Vortex (Cutter Cay)

by Cherry Adair

  “The operative word there is ‘try.’ He tried, and failed,” Logan reminded her, with barely leashed fury. He cradled his now cold mug, and considered her for several hard beats of his heart as he weighed his options. Places he could stash Daniela where no one would find her.

  Even with his ship crawling with armed security men, in the middle of the damn ocean, he still had a prickle on the back of his neck, a heavy feeling of impending trouble in his gut that he just couldn’t shake.

  “It’s counterproductive talking to yourself when I’m right here. Just say what you’re thinking out loud, and we can discuss my future like rational humans.”

  “I don’t feel very rational right now.”

  “No, I can see by that scary black look on your face that you don’t. If you keep gritting your teeth like that you’ll wear them down to unattractive nubs. Right now, right this second, the two of us are sitting here enjoying the sun coming up, and the breeze in our hair, and a cup of coffee. And I for one am still all hot and bothered and tingly after this morning. So let’s discuss what’s making your brain hurt, and then get on with our day.”

  “Pollyanna.” He felt a smile crack.

  “Don’t buy trouble. I know it’s hot on my heels, and I’m so sorry I’ve brought it to your door. But can we please live in this moment? Just for this moment? Let’s discuss what has you worrying, and try to come up with a workable plan, then implement it, and enjoy all this. Can we do that? Please?” She plucked blowing strands of hair from her mouth.

  “Stamps found you in the middle of the Pacific, despite you having no connection to myself or the Sea Wolf. If I send you to my home on Cutter Cay … Stamps could find you there just as well as he found you here.” And who would protect her? He considered sending a veritable army with her, plus Zane. Plus Nick …

  “I’m a sitting duck on an island. Eventually, I’d have to leave.”

  “Yeah.” He’d already realized that, as tempting as it might be to know she’d always be there waiting—God, had he lost his mind? “You’re right.” Logan wouldn’t allow this to continue, with them—her looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life. He had to put an end to it once and for all.

  There wasn’t anyone he trusted more than himself to keep her safe. On Sea Wolf they had a three-sixty view. No one could approach the ship without being seen. Not again. They hadn’t known what the fuck they were dealing with yesterday. Today, everyone was on the same page.

  “The solution to that is simple. I don’t want to stay on board,” Daniela told him, her expression mutinous. “I have cabin fever, and I’m seasick. Lima has a zillion people. I assure you, I can disappear there.”

  He knew she wasn’t seasick, and his ship was too damned big to give anyone cabin fever, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to disappear in Lima where he couldn’t retrieve or protect her.

  “No,” he told her unsympathetically, as the ship’s helicopter hovered overhead, frothing up the water before landing with a loud, wind-driven thud, on the upper deck.

  Reinforcements had arrived.

  He softened his voice. “Look, I know you’re scared, and I know you don’t want to bring him here. But it’s already a done deal. Frankly, whether you’re here, or we manage to stash you away, he’ll send his people back. I’m not letting you out of sight until this is over. Which means, I’d go with you. And since I can’t be in two places at once, that would leave my ship unprotected. So you stay here. With me.” His ship had a full complement of crew, his armed dive team, and professional security guys; it wasn’t exactly unprotected. But the buck stopped with him. If the bad guys boarded, he had to be there to protect what was his.

  She rested her forearms on the table and gave him a heated look, eyes shadowed, mouth firm with determination. “It’s not in your control for it to be over, Logan. You can’t will Victor to leave me alone.”

  “When Price calls us back, we’ll see where we stand. In the meantime, don’t fight me on this.” As soon as they’d woken about an hour ago, Logan had insisted on calling the DEA agent in Washington, DC. He was very interested to hear what Price had to say about this situation. Logan figured he’d be relatively polite until this was concluded, then he’d pay Special Agent Steven Price a visit to ask him some pertinent questions. Like why the fuck he couldn’t protect one lone woman with enough proof to put the senator away for a long, long time.

  But first things first.

