Diesel (The Mavericks Book 13)

by Dale Mayer

  She snuggled into his warmth. “I love how warm you are. It’s like lying against a furnace.”

  “It’s normal for me,” he said.

  “It’s amazing,” she whispered, as she curled up a little closer. His arms wrapped around her, gently shifting her, so that she was a little more comfortable too. She just smiled, noting that, once again, it was all about her comfort and not his. “But then again,” she said, “I didn’t even ask. Maybe you have a relationship ongoing.”

  “Nope,” he said cheerfully. “Single.” And then he stopped and asked, “What about you?”

  She caught an odd tone in his voice. She twisted to look up at him and smiled. “Nope, and I come from the belief that I’m with one person at a time,” she said. “I know it’s an unusual attitude in today’s day and age.”

  “Not for me. I’m the same.” He just smiled at that. “Maybe because I’m a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to relationships.”

  “Good,” she said. And then, she chuckled. “You do realize that we’re just getting the basics out of the way. So that we have a good idea who and what we are.”

  “Danger also accelerates relationships,” he said. “You really get to know who people are when the stakes are high.”

  “How does that work?” she asked.

  “Well, think about it,” he said. “If you do the dating scene, you can take months and months before seeing what somebody will be like under stress and under pressure. In something like this, we see that person show up immediately.”

  “So, if I was weeping and wailing and crying?” she asked. “You’d know something about me that you wouldn’t normally see?”

  “To a certain extent, yes. Because, if you were dating, how long would it be before you actually saw something like that?”

  She nodded. “Right. So now what does my behavior tell you?”

  “That you’re steady. That you can handle rough, high-stress situations. You can follow orders, when orders are snapped out because they’re necessary. You’re accommodating, and you pivot quickly.”

  She thought about that assessment and nodded slowly. “You know what? I think you’re right with that. I hadn’t really considered it. But is that of any value?”

  “It’s of huge value. You’re not a whiner. You’re not somebody who’ll complain because you didn’t have your fancy clothing or the special food you wanted or the coffee that you must have. You can share a bed and a bathroom. You didn’t need to have your own room,” he said. “You know what? A lot of people have very heavy diva traits, and we deal with those people because they’re part and parcel of the job we do, but that doesn’t mean a diva is anybody I would choose to be with. I know it works for a lot of people and great for them.” He added, “It’s not necessarily my preferred personality.”

  “Mine either,” she said. “I can’t stand working with them either.”

  “Exactly.” At that, she snuggled back in again. “So I have a question for you,” he said.

  She once again twisted to look up at him.

  “You’re getting a kink in your neck,” he said. And he lifted her up and pivoted her sideways, so she sat between his legs, with her legs hooked over his thigh.

  And she now faced him, her arm around his back. “What is it?”

  “Where do you live? How do you live? And what are you doing when this is over?”

  Diesel loved the way Eva burst out laughing in delight. He grinned. “So bad questions or good questions?”

  “They were the right questions,” she admitted. “And honestly I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing, but I would like to see you again.”

  “Good. Even if I’m not out rescuing you?”

  “Oh, Lord,” she said, “please, let me be in a scenario where I don’t need to be rescued ever again.”

  “Hear! Hear! For that. Are you likely to be in trouble again after this?”

  “I hope not,” she said. “I think I’ll change jobs though.”

  “Are you blaming the lab?”

  “I’m not so much blaming the lab as much as I’m wondering if it was their lax security that got me in trouble or their need to have press releases, showing their progress. I get that we must have investors, but, at what point in time, is it dangerous for the staff?”

  “Do you think there’s any connection to why you were targeted?”

  “Well, I have to consider it,” she said. “I don’t like to, but I do have to.”

  “And?”

  “It’s inconclusive,” she said. “My work was handed over. Everybody at the company who’s working on the same project has access to the same information, the same conclusions I do. I don’t know where the Chinese would have gotten the information that we had, what we had, but I know that the media had really made a big deal out of some of our research findings, and that was good in the sense that the company needed the influx of cash that came from that. But it was dangerous,” she said, “and, apparently because of it, we were most likely targeted. So do I want to work for a company where having investor money outweighs the risk? No.”

  “But did they know what the risk was?”

  “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “Again that’s part of that trust that I’ll have to reexamine.”

  “Well, take some time with your father and see how you feel about the job afterward. You love your work, don’t you?”

  “I really do,” she said with a smile. “But then I have to question whether I love it because it was the challenge and maybe more challenges are out there for me or whether it’s time for a change. I don’t know. This scenario has made me rethink a whole lot in life.”

  “Such as?”

  She looked up at him. “For you, this is normal. You get into these situations that are rife with danger, and you know how to get yourself out of it. For me, this is one of those eye-opening I didn’t know if I would live or die scenarios,” she said. “I still don’t know really. I mean, if you think about it, we’re still on the path to get me back safely. And then I have to question, is this the kind of work I want to do? Is this … I mean, if you were told that you had forty days left to live, what would you choose to do with those forty days?”

