand on her knee, which was covered with a blanket. Every inch of her body was now branded in his memory. He knew every freckle, every small scar, every pleasure point.

  "Elliot Koch's body was found just this morning," Lyle Scott announced, wresting Sam's attention back to him. "It was lying in an alley behind that bar in town, La Cantina. No evidence of foul play. The coroner thinks he had a heart attack."

  "That's terrible," Maddy murmured.

  "Especially since the FBI was counting on him to inform against Paul, and now he can't," her father added grimly. "According to witnesses, he'd been hanging around town, cursing Paul for giving him the sack."

  "Why would Uncle Paul fire him now?" Maddy mused.

  Lyle turned his gaze on Sam. "When you retrieved Maddy from Paul's home that night, he must have guessed our suspicions. Maybe he realized that you recognized his bodyguard from the night he tried to shoot me."

  Sam thought back and nodded. "That's distinctly possible. He caught me staring at Elliot when he met with my task unit to discuss the explosion. But I can't believe Elliot actually died of a heart attack. That doesn't sound right." The wrestler had been too active, too young to succumb to a heart attack. Another alternative occurred to him and, in light of what had just happened to Maddy, it made perfect sense. "What if he was poisoned, the same way Maddy was?"

  "What if he was?" Maddy repeated as they gaped at each other. Sam hadn't thought that father and daughter resembled each other at all until that minute.

  "It may have looked like a heart attack, but what if his heart just gave out like mine almost did?" she added.

  Excitement coursed through Sam's veins. "If you can prove he was poisoned the same way Maddy was, the FBI can probably make a charge stick."

  "Dr. Troost gave me his card," she recalled, reaching for the white rectangle next to her bed. "You can get the name and the characteristics of the poison from the doctor, then tell the medical examiner in Paraguay to look for them in Elliot's blood."

  Her father rolled out of the chair to take the card. "I'll do that," he agreed. "Can't hurt to try." Hope smoothed some of the lines from his careworn expression. "And if his bodyguard was poisoned the same way, we can charge him with attempting to murder you, also."

  "And then I can go back to Paraguay and finish my work," Maddy said, her words prompting utter silence.

  In that moment, Sam felt as sorry for her father as he did for himself. Letting Maddy flit off to other continents to do her work was going to be the hardest part about being in a relationship with her, especially since his own job had him doing pretty much the same thing.

  Dismay wreathed Lyle's face, making him once again look every one of his sixty-five years. "Maddy," he said, dragging the armchair closer so he could sit in it while still holding her hand. "You don't need to finish your work with GEF," he said gently. "I'll send my own people to take a closer look at the situation. Any significant pollution being created by my wells will be cleaned up and contained for good, I swear it on your mother's name."

  "Daddy, you're not the CEO anymore. You're not even in charge of the board of directors," she pointed out. "You can't guarantee that they'll agree to that expenditure."

  "Of course they will. They're all still loyal to me."

  "Even if they will, this is something Mom would have wanted me to do," Maddy insisted, knowing that argument would win him over.

  Lyle fell silent. "Fine," he gruffly relented, "but you're not going back to Paraguay until your uncle is arrested," he insisted.

  Maddy rolled her eyes. "What's he going to do to me from Switzerland?" she reasoned. "Nothing. He knows the gig is up. Killing me now won't make a lick of difference. Just let me go, Daddy."

  "We'll talk about this later," he said on a sterner note.

  Maddy fell quiet. Sam could tell by the way she pursed her lips together that she was going back soon, regardless of her father's wishes. And where would he be when that happened? Either training in Virginia Beach or in the mountains of Nevada or even in Alaska—it all depended on the terrain of the task unit's next big Op.

  The conversation shifted to concerns that were far less controversial. Maddy regaled her father with the highlights of her and Sam's time together. Her happy smile reminded him of her declaration of love. Their feelings for each other were strong enough to merit a commitment.

  We're going to do this, Sam thought, rubbing her calf through the blanket. On one hand it felt perfectly right; on the other, he was petrified. What did the future hold for them? Could they really nurture the feelings they shared while spending so much time apart?

  He knew he had to try. He couldn't let Maddy slip out of his hands a second time. It had been hard enough to put her from his mind after Matamoros.

  "When do you have to head home, Sam?" Lyle Scott asked him, as if reading his mind.