  “You’re putting everyone on board in danger! People who don’t know me, or give a damn about me. Why can’t you get it through your thick head that I don’t want people to die because I happened to show up? None of you owe me the time of day. Don’t you see that? He’s ruthless and vicious and he—” her voice rose. “Damn it. He’s scary powerful, and he knows people!”

  “Good. So do I.” Logan assured her. “And I’m going to introduce my people to his people, if and when they show up again.”

  She threw her hands up in the air. “And what am I supposed to do? Sit out here like a tethered goat?”

  That, of course, was a big fucking issue, but he said lightly, “You’re a very pretty goat.”

  “If Jed would just take me to Lima, I could disappear…”

  “No, Daniela. That’s not going to happen. First off, nobody but me is taking you anywhere. If Stamps wants you, he’ll have to come to me. And to get to you, he’ll have to go through me, and my security people and my crew. And you and that Glock—”

  “Hey.” He cut himself off to greet Jed and Wes as they came outside. “Thanks for doing the garbage run. Everything work out?”

  “Yeah.” Jed flopped down next to Daniela and reached over to pour himself a mug of steaming coffee. He held up the thermal carafe, and Daniela picked up Logan’s mug and her own, holding them out for Jed to pour. The breeze swirled steam and the scent of freshly roasted beans. A smell Logan usually appreciated but his gut was too twisted up right now to enjoy simple pleasures.

  His antennae were vibrating with anticipation of the unpleasant kind, no matter how much he tried to shake the feeling. It was going to be a gorgeous day, warm and with calm seas. They’d dive, and they’d have to decide whether to start salvaging what they found, or leave it where it had lain for four hundred years, until this clusterfuck was resolved.

  “We brought four guys back with us,” Jed told him. “We’ll have a dozen more in about an hour.”

  “Any excitement while we were gone?” Wes asked, reaching over to pour himself a cup of coffee and grab a sweet roll from the platter in the center of the table.

  Daniela’s sparkling eyes met Logan’s, and she hid her smile behind her cup, murmuring, “Nothing worth mentioning.”

  Logan choked on a mouthful of coffee, gave her a look, and said, “I’ve contacted Nick as well.” Nick had some very interesting friends. His younger brother assured him his friends would mobilize and be there ASAP. Logan didn’t ask questions. If Nick said they could take on Stamps, he believed it. “And anyone on board who wants to be armed, is armed.”

  Logan had gathered everyone on board at first light, explained the bones of the situation, and offered them an out if they wanted to get off the ship. None had.

  Jed shot a look at Daniela with a raised brow.

  “Yes, she’s armed, too,” Logan told him flatly. “Because this dick wants her. And she has to know that every precaution is being taken all the way down the line to ensure that will not happen.”

  Jed put up his hands. “Hey, far be it from me to complain. I think a woman packing is hot.”

  “Then it’ll make your day to go warn Sea Witch that hanging around here could get seriously dangerous. Tell her to bug off, and go follow Zane or Nick for a while.”

  Jed grinned. “She’ll be touched you care.”

  “I don’t give a damn. But I don’t want anyone around who doesn’t need to be around to muddy the waters. It’ll be business as usual. Get rid of the redhead, and the rest of the audience out there, and get your a
ss back. We have a treasure to find.” Logan met Jed’s eyes. And a ship to secure.

  Jed pushed away from the table. “Excuse me, I have to see a lady about an eviction notice.” He started to whistle as he strolled off, then stopped dead in his tracks, shading his eyes as he looked over the starboard rail. “Wolf—”

  “Yeah. I see it,” Logan responded to Jed’s sharp observation. Even from this distance, the whop-whop-whop of the rotors sounded powerful, and he’d heard the sound ten minutes before. “Wes, grab a couple of security guys, take Daniela to my cabin, and stay with her. I’ll be right there.”

  Glock in hand, he walked to the rail. “Stamps has brass balls doing this in broad daylight.” The large, black military-style helicopter was visible for miles as it approached.

  “We’ll show him just how fucking wrong he is.” Jed joined him to stand at his shoulder.

  “Hang on,” Logan touched the earpiece as it beeped. “Yeah, Piet?”