  He stared at her in surprise.

  She shrugged. “This is just some of what was rolling around my head the entire time that I was a captive. The things that are important before you lose your freedom are something that you have to reexamine when you do regain that freedom. What’s important to me? It was my father,” she said. “While my brother is part of the family too, my father is the only person I know who loves me for me and who I love unequivocally. So now what I really want is to spend time with him. Maybe when this danger, … when this panic is over, I’ll feel differently about that. I don’t know. But all I can think about is getting back to the people who care about me, so I can have that special hug again.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that,” Diesel said quietly. “It’s one of the reasons that we do what we do. It’s to bring people home.”

  She nodded. “That’s a big thing. Home. What does home mean to me? And it means different things now. Back then when I, … before this captivity—and I guess I’ll have a life that’s before and a life that’s after now—but before captivity, home was just that place that I lived in. My work was my life. It was my passion.” She said, “But now …” And then she stopped.

  He looked at her, gently squeezed her, and asked, “And now?”

  “I’m not so sure,” she said, her voice changing. “Watching Paul die, knowing that Marge is gone …” She closed her mouth and burrowed in closer.

  He felt the shaking of her shoulders, and he just held her. “Now you get another chance,” he said quietly. “You get to reassess what it is you want for your life now. It’s not a case of having missed out, … having made a mistake. It’s not a case of having been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s a chance right now to redo what you were doing. And decide again, is this wh
at you want? And, if it isn’t what you want, you get to change it.”

  “Is it that simple?” she whispered.

  “I think it can be,” he said, with a nod. “I mean, a lot of people have multiple careers. A lot of people work from home. Maybe you would feel better doing that.”

  “I’m not sure I could,” she said, “just because of the kind of work I do.”

  “And that’s another question. Is that the work you want to continue doing? Do you want a family?”

  “I didn’t,” she said, “until I lost the ability to choose that future for myself. But now? … And now maybe I do. I hadn’t really assessed it that way. I hadn’t looked at it. I just knew that everything that I could have was out in the future, and I guess that’s what the real problem is,” she said, as if trying to work her way forward. “I was working, burying myself in my work. I always thought there was time for all this other stuff later. You know? The husband, the two kids, the home with the white picket fence,” she said with a gentle smile.

  “And there still is time,” he said. “You’re what? Knocking on thirty?”

  “Almost,” she said. “And even just saying that now makes me more aware of my biological clock.

  “But women are having babies a lot later in life.”

  “Absolutely they are, but I’m not sure having children later in my life is what I want,” she said. “Say I do have them at forty, between forty and forty-five. Do I want to be between sixty and sixty-five with a twenty-year-old?” she asked. “But the point that I’m getting at is, when they took away my freedom, they took away those down-the-road future possibilities, and I suddenly realized that I hadn’t had that joy of giving birth or even the joy of marriage. I’ve never met that one person I wanted to go that distance with, and, because of that captivity, it’s as if all of that was taken away from me.”

  “And you haven’t had a chance to assess where you’re at now, right? You’re still thinking you’re a captive?”

  “I know I’m not a captive,” she said earnestly. “I get that. I really do. But the captive mentality? … I haven’t shaken it off yet. Maybe that’s what I’m trying to say.” But enough doubt remained in her voice that she looked up at him, shrugged, and said, “I’m not explaining it very well.”

  “I think you did very well,” he said. “The truth of the matter is, you’ve had your world shaken up, and now you’ll take another look at your priorities. If you were to die or were to know that you had only forty days left, what would you do? It’s not long enough to have a child, no matter how strong your medicine is.”

  She burst out laughing at that. “No,” she said, “it isn’t. And I wouldn’t want to bring a child into this world, knowing that I’m not there to raise it. At the same time, you know the only thing that really matters is those I love.” She added, “The money doesn’t replace those people I love. The job doesn’t. Not even the passion for the work I do. It really doesn’t right now. If I only had forty days, I’d go to the lake and spend it all with my dad.”

  “And I can really appreciate that,” he murmured. “In fact,” he smiled, “I think I’d probably do the same thing.”

  She looked up at him in astonishment. “I figured you’d tell me to go travel the world and do something memorable.”

  “I think when we know that our time is coming or that we know that there’s an end near, all we really want to do is be with the people we want to be with,” he said. “And, in this case, that’s your father. I understand that completely.”

  She smiled. “Thank you.”

  “No,” he said, “don’t be so hard on yourself. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to spend time with your father.”

  “Outside of my forty-days-to-live theory, doesn’t mean I want to stay there long though,” she said, laughing. “We do get along, but I get sick of fishing.”

  He grinned. “I love to fish,” he said, “but I don’t know how long something like that would work for me.”

  “Well, I tell you what. Why don’t you come fishing with me?” she asked impulsively. “You’ll take some of the stress off.”

  He burst out laughing. “So what you’re actually saying is,” he murmured, “that you would prefer if I came, so you don’t have to go fishing.”

