by Cindy Dees
It all rushed back at once. Armed men had jumped out of the helicopter and caught him as flat-footed as his grandmother. There hadn’t been a damned thing to do but roll with the blow to his head and fall inside the bird.
He’d counted six men. Heavily armed, wearing headsets and body armor, moving swiftly and in well-coordinated fashion. They’d kidnapped the influential senator’s daughter. For ransom? Blackmail on a political decision? Publicity, maybe? Kimberly Stanton was nearly as famous as her father. And her father was a national hero.
Tex frowned. How long he and Kimberly had been unconscious was anybody’s guess. You could keep a guy out cold for days with a good knockout spray. Awareness of his immediate surroundings began to register. He wasn’t in a helicopter anymore—the rumbling noise under his ear was a diesel engine. The hard floor he laid on bounced like a truck hitting a rut.
His right side was warm. The kind of warm that comes from having a naked woman plastered to you after sweaty sex. How real was that dream? He cracked open his eyes for a look.
She wasn’t naked, but Kimberly Stanton was definitely plastered against him. In fact, her leg was lying on top of his thigh and her knee was rubbing against his…
Damn! He finally had a gorgeous blonde tied up and draped all over him, and she had to be unconscious. Yeah, well, this wasn’t the time to be thinking about that. He noticed curved metal ribs covered in canvas overhead. Yup, a truck.
He waited until the next good bump in the road and turned his head to the left under cover of the jostling. He slitted his eyes open again. The sight that greeted him caused his eyes to pop fully open in surprise. One man in military fatigues with an AK-47 rifle propped across his lap leaned against the far wall of the truck, fast asleep.
Either the guy was a complete moron or else their captors expected Tex to be unconscious for a good while longer. They probably hadn’t accounted for the fact that he could hold his breath for nearly three minutes. Most of the knockout gas they’d sprayed at him in the helicopter had dissipated before he’d been forced to inhale it.
He noticed something else lying tossed in the corner behind the soldier. The bulky sniper rifle he’d been carrying when he approached the helicopter. He smiled briefly at that bit of good luck. It was a hell of a weapon and would come in handy if he and the senator’s daughter managed to escape.
He tested the bonds holding his hands behind his back. The rope had some give in it. Big mistake by his captors. He worked on it for no more than a minute before his right hand slid free of the restraint.
Urgency rode him hard. He didn’t have the foggiest idea what he’d gotten tangled up in, but it couldn’t be good. The initial attack bore all the signs of a professional job—the yahoo snoring across the truck bed notwithstanding.
Tex disentangled himself from the girl and sat up cautiously. Still the guard didn’t move. Quickly, he reached down and untied his feet. This was almost too easy. He eased himself high enough to peer over the tailgate and out the back of the truck. No other vehicles were following them.
Sonofagun. The kidnappers, who’d been so organized up until now, had actually left open a window of opportunity for him and the girl to escape. Hell, a big, gaping door of opportunity. He briefly weighed the risk to her life of attempting to escape versus staying. The odds of her living on the run were slim, but her chances with the kidnappers were zero.
He went to work.
As silent and deadly as a snake, he struck, leaping across the width of the truck. He brought down the edge of his hand in a quick, rigid chop to the guard’s left temple. The guy crumpled over to the floor. Tex paused for a moment to blink away the dizziness that hit him after moving fast. They’d gotten some of that gas into him and he was still suffering the effects.
Pushing himself to concentrate, Tex stole the guy’s watch, then tied the guard’s hands tightly using the same ropes that had bound him. He tore off a piece of the guy’s shirt and stuffed it into the fool’s mouth. The guy’s belt secured the gag tightly in place.
After a glance at Ms. Stanton’s short skirt, which was riding perilously high on her hips, and her pink high-heeled shoes, he stripped the guard of his pants, socks, and combat boots. Quickly, he searched the guy’s pockets and grabbed a cigarette lighter, tobacco, and the fellow’s red beret. He finished immobilizing the guy by trussing his feet and hands tightly to the side of the truck so he couldn’t kick and bang and make a fuss to get the driver to stop.
