Anthology - Kick Ass

by Maggie Shayne, MaryJanice Davidson, Angela Knight, Jacey Ford

  He swore and, counting the seconds off in his head, he plunged the knife in again to enlarge the hole. He started to sweat again as the sound of approaching footsteps reached his ears. He didn't have time to make it back to the jungle before the guard rounded the corner.

  This hole better be big enough.

  Jake scrunched his shoulders to minimize their width and dove headfirst through the tear in the tent. He pushed hard against the canvas and felt it give as the footsteps outside grew louder. He tucked his legs inside the tent and spun around on the ground, grabbing the two edges of ripped green fabric and holding them together just as the guard's booted feet came into view.

  Jake held his breath, willing the man to continue his patrol without noticing the tear.

  One second. Two. Three. And, finally, the footsteps passed the spot where Jake was crouching.

  He whipped around, expecting to find Lauren watching him with gratitude and, yeah, okay, more than a hint of admiration shining out of those gorgeous blue eyes of hers. After all, he was here to save her from hours—maybe even days or weeks—of torture.

  Instead, all he found was… an empty tent.

  He knew that Santos's goons had brought her here, so that meant only one thing. Somehow, Lauren Devlin had managed to escape without his help.

  Lauren really didn't enjoy traipsing around the jungle wearing nothing but a bikini, but she didn't have much choice. She'd shed the white outfit and stuffed it—along with a piece of broken glass she'd managed to steal from Rafael's tent after she'd pretended to see a large and no doubt deadly spider dangling from his ceiling—into her beach bag. After she'd screamed, she'd leapt back out of Rafael's embrace, intentionally knocking their glasses off the table with one flailing arm. Her theatrics had brought Santos's men running, which immediately cooled his ardor and also allowed her to slip away with a shard of glass tucked into her bikini bottoms.

  She'd used the glass as a makeshift knife to cut a hole in her tent and escape, but she knew that if she didn't take off the outfit Santos's man had brought for her, she'd stand out like a chubby girl at a cheerleading competition. Until she could find something else to wear, she'd have to brave getting scratched by all manner of jungle vegetation as she searched for where Jake was being held prisoner.

  She hurried as fast as she could while taking care not to expose herself or trip on any downed trees, roots, or any of the dozens of coconuts that had fallen to the ground. She hoped she wasn't too late. As Santos's men had ushered her away from his tent, she'd heard Rafael giving the order to someone to "take care of the American spy" and knew she didn't have much time to save Jake.

  As she made her way out of the center of the camp, the jungle became eerily quiet, with no sound but the constant pounding of the waterfall in the distance. The moon peeked in and out of the treetops, painting the world below with a ghoulishly gray tint. Lauren clutched her chest as a bird suddenly screeched overhead, like a portent of doom in some horror flick.

  She peered out from behind the tree she was using to shield herself and swallowed a gasp when she saw the moon reflecting off the barrel of a gun. One of the thugs who had kidnapped them stood in front of a hole in the ground, pointing his gun at the darkness below. Lauren was pretty sure she knew what—or, rather, who—was in that pit.

  Jake would have no chance of surviving. The goon was going to shoot him at near point-blank range and there was nowhere for Jake to hide.

  She had to save him.

  But how? There was nothing in her Secret Agent's Handbook about fending off a gunman with nothing in your arsenal but a pair of flimsy sandals, a shard of glass, and a book.

  The rebel was bigger than her by six inches and at least a hundred pounds. The only thing she had on her side was surprise.

  Frantically, Lauren looked around for a weapon—something that would enable her to strike without getting into close range, where the goon could easily overtake her. She'd never be able to get close enough to overtake him with the dull piece of glass in her bag. But what else could she use? She needed a stick or a rock or… Hmm. She spied a fallen coconut on the ground near her feet. It was about the size of a cantaloupe and had a sharp, pointy ridge on the bottom.

  She eased down and picked it up, careful not to make any noise that would alert the rebel to her presence. The coconut was heavy, its outer shell hard and rough beneath her fingers. She lowered her beach bag to the ground at her feet and narrowed her eyes, calculating the distance between herself and the rebel.

