Never Surrender (Task Force Eagle)

by Susan Vaughan

  “It’s March. Most birds are still in Miami. But it’s a deal.” With a pure, happy smile that rocked him, she sprinted uphill.

  He raced after her. Halfway up they shed outer garments and knotted jacket sleeves at their waists. In five minutes over her previous record, they reached the end of tree cover and their destination.

  The last Ice Age had scraped the mountain’s heights to bedrock, endless slabs of pink and gray granite frosting on a rounded cake. The wind carried a salty tang. Scraggly bushes and stunted evergreens sprouted here and there, but nothing blocked the panorama. The view stole the remainder of his breath. He sank onto the low branch of a gnarled cedar.

  From the West Face the trail led them to the south side of Otter, facing the vast indigo expanse of the Gulf of Maine. “When Dad died and the family was in turmoil, I came up here to find balance. I feel close to Heaven on this mountain.”

  “I see what you mean. I’ve always lived by the water, but I’ve never looked down on it this way. Not even in San Francisco, where city streets and buildings interfered.”

  “The cottage is just down there on the shore, white with double chimneys.” She offered him binoculars, but the sag in her shoulders told him what he’d see.

  Rick adjusted the focus. “No boat. No smoke from either chimney. All quiet.”

  She sighed and her chin trembled. “No Jordan. And Uncle Grady’s still out delivering wood or windows or groceries to the islanders.”

  He felt her disappointment all the way to his toes. “Look at it this way. Now Olívas and company won’t find him here either.”

  She plucked the water bottle from her backpack and offered it in exchange for the binoculars. She pointed beyond the shore. “Look out there. Those islands. That’s Great Cranberry and Black and Swan.”

  He imagined he tasted her on the bottle’s lip. He thirsted for her, not water. Her nipples puckered against her tee. She slipped on her jacket before he had to start counting again. Damn, was she trying to kill him? Temptation to the last thread of endurance.

  He squinted in the general direction she’d pointed. “I can’t see exactly where you’re pointing.”

  She raised her right arm again. “This way.”

  He rose and stepped close behind her, circling her waist with his left arm. “This way is just fine.” Bending to position his head beside hers, he slid his right hand along her pointing one. The peach fragrance of her curls tickled his senses. When he grazed his lips along the rim of her ear, she went as still as the mountain.

  “Ah, now I see the islands.” He tongued his way around her ear and sucked the lobe. One of her curls brushed his nose.

  “Um, Rick?” Her voice came as a thready whisper.

  “Mmm, querida?” He licked downward, along her smooth neck. At the hitch in her breath, he smiled against her skin, salty from the climb. She was warm and sweet and responsive as a blossom in the sun, and he wished it wasn’t fucking March in New England and they weren’t standing on a damn pile of stone.

  “The scenery?” She sighed and leaned into him. As though to give him better access, she arched her neck.

  “This view’s fine. Closer.” He nuzzled the hollow by her collarbone. “Don’t you like this?”

  “Oh . . . yes, but—”

  “Well, then.” He shouldn’t. He had to. He turned her in his arms and found her mouth. The taste of her lips steamed the blood in his veins. When she twined her arms around him and parted her lips, he hardened with a rush, intense and aching.

  “Juliana.” He sat on the boulder behind him and pulled her between his thighs so they were flush together. His body quivered with a need for her so intense it seared him to his soul.

  He craved her like a parched man did water. He ached to dive into her and see her eyes flare with passion, feel her clench around him. Maybe that would cleanse her from his system.

  He spread his left hand across her firm bottom to mold her against him. She undulated against his arousal, pressed her breasts against his chest. Angling her sideways he slipped his other hand under her shirt to cup one firm globe.

  She sucked in a ragged breath and leaned into his hand.

  His body pulsed with jagged need.

  With one last savoring sweep of his tongue, he set her away from him. “If we don’t stop now, I’ll embarrass myself.” He pressed a kiss to each of her palms. His hands shook as he released hers. If only he had a cigarette. “Tonight. Tonight I’ll make love to you in a bed until we’re both senseless, but this mountain is too hard.”

