by Lindsay McKenna - Course of Action: The Rescue: Jaguar NightAmazon Gold
Josh smiled and thought about Aly as he made his way to the tent. Her father was going to give her away. His heart swelled with love for her. She’d confronted her father six months ago. They’d had a lot of deep, wide-ranging talks with one another because he’d been assigned to Camp Pendleton to run the Recon training. She’d pulled on that steel strength she had and a miracle had happened. Harrison Landon had broken down, cried, pulled his sobbing daughter into his arms and profusely apologized. Josh had left them alone in their apartment, going outside to let them have their time alone.
What he prayed for was that some kind of emotional truce could be worked out between them. It had been better than that. Because Aly loved Josh so much, she was able to understand that deep love her father had had for her mother. She’d begun to realize on another level that when her mother had died, her father had been lost without her. And he’d never recovered from it, unable to be there for Aly as he should have been.
When Harrison Landon brought his daughter down the satin-white runner, Josh knew Aly would be the happiest woman in the world. She’d regained her father and she was marrying him. It was a good day and as Josh took his place with his best men at the altar, three hundred people in the tent to attend their wedding, it was one of the special moments in their lives.
When the Wedding March played, Josh saw Aly emerge from the house with two of his female cousins carrying her train. Harrison Landon was in his dress blues, every inch the Marine Corps general he was. Josh was glad he was in his Marine dress blues, as well. Aly had met him as a Marine and he wanted to marry her as one while he still had two days left on his enlistment.
Aly looked radiant in her white-satin wedding gown. Her ginger hair was arranged softly around her face and she was wearing a bit of makeup, which, his mother had persuaded her, simply accentuated the beauty she already had. And it was true; the pink lipstick went with the natural flush across her cheeks. More than anything, Josh loved her freckles because it made her look so young and carefree. Her blue eyes sparkled and her gaze held his.
He felt nothing but a fierceness of love and protection welling up through him. Aly’s father looked proud, but his expression was soft. The game face wasn’t there and Josh was glad because the look in Aly’s face when she looked up at him was priceless. The love in his face for his daughter was clear for all to see. It was a powerful moment, and Josh swallowed against his tightening throat.
When Harrison Landon gave his daughter’s hand to the Marine standing so proud and tall, there were tears in his eyes. He leaned down, kissed Aly on the cheek, smiled at her and then looked up at Josh.
“Take good care of my only daughter,” he rasped to Josh.
Josh took Aly’s hand, feeling how cool and damp it was. She was nervous. “Yes, sir. I will, sir.” The words came out choked with emotion. General Landon nodded, did an about-face and then went and sat in the first row.
Josh looked down into Aly’s eyes, smiled and squeezed her hand. He saw how much she loved him in her flawless blue eyes. She came to his side, taking her hand and placing it around the bouquet of white and pink roses, long satin ribbons of the same colors hanging and caught up in the warm April afternoon Texas breeze.
The female minister from their church, in her sixties with silver hair, opened the family Bible and began the ceremony. Aly’s voice was wispy. His was laden with barely held emotion. They often connected with one another, their gazes meeting. Josh had never felt so emotional, so happy, in his entire life. When he slipped the wedding ring onto Aly’s finger, she smiled so radiantly up at him he thought his heart would burst with love. And when the minister told him he could kiss his bride, he did.
Josh swept her into his arms, one hand behind her neck, the other on her waist and he curved his mouth gently against hers. It was as if the rest of the world dissolved around them. He felt her warm breath, her mouth blossoming beneath his, her slender fingers moving around the nape of his neck, drowning in the fierce passion he held for her alone. When he eased his mouth from hers and carefully put her back on both feet, his Sidewinder brothers roared, “Hooooyahhhhh!” The shout of his brothers, the grins on their faces, the happiness in their expressions, meant everything to Josh as he slid his arm around his truly blushing bride.
They faced the guests inside the tent, most of them his family, cousins, nephews and nieces. Everyone broke into clapping, cheered and stood, radiant expressions on their faces.
