by Becky McGraw
He howled and she was suddenly free, laying on her back on the damp jungle floor with her kidnapper standing above her. She sat up, scooted away from him, but he followed her until her back was pressed against a tree. Another even larger man stepped up beside him to glare down at her and Maddie knew there would be no escape.
Disgust made her want to vomit as she reached for the hem of her skirt to yank the material up to her waist and spread her legs wide. “Take what you want, you filthy assholes, but do it fast—I have to get back to my baby.”
Chapter 8
Hawk couldn’t breathe. As hard as he tried, his chest just would not expand as he stared down at Maddie Carter, a woman he no longer knew, and one who obviously no longer knew him.
What in the ever-loving hell was going on with her? Had they brainwashed her? Changed her this much in only six months? Was she on drugs? And a fucking baby?
He wheezed in a short breath, but the band around his chest tightened more to trap it in his throat. Six months. Baby. Not possible. He sank to his knees, and she whimpered. Hawk wanted to whimper too, because his head felt like it would explode.
A boot slammed into his ass and Hawk’s body flew forward. He landed face first and his nose dug into the wet, foul-smelling undercover on the jungle floor.
“Did you get my fucking sister pregnant, asshole?” Max growled.
Her brother could obviously add too, Hawk thought, sitting up, feeling like he wanted to vomit for the fourth time that night.
“Sister?” Maddie asked, her voice trembling as she lowered her legs and covered her knees with her skirt. “Who are you?”
“I’m your brother, Max,” he replied. “You don’t remember me?”
“I’m your, ah, um…” Was your boyfriend, lover and am probably the father of your child. Hawk swallowed hard, trying to let that fact sink in as he pushed up to his feet feeling Max’s eyes burning the side of his head. “I’m your friend,” he finally finished with a sigh.
“No, I don’t remember you. I don’t remember anything before I woke up here. The only thing I know is my name is Maddie, but nothing else.”
She put a hand behind her to push on the tree and get her legs under her, then moaned when she took a step toward him. Hawk grabbed her shoulders to hold her up, wishing like hell it were daylight so he could see what condition her legs were in.
“You are Captain Maddie Carter, a Nightstalker Pilot in the U.S. Army,” Max replied. “Your helo went down six months ago on a mission in Guatemala.”
“What took you so long to come looking for me, if you’re my brother and he’s my friend?” she asked, sounding suspicious and more than a little angry. “Why didn’t the Army come looking for me? Do they always just leave their pilots to rot in hell when they crash?”
“They did look for two weeks, but the helo and your body went missing,” Hawk replied.
“My body went missing because I was still in it! A drug cartel carried me and the helicopter off into this jungle,” she hissed, putting her hands on her hips. “They sure didn’t look very hard for me, and you two waited long enough to come looking!”
Her attitude made Hawk feel so much better. This was his Maddie, even though she didn’t remember she was his.
“The two survivors from the crash said you were dead. The Army declared you dead, baby. I tried to reconcile that for six months, tried to accept it, but couldn’t until I saw it for myself,” Hawk replied.
Now, he was so fucking glad he went with his gut or she would have been here for the rest of her life. His baby would have grown up as a member of a drug cartel family. The thought of that caused a chill to zip down his spine. Emotion choked him as he moved closer to her to put his arm around her shoulders, but Maddie elbowed him away.
“Well, as you can see, I’m very much among the living.” She shook her head and her breath escaped in a rush. “No damned wonder those monsters wanted me, and that explains how I know how to fly that helicopter.” She went quiet for a moment, then sighed again. “You’re too late—I have to go back.”
“You are not going back there!” he growled, grabbing her arm when she took a step.
“I have to go back. They’ll know I’m gone as soon as the sun comes up when they come to get me for a flight. They will kill my daughter or sell her to traffickers if I’m not there.”
The sheer terror in her voice found a place inside of Hawk, because she was talking about his daughter too. A daughter he had never met.
