He was glad it was nearly over. As he looked up into the sky, the sun began to peek through blotchy clouds. His gaze shifted to the smoldering remains of the fallen chopper, a sullen reminder of human greed and perversity.
There was a lesson buried in that wreckage littering the quiet strip of jungle, and Wolfe thought the message might be a warning about technology that advanced too far, too fast, beyond man’s ability to keep pace.
No, that was wrong. The lesson was far simpler: choose your friends with care and then trust no one, even the friends you chose so carefully. Something about the thought left him angry. Most of his team’s operations took place in tight situations that demanded loyalty and quick communication. When you were crouched in the mud or hunched over weapons trying to hide from an enemy strike force, your partner’s loyalty meant your life. Period.
If you couldn’t trust, you couldn’t stay alive. To Wolfe it was as simple as that. Maybe that was why Cruz’s betrayal continued to goad him so deeply.
He shook his head, putting the behavioral and medical questions out of his mind. He was relieved to have so many details to tackle now, because they left him too busy to wonder why Cruz had snapped, sliding down into madness.
What the hell was this Lab 21 he had mentioned to Max? And his next question was always the same: if Cruz had snapped, couldn’t any of them snap just as easily?
As he crossed the beach, Trace O’Halloran was sitting on an overturned ammo box, petting Truman. “You should be lying down, O’Halloran.”
“Plenty of time for that after we’re choppered out of here. Izzy tells me the round managed to miss anything significant.” He frowned a little, scratching Truman’s head. “By the way, what happened to Miki’s hair? It looked like one side caught fire.”
“It did.” Wolfe hid a smile, remembering the story Dakota had told him. After two of Cruz’s men charged the tent during the firefight, Dakota had dispatched one, but when he turned around, the other man was flat on the ground, howling in pain while Miki held him down with some kind of torch.
“How the heck did she make a torch?”
“Nail polish remover, a knitting needle, yarn and a set of matches. Or she might have said hair spray.” Wolfe shrugged. “I’m not up on female grooming products. Thank God Kit isn’t the high-maintenance type.” At least Wolfe didn’t think Kit was. They hadn’t spent enough free time together in the last few months for him to know the extent of her likes and dislikes. He swore he was going to rectify that as soon as Ryker gave him some time off. Wolfe wanted at least a fragment of a private life, and he was determined to have it.
“Don’t worry, my sister was never into all that stuff. Of course Miki is an entirely different story. You name the clothes or the gadget and she has it. None of us could ever figure out why the two of them were best friends.” Trace stared out at the ocean. “She’s something, isn’t she? I thought she’d spit nails when she saw me. Now she’s set fire to her hair. Hell, I never even knew it was blond. She must have been dying it all these years.” His mouth hitched up in a grin. “Blondie strikes again.”
“She saved our butts,” Wolfe said quietly. “She got us close enough to dig in before Cruz knew what had happened.”
“Yeah, and I’ll thank her for that.” Trace’s grin widened. “But first I’m going to get a whole lot of mileage out of this hair story, believe me.”
“JUST FOR THE RECORD, it’s not about the sex.” Miki glared at the tent at the edge of the beach, her thoughts churning. “It’s about way more than the sex.”
“I beg your pardon, ma’am?” Dakota looked at her curiously as they crossed the sand. He was tall and lanky, drop-dead gorgeous in a cowboy sort of way, Miki thought. And underneath those calm eyes was a brain that worked fast.
Any other time he might be exactly Miki’s cup of tea.
But sometime during the last gut-wrenching, stomach-twisting and painful twenty-four hours, she had come to realize that there would be no other men. Her heart was already given.
Locked up, tied down, spoken for.
She closed her eyes, rubbed her face. When had it happened? One minute she was enjoying her perfect job in paradise, and the next minute she was fighting for her life in choppy seas. Somewhere in the middle of the drama, the man of her dreams had commandeered her life and walked away with her heart.
Miki scowled down at the sand.