Then Tex turned his attention to the woman. Even unconscious, she radiated class. From her smooth golden hair and sculpted cheekbones to the chic elegance of her conservative skirt and sweater, to her perfectly buffed fingernails. Kimberly Stanton was upper crust all the way.
She also was dead to the world.
He slapped her cheeks a few times and lifted her eyelids, but she was out cold. He dared not wait around for her to revive. He fought off a wave of nausea and kept moving.
He untied Kimberly and stuffed the rope into a deep pocket on the thigh of his fatigue pants. Then he shouldered both the RITA rifle and the guard’s AK-47. Leaning down, he lifted her over his other shoulder with a grunt.
Thank goodness she was slender. He nearly passed out as it was from the exertion of lifting even her slight weight. He silently blessed the years of rigorous training that kept him functioning reasonably efficiently, even though his brain felt like mush.
He eased the tailgate down and sat in the middle of it, out of sight of any rearview mirrors the truck might have. He dangled his legs over the edge, cradling Kimberly’s limp form in his arms, waiting for his chance to jump. God, she even smelled rich. Her sophisticated perfume made him want to sink into it and into her and lose himself in both.
The truck was going maybe thirty miles an hour over a dirt surface. Thick jungle lined the edges of the road. His vision blurred and a shapeless sea of green swam all around him. He shook it off as the truck’s brakes squeaked. The vehicle slowed and started around a bend in the road. He tightened his arms around the woman, crushing her against his chest and tucking her head against his shoulder. He didn’t need to rescue her just to turn around and break her neck. He took a deep breath and jumped to the outside of the curve.
Twisting in midair to absorb most of the impact on his left shoulder, he cushioned the woman’s fall. Unfortunately he wore the weapons on that side. The metal slammed into his flesh, numbing his left arm completely.
They rolled over and over down an embankment, coming to a jarring stop in a grassy ditch.
It took several seconds for Tex to register cold water soaking through his clothes. He rolled over in alarm, dragging Kimberly’s unconscious face out of the shallow water. In her state, a few tablespoons of inhaled water would be enough to kill her.
He ran his hands quickly over her arms and legs, checking for injuries from the jump out of the truck. Medically speaking, he ought to check her more thoroughly. But he had to get her out of here right away. He scrambled onto his hands and knees. Shooting pain radiated outward from his left shoulder. He tested it gingerly. Good news—it was semi-functional. Bad news—it hurt like hell.
He hoisted her across his back in a fireman’s carry and crawled up the far side of the embankment. There was no help for the deep, black gouges he left in the dirt as he dragged himself, two rifles, and the dead weight of Kimberly Stanton out of the ditch.
When he’d gained the cover of the underbrush, he rose to his feet, steadying himself against a rough tree. He would be glad when this damned woozy feeling passed.
Ignoring the weakness in his knees, he draped Kimberly’s arms over his shoulders and stood upright. Her breasts pressed against his back and he groaned under his breath at the sensation. Concentrate, pal. Save the woman’s life first. Play later.
Time was against him. He had to get her as far from the road as possible before her captors realized they’d bailed out of the truck. Anyone who’d gone to the trouble of landing a helicopter in the middle of a military ba
se to kidnap a senator’s daughter wasn’t about to let her escape without a chase.
They—whoever they were—would be coming after him and Miss Kimberly Stanton, antimilitary lobbyist extraordinaire. Soon.
The irony of the situation struck him. If he managed to return her safely to Washington, D.C., she would launch a campaign to destroy him for having the very skills he’d used to save her life.
Go figure.
He took quick stock of the situation. He was loaded down with eighty pounds of weapons, plus a hundred and twenty or so more of unconscious female. His head spun, his shoulder hurt like hell, and his legs weren’t cooperating properly. Nonetheless he had to hump it out of here pronto. No doubt about it, the next few hours were going to purely suck.
And when Kimberly Stanton woke up, he had faith this day would go from bad to worse.
