by Karen Leabo
FOUR
In all his years, Clint had never seen an operation go so badly. From the moment he discovered Marissa pointing that gun at him, nothing had worked out as expected. He had a strong inclination to bag the whole thing.
Then he thought of Rachelle. Frightened. Injured. Tortured. Dead. No matter what she’d done, she didn’t deserve such a fate. Right now, Clint was her only hope. He had to save this operation, that was all there was to it. His first order of business was getting his hostage safely to shore.
“Put on that life jacket,” he told Marissa. The shriveled orange thing was still dangling from her hand. “How did you get loose, anyway?”
“The wood was rotten,” she said, hollering to be heard over the wind and rain. “Good thing, too, or I might have choked to death from the smoke while you were floating out to sea.”
God, she was right. She’d thrown the rope to him, and she’d alerted him to the fire, which could easily have caused an explosion, killing them all. He’d thank her later. Right now, he needed to make preparations. The wind was blowing the Phen-Hu toward land. They would probably land somewhere along the western shore of Trinity Bay, if the boat didn’t swamp before then. That was a big if.
When Marissa continued to hold the life jacket, Clint snatched it from her and put it around her neck. Two of the three fastenings broke when he tried to hook them together. When he finished with the life jacket, he untied her wrist from the rotten wood plank and threw the whole mess overboard. All the while he worked, excruciatingly aware of her nearness and the way her skin felt against his fingertips, she looked up at him belligerently. The combination of fear, anger, and condemnation in her eyes almost undid him. No woman had ever looked at him that way before.
“What do we do now?” Rusty didn’t sound at all happy. That cocksure composure had deserted him.
“We’ll wait it out,” Clint answered, trying not to sound as worried as he felt. He didn’t want to have to deal with anyone’s hysteria. Right now, Rusty was the most likely one to lose control. Marissa was taking everything stoically. “I’ll get our things ready, in case we have to bail out.” He made sure Marissa was holding on to something solid before he left her to her own devices.
Inside the hold he found the supplies Rusty had brought, packed in a waterproof bag—some bread and cheese, a couple of apples, a pair of handcuffs, a wad of cash, and an extra change of clothing for each of them, though nothing for Marissa. He threw the cellular phone in with everything else, then paused. What was that thunk, when the phone landed?
He fished around in the bag and came up with a gun. “Dammit, Rusty …” Clint had told Rusty at least ten times, no guns. He was tempted to throw it overboard, but he’d never hear the end of it if he did. Hell, the damn thing was loaded too. Clint emptied out the bullets, then repacked the weapon.
He foraged for a few more supplies from the Phen-Hu—a flashlight, a flare in case they were forced to SOS for help, and a small coil of rope. He felt bad for the family who owned this old heap. He hoped it was insured against theft.
He zipped the bag closed. Since it was water-resistant, it would probably make a good flotation device. Just the same, Clint wrapped it in a couple of trash bags he’d found in the hold and tied the ends with multiple knots.
By the time he returned to the deck, the rain had let up. So had the lightning and thunder. The boat was listing heavily to starboard, though. Clint figured she had less than an hour before she met her end. He wished he hadn’t left his wet suit behind.
Marissa had found a handhold along the port railing and was clinging to it gamely. “What now, Ace?” she asked when she saw Clint approaching with his trash-bag-wrapped parcel.
“You know,” Rusty put in, “you got a sharp mouth, lady. You oughtta be glad we didn’t just slit your throat and—”
“That’s enough!” Clint barked. “For God’s sake, Rusty, this isn’t her fault.” He turned to Marissa. “Nobody is slitting anybody’s throat, okay?”
Rusty gave his signature giggle. “You’re lousy as a kidnapper, man,” he said. “You’re supposed to keep your victim intimidated. Once we get to shore, what’s to stop her from screaming her lungs out for help?”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t gag her,” Clint said with a shrug. He found his own handhold and grabbed it, keeping a tight grip on the trash-bag bundle with the other hand. “Nothing to do but wait it out for a while. When it’s time to swim, I want everyone to head for the midpoint between those two lights.”