  If the stones beneath her feet had erupted, she couldn’t have looked more shocked. Embarrassment flamed her face. “No.”

  “No, you don’t want me to stop? You don’t want to wait?” His lips twitched with a grin. “Then we can try that low branch.”

  She backed away, apparently too dazed to spell it out. “No . . . I mean no.”

  He understood, but reluctantly, and allowed himself a dollop of smugness at her incoherence. She wanted him.

  But would he be betraying all he stood for by having sex with this woman? No. Her brother might be involved in the trafficking, but he’d bet his next paycheck on her innocence. Standing, he held up his hands. “I told you I would stop and I’m a man of my word.”

  “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let it get this far. My brother’s welfare is my concern. I can’t . . .” Her spine stiffened as she summoned composure. Averting her eyes, she repacked the water bottle and donned her jacket. “We should start down. Ready?”

  “I’m always ready. Don’t you know that?” Teasing was better. Laughter diluted tension. Held fear at bay. Laughter also seduced. He hoped.

  “You’re impossible.” Her lips curved in a warm—forgiving?—smile that made his heart bump an extra beat.

  After a sweep of the pink granite sloping to the woods and the distant blue water, they retraced their steps.

  Juliana hopped from boulder to boulder. “How did you become a DEA Agent? Didn’t your dad want you to be a doctor like him?”

  “Safe subject?”

  “Don’t laugh at me. Really. Tell me.”

  He considered his answer until they reached the tree cover. “Two of my sisters are doctors. Lupe’s a pediatrician, and Dolores is studying pathology. Dad wanted me to follow in his footsteps, but medicine wasn’t for me.”

  The trail leveled through an area of switchbacks around sheer faces of granite. The rock-strewn U-turns dropped almost as steeply. At the second switchback, a lively chattering resounded from the spruce trees.

  Rick stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “There, you hear it?” he said. “Hey, there are birds. What are they?” The tiny black-winged creatures darted from tree to tree.

  “Chickadees. Some birds do stay here for the winter. We might see a cardinal too.” Juliana adjusted her pack. “Not medicine. You wanted more adventure. Is that it?”

  “Maybe. Science isn’t my thing. A profession like that keeps you in school forever, ties you down.” Folding his arms, he leaned against a tree.

  “Why the DEA?”

  “Drugs are an evil that destroys too many of my people, Cuban and other Latinos.”

  He paused, considering how much he wanted to reveal. He wanted her to understand—and to see the connection to Jordan. “I had a brother, Rodolfo—Rudy. Two years older. He stuck up for me when we were little. Taught me to dribble in soccer and basketball.”

  “You had a good relationship.”

  “The best. Until his teens. Rudy hung out with the club crowd, got into drugs—Ecstasy, cocaine, heroine. Addiction led to working for the drug gang. Another of El Águila’s tentacles. One day Rudy disappeared into the bowels of Miami only to surface in the morgue. At age sixteen. I have to fight that scourge. Rid the world of El Águila’s infection.”

  The color drained from her cheeks, and fear was stark in her gaze. His tale had scared her, maybe too much. She cleared her throat and blinked. “That’s so sad, Rick. I can’t imagine how h
ard that would be on a family. Tell me more about your brother. What was he like?”

  Why didn’t make sense, but telling her was easy. “Rudy was smart and driven. He always had to be the best. Maybe that’s why when he rebelled, he crashed and burned.”

  “Did he look like you?”

  “Mostly. Taller, maybe because he was older.” Rick shoved away the errant thought that he’d never know Rudy’s adult height. “But he was so passionate. You could see the fire in his eyes. Me, I got by on—”

  “Charm. Not that you don’t have passion, mind you.” She gave him a soft smile. “No wonder you’re so dedicated. Your parents must be proud of you. Especially your dad.”

  He shrugged. Papá had never said as much. “I don’t see him enough to know.”

  Her blue-green gaze perused him earnestly. She placed a hand on his arm. “It would be hard not to be bitter about that. Did you and your dad used to be closer?”

  Her gentle comfort soothed the resentment he usually hid from people. “Maybe before Rudy died. Dad was only a teenager when he escaped from Cuba. He had to work hard to become a doctor. That meant a papá too busy for family dinners or soccer games.” He understood his dad’s drive, but didn’t accept its cost.