“Do you know where they have her?” Hawk asked, thinking they could leave Maddie with the others and go back for her.
“I get two hours a day with her, if I do what they want me to. Otherwise, she’s with a wet nurse somewhere in the compound,” Maddie replied.
Sickness pushed up to Hawk’s throat as he imagined what else they demanded from her in exchange for that time with the baby. The way Maddie responded to them just now said that was probably the case. Rage consumed him. A roar built near his toes, and he tried to stifle it by clamping his teeth but couldn’t, as he grabbed her and hugged her tightly. He squeezed her tighter and she moaned when he kissed her hair.
“I’m so damned sorry I didn’t come sooner, baby—so fucking sorry,” he said, his voice breaking as his heart stewed in guilt.
“We have about an hour to get her back to that compound before sunrise. What time do they usually bring the baby to you?” Max asked, and Hawk pushed Maddie away to turn aside and wipe his eyes. A shudder racked him as he thought about how close he’d come to believing she was dead.
“After my second flight, so probably around noon,” she replied, sniffling too.
“Well, it looks like we don’t have much choice but to take you back and lock you in that cabin,” Max said, sounding dire. “When they bring you the baby, be ready to leave. I’m going to loosen a few boards on the back of the cabin tonight, so we can get you out.”
Without asking permission, Hawk bent and swept her in his arms. She weighed probably twenty-five pounds less than the last time he’d carried her to bed and worry clawed at his gut. He kissed her forehead and his eyes burned when his lips scraped over the ridge of a scar there.
“You’re going to be okay, Maddie,” he said, not knowing if he was trying to convince her or himself. “As soon as we get home, we’ll find a doctor to fix you.”
Her hand fluttered up to her forehead and she laughed. “What? Didn’t the witch doctor do a good job sewing me back together? I was just thankful to be patched up and given enough drugs to kill the pain. I didn’t much care what I looked like.”
Hawk’s stomach clenched. “You look as beautiful to me as you did the last time I saw you,” he replied, hugging her again.
Suddenly her words hit him and every muscle in his body tensed. She had been kept drugged—while she was pregnant. Who knew how that and her injuries from the crash might have affected their child?
Oh God, was this nightmare about to get even worse?
Hawk wouldn’t know until tomorrow, when he got to meet his daughter for the first time. He knew, like her mother, his heart would accept her in whatever condition he found her and he would love her just the same.
Right then, he faced the fact that his life as he knew it was over. His happy-go-lucky, fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants ways would have to change. Nothing would be the same when he got back to the states with them.
Taking on this responsibility meant no more last minute missions for him. He was very glad now that Dante had shown up on the scene, because Dave would need him. It gave him comfort knowing he wouldn’t be leaving the man, who’d done so much for him, high and dry.
Hawk left the military to take care of his mother until she died six months later and he had a feeling he was going to have to leave Deep Six to take care of Maddie and the baby while they recovered. He suspected that would be a lot longer than six months from the condition she was in, and what she’d gone through. It would be a long, hard road, but he was up for the challenge.
The bigger challenge scared the shit out of him.
He and Maddie were basically starting their relationship over again with a blank slate. The five years they’d known and loved each other were gone. Was he giving up everything he’d worked to achieve, the family at Deep Six he’d grown to love, for a woman who may not even like him once she got to know him better, much less love him?
Hawk had faith, though, because he had a head start. Maddie Carter might not remember him, or them, but he remembered every damned detail about her. He knew what she liked, how she liked it and just how to deliver it.
He’d made her fall in love with him once, and he’d do it again.
Chapter 9
Delirious and disoriented, Maddie fell out of the helicopter and landed on her knees on the dusty ground. She coughed to clear her throat and knew she wouldn’t be getting back up on her feet. Her calf, ankle and now foot were too swollen to stand. The sun scorched her back as she crawled six inches then collapsed. She laid there trying to work up some saliva to wet her dry mouth, but there was no moisture left in her body.