  Yes, this just might work.

  Thank God for her three-hours-a-day/seven-days-a-week sessions with personal-trainer-to-the-stars Aaron Richardson, who was known to leave his clients sobbing if their workouts weren't strenuous enough for his liking. At twenty-nine, Lauren knew she would be lucky to have one more year in modeling, and that was only if she continued her grueling workout schedule. Gravity and age were making it harder for her to keep those extra ounces off. And so she let Aaron torture her into staying in shape—a decision for which she was grateful as she brought her right arm back in preparation for hurling the coconut at the rebel's head.

  "Hey," the goon said just then, sounding surprised as he stared down into the pit.

  Lauren didn't wait to discover what had startled the man. Instead, she brought her arm forward with all her might, releasing her missile when her arm was fully extended in front of her.

  As if sensing that something was amiss, the man turned, but not in time to do anything more than suck in a breath as the coconut hit him full in the face. He took an instinctive step backward, lost his footing, and fell into the hole behind him, his arms flapping at his sides as if that might stop his descent.

  Damn. That hadn't gone exactly as she'd planned.

  Lauren hurriedly looked around the camp to make sure she was alone before stepping out of the shadows. She dashed over to the edge of the pit and gazed down into the inky darkness.

  "Jake? Are you all right?" she whispered loudly. Having two hundred fifty pounds of dead weight land on you unexpectedly had to hurt.

  The only answer from down below was a groan.

  Great. Now what? If she jumped into the hole with the two men, she'd be just as vulnerable as Jake—and would be no help if any of Santos's men came running to see what had happened to their compadre. No, she'd be better off hiding in the jungle until Jake came to.

  She took a step back, toward the jungle, and then opened her mouth to scream when she bumped up against a warm, firm someone. She inhaled a deep breath, which was trapped in her throat when a man clamped his hand over her mouth and began to drag her away from the camp.

  She was about to slam her heel down on his instep when Jake whispered in her ear, "Lauren, it's me." Then he dropped his hand and released her, and Lauren was shocked at how much she wanted to turn and throw her arms around him in relief. Instead, she nodded once and they headed for the cover of the jungle. She stopped for a moment to search for the bag she'd dropped earlier and found it near the base of a misshapen tree. She picked it up and turned to find Jake watching her. He made a motion for her to follow him and they both remained silent as they walked deeper into the jungle and left the camp behind.

  When they'd traveled what Lauren guessed had to be a quarter of a mile through dense forest, they reached a clearing and Jake finally stopped and turned to her.

  "You okay?" he asked gruffly, then cleared his throat. His gaze was focused on a spot about a foot above her head, and Lauren twisted around to see what he was looking at, but couldn't see anything of interest in the light reflecting off the trees from the moon overhead.

  She shrugged. "Yeah. How about you? Your feet must be sore."

  Jake waved a hand dismissively. "I'm fine. As we drove up this afternoon, I noticed a rebel encampment about another half mile from here. When we get there, I'll see what I can do about procuring some shoes."

  "I thought you slept all the way up here," Lauren said with a frown.

  Jake looked at
her then, his green eyes meeting hers for just a second before sliding away.

  "Oh," Lauren said. Right. Of course he hadn't been sleeping.

  "Can you keep going? I'd like to get out of this jungle before morning if we can."

  Lauren gritted her teeth. "You know, that whole 'fainting flower' thing is just something I do to get people to underestimate me. I'm a lot tougher than I look."

  One corner of Jake's mouth tilted up in a half-smile. "And next you're going to tell me that you can kick my ass any day, right?"

  Lauren crossed her arms over her chest and rocked back on her heels, looking up at him. She was five-nine, but he still had a good three inches on her. And after he'd toted her around the resort earlier that day without so much as breaking a sweat, she knew he was a lot stronger than she'd ever suspected. She wasn't sure why, but she'd never really looked that closely at him before. Most likely, it was because he put on an act whenever he was around her—as if he wanted her to see him as this larger-than-life man of mystery who simply wasn't real.

  It was almost as if he thought the real Jake Haven wasn't good enough for her.