It wasn’t fair. She didn’t want to be in love. She didn’t even want to be in like. She had pictures to take, dreams to chase and all kinds of rules to break. The whole idea of relationships and complications left her furious.
And frightened out of her mind.
She had seen a photograph in a book when she was twelve, and the photograph had made her realize what she wanted to do with her life. The picture wasn’t pretty or soft. It had frightened her with its terrible beauty and stark drama of nature caught out of balance. Dark seas raged against stark granite cliffs in the Sea of Brittany beneath stormy gray skies. Looking at the photo, Miki had shivered, almost able to feel the cold bite of flying sea spray. She had known nothing about the artist who had taken the photo and she had lost the magazine soon afterward, but something about that image had haunted her, first with nightmares and later with a dream that she could capture an image with the same focus and raw drama.
She still wanted that dream, but she wanted Max, too.
She stopped walking so suddenly that Dakota almost bumped into her. “Something wrong?”
“You name it,” she said grimly.
“Anything I can do to help?”
No one could help her, Miki thought. She was down for the count. If Max didn’t feel the same way…
But as she stared at the clouds racing across the horizon, Miki realized you couldn’t hold back change anymore than you could hold back the clouds. Life happened, and you didn’t ignore a thunderbolt when it hit you in the center of your heart. You had to grab hold, hang on tight and see where it took you.
Even when you were dead certain you were going to screw up just like you’d screwed up all the other things in your life…
“WHAT DO YOU THINK you’re doing?” Izzy scowled as the tent flap opened. “You can’t come in here.”
“I can’t?” Miki shouldered her way through the door, determination on her face. She stopped suddenly, seeing that Max was alive. Seeing he was stretched out on a cot. Then seeing that he was naked.
“You’ll have to leave.” Izzy dropped a scalpel on a nearby cot and pulled a medical drape in place. “I’m just finishing here. The man’s naked.”
“So?” Miki looked over Izzy’s shoulder, and her face went pale. “What’s wrong with him? Why is there so much blood on his neck and his shoulder?” She wobbled a little, and Dakota and Izzy caught her, one arm each. “I’m—fine, really. I just want to know the truth. No more of these dumb excuses.” She took a deep breath. “How is he really?”
Izzy smoothed a gauze bandage over Max’s shoulder. “He’ll be out a little longer because I gave him something for the pain. But he’s going to live, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I’m worried about a lot of things,” Miki said quietly. “But living seems like a good place to start.” She looked at Izzy for a long time, frowning. “I saw you at the hospital with Wolfe, right?”
“Definitely not.” He dropped what looked like a small piece of metal into a glass container and then reached for a bottle of brown liquid. “And don’t ask me again.”
“What’s that stuff?”
“Betadine.”
“Because there are signs of infection?”
“No, but I’m taking no chances.”
“What was that other thing you were holding?” Miki asked quietly. “The small piece of metal.”
“Just an old bit of shrapnel. I’m almost done here. If you wait outside, I’ll come get you. Then you can talk to Max.”
Miki looked mutinous. “I want to stay. You won’t shock me. I’ve spent plenty o
f time in hospitals,” she said tightly. “My mother had cancer. She lived at home as long as she could, but…”
“I’m sorry to hear about your mother.” Izzy glanced at Dakota. “Why don’t you two go tell Wolfe that he can see the patient in about fifteen minutes when Max comes around.”
Miki crossed her arms. “I’m not leaving until—” Suddenly her face went pale, and she grabbed for the wall of the tent.
Izzy caught her as she lost her balance.
“I—I’m fine,” she whispered.
But there was a trail of blood from her nose, and her body was rigid. When he put this together with Max’s conversation with Cruz, Izzy began to be worried. He was reaching for a piece of gauze for her nose when he felt her legs give way. Five seconds later she was out cold, and the nosebleed was coming full force.