CHAPTER TWO
Kimberly opened her eyes and was assailed by a series of strange impressions. A veritable ocean of green all around her. The pungent smell of rotting grass clippings. Dappled sunlight overhead. It felt almost as if she were lying on cold, damp ground.
The vision had no basis in any reality she’d ever experienced. It had to be a dream. A really vivid one. She closed her eyes and willed that briefly glimpsed alternate reality back into the oblivion it had come from.
A hand shook her shoulder.
Part of the dream. She ignored it.
It shook her harder.
She opened her eyes again. “Stop that!” she ordered the pesky dream, which was quickly escalating to the status of an hallucination.
A male voice, right beside her, said, “I know you can hear me. Wake up, Miss Stanton.”
She blinked up at the man. Short, light brown hair with touches of red and gold. Bright blue eyes. Nice tan. Heck, nice everything. Wait a minute. She knew that face from somewhere. Finally something in this bizarre dream that she recognized. She experimented with talking to the apparition. “Where have I met you before?”
“The Quantico firing range.”
Images of this man blowing people’s brains out flashed into her mind’s eye. She recoiled violently from the hand on her upper arm.
“Easy, darlin’,” Tex murmured.
Kimberly looked around. For all the world, it looked as if she was sitting on her derriere in the middle of a jungle. The National Botanical Garden, maybe? But how did she get from a military base in suburban Virginia to downtown Washington, D.C.? Nothing about this dream made sense. Freud would’ve had a field day with it.
“Where am I?” she asked disjointedly.
The man answered with a straight face. “I don’t know for sure, but I think we’re in Gavarone.”
She laughed in disbelief. “Gavarone? As in South America?”
“Yup. Nasty little place. In the middle of a civil war.”
Absurd. Her subconscious had really cooked up a whopper this time. “Next you’re going to tell me we’re lost in the jungle and your name’s Tarzan.”
“Actually,” the cover model hunk said gravely, “we are lost in the jungle. But the name’s Tex. Tex Monroe.”
She frowned. Tex Monroe. A snippet of memory popped into her head. He was a Special Forces soldier on loan to give her and a bunch of reporters a demonstration with some sort of new gun. She remembered standing beside him while he shot it.
She looked around again. The birds sounded all wrong. Where were the traffic noises always faintly audible at the National Botanical Gardens? It smelled funny, too. Earthy and green. This lush tropic was definitely not Washington, D.C.
A seed of doubt took root in her mind. Surely this wasn’t real. “If you and I met at Quantico, then how did we end up in Gavarone?”
“I don’t know, ma’am.”
“Any guesses?” she challenged.
He shrugged. “After you and I got tossed into the helicopter, your captors hit us with knockout spray. They probably transferred us to an airplane and flew us down here.”
She frowned. His words made sense, but the scenario he described was ludicrous.
His voice cut across her confusion. “How do you feel? Any pain? Swelling? Numbness?”
Why, yes. Her whole brain was numb. “What time is it?” If anything, her disorientation was deepening, not fading.
“It was about noon when they grabbed us. The watch I lifted says it’s ten o’clock. From the light and temperature conditions, I’d assume it’s morning.”
She frowned. “Tossed into a helicopter?”
He nodded and, as if willing her to remember, looked deeply into her eyes. His eyes. She remembered them…turquoise blue. Staring at her in surprise at close range. Widened in concern. Then narrowed with lethal intent.
An abrupt image of a sleek black chopper came to her. Men in black clothes and masks bursting out of it. Being shoved inside. Combat boots. Guns. Tex landing beside her. And then a silver aerosol can. Surely that couldn’t all be real. This was a figment of her imagination run amuck.
Wasn’t it?
She asked slowly, “Am I awake?”
He grinned and her heart tripped at the masculine flash of white against tanned skin. He leaned close to her, his gaze fixed on her mouth as if he was contemplating kissing her. A sense of déjà vu flashed in her brain.
Riding the wave of the pseudo memory, she lifted her chin like she had before to kiss him back. Their breaths mingled, the humid heat caressing her lips. She knew him. But how? One thing she was certain of—if she’d ever kissed this man before, she would definitely remember it.
