Dave was ready now with the med kit, letting Thomas look at the syringe with the painkiller before giving Ted the dose.
It was amazing how quickly it took effect.
Ted went from tense and nearly screaming with every step Thomas took, to calm and nearly comically boneless as Tash helped get him into the backseat of the SUV, moving him toward the middle of the bench. She climbed in beside him, letting him lean heavily on her, his head practically in her lap while Thomas helped guide his injured leg up and onto the console between the two front seats.
Rio and Dave had a three-point-two second conversation—Should they depart in both vehicles?—before Thomas made the command decision to stay together, ordering Dave to disable Ted’s little Honda. No point in giving the hostiles a vehicle in which to follow them.
With Tasha and Thomas in the back with Ted between them, Dave up front with a small arsenal of weaponry, Rio hit the gas and the SUV took off down the narrow mountain road with a lurch. Tasha put her arms tightly around Ted to hold him in place.
Rio might’ve been annoying, but the man was a highly skilled driver. And as Tasha exhaled, she realized that they’d done it. They were safe. They’d survived.
“If any one of us says to get down,” Thomas told her, his face still tight and grim, “you get your head down—in fact you get down on the floor. You understand?”
Okay, so maybe they weren’t completely safe just yet.
“What about Ted?” she asked.
“You can trust me to take care of Ted,” Thomas told her.
She nodded. It had taken incredible physical effort for Thomas to carry the prince to the SUV, but she was well aware of the emotional effort, too. Thomas had never quite believed that Ted wasn’t secretly in love with her. And she knew that Ted’s showing up here, like a Rambo-wannabe, one-man rescue team, hellbent on finding her... That wasn’t helping her convince Thomas he was wrong.
And Ted didn’t help further as he snuggled up against her, blissfully out of it—and still very glad to see her. “Love you so much, babe.”
“I love you too, Teddy,” she told him. “You’re such a good friend.”
But Ted must’ve been aware that they weren’t alone, because he said, “No, really. Really, really love you...”
“Ted,” she started. Remember Thomas? My Thomas...? This is Thomas. But his eyes had closed. The drug had fully taken hold, and he was out cold.
And Thomas was busy, getting info from Rio and Dave about where exactly they were, their destination—a secure medical center in Burlington, Vermont, and how quickly they’d get there.
Tasha sat as far forward as she could, too. “Can I help? I’m pretty good with maps.”
They all stopped talking—Rio looked at her in the rearview—and she realized that he probably found her as annoying as she found him. His entire being was radiating a very loud Why is the package speaking? We’ve been assigned to deliver it safely, so s-squared, package vibe.
Dave was slightly less obvious in his discomfort as he looked down at the well-creased paper map that was on his lap, clearly unhappy at the idea of giving it away.
“You absolutely can help.” Thomas alone spoke as he reached into the front. “Here.” He handed her Rio and Dave’s collection of cell and SAT phones. “Tell me the second we have any kind of service. I’m gonna want a medical team, ready to go, when we arrive—we’ll need to make contact in advance. The prince’s security team will want a heads up—and Uncle Navy, too.”
She nodded. “Got it.”
“But your number one job—”
“Is to duck when you say duck,” Tash finished for him. “Aye, aye, sir—nope, that’s still weird.”
“Even weirder,” he agreed, and if Ted weren’t literally right there, injured and unconscious between them, she would’ve kissed him.
Instead, she just smiled as Thomas gave Rio and Dave a quick report—a sit-rep, he called it. He relayed all of the info he’d gathered about the group of men—mostly amateurs—who’d been hunting them on that mountainside, including the fact that they were almost entirely on foot. She saw Rio and Dave both take a deep breath. Their shoulders relaxed—just a bit—as they exhaled.
Then, when they finally pulled off the dirt path and onto the state road, as Rio hit the gas and the SUV surged forward into the rapidly dwindling daylight, Tasha knew that this was finally over.
It wasn’t too long before, in her lap, one of Rio’s phones lit up.
“We have cell service,” she announced.