“I’ll take care of her,” he told Dakota. “Go tell Houston to find out what happened to that chopper. We may not have a lot of time here.”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, I can’t see her? Like hell I’m staying away.” His face hard with determination, Max crossed the beach toward Izzy and Wolfe. “Cruz didn’t just put an old chip in place back in Santa Fe. He also inserted some new kind of implant. She could be in serious danger,” he snapped.
“Take it easy.” Wolfe blocked his path. “Izzy’s handling this just fine.”
“Handling what? We don’t know what Cruz did. By the time we figure it out, it may be too late to help her.”
“I’ve got a handheld x-ray,” Izzy said calmly. “I’ve made a thorough scan of her arm. There was a chip in there and I removed it.”
Max waited, his face strained. “What else?”
“One in her carotid vein, but I can’t touch it. That kind of surgery is way beyond what we’re set up for here.”
A muscle moved at Max’s jaw. “How long until that chopper gets here?”
“Any minute. There’s a sub ready for us about twenty minutes away, and they’ll take her right into surgery.”
Max stared at Miki, her eyes closed as she appeared to sleep peacefully. “What’s going to happen to her?”
Izzy rubbed his neck tiredly. “You want the bullshit line or the truth?”
Max started to answer, but sighed. “The truth. I think.”
“The truth is, if we’re fast and if she’s strong and if we’re lucky, she’s going to be fine.”
“That’s three big ifs you’re juggling there, Teague.”
“Tell me about it.”
Max ran a hand through his hair and frowned. “So what can I do to help? There must be something.”
Wolfe put a hand on his shoulder. “What you need to do now is rest. She went nuts when she heard Izzy was working on you, and you can bet that you’ll be the first person she wants to see afterwards.”
Max prayed there was an afterward. Sitting on the beach with the sun on his back and the sea wind in his face, he prayed for other things, too. Impossible dreams, they whirled through his mind like old newspapers as he watched Miki sleep.
She was difficult, opinionated and quirky.
She was brave, quick-witted and unforgettable.
She had also told him she was getting married. But Max wasn’t giving up so easy. He’d just have to talk her out of settling for anyone else but him.
And what was he going to do if she didn’t feel the same way, not that he had any right to expect she did?
He blew out a breath and nodded at Wolfe. “So we wait. I’ll give it ten minutes. Then I’m getting on the radio and chewing Ryker’s—” His eyes narrowed as he continued to study Miki’s face. “What happened to her hair? It looks as if she—”
“Burned it,” Trace said, ambling up with a big coconut he’d just cut open. He dropped a piece of shaved coconut to Truman, who ate it neatly. “Happened when she used a blowtorch on one of Cruz’s thugs. He went after her while Dakota had his hands full, and the crazy fool let him have it with a blowtorch. Burned off part of her hair in the process, but she got her man.”
Max scowled. “Dakota should have been faster.”
“Yeah, and pigs should fly,” Trace muttered.
Max continued to frown. “Where did she find a blow-torch anyway? I don’t get it.”
Trace grinned. “Set fire to her hairspray and the knitting yarn. Or maybe it was nail polish remover and her shirt. Wolfe knows about that stuff, seeing as he’s hot and heavy with my sister.”
Wolfe’s eyes slitted. “I never said—”
Just then the distant drone of motors had the four men turning to scan the sky. Truman waited expectantly, never moving far from Miki’s side.
Max shot to his feet as the helicopters thundered closer. He ignored a stab of pain at his shoulder. “Let’s get her ready to move.”
Truman was right behind him, watching when he lifted Miki into his arms.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
WHEN MIKI OPENED HER EYES, the first thing she saw was Max, draped over the edge of an armchair beneath a single lamp, sound asleep. She blinked, wondering where the chair and lamp had come from because there was no furniture in the bunker. And how had he gotten electricity for the lamp?
She felt a faint hum beneath her and glanced around the space.
Metal walls. Small metal bed. Low ceilings painted industrial gray. Where was she?
