Dangerous Passions

by Brenda Harlen

  “Isn’t Miami the other way?”

  “It is,” he agreed, his tone grim. “And so is the Femme Fatale.”

  She squinted. She could see something in the distance—a dark blip on the horizon. But she couldn’t tell if it was even a boat, never mind Peart’s yacht.

  “How d-do you know?”

  He tossed her a pair of binoculars.

  She held them to her eyes, adjusted the focus. Her breath caught in her throat as the boat seemed to jump toward her. It was the Femme Fatale, and it was moving fast, slicing easily through the choppy water as it sped toward them.

  She lowered the binoculars, exhaling a shaky sigh when the vessel magically retreated into the distance again. “B-but there’s no way they can know I’m with you, on this b-boat.”

  Michael didn’t say anything.

  “C-can they?”

  “Peart used my name to get to you,” he reminded her. “Which means he knows who I am and why I was in Miami. It’s logical that he’d try to find me to find you again.”

  “M-maybe we should radio for help,” she suggested, wondering that she hadn’t thought of it sooner.

  “The radio doesn’t work.”

  “Oh.”

  He nodded grimly. “It’s just you and me.”

  She shivered as she stared out at the blue sky and even bluer water—less from cold than apprehension this time. “What are we g-going to do now?”

  “We’re going to duck in behind that island,” he said, nodding toward a small landmass directly ahead of them. “And hope like hell they go right past.”

  She fell silent, staring at the island that still looked so far away, not daring to watch Drew’s yacht draw steadily nearer.

  “Have you ever piloted a boat?”

  The abruptness of the question startled her, and it took a moment for her to respond. “No.”

  “Well, let’s hope you’re a quick learner.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I need you to take over here, just for a couple of minutes.”

  When she hesitated, Mike put his hands on her waist, guiding her into position at the helm. There was nothing of the passionate lover in his touch, yet somehow it evoked a flood of memories of those same hands on her skin the night before.

  “Why?” she asked again.

  But he’d already disappeared below deck.

  Shannon blew out a breath and tightened her fingers around the wheel. She hoped he didn’t have any particular course he expected her to follow, because she had no idea what she was doing. She simply fought to hold the craft steady as it bounced along on top of the rolling waves, lurching and swaying.

  The blanket fell from her shoulders, but she didn’t dare let go to retrieve it.

  A couple of minutes, he’d said.

  It was the longest two minutes of her life—except maybe those last two minutes she was in the water. Two endless minutes in which she couldn’t help but wonder how her life had turned down this path, how everything had spun so completely out of her control.

  Michael’s return put an end to her ineffectual ruminations.

  He carried a backpack slung over one shoulder, which he dropped at his feet before nudging her away from the wheel. “I’ll take over now.”

  She stepped back gratefully, her gaze once again drawn reluctantly to the pursuing boat.

  It was closer now. Too close.

  Michael was right—there was no way they could outrun Drew’s yacht. And although she still wasn’t sure she trusted him, she couldn’t deny that she needed him right now. Which meant that he needed to know the full extent of the threat they were facing.

  She swallowed, forcing down the fear that was clawing its way up her throat, then said, “They have weapons on the yacht.”

  The information didn’t surprise Mike; the fact that Shannon knew about the illegal arsenal did.

  “What kind of weapons?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. They were packed in straw inside a wooden crate. Guns of some kind, and some tube-shaped things.”

  Her description, vague though it was, confirmed what Garcia had told him. “Could be AK-47s,” he told her. “And shoulder-mounted rockets and RPGs.”

  He maneuvered the boat around the tip of the island, cutting the Femme Fatale from view—at least for the moment.

  She worried her bottom lip with her teeth. “What does all that mean?”

  He could give her any number of specs on each of those weapons: caliber, velocity, effective range. But he figured all she really needed to know could be summed up in a single word. “Trouble.”

  “I’m starting to wish I’d never left Chicago,” she admitted.

  “If Peart had already made up his mind that you were his target, you wouldn’t have been any safer there.”

  She fell silent again.

  He wished there was something he could say or do to reassure her, some way he could comfort her. But his priority right now was to keep her safe, and to do that he needed to stay focused. If last night had taught him nothing else, it had at least proven that touching Shannon Vaughn blew his focus all to hell.

  He concentrated on steering the boat. They were getting into shallower water now, closer to the island. Close enough he could see through the turquoise water to the rocks on the bottom, and he didn’t want to risk damaging the hull.

  He heard Shannon’s quick intake of breath and turned to see the bow of the Femme Fatale appear around the bend.

  “We need to get to the island,” he said. “It will be easier to evade them on land.”

  “Do you think we can evade them?”

  “I know we can.” He didn’t believe in making empty promises, but he was confident the skills he’d learned and honed with the U.S. Army Rangers would ensure their survival—if they made it to shore.

  He didn’t know if she believed him, but she didn’t argue the point. After a minute of tense silence, she spoke again. “They’re not following anymore.”

  He turned to see that the Femme Fatale had, in fact, stopped pursuing them.