* * *
Aly looked up at Josh. How handsome he was in his dress uniform. How proud he looked, his shoulders pulled back with natural pride and confidence. He smiled down at her and she felt embraced in the sunlight of his love.
When she glanced toward her father, she saw tears drifting down his face. Choking back a sob, she excused herself from Josh and walked over to him. He stood and his large arms carefully embraced her as he kissed her cheek and then simply held her, happiness in his eyes. When he released her, he cupped her cheek, put a kiss on her brow and then let her go.
Josh held out his hand as she walked back to his side. There was so much healing going on, he realized, curving his arm around her waist. Cell phones and cameras flashed, video was being taken and through it all, he stayed strong for Aly. He could feel her trembling. But it wasn’t from fear. It was because she was overwhelmed with so much happiness she couldn’t possibly process all of it. Leaning over, Josh kissed her unexpectedly on the lips and he felt her tense for a moment, caught off guard. But then he felt her melt into his arms, lean fully against him, her trust without question.
* * *
It was well past midnight when Josh lay with Aly in his old bedroom in his parents’ home. Tomorrow morning, they would catch a flight out of Dallas-Ft. Worth and fly to the Garden Isle of Kauai, Hawaii. Aly loved nature and he’d been to the islands on many occasions and knew this particular one would appeal the most to her.
She sighed, moving her satiny body against his, her brow against his jaw.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked.
“No. Too wound up.”
“It was a good day, Aly. You were beautiful.”
“I felt beautiful.” She sighed, lifted her head and moved across his chest, planting her chin on her hands, looking at his shadowed face. Moonlight streamed in through the thin curtains. She could see the warmth banked in his eyes, a satisfied look in them. “You looked...so handsome. I’ve never seen you in Marine dress blues.”
“Not the grungy Marine with his face painted, wearing camos, a rifle in his hand you met in that room in the Amazon?” he teased, moving his fingers softly across her cheek, feeling the warmth and velvet of her skin.
She laughed softly. “You just clean up good, Patterson. That’s all.”
“Well, Mrs. Patterson, I think you were the center of attention out there this afternoon. A beautiful, happy bride.”
“It was so stressful,” she admitted.
“I know. But you carried it off as if you weren’t.” He moved his fingers down her long spine, watching her eyes grow drowsy, arousal in them. “You pulled from that well of strength you have.”
Nodding, Aly reached out and slid her fingers along the line of his hard, square jaw. “I never know I have it until I guess I need it.”
“That’s how it works,” he murmured, catching her hands, slowly kissing each of her fingers, watching her expression grow languid. They’d already made love once. Josh was more than ready to love her again.
“Let’s start our family, tonight,” she whispered, slowly getting to her knees, her hands coming to rest on her thighs.
“In a heartbeat,” he growled. “But only if you’re sure.” Josh pulled her over on top of him, her legs settling by his hips.
“I’m sure, about everything,” she said, sliding her fingers across his chest. “I want to carry your baby inside me, Josh. I’m more than ready for this. I’ve had a year and three months to feel my way through the idea of being a mother and you a father.” She saw his mouth curve and
he shook his head.
“You know,” he said huskily, “my dad told me that women rule the world. I think I’m getting the drift now. Don’t you?”
Her laughter combined with his and he slid his hands across her hips. When it came to Josh loving her, she was his equal in every way. And this time, when he slid into her warm, wet depths, she dreamed a new dream. She hadn’t told Josh everything about the scrapbook she had called her Book of Dreams that she’d began as a ten-year-old. On the page after the gallant knight rode up to her house, she had pasted a photo of a couple being married in a church. On the next page, she had cut out a wife and husband with the wife holding a newly born baby in her arms, looking happy.
As she moved her mouth strongly against Josh’s hungry mouth, Aly promised she would take her scrapbook with her to Hawaii. She wanted to show Josh the rest of the pages contained in her Book of Dreams. Aly knew he would approve of a young girl’s dreams, so long ago, that were now coming true. Love had found her, Josh had claimed her and now she was his. Forever.