“Call the admiral,” Thomas commanded, and the SUV’s bluetooth automatically dialed the phone.
“Francisco.” Uncle Alan’s voice came over the car’s speaker. He must’ve been sitting by his phone.
Thomas was looking at her and nodding, so Tash raised her voice so the SUV’s microphone would pick up her.
“Uncle Alan,” she said. “It’s Tasha. I’m with Thomas—and Rio and Dave. And Tedric. We’re in the car. We’re safe. We’re coming home.”
Chapter Thirty
Wednesday Night
Damn, but Thomas hated hospitals.
Still, as the old SEAL adage went, he didn’t have to like it, he just had to do it.
His shoes squeaked on the antiseptic industrial tile floor as he followed his escort—a member of the Ustanzian security detail—down the corridor to Prince Tedric’s private room, where Tasha was waiting.
Two men, also wearing the Ustanzian uniform, guarded the door. They looked at him hard—he was still wearing his red-plaid-and-pink clown costume, although he had changed out of the battered boots and into a pair of Nike cross-trainers that Rio had grabbed from Thomas’s locker and thrown into the back of the SUV.
Because Rio didn’t play around, he’d also packed Thomas several changes of clothes. But Thomas was waiting to shower before he de-clowned—and he was waiting to make sure Tasha had everything she needed before he found a shower. He’d also helped himself to some of the extra clothes that Rio had brought along for himself—cargo pants, a T-shirt, and a thick fleece jacket—thinking that although they’d be big on Tash, they wouldn’t be as swimmingly huge as Thomas’s would be.
The door to the prince’s room was open, so after he got the grudging nod from the guards, he knocked softly as he went in. Tasha was curled up under several hospital blankets in a big chair by the window, sound asleep. The prince wasn’t in the room—the bed was empty—and Thomas just stood there for a moment, watching Tasha sleep.
Her legs were tucked beneath her, and she was holding tightly to the blanket, pulled up beneath her chin.
God, he loved her so much.
It still seemed unbelievable—all that had happened since they’d left San Diego just a few short days ago. The past twenty-four hours alone felt like a lifetime. But he’d done it. They’d done it. They were here, alive and safe.
Now came the hard part. Figuring out if everything they’d said and done—all those heartfelt conversations, making love on the sofa while locked in together—could survive outside of the forced intimacy of the pod.
Thomas had thought Hell yes—until he’d come face-to-face with Tasha’s prince.
But now...
It was so damn obvious that when Tasha looked at Tedric, she didn’t see what Thomas saw—a man who truly loved her. A man who willingly ran toward danger for her.
True, the same could be said about Thomas, but he was a SEAL. Running toward danger was in his job description. And while Prince Tedric had been gunning, literally, for this month’s Darwin Award with his foolish mishandling of a deadly weapon, it was hard not to respect the man for his courage and conviction—and his stalwart willingness to endure serious pain in order to get Tasha to safety ASAP.
Thomas had never been carried down a mountain at a fast-paced trot, with a broken leg and a gunshot wound jarring horribly at every step—and he sincerely hoped he never would be.
He looked around the room for a place to leave the clothes he’d brought for
her—he’d let her continue to sleep while he hunted down a shower—and he saw that the tray table that swung over the bed was filled with bags and empty take-out containers from a high-end steakhouse. Even the remains of the food—baked potato skins and a small piece of what looked like a very nice filet—smelled delicious. The hospital cafeteria cheeseburger that he’d made sure was sent up to her was—rightfully—untouched.
Thomas set the extra set of clothes on the end of the bed, and quietly turned to leave.
“Hey.”
Thomas turned back to see Tasha stirring.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was trying not to wake you.”
“No, I wasn’t sleeping—well, I think maybe I was, but... I was waiting for you,” Tasha told him, covering a yawn. But then she glanced pointedly at the open door, where the guards were positioned within earshot. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to Ted yet,” she said, sotto voce.
Okay. That was not great news in terms of silencing the weirdness and the squirrelly voices in his head. Time to carefully watch his words. And no grabbing her and kissing the shit out of her, as much as he wanted to.