  “That’s good, isn’t it?” Her voice was filled with cautious optimism.

  “I wouldn’t count on it.” Even if the water was too shallow for the yacht to come farther, he didn’t believe for a minute that Peart would give up.

  Mike squinted against the sun, focused on the tall, dark-haired man on deck. Or, more specifically, on the weapon he was settling on his bulky shoulder.

  He cut the engines and turned to Shannon. “We’re going to have to swim.”

  She balked. “What? Why?”

  He understood her resistance. She’d already spent too much time in the water, and now he was asking her to dive right back in. He understood, but he didn’t have time to argue with her or explain.

  Instead, he snagged the backpack with one arm, Shannon with the other, and jumped.

  They hit the water only a heartbeat before the boat exploded.

  Chapter 4

  Shannon kicked her way toward the surface, sputtering and gasping as she broke through the water. She sucked in a lungful of air and blinked to clear her vision. The acrid smoke stung her eyes, burned her lungs. Broken pieces of fiberglass and twisted shards of metal—all that remained of the boat—slowly sank to their watery grave.

  She twisted around, searching frantically through the debris for any sign of Michael, breathing an audible sigh of relief when he surfaced next to her.

  She’d been shocked, even angry, at the way he’d thrown her overboard—until, even under the water, she’d felt the shock waves from the explosion.

  He reached for her, squeezed her hand. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded.

  “Good. Because now we definitely have to swim.”

  This time, she didn’t ask any questions. He’d saved her life, and that, she decided, entitled him to a certain level of trust.

  Her muscles screamed in agony, but she swam. She found reserves of strength she hadn’t known she possessed and f
ollowed Michael as he cut through the water. But her strokes weren’t as strong or as smooth as his, and she quickly found herself falling behind.

  Or she would have, if he hadn’t taken her in a rescue hold and towed her.

  She felt guilty for being such a burden, but she had no reserves of strength to draw on. He didn’t release her until they were only in hip-deep water. “Can you run?”

  She nodded, determined to at least make the effort.

  And it was an effort, the drag of the water and the slickness of the rocks conspiring to impede their progress toward the beach. Her already overtaxed muscles threatened to give up entirely, and she knew it was only the solid grip of Michael’s hand on hers that kept her moving.

  She heard the sound of an outboard motor and knew that Rico and Jazz were in pursuit. She didn’t turn to look. She didn’t want to know how close they were.

  The water was at her thighs, her knees, her ankles.

  They were moving faster now, but the sound of the approaching engine was almost deafening. Or maybe that was the sound of her heart pounding in her ears.

  The rocks gave way to sand, heavy and wet at first, then soft and hot beneath her bare feet. She was running as fast as she could, breathing hard with the effort of trying to keep up with him.

  “I can’t—”

  “You can,” Michael interrupted. “Into those trees.”

  Over the drone of the motor, she heard the staccato burst of gunfire. She recognized the sound because she’d heard it so often in movies, but it was louder and sharper in real life. And infinitely more terrifying.

  He released her hand to position himself behind her, his hand now on her back to propel her forward. “Move!”

  She felt the spray of sand against her legs as the bullets hit the beach.

  Their pursuers were too close.

  There was no way she and Michael could continue to outrun them.

  Finally they pushed into the cover of the trees.

  He didn’t let her stop to catch her breath but led her deeper.

  “Stop.” He breathed the word softly, almost soundlessly.

  Shannon halted beside him and saw that they were now facing the beach less than fifty yards down from where they’d disappeared into the trees.

  The beach onto which the Zodiac was now being dragged ashore.

  Jazz was in front, pulling the bow of the craft with one hand, holding some kind of gun in the other.

  “They can’t have gone far.” He dropped the boat, striding toward the opening between the trees where Shannon and Michael had disappeared. His hand gripped the weapon with easy familiarity, and she knew he was eager to start shooting again.

  Rico stayed beside the boat, shaking his head. “We don’t have time to go after them now.”

  “We can’t leave them here.” Jazz’s voice was filled with anger, frustration.

  In contrast, Rico’s was controlled, almost unconcerned. “Where are they going to go?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “That’s exactly the point. We have other things to take care of first—we’ll deal with the woman and Courtland when we get back.”

  “But—”

  “We can’t kill her yet, anyway, and if we don’t make that shipment, A.J. will kill us.”

  Jazz hesitated a moment, then nodded.

  Shannon felt some of the tension slowly seep from her body as she watched Jazz move back toward the Zodiac. But she didn’t breathe until she heard the motor start up again, and she didn’t speak until she saw the small boat heading back to the yacht.

  “What are we going to do now?”

  Mike had been prepared for the question. Unfortunately, he couldn’t give her a more definitive answer than to say, “Hope the Sarsat beacon on the boat was working.”

  “What’s a Sarsat beacon?”

  “It’s a distress signal sent via satellite to a search-and-rescue center. The coast guard might already be on its way.” If it was working.

  “Might?”

  He should have known she’d pounce on that word. “Since the radio was destroyed, we have to consider the possibility that the emergency signal may have been, as well.”