Marissa nodded, but then she scanned the faraway shoreline. Clint wondered if she was contemplating how to make her escape. If she was going to do it, this would be the best time.
For a while, they were all quiet, listening to the Phen-Hu’s groaning death throes.
The boat gave a loud creak and a violent lurch. Marissa screamed—she couldn’t help herself. As awful as the old fishing vessel had been, it was still better than letting that cold, black water claim her.
How much longer did they have? she wondered. They’d been drifting maybe an hour, and the shore didn’t seem any closer at all. She wasn’t a great swimmer, and the smelly orange thing around her neck hardly seemed capable of helping to keep her afloat.
She was cold. The rain had let up a while ago, but she was soaked through and through, and the wind chilled her to the bone. She’d started shivering, and now the tremors were uncontrollable.
“You cold?” Clint asked.
Well, duh. Who wouldn’t be? But she couldn’t even summon the oomph for a smart comeback. She nodded miserably instead.
“What happened to your blanket?”
“It’s no use,” she said. “The blanket is sopping wet. It’s in the sleeping cabin if you want it.”
“I thought you might. It might block the wind.”
She shook her head. “We’ll be swimming pretty soon, anyway, right?”
“Yeah.” He looked up at the sky, then cupped his ear with his hand. “Sooner than I thought. Sounds like the Coast Guard put a chopper up. They’ll be looking for vessels in trouble. When they find this one, we’d better not be on it.”
That gave Marissa a brilliant idea. “Coast Guard,” she said brightly as she, too, heard the distinctive sound of a helicopter. Maybe she could be rescued! Her arm was starting to ache from clinging to the handhold and trying to stick to the almost vertical deck.
“If that’s the Coast Guard, I’m outta here,” Rusty said as he held on to the boat with one hand and peeled his jeans off with the other. “I’ll take my chances in the water. See y’all on shore.”
“Rusty, wait—” But he’d already made his leap into the water. Clint stared after his coconspirator as he bobbed up and down on the waves, more or less swimming with a thrashing motion.
Clint shook his head. “Hell, no wonder he wanted a life jacket,” he muttered.
The boat made another great heave. The water around them boiled up in bubbles.
“She’s a goner,” Clint said. “We better go. You ready?”
Marissa nodded. “You go first. I’d rather have a target to jump for.” It was only a few feet to the waterline now, but Clint, thank goodness, bought her explanation.
“Okay. Jump right after me. I don’t want us to get separated.” He threw his bundle into the water, then dived in after it. Immediately he surfaced, clinging to the buoyant black trash bags. “Come on, Marissa.”
“No!” she called. “I’m waiting here for the Coast Guard. You go ahead.”
Clearly he hadn’t been prepared for her mutiny. “What, are you crazy? In the first place, what if it’s not the Coast Guard?” he called back to her. “You’ll drown out here by yourself.”
“I’ll take my chances! You better start swimming, Ace. Your partner’s getting ahead of you!”
“No, I’ll wait for you,” he said, sounding almost patient.
Damn, why didn’t he save his own skin? Was he really worried about her, or was he trying to preserve his hostage, his
leverage?
In the end, the decision to go or wait was taken out of her hands. The Phen-Hu gave a mighty shudder, then began a violent descent. With a scream Marissa abandoned ship. She hit the surface with a hard splash that nearly broke her neck. The water swallowed her, but then she bobbed up, coughing.
Clint was beside her in an instant. “You okay?”
“I’ve … been … better,” she said between coughs. “Let’s just start … swimming, okay?” Maybe the forced activity would warm her up. She felt like a human ice cube.
After the first few minutes, she and Clint got into a rhythm, each of them holding on to one side of their trash-bag buoy. She knew he could probably swim twice as fast without dragging her along, but he didn’t abandon her, for which she was pathetically, though silently, grateful.