When she tried to sit up, pain stabbed at her back and upper arm, and she was surprised to see heavy white bandages in place, looking fresh. She closed her eyes, feeling a wave of dizziness as she tried to remember what had happened before she fell asleep.
It was something bad, she knew that. Something that had threatened Max. But despite her mental search, she could remember only a plane crash and a white sand beach. Other fragments came to her then.
Max pulling her from the wreckage.
Max introducing her to a big dog that looked more intelligent than most people.
Max pulling her beneath a spray of water while they fought to shove off each other’s clothes in record time. His body had been amazing, his control unforgettable. Miki closed her eyes, her face filling with heat. She’d really done it this time.
She’d fallen hard, the way it felt when you fell forever. The once-in-a-lifetime kind of way that left you thinking of thirty-year mortgages and family insurance plans.
Scary.
She took a deep breath and ran a hand through her hair, frowning when she felt tiny strands snap off. The pieces were bumpy and dark, almost as if they’d been burned. What was that about?
None of it made sense, and she was tired, although she had just awakened.
Max would know what was wrong. She started to wake him up, but he looked worn out and the big bandage at his neck and shoulder reminded Miki of something bad, something to do with danger and how close they had both come to dying. There were other images that flashed and then vanished, but the more she tried to reach them, the more blurred they became.
Clearly, someone had treated her arm. She thought maybe they had given her medicine that left her woozy, unable to sort out the recent past. That much made sense.
She yawned, reaching for a glass of water beside the bed, but her muscles seemed slow and she ended up knocking the glass onto the floor.
Max shot upright, instantly alert. “Don’t move,” he said curtly. “You’re supposed to stay still. I’ll get whatever you need.”
There was something fiercely protective in his eyes, mixed with a tenderness Miki had never expected to see in a man’s face. She couldn’t speak, overcome by emotion.
“Are you in pain? Tell me, honey. I’ll go get Izzy for some medicine.”
“N-not pain.” Miki swallowed hard, suddenly panicked and uncertain and wanting too many things she had never dared to want before. “Are you hurt? I remember the crash and the island, then something dangerous happened. I was worried for you, and there were other people, but it gets all blurry after that.”
“Don’t worry, that’s normal.” A muscle twitched at Max’s jaw. He
sat on the edge of her bed and took her hand into his, locking their fingers. “Whatever you need to remember will come back when the medicine wears off. Try to rest while I go find another glass for water.”
“Forget the water.” Her fingers tightened, holding him. “Stay here and talk to me instead. I was…afraid for you.”
“I’m just fine. See?”
She wanted to touch the hard line of his face and kiss the bruise at his chin. The force of her need to touch him left her breathless.
But she’d lied to him, tried to push him away with her story about a wedding being planned.
Funny, but I love everything about your face. Your mouth, when it curves in that way you have. The little scar above your right cheek.
The way your eyes narrow and darken when you kiss me.
Miki looked away, overwhelmed by the new emotions. She was frightened to feel so much, to want so much. She wasn’t going to call the feeling love, though it sure as heck felt that way.
“Hey.” Max cradled her cheeks and gently turned her back to face him. “It’s me, remember? This is the guy you tried to deck one or twice. The helpless victim nearly asphyxiated by that shrug of yours.”
“I can’t remember what happened. Everything’s still a blur.” She closed her eyes, exhausted by the effort to make sense of things. “Have you seen my shrug? I really want to have it back. It’s just a piece of clothing, but—”
“I told everyone to watch for it, and I gave them a description. It’s bound to turn up, and as soon as it does, I’ll bring it to you.”
He’d done all that?
Something melted in a puddle inside her, and Miki felt herself smiling a loopy smile. “You did that? Wait—who is everybody?”
“The guys I work with. Wolfe Houston, too.”
“I know Wolfe. He’s going to marry Kit.” She frowned, feeling her thoughts blur again. “They must have given me some animal-grade painkillers, because I’m really floating here. Up and down, up and down.” She made a little rocking movement with her hand.
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