You can’t give up. One more flight and you and Sarah will be leaving here. Fight for it, Maddie.
A violent chill rattled her bones and teeth, and she groaned. The sweats and violent chills she’d been having since she got back inside the shack right at dawn had been horrific. Add no sleep to fighting a raging fever and she had nothing left to give.
If they wanted her back in that shack, they would have to carry her there, she thought, scorching her forearm when she laid her forehead there. And if the two men who claimed to be there to rescue her wanted her to go with them, they would have to carry her too. But first, they would have to find and rescue Sarah, because she wasn’t leaving without her.
Maddie knew Maria wouldn’t be bringing her to the shack, because she could not make the next flight. El Jefe would say if she was too sick to fly, she was too sick to see the baby. And Maddie was too sick for either. Getting into that helo again would be a death sentence for her and the silent, flat-eyed young guy who served as her new guard and guide.
“Ándale, senorita,” her guard said, sounding frantic. She opened one eye and saw the scuffed toe of his boot.
“I can’t walk,” she replied, not knowing if he could speak English or not, because he’d spoken to her in Spanish. She tried to translate the reply in her mind, but it was too cloudy.
Suddenly she was jerked up by men on either side of her. Holding her arms, they dragged her between them across the compound. Maddie screamed as pain so intense she thought she might die consumed her. She screamed until she was hoarse, then screamed more when they dragged her across the board floor and dropped her like a sack of potatoes on her pallet.
“Watch her. I will get the doctor,” one man growled to the other then quickly left.
Maddie moaned and fought the see-sawing gruel in her belly, which she’d had for breakfast. The last thing she wanted to do was throw up where she had to sleep. And that’s where it would happen, because she could not move. Her body jerked when a board cracked loudly and a shot fired. The gangster fell to the floor beside her with a thud and she turned to see the ginger haired man who said he was her brother rip off another board. The other, taller, lankier man who claimed to be her friend ripped off a third and fourth board to open a gaping hole in the back of the cabin.
They quickly lifted her and pulled her through the hole, but she kicked and fought them. Another man appeared beside her brother to help hold her down.
“I’m not leaving without my baby!” she screeched, and the lankier man covered her mouth with his hand then leaned near her ear.
“We are not leaving without our baby, Maddie, but I’m getting you out of here,” he said in a harsh whisper. “Now, be quiet.”
“Levi, go tell Dante and Caleb we’re going with Plan B,” her brother said with a long, hard stare for the man who now held her. “Wait for the fireworks. I’ll meet you in thirty at the rendezvous. Keep her safe.”
“Roger—that. You keep yourself and my baby safe,” he shot back and turned to walk run with her through the opening in the back gate.
Maddie had no choice but to trust these men, because she had no more fight in her.
The heated body in his arms went limp and Hawk’s insides clenched. Her skin was on fire and regardless of the plan, he had to stop at the river to try to bring her fever down, or this would be useless. Maddie Carter would die in his arms and he knew it. They had to get her medical care as soon as possible, because something was gravely wrong with her.
Never in his life had he been more afraid than when he knelt on the bank beside the meandering brown water and eased her down to the marshy ground. He pulled off his body armor and removed his t-shirt, then submerged it in the water. When he pulled it up, he swung the dripping wet shirt to let water rain down on her forehead. Hawk almost thought he heard it sizzle when it touched her skin. That’s how hot she was.
He wrung out the drab cloth over her face and she moaned. She murmured when he laid the shirt over her throat and wiped her ravaged, beet-red face with the sleeves. His heart squeezed hard as he wiped each scar, then smoothed the sleeve over her dry lips, before swiping it over her closed eyelids.
Oh, baby, why was I not enough for you? Why didn’t you listen to me? The following questions that presented loosened his heart and it went on an angry rampage against his sternum, as he took the shirt to soak it again. Why didn’t you tell me you were fucking pregnant? Why in the hell would you go on that mission anyway, knowing you were?