He pulled back abruptly, far enough for her to see his turbulent gaze. “Oh, yeah. This is for real, darlin’.”
She shivered appreciatively at the honey-sweet drawl in his words. Then the import of what he’d said slammed into her. This was real. All of it! Horror started low in her belly and bubbled upward, expanding and growing until it nearly choked her.
She scrabbled backward, away from the man seated beside her. “No! It can’t be!” she exclaimed in dismay.
He looked around sharply and snapped, “Keep your voice down. Whoever tried to kidnap you is still out there somewhere. We don’t need to scare up a bunch of wildlife with your screeching and give away our position.”
“By all means,” she snapped back. “Let’s not upset the baboons!”
“Especially not the ones with AK-47s who kidnapped you,” he bit out.
“Kidnapped…” Her? Ridiculous. “How did we end up in a jungle in Gavarone if someone actually tried to kidnap me?” she demanded skeptically.
“Because Maui was booked?” he suggested sarcastically.
She scowled. “I’m serious. Someone really tried to kidnap me?”
His voice went grim. “They more than tried, darlin’. They succeeded. But I managed to break us out.”
She stared at him, dumbfounded. “How?”
He merely shrugged in response.
“How did we end up out here?” She swept a hand around at the lush greenery crowding in on them.
“I carried you. Look, eventually the bad guys will realize we jumped out of their truck, and they’ll be back. We need to get going.”
She simply stared. Ample evidence that he was telling the truth crowded in on her from all sides, but her brain refused to accept it.
“Now that you’re awake, Princess, we need to put as much distance behind us as we can while we’re still in fairly good shape.”
She felt in anything but good shape at the moment. Complete, paralyzing shock was a more accurate description of her state. Furthermore, the idea of traipsing around a jungle held no appeal whatsoever. “Which way’s the road?” she asked reasonably.
“If, in fact, we are in Gavarone, most of the countryside is controlled by the rebels. The guard in the truck with us was wearing a red beret,” he answered obliquely.
She could ferret information out of the most close-mouthed politicians or the slimiest reporters, but this man’s logic completely escaped her. “And your point?
” she challenged.
“The Gavronese rebels wear red berets.”
She spoke slowly, working her way through what he’d said. “So Gavronese rebels kidnapped me—although I can’t imagine why—and we’re in their territory. Hence, any car that drives by is probably friendly to the people who tried to nab me.”
“Exactly!” He seemed inordinately pleased that she’d grasped the scenario.
“Okay, so we avoid the road.” She scowled at Tex. “And no road means no ride. So what exactly do you propose we do to get out of here? Hijack a flying carpet?”
“We avoid all contact with people and walk to the nearest big city where we can get help from government or antirebel forces.”
He made it all sound so easy. “And just how far away is this big city?” she asked suspiciously.
He shrugged. “Hey, I’m not even sure we’re in Gavarone, let alone where the nearest city is.”
She threw up her hands. “So you want us to wander around aimlessly in a jungle until we either starve to death or get rescued?”
“There’s plenty of food out here,” he answered casually. Too casually. “We won’t starve. Getting shot, however… Or bit by a snake… Or eaten by a wild animal…”
Her eyes widened in alarm. “I’m sorry. I don’t recall putting jaguar repellent in my purse this morning. I don’t think so, G.I. Joe.”
“Look, it’s not that bad,” he cajoled her. “There’s a road just over that way. If we parallel it, it’ll eventually lead to civilization. Since the truck went south, we head north. Hopefully to St. George and the Atlantic Ocean.”
St. George, she vaguely recollected, was the capital of Gavarone and was situated on the northern coast of that tiny nation. God bless her private education for supplying that wonderful bit of trivia, she thought sardonically.
She planted her hands on her hips. “Let me get this straight. You’re going to walk the length of a country, through a jungle, avoiding God knows who or what. At the ocean, you’ll flag down…what? The nearest aircraft carrier to take us home?”
“You’re going to walk the length of the country with me, Princess.”