  Lauren blinked and slowly dropped her arms to her sides. Oh my God. That was it. Jake Haven, a man who routinely put his life on the line for his country, felt he didn't measure up to her. How screwed up was this world if any guy thought he wasn't good enough for someone who made her living by staring into a camera?

  "Uh," Lauren began, nervously shuffling her feet in the dirt. "No. I don't think I can kick your ass. But I can keep going. I assume you plan to go back to the rebel camp now that we know where it is? I wasn't able to get anything from Santos," she added as she started walking, hoping Jake would follow. She didn't know why, but he was watching her intently, and she suddenly felt uncomfortable about her state of undress. Moving away from him seemed like the smart thing to do.

  She shivered when Jake laid a hand on her bare shoulder. His fingers were cool on her heated skin, his touch strong, yet gentle at the same time.

  "You're going the wrong way," he said softly.

  Lauren turned around, felt goose bumps rise on her skin when she found Jake standing only inches from her. She hadn't even heard him move.

  "Am I?" she whispered.

  He nodded, but didn't step back. Instead, his hand tightened on her shoulder. Lauren held her breath, knowing that he was going to kiss her and suddenly wanting him to, very much. The air between them crackled like dry firewood under a match's caress. Lauren leaned into him and wet her bottom lip with her tongue.

  He lowered his mouth to hers, and it was like no other kiss Lauren had ever experienced, not because of its intensity, but because it was… sweet. Sincere.

  When he pulled back, Jake was smiling a self-mocking sort of smile. "I've wanted to do that since the day we met," he said.

  Lauren gave him her own self-mocking smile. "Why? Because of how I look in a swimsuit?"

  Jake didn't even look down at her body, clad in a string bikini, which she was certain didn't look nearly as attractive on her now as it had this morning when she'd first put it on. "Of course," he answered, then took a step back, leaving Lauren with the impression that there was much more to this man than she had ever suspected.

  * * *

  CH@%!*R 6

  "What are those vans doing here?" Lauren whispered as she and Jake sat at the edge of a clearing, hidden by a large plant with prehistoric-sized leaves. Parked in the clearing were several tan delivery trucks with the Isla Suspiro Rum Company name and logo painted on their sides, as well as half a dozen olive-drab jeeps, one of which Jake intended to steal. Or, rather, as he put it—procure.

  "I overheard one of Santos's men talking about an ambush and another said, 'The vans will help.' I didn't know what he was referring to at the time, but I imagine they're planning to use those vehicles"—Jake jerked his chin in the direction of the tan trucks—"to get close to Tomas Santos's compound without arousing suspicion."

  "We need to warn him," Lauren said.

  "We will. As soon as we get out of this damn jungle," Jake agreed, swatting at a fly that had seemingly been following him for the last thirty minutes.

  "I don't suppose they left the keys in the ignition." Lauren gazed hopefully toward the jeeps.

  Jake shrugged and shot her a grin. "Doesn't matter. I know how to hot-wire a car."

  "I must have been absent the day they taught that," Lauren said dryly. Her training had definitely not included hot-wiring cars. Mostly, she'd learned how to fill out Agency forms, how to tell if a phone line was secure, and how to communicate with her handler if she thought she might be under surveillance. When she got back to the States, she was going to request more training. It was clear that the training her handler, Martha McLaughlin, had assured her would be adequate for her job was not enough.

  "When we get back to Atlanta, I'll teach you," Jake offered. Then, as one of the guards patrolling the clearing came into view, they hunkered down beneath the plant. The guard ambled around the vehicles, one hand resting on his machine gun. The minutes ticked by as he stopped to lean against one of the delivery trucks and enjoy a cigarette. When he was finished, he flicked his cigarette butt onto the ground and crushed it under the heel of his boot. Then he walked to the edge of the jungle—fortunately, several feet from where Jake and Lauren were hiding—unzipped his fly, and took a leak. Lauren shuddered thinking about having to remain still while someone peed on you. Being a spy in the real world was not nearly as glamorous as she'd imagined.

  Finally, the guard moved away. She and Jake stood, and Lauren winced as her thigh muscles cramped in protest of having to crouch for so long. Her personal torturer, er, trainer would accuse her of being a wimp if he saw her cringing like this, though, so she shook it off without complaint.