  “The Huey is friendly,” his captain said evenly. “They just made radio contact. Nick’s counterterrorist friends. They claim your brother requested their assistance on your behalf.”

  “Yeah, he mentioned it.” Logan had no idea his brother’s friends were this responsive to his call. He was impressed. “How—they’ll figure out how to get on board, I’m sure.” Sea Wolf wasn’t equipped to handle a helicopter of that size.

  “I’ll alert our people to stay at the ready, but to stand down. For now.”

  “Leaning more toward stay at the ready.”

  “I hear you.” Piet clicked off.

  Logan indicated the chopper with his gun. “Nick’s buddies. I’ll be appreciative after I’ve seen the whites of their eyes.” He didn’t trust anyone. For all he knew, these were Stamps’s people. How they knew about Nick and his connections was immaterial. Logan wasn’t taking a chance on a single hair on Daniela’s head.

  He glanced back at the table, and raised a brow to see her still seated there, her steaming mug cradled between her palms and supported by her updrawn knees. She gave him a steady, unsmiling look. “You aren’t the boss of me, Wolf. And those are your brother’s friends, not my enemies.”

  “So they say; we’ll see. Come with me,” he ordered Jed, and to Wes, “Get six guys out here now. I’m going topside.” Within minutes, the helicopter was overhead, casting a giant shadow and frothing up the water around the ship as the noise of the rotors blocked out any other sounds. Almost immediately ropes were dropped, and men started rappelling down like black dew on a half a dozen spiderwebs.

  The first man down looked straight at Logan, and approached, hand extended. “Derek Wright,” he yelled. “T-FLAC.”

  Logan shook hands. “Logan Cutter.” But somehow this guy had already known who he was. There was no point attempting a conversation since he couldn’t hear himself think.

  He stood beside Wright as half a dozen black-garbed men, armed to the teeth, dropped lightly onto the deck.

  As soon as the last man’s booted feet touched down, the ropes started receding and the helicopter flew off.

  “We’ve been given a brief overview of the situation,” Wright told him. He removed a picture from his pack. “This is the latest image we have of Senator Stamps, taken yesterday. He’s campaigning in Arizona, but paid a visit to Los Chaves, New Mexico. Anything you want to add?”

  Los Chaves was where Daniela’s parents lived. Logan told him what he knew of Stamps, and added the visit by Daniela’s cousins. “I have security people on board. These are all men I’ve used before to guard valuable salvage. They’re adept at discouraging pirates. But this is a whole different ball game.”

  “No problem. We brought our own jerseys.” Wright’s smile was sharklike as he jerked his head toward the others. “I’ll take over security and we can brief all the men at the same time. You got a problem with that?”

  Hell, yeah. Logan didn’t relinquish control to anyone. But once he knocked his ego down, he acknowledged that Wright and his men were professionals. It wouldn’t even be a fair pissing contest. The T-FLAC guys pissed harder and farther.

  “I’m in charge of the ship, you’ve got the guns. I want Daniela protected at all costs.”

  “Roger that. Let me get the men squared away, then I want to meet with you and your lady.”

  * * *

  “Wright’s reconnoitering the ship with his men, and assigning posts to our guys,” Logan told Jed. They’d moved inside while the men in black swarmed all over the ship. There was no mistaking who the counterterrorist operatives were. And it had nothing to do with their all-black outfits, reminiscent of wet suits, or the fact that they were all heavily armed. Logan’s brother’s friends were taciturn, steely-eyed, and the only instructions they needed were the basics.

  Protect her at all costs.

  Seeing so many trained people surrounding her, with the express purpose of keeping Victor away, brought home to Daniela just how powerful Logan and the others thought Victor was. They were absolutely right not to underestimate him.

  Victor had a snake-oil salesman’s charm, the wiles of a fox, and sick Machiavellian proclivities. There was a very good chance that if the authorities didn’t put an end to him one way or the other, Victor Stamps could be the United States of America’s next president. The thought brought acid to the back of her throat.