Instead Thomas pointed toward the bed. “I brought you some clean clothes.”
“Oh,” she said. “Thank you, but...” As she threw off the blankets and stood up, he saw that she’d already changed out of the grimy, battered jeans and sweater she’d had on for the past four days. She now wore a thick, warm-looking turquoise turtleneck over dark denim jeans, expensive-looking black boots on her feet. And was she wearing makeup...? She was. It was odd—he’d gotten so used to seeing her without any makeup on at all.
He flashed back to that late night on the tarmac in San Diego—they’d both stood there awkwardly like idiots then, too. Tonight, also like then, Tasha’s hair defied her attempts to control it. Some things apparently never changed.
Thomas forced a smile, unsettled by just how disappointed he was that she hadn’t immediately straightened things out with Ted. But he understood—he did. What was she supposed to say to the man? I can’t marry you because I love Thomas! Gotta go, feel better, bye! And when was she supposed to say that, while she ran alongside Ted as he was whisked into the hospital on a stretcher? Or maybe on the way to get an MRI? No way would she do that, not even to an allegedly fake boyfriend, and yet...
The weird, unsettled feeling he’d walked in here with was now blossoming. Her makeup and her new clothes weren’t helping. Plus, they were standing in a hospital room—a place where his discomfort levels always spiked.
He tried to make a joke about her sudden change in appearance, wanting to hear her bright laughter, hoping that would ground him. “Whoa. This hospital must have one hell of a gift shop.”
Tasha only smiled briefly—yeah, it probably would’ve helped if he’d made a joke that was actually funny.
“The queen correctly guessed that my carry-on didn’t survive, so she had her staff pick up all this.” She gestured toward the floor between the bed and the window, and he realized there was a huge collection of shopping bags parked there. Bags from a very upscale mall. “I knew Rio brought clothes for you, so I didn’t ask them to get you anything, but maybe I should’ve—”
“No,” he said quickly, holding up the clothes he was hoping to change into soon. “Nah, really, I’m good.”
“They definitely overdid it,” Tasha said, turning to look again at all the bags, “but it is nice to be wearing underwear again.” She reached out to touch the pants and shirt he’d brought her. “Thank you, though, for... thinking of me.”
For thinking of her.
“Yeah,” he said, unsettled even more by her guards-are-listening careful wording. “No, I didn’t realize...” But he should have. Realized. Her boyfriend—allegedly fake, but come on, look at her, how could Ted not be totally in love with her?—was royalty. His family had staff. And personal security teams. And private jets. Of course Tedric’s mom—the queen—would make sure Tasha had something fresh and clean to wear after abandoning her in the wilderness for nearly a week.
“Thank you for making sure I had food, too,” Tash said. She was standing there, hands clasped tightly together as if maybe this was unsettling for her, too. Like, she had to hold onto herself to keep from reaching for him.
Or, she’d changed her mind after seeing Ted in action, and she was nervous about Thomas fucking things up for her.
“Oh,” Thomas said, hating the part of his brain that had vomited up that gem. But hey, look where he was. A bead of sweat dripped down his back. Last time he’d spent this many hours in a hospital when he’d been neither a patient nor a paramedic, things had gone epically south to full-scale tragedy pretty damn fast. Could he blame that part of his brain for being ready to leap to red alert?
Meanwhile, his silence was dragging on. The guards in the hall were listening, and she’d just thanked him for the shitty hospital cafeteria cheeseburger that she didn’t eat. Say something, King. “Yeah, well, looks like you had that covered, too.” He cleared his throat. “I’m a little surprised the prince was feeling well enough to eat.”
I’m a little surprised you didn’t find time to talk to him while you were sharing an expensive steak dinner.
“Oh!” Tasha said. “No, Ted didn’t eat, he’s still completely out of it. He didn’t just break his leg, he really messed up the tendons and ligaments in his ankle. They’ve got him hooked up to an IV with copious painkillers, so he’s barely conscious.” She glanced over at the remains of the take-out meals. “I’m so sorry, are you starving?”
“Nah, the FBI team leader got us food,” he told her.