  “Aha.”

  “What’s aha supposed to mean?”

  Her full lips curved in a gentle smile. “Just that all families seem to be so complicated. Balancing numbers on a spreadsheet is way easier than adding up people. Sometimes I resent Molly racing all around searching for God knows what, and I have to remind myself she’s just doing the best she knows how. Maybe that applies to your dad.”

  “Maybe.” He watched a gray squirrel foraging in the leaves. The creature retrieved a pinecone and scurried away. Scrounging to feed the family. “My parents have done nothing their entire lives but work. I want freedom, fun in my life while I’m young.”

  “No ties, no responsibilities. I see.” She tilted her head as if at an insight. “You miss your family though, don’t you?”

  “A DEA agent signs a mobility agreement. They can send us anywhere. But yes, I miss home. I miss my family.”

  “Moving around the country, excitement and danger, your cup of tea?” Her brows drew together in a pensive frown, and she sat on a fallen log.

  “Don’t forget to add paperwork, bureaucracy, and red tape to that excitement.” He flopped beside her and stretched out his legs in the mulch of pine needles and dead leaves. “Someday I’d like to try for a Miami placement, a promotion. But the way this case is going, I’ll be lucky to retain special agent status.” He traced a vein on the back of her soft hand.

  “That doesn’t sound like the optimistic guy I started the day with,” she said in a tight voice. Did the sensitive stroking evoke the same erotic sensations he felt?

  “¡Ay, Dios mio! Your worrywart disease must be contagious. What shall I do?”

  “Does that mean no more kisses?” Her mouth curved, but her gaze remained somber.

  The possibility shook him more than he wanted to admit. If she was only teasing, he could be patient. “Hopeful or disappointed, Juliana?”

  In the silence of her hesitation, the fine hairs on Rick’s neck raised. Instinct switched on. What was different about the woods? He shot a comprehensive glance around.

  “I—”

  He covered her mouth with his fingers. “Listen,” he whispered.

  Chapter 8

  She cocked her head. When he lifted his hand, she whispered, “I don’t hear anything. What is it?”

  “Nothing. That’s just it. The critters didn’t mind our invasion, but now all is quiet.” The gut-sure sense of danger switched on his experience and training.

  Detach. Absorb. Analyze.

  “What’s wrong?” She bit her lower lip, fear in her wide eyes.

  Dammit, his cop tone had frightened her rather than merely caution her. Perhaps she ought to be frightened.

  “Could be nothing.” Stones clattered farther down the trail below the switchbacks. He levered to his feet and held a hand on her trembling shoulder. His gut tightened. “You stay here while I scope it out.”

  “Have they found us? Is it El Águila’s men?”

  At the quavering in her voice, the screw tightened. “It might be more hikers, but I won’t take a chance.”

  “What if they hear you coming?”

  He leveled a long, silent look.

  “Oops, sorry.” Juliana’s eyebrows drew together. “I forgot you were 007.”

  “Bond, no, but on SEAL missions I earned the nickname The Invisible Man.” He led her into the woods and behind a boulder where she’d be hidden from the path. “I’ll come back in a few minutes. Stay here, and don’t make any noise.”

  The slow tip of her head didn’t reassure him.

  “I mean it. Stay put.” He shed his jacket and thrust it at her. He could move better without it. Quieter. He checked his SIG. Replaced the weapon in his belt holster.

  Squeezing her shoulders, he planted a kiss on her forehead.

  Before Juliana could protest, Rick vanished into the trees as silently and invisibly as a ribbon of smoke.

  She hunched against the rock, listening. Whatever noises they heard below could come from ordinary hikers, but maybe the Mexicans were on the island.

  This excitement and their chat hadn’t restored her balance after that stunning embrace. She floated between frenzied desire and shimmering oblivion. He was sexy and dangerous, and she shouldn’t succumb, but when he touched her, her body—and her heart—ignored all warning bells.