  “Destroyed?” She frowned.

  Damn.

  “It had been tampered with,” he admitted.

  “Oh.”

  But it was obvious she didn’t fully understand the implications of his explanation, and he didn’t want to expand on the details right now.

  “Let’s take a walk around,” he said. “Get our bearings.”

  He bent to retrieve the backpack, wincing when his arm flexed with the movement.

  Frowning, he glanced at the bicep, at the sticky crimson fluid trickling down his arm. He’d felt the bite of the bullet, the searing heat as the metal projectile cut through the flesh, but he’d put it out of his mind. Now that more immediate dangers had passed, he knew he should take care of the wound. It really wasn’t deep, but in this environment, infection was a definite possibility.

  “Which way—” Shannon gasped when she turned and saw the blood. “What happened?”

  “Those weapons you were telling me about,” he said. “Definitely AK-47s.”

  “You were shot?”

  “Flesh wound,” he said dismissively.

  “There’s an awful lot of blood….”

  Her face seemed to drain of color right before his eyes, and he was afraid, for a moment, that she might pass out. “Are you okay?”

  She drew in a breath, steadied herself. “I’m not the one who was shot.”

  He glanced at the wound, the blood still seeping down his arm. It really was minor—the bullet just having grazed the skin. “It’s fine.”

  She shook her head and muttered something that sounded like “macho idiot” under her breath.

  This time he did smile.

  “Is there a first-aid kit in the backpack?” she asked.

  “Yeah.” He reached inside for the metal box with the familiar red cross on the top, scowling when he realized the box was wet, that everything inside the waterproof pack was wet. His scowl deepened when he realized there was a bullet hole in the fabric, and the canteen he’d packed was both broken and empty. He was almost more annoyed at the loss of the water than his injury. He bit back a curse and handed Shannon the first-aid kit.

  She rummaged inside until she found an antibiotic wipe, gauze pads and tape. Her fingers were cool and gentle as she dabbed at the blood around the torn flesh.

  The light touch reminded him of the way those same hands had skimmed over the bare skin of his chest, gripped his shoulders. The memory made him tense, tightening the muscles in his arm.

  He swore.

  She pulled her hand away. “Did I hurt you?”

  Yeah, but the pain he was feeling had nothing to do with her nursing skills.

  “No,” he responded to her question, his voice sounding hoarse, aroused, even to his own ears.

  She glanced at him warily, then away quickly, returning her attention to his arm.

  He tried to focus on the scarlet blossom of a hibiscus flower visible in the distance, but his gaze kept being drawn back to Shannon. Her head was bent down as she applied herself to her task. Her long hair hung in a tangled, dripping mass down her back, but even the saltwater residue failed to dim its fiery color. Her neck was long and slender, the skin pale and smooth.

  He wondered how she would respond if he dipped his head to nibble the soft lobe of her ear, press his lips to the graceful curve of her neck, touch his tongue to the racing pulse point at the base of her throat.

  His eyes riveted on that pulse point.

  It was racing.

  She might project cool competence and a hands-off attitude, but Shannon Vaughn wasn’t as unaffected as she wanted him to believe. Or maybe it was adrenaline that was causing her heart to pump so furiously.

  He let his gaze drop further, to the wet T-shirt that clung provocatively to her generous curves. Her nipples pebbled bene
ath his stare, confirming that there was more than just adrenaline at work here.

  She lifted his arm gently, to clean away some already dried blood, and his elbow brushed against her breast.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Her response was automatic, but he noticed that her cheeks had turned pink and her hands weren’t quite as steady when she unrolled and tore off a piece of tape to fasten the gauze to his arm.

  She definitely wasn’t unaffected, and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to bridge the distance between them and cover her mouth with his own.

  It was a natural desire under the circumstances—the result of adrenaline pumping through his own system. Because he understood the reaction, he was able to resist the impulse.

  Besides, he knew one kiss wouldn’t be enough. He wanted not just to taste her lips but to touch her all over. He wanted to hear her soft sighs and throaty whimpers as his hands moved over her naked flesh, to feel the yield of her soft curves to the press of his body as they merged together and finished what they’d started in her room.

  He exhaled a ragged breath.

  One kiss definitely would not be enough.

  She finished applying the second piece of tape. Then she glanced up, her eyes locking with his, and he saw the desire that raged through him reflected in the dark-green depths of her gaze.

  He heard her sharp intake of breath, noted the slight parting of her lips.

  If he leaned toward her now, would she pull away?

  Or would she meet him halfway?

  He stepped back, away from Shannon, out of reach of temptation.

  She closed the first-aid kit, put it away, then slung the bag over her shoulder.

  “Let’s go.”

  She sighed. “I’m guessing since Rico and Jazz left us here, there isn’t anyone else on this island.”

  “That’s right,” he admitted. “We’ve landed on our very own Gilligan’s Island, and the first order of business is to find water and make shelter.”

  “Make shelter?”

  He nodded.

  “What do you plan to do, Gilligan? Build a little hut out of palm fronds?”