Power: Special Tactical Units Division (In Wilde Country Book 3)

by Sandra Marton

  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 Aless
andra 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 slee
ves 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.