Soon her strength began to lag. With each wave that washed over them, she found it a little more difficult to hold her breath, then fight her way to the surface. Several times she inhaled a bunch of water, then spent valuable time and energy coughing it up.
If only she weren’t so numbingly cold! Pretty soon, it felt as if she were trying to drag her arms and legs through gelatin instead of plain water. The shore appeared closer, then receded like in a bad dream. When she closed her eyes—it felt so good—pinpoints of light exploded behind her eyelids.
“Marissa? You okay?”
Clint had been asking her the same question every few minutes. Each time, she’d gamely answered that she was hanging in there. This time, she remained silent.
“Marissa!”
“I’m not all right!” she objected. “I’d rather drown than swim one more yard!” Her arms and legs were burning on the inside while freezing on the outside.
Clint immediately stopped. Gratefully, she let her body go limp. The inadequate life jacket barely held her head above the water.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were in trouble?”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t have the energy. At least the water wasn’t as rough. Maybe that meant they were getting close to shore.
“Just lie back,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle. “I’ll tow you the rest of the way. It’s not much farther.”
She closed her eyes and put her life into his hands.
Guilt ate at the edges of Clint’s consciousness even as he struggled for survival. Marissa wasn’t simply tired. She was suffering from hypothermia, if his guess was correct. Thank God the shore was looming closer.
Dawn was breaking. The storm was well over with, and Clint could now see that they were heading for a nice, convenient expanse of uninhabited, muddy beach.
No, not uninhabited. A lone figure waited for them. Apparently Rusty had made it alive. Clint had been so worried about his and Marissa’s survival, he’d spared Rusty only a few moments of worry.
Clint’s feet touched bottom. He savored the support for all of five seconds, then began laboriously dragging himself, Marissa, and his water-logged bundle of supplies to dry land.
“What took y’all so long?” Rusty asked. It hadn’t taken long for his cockiness to return, even while pacing the shore in his underwear.
“We have to move fast,” Clint said without preamble, pitching his bundle onto shore, then lifting Marissa into his arms. She was conscious, but he didn’t know how long she’d remain that way. “We need to find the nearest house and call an ambulance.”
“Ambulance?” Marissa said between shivering teeth and lips that were tinged with blue.
“How about a motel?” Rusty asked, sounding not very concerned about their hostage. “I already reconnoitered a little bit, while it was still dark. There’s a highway right over there, and a cheap motel not a quarter mile away.”
Maybe Rusty had some redeeming value after all. “Good. That’ll do.” They could put Marissa in a hot shower. If she didn’t show immediate improvement, Clint would give in and call the paramedics. It was better to face jail than to have this lovely woman’s death on his conscience.
If he had this to do over again, he thought with chagrin as he and Rusty quickly donned their dry clothes … well, he wouldn’t do it over again.
Clint kept his own soggy T-shirt, then quickly stripped Marissa of hers and put her into the remaining dry one from the waterproof bag. As he picked her up and followed Rusty toward the motel, he tried not to think about the glimpse of her creamy, rose-tipped breasts he’d gotten during the shirt-changing business.
Sure enough, the Riviera Motel, which advertised water beds, air conditioning, and color TV, was squatting right beside the two-lane shore road, less than a football field away. The vacancy sign blinked, although both C’s were burned out.
As they approached, Clint paused and handed Rusty a couple of bills from the wad he’d stuck in his pocket. “You go in and get us a double room. I’ll wait with Marissa behind that van until I see you come out with the key.”
Rusty raised his eyebrows. “A double room? All three of us? Who gets to share a bed?”
“Just do it, okay?” Clint would worry about sleeping arrangements later. Right now, all he could think about was getting Marissa warm.
With a shrug, Rusty took off at a lope toward the motel’s office. Ah, youth, Clint thought. He knew Rusty wasn’t in great physical shape—he never worked out. But he still had energy to spare after that grueling swim. Clint was dead on his feet.
He hated being forty.
He set Marissa down on the hood of an Oldsmobile. She was drowsy, but she opened her eyes when he said her name. “How do you feel?”