“That’s good. That second dish was supposed to be for you, but... I ate it.” She made an apologetic face. “I’m sorry. I was still so hungry and... You were gone a long time.”
That second steak had been for him? Okay, now he was feeling a little less weird. Or was he? She’d gotten him a fancy dinner, assuming, what? That he’d come up here and sit and eat it with her at the prince’s bedside? Or was he supposed to take it and go? God, he wanted to go, he wanted to get out of here, but he also, absolutely, didn’t want to leave without Tasha.
Unless she wanted him to go without her.
“The debrief took a while,” he told her, talking over the crazy in his head. “It was pretty thorough. We had both Uncle Navy and Queen Mom on conference call.”
Her eyes lit up at that. “So, thorough and noisy. I spoke to Alan again on the phone, just briefly. He’s pissed that they just left us there.”
“Yeah,” Thomas agreed. Pissed was putting it mildly. The admiral’s head had been on the verge of exploding.
“He told me casualties in LA and Tampa were much lower than they’d feared—thank God,” she continued. “Oh! And that Mia spoke to Christine. Everyone’s safe.”
Thomas nodded. Mia and his sister Christine were still close friends even after all these years, and he’d been glad to get that news. “Uncle Navy told me that, too.”
Tasha was still clinging tightly to herself. “I wish I’d been there to hear him skewer the queen.”
“He’s an admiral,” Thomas reminded her. “He didn’t come close to skewering anyone.”
“No, I know,” she said. “But he’s gotten really good at scathing subtext. That had to be entertaining.”
“I’m not sure I’d use that word,” Thomas said.
“Anything you can share?” she asked, adding, “From the debrief. Oh, and just for the record, in my defense, Andrea volunteered to go out for another. Filet mignon,” she added. “For you. So I could eat yours.”
“Andrea?” he asked. He hadn’t met an Andrea when they first arrived at the hospital.
“The queen’s assistant.”
“The queen’s assistant.” Thomas suddenly seemed to be unable to do anything but repeat Tasha’s words. “She sent her assistant?”
“Her top aide, yes.”
Apparently, the queen finally appreciated just how important Tasha was to the pr
ince.
“So what’d you find out?” she asked eagerly. “Who were those men in the woods?” She stopped herself. “Wait, you probably want to shower and change. You’re standing there, holding your real clothes.”
“Nah,” Thomas said. “It’s okay. It’s not really that complicated a story. I mean, it’s absolutely as stupid as you can imagine—”
“Oh, my God,” she said. “Were we right?” She glanced toward the open door, and lowered her voice to nearly inaudible. “It was Hendrake?”
Queen Wila’s Shakespearian-named uncle. “Yeah,” Thomas told her. “The story’s already going public. So you don’t have to...”
“Okay, good,” she said. “Wow. Hendrake.”
“His original target was you,” Thomas said, and the surprise on her face turned to shocked disbelief. “And yeah, he was definitely trying to pin it on a terrorist group—the car bomb. It was set to go off after they let you get away, when the SUV stopped. But the team of geniuses who came up with the plan didn’t bank on you traveling with your own bodyguard, so the kidnapping team didn’t know what to do with me. Apparently, they didn’t want to shoot me and add a gunshot victim to what was supposed to be a simple terrorist bombing.
“Luckily for me, disposing of my body was also outside of their pay grade,” he continued. “They figured if they knocked me out and stripped me, I’d die from exposure. They seemed to think that a dead naked Black guy found frozen to death in the mountains near where you died would add to the mystery. That I’d be considered more suspect than victim—you know, maybe I lost my shit and killed you...?”
“As if Uncle Alan would’ve ever believed that,” she whispered.
Thomas nodded. “Yeah.”
“They also didn’t know how ridiculously hard you are to kill,” she said. “Or how hard I’d be to kill because you were with me.” She shook her head, still overwhelmed and a little confused. “But... why me? Why would Hendrake...?” She couldn’t even finish the sentence.
King's Ransom: (Tall, Dark and Dangerous Book 13) Page 28