Those last two questions had plagued him since he and Max dropped her off, locked her in that shack and hiked the twelve miles back to the helicopter to come back and plan this rescue. She would’ve been three months by the time she left with her team for El Salvador, because according to the incident report, they’d only been in country here for two weeks when she crashed. His conclusion?
Maddie Carter wasn’t dumb—she had to have known, but she went anyway.
Hawk knew he wouldn’t be getting answers to those questions from her until her memory returned, though. He would give her the benefit of the doubt until then. If he found out she not only put herself at grave risk to go on that mission, but their baby as well, she would answer to him for it and that confrontation wouldn’t be pretty.
But first, before he could kill her for doing that to him and their child, he had to keep her alive and get them out of this godforsaken country.
Hawk wrung out the shirt three times to soak her body and clothes, before he heard the rotors and rev of the helo engine as Dante, Caleb and Levi arrived at the compound to provide air support to Max. The whistle of a rocket pierced his brain and the explosion vibrated through him. Gunfire erupted to echo through the trees behind him, as another grenade exploded and he knew he had to get them to the cave they’d found for cover.
Thank goodness Dave had insisted they bring enough ammo and weapons to stage a jungle war, if needed. Because that is exactly what the guys were doing right now to keep the cartel thugs occupied, while Max rescued the baby.
God, Hawk wanted to be in that fight, to kill every last one of those bastards, to take out the frustration he felt as he put on his vest again and lifted her inert body into his arms. But he suspected killing the bandits wouldn’t solve his problem, though, because he had a very strong feeling this was all Maddie Carter’s fault.
Hawk took a step to wade into the water, but stopped when he heard a loud truck engine right before a truck with a grenade launcher mounted on the back plowed through weeds on the other bank. He sighed, wondering when it would all end.
Considering the number of banditos loaded in the truck as it headed west along the bank toward the dirt road five miles downriver, he’d say not anytime soon. And since that’s where the cave was located, he might be in this fight after all.
He had to first figure out how to warn them about the new arrivals, if it wasn’t too late. Then he had to find a safe L
Z and alert Dante where to pick them up if the helo and the guys survived World War III, which seemed to be going on behind him.
Hawk laid Maddie back down and pulled out his phone. He had no idea if there was service or not, if Dante, Max or the guys would get his text, but he had to try with the last bit of juice he had left in his phone.
Dante needed to pull back and Max needed to get the hell out of there before the new contingent arrived, or none of them would be leaving.
Chapter 10
A baby’s wail added yet another nightmarish element to the explosions and gunfire, which mixed with the replay of crashing her helicopter in Maddie’s head. A baby appeared in her arms this time, right before the helicopter slammed into the ground. Fear stopped her heart as she gripped the baby to her chest tight, trying to protect it as the aircraft slid and excruciating pain ripped through her.
A wail of her own exploded from her lips as the aircraft slammed into something solid and her body jerked forward. The impact catapulted her toward the windshield as it shattered. In slow motion, she lunged left to avoid the thick limb that rammed into the cockpit, but saw ragged metal coming toward her instead. She stomped her left foot down to stop her forward momentum but couldn’t, before the metal sliced her face and shattered her goggles. The tree limb dug into the right side of her face and her body went numb as she smelled oil and jet fuel.
“Wake up, Maddie,” someone said frantically, shaking her shoulders.
The baby’s squall got louder and anxiety to get to the child, to comfort her, dragged Maddie toward consciousness. Would she relive waking up bleeding to death, too? Of being in so much pain as they bumped over rutted roads, she begged the dark-skinned men who threw her into the back of a truck to kill her?
Her brain and body shifted forward and Maddie felt like she was falling, so she grabbed onto the arms beside her and dug her nails in. Her eyes drifted open and the nightmare disappeared, but was replaced by confusion when the men leaning over her weren’t Latin—they were American. Panic seized her and a shiver racked her when the baby’s crying suddenly stopped.