  Maybe she’d been alone too long. Her involvement with Bill ended months ago. Then she’d had no time for a social life, much less a serious hook-up. His lovemaking never radiated desire like liquid flames through her like Rick’s kisses.

  Was she that vulnerable, or did the chemistry between them burn hotter than his Miami sun? Dammit, she’d rubbed against him like a cat in heat.

  The more she learned about him added up to a more complex Ricardo Cruz than she’d expected. More than the smooth charmer she first thought. Including his honorable retreat when she said no.

  His brother’s death from drugs had fired his zeal—his hatred of drugs and those who dealt in the dirty business. No wonder he wanted her brother at all costs. He must think her family was dirty. Did he suspect even her? The thought had her shifting her feet.

  And where was the man? He’d sneaked into the woods with a panther’s stealth, evidence of his military expertise. He’d be fine.

  She drummed fingers against the rough stone. She mangled her lower lip. Why didn’t he come back? How long had he been gone? She stared at her watch. Five minutes? Ten?

  She tied his jacket to her pack with shock cord and jogged in place. She couldn’t just wait here doing nothing. She was putting off disclosing one more place Jordan might be. She had to reach her brother first, and she’d deceive Rick if she had to. To balance accounts, she might be able to help him now. She adjusted her pack and tiptoed into the trees.

  The scent of pine and the sweetish decay of leaves mingled in the cold air. She concentrated on her surroundings, listening for voices or footsteps as she tried to follow Rick’s path. The only sounds came from branches clicking together in the breeze.

  And her clattering heart.

  Grasping trees and rocks for support and avoiding the sparse undergrowth and patches of ice, she maneuvered down the steep grade. At every footfall, the terrain mocked her attempts at stealth. Twigs snapped. Pebbles clattered. Desiccated leaves shivered.

  How the hell did Rick do it?

  She focused on the ground and eased around an ice patch to step on a soft patch of reindeer moss. There. No sound.

  The next step took her silently to a clump of bearberry, its stems devoid of summer’s shiny green leaves and red berries. Grinning with success, she hopped over a jagged stone to a lichen-encrusted boulder. When an overhanging branch snagged her pack, the sere wood broke with a loud snap. Her breath caught in
her lungs and her heart seemed to stop.

  Crack! The report came from below. That was no branch.

  Her stomach knotted and her temples felt clamped in a vise. She swallowed and made herself listen. Made herself think. The scrabble and thumping below meant her failure at stealth didn’t matter.

  She slid and leaped downhill toward the dissonance of combat. She raced through underbrush and over logs. When she rounded the boulder marking the last switchback, she crouched and peered through a tangle of branches.

  A figure in dark clothing lay beneath the cedar tree at the trail’s edge. A crimson stream trickled onto the frozen earth beneath his head. Needles pierced her heart.

  But the clothing was wrong. Not Rick. Thank God.

  Guttural exhalations and the jarring stridency of bone striking flesh and bone drew her gaze beyond the wounded man. Rick and the man she’d dubbed Droopy Mustache grappled in the middle of the steep trail. They struggled for possession of the pistol in Rick’s right hand. Another pistol lay in the middle of the rocky path.

  Heart pounding against her sternum, she bit her lower lip. If she rushed out and grabbed the discarded pistol, then what?

  Mustache delivered a chop to Rick’s right arm. Rick’s pistol sailed across the rocks like a pebble skimming water. When he tried to dive for it, Mustache wrenched his arm.

  From her downhill side came the scrabble of someone on the gravel path. She hunkered lower in the underbrush.

  It was the other one, the heavy-set, lumpish one who had pinned her for Droopy Mustache’s interrogation. Lumpy halted beside his prostrate comrade, but barely spared him a glance, his attention focused on the fight. The man presented his back to her, but held a pistol with a long black barrel.

  She had to stop him. She shrugged off the pack and searched it for a possible weapon. Lumpy was short and built like a bulldog, but maybe . . .

  Mustache twisted, holding Rick in a headlock. Lumpy stepped toward the combatants.

  A spasm gripped her chest. She slapped a hand over her mouth to contain a scream. She crept out, planting each step with precision. Don’t let him turn around.

  Lumpy stared ahead. He didn’t notice her stealing closer.