  “All set.” The tall, dark-haired guy Logan had spoken to outside earlier stepped into the common room. He was ridiculously good-looking, with serious dark blue eyes and a confident attitude. Daniela was more impressed that he wore a big black gun in a shoulder holster, and a lethal-looking knife stuck into a sheath above his ankle.

  “Derek Wright,” he shook her hand briefly. “The senator is in New Mexico making inquiries about your parents.”

  The very thought of Victor being anywhere near her parents’ home chilled Daniela to the marrow. Logan stepped up behind her, wrapping the warmth and strength of his arms around her.

  “They’re on a Mediterranean cruise,” she said, leaning against Logan’s hard chest, and wrapping her hands around his muscled forearms. “Special Agent Price gave us all fake IDs … They’ll be back in a couple of weeks.”

  “Then they’re safe where they are. You’re our priority, Miss Rosado. I’d suggest you continue on as normal, and pretend we aren’t here.”

  Daniela had to smile at that. “I think everyone on board will notice all of you—everywhere.”

  “You’d be surprised how well we can disappear.” He addressed Logan. “If you give me your comm, I’ll program in the channel we’re all on.”

  Logan unhooked his headset from behind his ear and handed it over, then returned his arm to hug her close.

  “If I need you fast,” Wright said, handing it back to him, “I’ll beep once. I don’t expect them to hit in broad daylight, and don’t expect them to show up tonight. We have a location for them, but we want them here so we have more control over the situation. They saw what kind of firepower you had last night, and they’ll expect you to be ready should they strike again. They’ll wait a day or two and hope the element of surprise is on their side.”

  “It’ll be a pleasure to turn the tables. I have some work to do in my office. We’ll be there if you need us.” Logan slid his hand around hers and Daniela accompanied him upstairs.

  It was a very, very long day for her. Interesting though, because she spent the entire day glued to Logan’s side. She and Dog accompanied him to his office where he spent several hours on the phone talking to various investors, two museums, one in Holland, and one in Germany, and at length to an insurance adjuster who, despite Logan’s assurances that his company did not have to pay for Nick’s ship, complained about his brother blowing up his own ship, and the value of the diamonds lost.

  An interesting story, Daniela was sure, but Logan kept going. Dell brought them lunch, which Logan ate while he worked on his laptop, and Daniela, followed closely by Dog, wandered aimlessly around his office, pulling out books, readi
ng a few pages and putting them back.

  Logan glanced up and watched her padding around his office. “Bored out of your mind?” he asked politely.

  “I hate people who claim boredom,” she admitted, curling both hands over the back of a leather visitor chair. “But I’m like a fish out of water here. I don’t have my own stuff—I don’t have anything to occupy myself, and that, coupled with waiting for the other shoe to drop, is frazzling my nerves. Sorry. I’ll find a book and stay out of your way.”

  “Why don’t I take you to the storeroom? You can take a look at some of my artwork and artifacts, and see if there’s anything there you’d like to hang. Would that help?”

  “God, yes!” She could’ve leapt across his desk and kissed him. In fact … Before she thought it through, Daniela planted her butt on the edge of his desk, swung her legs over to his side, scooted a bit, and slid into his lap.

  She wasn’t sure who was most surprised as his eyes widened slightly, and his lips curved.

  “Hi,” she said softly, wrapping her arms around his neck. She could tell how happy he was to have an armful of willing woman by the hard length of his instant erection pressing right where she needed it.

  His mouth found hers and he kissed her as if they’d been apart for a year. He lifted his head and skimmed his hands under her T-shirt, pulling it up and over her head, then captured her mouth again.

  Daniela reciprocated, feeling the heat of his satin smooth skin as she skimmed the fabric up, then feeling the tickle of his chest hair. She paused to bend her head and kiss a path between his nipples, then lingered to stroke her tongue over the small nub. Logan made an inarticulate growl and yanked his shirt off the rest of the way, tossing it somewhere on the floor.

  Somehow her bra disappeared, leaving them bare from the waist up.

  “You know we have on far too many clothes?”

  “It’s certainly a conundrum.” She smiled against his mouth, feeling as light as if she was filled with helium.