* * * * *
AMAZON GOLD
Merline Lovelace
To my one and only, who’s shared more adventures with me than either of us can count.
Here’s to many more, my darling.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 1
It took her a moment to pick him out of the stream of passengers exiting customs at the airport in Iquitos, the Peruvian city hacked out of the jungle of the Upper Amazon. Even with his shaggy blond hair and three or four days’ worth of scruffy gold whiskers, he could have passed for a local. Thousands of Europeans had flooded into Iquitos during the Rubber Boom of the 1880s. The rubber barons of that period acquired immense wealth, built fantastic mansions and gave the city its unique cultural identity. Generations later, Iquitos still boasted the largest gringo enclave in Peru.
In boots, jeans and a canvas bush shirt, this gringo might have been one of the tough, macho guides who escorted would-be adventurers into the vast Amazon rain forest. The clothes and the battered duffel bag slung over his shoulder suited his tall, muscular build. They also, she knew, served a vital military necessity. To conceal their identities, operators assigned to the U.S. Army’s supersecret Delta Force usually wore civilian clothes. For the same reason they were allowed—correction, encouraged—to adopt civilian hairstyles and beards or mustaches to blend in with the locals. The practice also allowed for plausible deniability, that useful shield the U.S. government could hide behind if one of Delta Force’s dangerous and usually politically sensitive ops went bad.
Aviator sunglasses shielded his eyes as he did a quick sweep of the terminal before zeroing in on her. He could hardly miss her. The waiting area wasn’t much bigger than your average living room, and she was the only female present wearing jungle BDUs. He detached himself from the stream of arrivals and crossed the terminal. Removing his sunglasses, he hooked them in the open neck of his shirt. His eyes were a deep, electric blue and more than a tad disconcerting as they drilled into her.
“Chief Dawson.”
It was a statement, not a question, but she answered it, anyway.
“That’s me.” She thrust out her hand. “Charlene Dawson, Charley to my friends and fellow river rats. Welcome to Iquitos.”
She went into a mental brace as he folded his big hand around hers. After eleven years in the U.S. Navy, four of them as a member of a riverine patrol crew, Charley was used to having her metacarpals crunched by the Special Ops types she and her crew inserted into and extracted from various hot spots around the world.
Apparently Sergeant First Class Jack Halliday felt no need to prove his manhood by crunching anything. His grip was firm but not bruising. The hard callous on the web between his thumb and forefinger was a dead giveaway, though. As Charley knew from her work with Special Ops teams, that telltale callous was the mark of shooters who’ve fired thousands upon thousands of training rounds and God knew how many in actual, life-and-death situations.
She kept her welcoming smile in place as Halliday’s penetrating blue eyes made a quick trip from her pinned-up-and-out-of-the-way auburn hair to her unglossed mouth to the neckline of her regulation-issue brown T-shirt.
“My crew get in okay?” he asked, the inspection completed.
“Two arrived last night, one this morning.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
Obviously a man of few words. That was fine with Charley. She tugged on her floppy-brimmed boonie hat and led him to the exit. “It’s quicker to get to the base by boat. We’ll take a taxi to the dock and cruise upriver.”
Taxi being an extremely loose euphemism for the putt-putts that comprised the main means of public transportation in this remote jungle city. Called motokars by the locals, they consisted of rickshaw-type seats perched precariously on the back of motorcycles. Dozens of them were lined up outside the terminal, puffing exhaust fumes into the sweltering afternoon heat. Charley signaled for one and waited for the inevitable mad scramble to produce a clear victor. The winner roared up and screeched to a stop that set the mildewed tassels on his gaudy yellow canopy to dancing.
“Where you go?” he said in cheerful, broken English.
“To the navy dock,” she replied in the idiomatic Spanish she’d polished during her two months in Iquitos. Prior to that, she’d operated out of a navy base in Brazil. Spanish, thankfully, came a whole lot easier to her than Portuguese.