  "I have to report in tomorrow by noon," Sam replied, fighting the weightiness that shackled his heart, threatening to drag him into despondency.

  Maddy's mouth immediately drooped at the corners, letting him know that his imminent departure saddened her, as well. He found himself wishing Lyle Scott had stayed in Paraguay so he and Maddy could spend their last night alone together, even if it was in a hospital. But then Maddy's situation had been critical. In any case, her father had been planning to collect his daughter when Sam's leave was over.

  Lyle Scott stood up. "Well, I'll leave you two alone while I go find a bite to eat. I'm famished," he declared, proving himself more astute than Sam had realized. He bent down and gave Maddy a swift kiss on the cheek. "Could I speak to you for a minute in the hall, Sam?" he requested as he headed for the door.

  Sam glanced at Maddy for permission then said, "Sure," and trailed him out into the hall.

  He found Lyle Scott clenching and unclenching his hands, looking totally overwrought. "Sam, I have a proposition for you, and I hope you'll give it some serious consideration."

  Sam suffered the certainty that he wasn't going to like what he was about to hear. "What is it?"

  Lyle heaved a weary sigh. The halogen lighting drew attention to the dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. "I know my daughter's work means a lot to her, the same way it did to her mother. But the stress is killing me," he admitted. "I can't focus on my platform when I'm worried for her welfare."

  Sam slid his hands into his pockets. "What do you want me to do?" he asked warily.

  "I'd like to ask you to try to convince her to stay in the States for a while, maybe get a job in Virginia, close to you. You seem to have a strong pull on her. Maybe if you got engaged or something," he hinted, avoiding Sam's incredulous stare.

  "If she still won't quit," Lyle continued, clearly uncomfortable with Sam's continued silence, "I'd like to make you an offer. If you would leave the Teams and guard my daughter fulltime, I'll pay you twice your current salary. I know that sounds presumptuous. I just—" His voice cracked with emotion. "I can't stand the thought of anything happening to her."

  A ten ton tank might as well have rolled right over Sam. The offer had floored him. Presumptuous? Hell, yes, it was presumptuous. It smacked of elitism and superiority and all those disgusting attributes he associated with the filthy rich. "You want me to give up my career to be your daughter's security detail?"

  A stricken look entered Lyle Scott's eyes as apparently it occurred to him that he'd gone too far. "No, no, of course not." He swept away the offer with a wave of his hands. "I'm sorry. I'm so overcome with fears and doubts right now that I don't know what I'm saying."

  "But you sa
id the words," Sam insisted, his heart hardened to the man's obvious distress. "Can I ask you something?"

  "Of course." Lyle sounded eager to make amends.

  "Did you lean on General DePuy and therefore SOCOM to get the SEALs sent to Paraguay to defend your oil wells?"

  Lyle's eyes widened with guilt. "Well, I might have suggested it. But he told me SOCOM has no say-so over your foreign operations. That was strictly up to the Joint Special Operations Taskforce."

  And so it was. But there was no telling how much influence SOCOM had in JSOTF's decision making.

  An awkward silence fell between them. Sam stood taller to counteract the feelings of inferiority and indignation sluicing through him. Here was this man thinking he could be bought, thinking he had a right to sway the military to protect his interests. This wasn't only about Maddy and her safety. This was about Lyle Scott believing that his wealth gave him the right to manipulate others, even to the point of suggesting Sam get engaged to Maddy and give up his career for her sake.

  Hell, no.

  "I think I've said enough," Lyle acknowledged, lowering his gaze. He turned away with a nod. "I'll go get some food."

  In a tumultuous frame of mind, Sam watched him walk away until he'd disappeared from view. And then he turned and looked at Maddy's door.

  A memory surfaced suddenly. He had felt this way back when Wendy the prom queen's father had convinced the judge not to post bail for her daughter's alleged attacker. Sam had spent the next two months awaiting trial at the state penitentiary, alongside hardened felons and child molesters. He'd been beaten, taunted, and very nearly sexually molested—all because Wendy's father's wealth had allowed him to influence the system.

  Sam had loathed rich people ever since for thinking they had the right to manipulate those beneath them. Maddy's father wasn't any different. Both men had meant well. Both had wanted to protect their daughters, but to assume that Sam would give up his hard-won status as a Navy SEAL was every bit as arrogant as assuming Sam was guilty of rape just because he was Latino.