  “I really do enjoy it,” she said. “I’m just not nuts about it.”

  He grinned. “Well, I’m not either, but it would be nice to get back out on the lake.”

  “Good,” she said, “it’s a date.”

  “If you say so,” he said. “Maybe you want to check with your father first.”

  “Nope,” she said, “he’ll be delighted.” She gazed at him thoughtfully. “Honestly he’ll be really delighted. So will my brother.”

  “Ah, don’t tell me. He’s trying to make sure that you’re taken care of.”

  “I think he’d be happy if I wasn’t alone, put it that way.”

  “And how do you feel about that?”

  “Well, when I was having all those lovely thoughts about having lost my future, as I had hoped it to be,” she said, “I had to wonder again if he wasn’t right. Being alone like that, it’s not the most comfortable place to be in your life.”

  “No, it isn’t,” he said, “but I don’t know that we can force a relationship to occur, just because we’re ready for it.”

  “No, I don’t think so, but I don’t want to force anything either. I’d like to think it would happen naturally.”

  “And it probably would,” he said. “I think it’s just about giving it time. Maybe now that your focus won’t be quite so heavily on your job, maybe there’ll be room for other things.”

  She nodded. “I think I agree with that.” She twisted to look across the ocean.

  He murmured, “Still hours yet.”

  “Are you taking over the driving of the boat?” she asked, pointing up at Jerricho.

  He shook his head. “No, Jerricho really loves this,” he said, “so I’m on babysitting duty.” But he said it with such a gentle chuckle that he hoped that she didn’t take offense.

  She sank back against him. “He seems nice,” she said, “but I don’t feel the same connection with him.”

  “Good,” he said. “He is really nice. He’s a good guy, and he’ll be there and look after you every step of the way.” He added, “And, if anything happens to me, you listen to him. Do you hear me?”

  She looked up at him in horror. He shook his head and placed a finger across her lips and said, “I’m not saying something will, but, in this job, we never know, and I want to make sure that you do follow what he tells you to do. Got it?”

  She wrinkled up her nose. “I got it, but I don’t like it.”

  “You don’t have to like it,” he said smoothly, “you just have to listen to me.”

  “Okay, fine,” she said. Then she shot him a look. “You know something? For somebody who doesn’t handle a whole lot of change, this has already been enough for me. I’d like a nice clean, safe ride home.”

  “And we’ll get it,” he said, “but now it’s a little bit more of an up-and-down journey.”

  “Fast?”

  “No, we took speed, … the requirement for speed, out of it,” he said, “once we realized that the airport was closed.”

  “Do you think that was connected to us?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It might have been absolutely nothing at all, but it was that little instinctive warning system of mine that wouldn’t let me forget it.”

  “Well, I’m okay to be here right now,” she said. She opened her mouth and yawned.

  “Sleep if you can,” he urged. “It’ll be a long couple days.”

  She winced. “I was actually hoping to have food.”

  “Not yet,” he said, “when we get to the ship.”

  “Okay,” she said, “maybe I’ll try to sleep.” And she snuggled in deeper.

  Diesel shifted, so he could lean back in place, tucked her up a little closer, wrapped his open
jacket around her to keep her back from the wind a bit, and just held her. It wasn’t long before her slow even breathing was obvious. He looked up to see Jerricho watching him.

  Jerricho nodded at the sleeping beauty in his arms. “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s better,” he said. “A little rattled, a little nervous, still dealing with the kidnapping and the scenarios that could have gone wrong. But she’s working on it.”

  “It’s hard, isn’t it?” he said. “Every time we deal with somebody saved in these missions, the issues are slightly different, yet, in some ways, they’re all the same.”

  “Well, it’s a shock and a loss of innocence that everybody has to deal with, one way or another,” he murmured. He kept his voice low to ensure she couldn’t hear him.

  “You two seem to be getting along just fine.” Of course Jerricho’s grin was wide and wolfish.

  “We are,” Diesel said in a neutral voice.

  “I told you.”

  “Not too interested in hearing that you told me so,” he said.

  “Well, I still think I’m right.”

  “Maybe, but we are not going there right now.”

  “That works for me too,” Jerricho said. “I’m not seeing any boogeyman around this corner,” he said, “so that’s a good trip so far.”

  “Let’s hope we don’t have any. We made enough preparations to slide out quietly.”

  “Doesn’t mean that somebody didn’t see our vehicle as we pulled up to the boat.”

  “The team should have picked up our vehicle by now,” Diesel said.

  “I’m sure it was,” he said. “It still doesn’t change the fact that somebody could have seen us park and get on board.”

  “That’s possible. We don’t … she doesn’t have any tracking on her, right?”

  “The navy checked for it on the destroyer,” he said, “and nothing was found.”

  “The question is whether the Chinese have a technology that we don’t know how to track.”

  “I was thinking of that too,” he said. “But, if she ingested something or was injected with something, the farther away we get, it should be more difficult to track her.”