  Jake reached into his pocket and handed her a slim metal object. She turned it over in her hand as he said, "Use the knife to puncture a tire on each of the vehicles except the one I'm stealing. I'll get to work hot-wiring us a jeep."

  Lauren nodded and ran to do as she'd been told. After she'd finished, she jogged back to the jeep Jake was working on, tossed her beach bag onto the floor, and curled up in the space in front of the passenger seat so she wouldn't be as easy to see if the guard came back.

  "Ready?" Jake asked, his hands buried beneath the dashboard.

  "Yep," Lauren said.

  "Okay. Here we go. Keep down," Jake warned.

  Then the engine sputtered to life. Lauren held on to the seat as the jeep bucked forward. They were going to have to drive straight through the clearing in order to get to the path on the other side, which presumably led to the main road. They'd counted four guards while they'd sat in the jungle, formulating their plan.

  Lauren could only pray that all four were bad shots.

  She heard men shouting and engines revving as the rebels realized what was happening, but she remained right where she was. Jake didn't need to worry about her poking her head up and getting it blown off in addition to trying to avoid being shot himself. Besides, there wasn't anything she could do to help, so she might just as well stay out of the way.

  The jeep hit a pothole, and Lauren was certain the impact jarred several of her teeth loose. She didn't have a lot of time to think about it, though, because the guards began shooting at them.

  "Shit. Hold on," Jake shouted just before he jerked the steering wheel sharply to the left. Lauren was holding on, but the force of the turn still threw her across the floor, where her cheek became intimately acquainted with the side of the dashboard.

  Ouch. That was going to leave a mark.

  She pushed herself back into a sitting position as Jake cranked on the steering wheel again. This time she was thrown against the door. The back of her head hit the metal with a resounding thwack, but she was thankful at least that this bruise would be covered by her hair. It was going to be tough enough to explain away all the scratches on her legs and torso in addition to the bruises she was quickly acquirin
g.

  Someone rammed them from behind—obviously a flat tire wasn't enough to stop the rebels from driving short distances—and Lauren began to feel like a crash test dummy when her head slammed into the dashboard again.

  Jake gunned the engine and laid on the horn, shouting, "Get out of the way!"

  A spray of gunfire shattered the windshield, spraying glass all over the front seat, and Lauren winced when she heard a thud and then bounced off the floor when the jeep ran over something. But at least the gunfire had stopped.

  Then they were roaring through the jungle, the moonlight suddenly disappearing as if someone had flipped a switch. Lauren wiped the glass off the seat, but stayed down on the floor until the sound of the vehicles pursuing them faded away.

  Slowly, she pushed herself up, peering above the back of the seat to make sure the rebels were gone before turning to sit down.

  "We did it," she said.

  Beside her, Jake snorted. "You sound surprised."

  She laughed when she realized that he was right. "Sorry. If it's any consolation, it's not you that I doubted. This is my first real op. I've never had to deal with anything like this before," she admitted.

  Jake shot her an unfathomable look, and then asked, "How long have you been with the Agency?"

  Lauren twisted in her seat again, so she could make sure they weren't being followed. It didn't seem smart to relax their guard. After all, she hadn't had time to puncture all the tires, and it wouldn't take long for the rebels to replace a flat and come after them. "I was recruited about five years ago for minor surveillance work. Basically, I just attended a lot of parties and fed information back to my handler. I've been asking for over three years to get upgraded to field agent. They finally gave me the promotion a few months ago." Lauren shrugged as if the upgrade to field agent meant little to her, when, in fact, she was more proud of that accomplishment than of anything she'd ever done in her life. But for some reason, she didn't want to let Jake know that. Maybe because she was afraid he'd make fun of her. Becoming an agent and being taken seriously had probably come easy for him, but she'd had to fight for it. Martha McLaughlin had refused her request time and time again, always hinting that she wasn't field agent material. Lauren figured it was her tenacity that had finally convinced her superior to put her in for the promotion. Martha must have realized that Lauren was not going to give up.