“Sleepy,” she said. She was still shivering, dammit. But at least she had some color in her cheeks.
He put his arms around her, hoping to transfer some of his rapidly returning body heat to her. Her skin was cool to the touch, but not icy. Clint suddenly had all kinds of ideas for warming it up, but he quickly put a lid on such thoughts. He meant what he’d told Gabriole—his sister was a tempting package, especially when she rested her head on his shoulder as if she were a trusting kitten. But she was one temptation Clint wouldn’t give in to.
Rusty emerged from the office five minutes later holding a key aloft. Clint picked up Marissa as well as the bag of supplies and followed. His arms and legs were burning by the time he reached the room. Rusty collapsed onto one of the beds. Clint headed for the bathroom. He leaned Marissa into a corner of the shower stall—there wasn’t a tub—stripped the dry shirt off her, and fiddled with the faucets until he had a stream of comfortably warm water going. Then he stood her underneath it.
She wasn’t very happy about that. She sputtered and cursed for a few seconds until she seemed to realize how good the warm water felt. Then she stood compliantly, letting the water sluice over her hair, her clothes, and down her bare legs. She probably had no idea what a fetching picture she presented. It was all Clint could do not to shuck his clothes and jump in with her.
She was more than sleepy or exhausted, he realized. She really was suffering from hypothermia. If she didn’t perk up real soon, he would have to call an ambulance. He and Rusty could leave after making the 911 call. But once Marissa found her voice, Clint figured his odds of escaping this mess with no one the wiser were nil to zero. She knew his name was Clint, and she knew he was FBI. One phone call was all it would take.
Fortunately, Clint was saved from having to make that decision. Marissa rejoined the land of the living after about five minutes in the hot shower. She looked up at Clint and blinked confusedly. “Did I miss something?”
“I don’t know. What’s the last thing you remember?” Clint asked with a deliberate lack of concern in his voice. Inwardly he was jumping up and down over her improvement.
“We were swimming … I guess we didn’t drown. Did I fall asleep or something?”
“Or something.”
“Where are we?”
“At a motel.” Clint turned off the shower faucet and handed her a towel. She was standing on her own now, only a little wobbly. “I’ll give you some priva
cy,” he said, glancing at the bathroom’s only window. It was tiny and looked thoroughly closed. He decided not to worry. “Get out of those wet clothes and dry yourself off. There’s a bed in the next room with your name on it.”
“That sounds like heaven—wait a minute. If I take off my clothes, what do I put on?”
He shrugged. “I don’t have any extra clothes for you. We’ll have to dry yours off. Meanwhile, just wrap up in a towel and hop under the covers. Rusty’s already asleep, and I won’t look.” Yeah, right.
Marissa didn’t believe him any more than he believed himself, if her skeptical look was any indication. But she finally agreed. “Okay, fine.” She grabbed the towel and attacked her hair with it. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
Clint hightailed it out of that bathroom before he could even think about touching her again. Marissa, complacent and trusting, was a turn-on, but when she went all feisty on him, she really did things to his libido.
Marissa actually smiled as soon as Clint closed the bathroom door. She was on dry land, and she was almost warm! She felt in a much stronger position. If she managed to escape, she could actually run out into the street rather than into the water.
She immediately checked the window, but that route was useless. The tiny opening was covered with frosted glass and some kind of anti-break-in wire mesh, then bolted shut like Fort Knox.
As she shimmied out of her wet clothes and hung them over the shower rod, Marissa began to formulate a plan. Clint was obviously concerned about her—perhaps more worried about her welfare than her escape potential. She’d been groggy and confused a few minutes earlier. She would continue to act that way. Maybe Clint would forget to tie her up, as he’d done when she was seasick.
When she was reasonably dry she wrapped the threadbare beige towel around her as modestly as possible, then sat down on the floor to wait. She closed her eyes, thinking she could easily drift off, making her act all the more believable.
Clint didn’t give her that luxury. “Marissa?” he called through the bathroom door. “You okay in there?”