She climbed aboard and scooted over to make room for Halliday. Not enough room, as it turned out. Dropping his gear bag on the deck, he wedged in. They were knee to knee, hip to hip, and the contact sent a completely unexpected thrill chasing up Charley’s thigh.
Her stomach tightened as a sudden tension stirred deep in her belly. It was the kind of tension she hadn’t felt, hadn’t allowed herself to feel, for longer than she could remember. With a silent curse, she inched her leg away from his. She was hours away from launching a dangerous op. She’d be ten kinds of an idiot to go all twittery at the brush of Jack Halliday’s hard thigh. Which brought her back to the curiosity that had dogged her since HQ SOUTHCOM notified her they were flying him and his Delta Force team in to conduct this op.
The United States and Peru had signed a bilateral riverine plan more than a decade ago to increase joint military-police patrols against the narco traffickers who used the Amazon waterways to move their product. In support of that effort, the United States had shipped in patrol boats, set up radar surveillance at Iquitos and several other sites along the river, and assigned a contingent of thirty-three Green Berets to “advise” on interdiction efforts. The Green Berets rotated out every ninety days, but they were tough. Bite-through-steel tough. Charley should know. She and her crew had skimmed them and their Peruvian counterparts up and down the brown waters of the Amazon often enough to see them in action.
So why the heck were Halliday and his team here?
She waited until their putt-putt had barreled into the stream of other motokars and motorcycles heading into Iquitos’s center to ask. The whine of engines and deafening roar as a maverick accelerated out of the pack covered her quiet comment.
“I was surprised when HQ SOUTHCOM advised they were sending in a Delta Force team. So were the Green Berets on base. What’s up with that?”
His glance sliced into her, as sharp and lethal as the serrated KA-BAR she suspected was strapped to his forearm or calf. As with the American Express card for ordinary citizens, these supermacho warriors never left home without one.
Silence strung out between them, and his obvious reluctance to answer her question generated a spurt of irritation. She was one of the good guys, for Pete’s sake! Controlling that irritation, Charley laid her cards on the line.
“L
ook, Halliday, my crew and I know this is going to be a hairy op. We don’t have a problem with that. Each of us has pulled at least one combat tour in Iraq, patroling the Tigris and Euphrates. Several of us more than one. Since being shipped across the pond to the Amazon, we’ve bumped up against some nasty bad guys. My crew is good at riverine ops, damned good, but if you know something about this mission that could impact their lives, I want to hear it now.”
His jaw went tight, which was pretty impressive considering it already did an excellent imitation of the Rock of Gibraltar. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the mirrored sunglasses but could certainly feel their heat. The intensity of it blocked her peripheral perception of Iquitos’s rough-and-tumble outskirts. The small, ramshackle brick and wooden houses. The giant palms and profusion of flowers. The dirt roads jammed with putt-putts, motorcycles and wooden buses. As the only major city in the world inaccessible by road, Iquitos still managed to rack up the traffic.
It was now early April, the end of summer and beginning of fall south of the equator. Temperatures hovered at a balmy eighty-nine degrees. Unfortunately, this was also the peak of the rainy season. Even when the skies weren’t dumping torrents of rain, soul-sucking humidity wrapped everyone and everything in a wet blanket. Perspiration dewed Charley’s face and sweat coursed between her breasts as she waited for Jack Halliday to crack his stony silence.
“I trained Sean McMasters,” he said at last.
“Whoa! Our target is a Delta Force operative?”
“Was,” Halliday corrected, “until he went rogue.”
She almost wished she hadn’t asked. Halliday’s terse revelation had just shot up the pucker factor of her mission by exponential degrees.
Going after the narcos who traversed this stretch of the Amazon was dangerous enough. For the most part, though, they were poorly educated and relied on cunning and brute force to move their cargo. In recent months Charley and her Peruvian counterparts had been given a new target—the illegal gold mines dumping tons of toxic mercury into the river that provided life to so many animals and humans in the region. Not only were these mines raping the earth and polluting the environment, they sprouted rough-and-ready camp towns where drugs, alcohol and prostitution flourished like blights.