by Lindsay McKenna - Course of Action: The Rescue: Jaguar NightAmazon Gold
“Didn’t you hear me?” she rapped out. “I told you I didn’t need an escort.”
“I heard you.” The answer came flat and uncompromising. “But we’re not aboard the RCB. On land, I give the orders.”
“The hell you do.”
Okay, maybe he did. Or at least they shared command. It was a gray area, but Charley was too disconcerted by his appearance to concede the point. Besides, she knew damned well this wasn’t a power play. Something about her didn’t sit right with Halliday. It was time she found out what.
“You’ve been straddling the fence with me since you got here yesterday. You want to tell me why?”
“Not particularly.”
She stalked across the small space separating them. He straightened, lowering his weapon but not yielding an inch when she got in his face.
“What’s the problem here, Halliday?”
“Back off, Dawson.”
“Something’s bugging you about me. What?”
“Back off.”
“Not until we clear the air.” She jabbed a finger at his chest for emphasis. “C’mon, Sarge. Spill your guts.”
His free hand whipped up and caught her wrist in an iron grip. Shadows bathed his face, but Charley was close enough to see it go hard.
“I don’t need to spill my guts,” he fired back. “Your ex spilled his.”
“Huh?”
Understanding hit then. Like a sledgehammer.
Well, hell! Halliday had told her yesterday he’d bumped into Alex at SOUTHCOM. She should have guessed then that her ex had spewed the same accusations he’d thrown at Charley when she told him she wanted out of their farce of a marriage.
Her first urge was to set Halliday straight. She opened her mouth, intending to let him know in no uncertain terms that she hadn’t cheated on her husband, hadn’t so much as flirted with another man. Just the opposite. Alex had cheated on her. Less than two months after their wedding, for God’s sake. The unspoken code that bound all sailors had prevented Charley from finding out until much later, and then only by accident.
A second, even stronger urge clamped her mouth shut. She was damned if she’d explain herself. If Halliday wanted to believe the jealous ranting of a drunk, then screw him!
Or...
The evil impulse grabbed her as she stared up at Halliday’s stony face. Charley knew she shouldn’t give in to it. She was in charge of a high-value, heavily armed amphibious assault vehicle. Training and experience had taught her to think before acting, to weigh all options before putting her boat or her crew at risk.
But this wasn’t about her crew or her boat. They were secure for the moment. This was about her and Jack Halliday and the disgusting things he obviously thought her capable of.
“I get the picture now,” she ground out. “Alex...my ex...told you I slept my way up the chain of command. Right?”
He still had her wrist in a tight hold. Still stared down at her with that hard, cold expression. “Something like that.”
“And you believed him?”
For a moment, she didn’t think he would answer. When he did, he only added fuel to the flames. “I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“You were, were you?”
Charley’s fingers curled into claws. She ached to yank free of his hold and rake her nails down his face. Somehow she managed a saccharine smile instead.
“You married, Halliday?”
“No.”
“Divorced?”
“No.”
“Ah. So the army’s your whole life. You probably live, sleep and breathe by the book. No wonder my ex’s suggestion that I earned my stripes the easy way stuck in your craw. But you don’t have to take his word for it, big guy. Why don’t you judge for yourself?”
Jack would’ve had to be stone-cold deaf to miss the anger behind that danger-laced invitation. He knew then he’d stepped on it with Charley, big-time. He also knew he’d be ten kinds of a fool to take her up on the challenge she’d just issued.
Problem was, he’d never been one to duck a challenge. Nor had any of the other five Sidewinders who were closer to him than brothers. Jack could almost hear Duke Carmichael’s laconic drawl, almost see Dan Taylor’s grin, as he used his hold on Charley Dawson’s wrist to draw her closer.
He did it slowly. Deliberately. Giving her plenty of time to end the game.
When she didn’t, he couldn’t decide whether he was more disappointed or turned on. Oh, hell! Who was he kidding? Disappointment didn’t come anywhere close to the hunger that ripped into him. She couldn’t escape him now if she wanted to.
She must have seen something of that hunger in his face. Jack saw doubt flicker in her brown eyes. Uncertainty. He was sure then she would cave. Back off, execute a hasty about-face, march back to camp.
He was just about to release her and let her beat an ignominious retreat when she surprised the hell out of him. A dangerous glint in her eye, she pushed up on tiptoe and locked her mouth on his.
The contact was hard, hot and fanned by a fury all the more explosive for being so rigidly contained. Jack felt it spark the air around them, felt an answering heat leap up in him to meet it.
God knew he’d enjoyed his share of women. All the Sidewinders had. He’d never bragged about his conquests, though. Never even kept score of his hits and misses. But none of the women who’d snagged his interest for a day or a week or a month had ever set him on fire with just a kiss. The taste of this one, the feel of her, set off a series of mini-explosions.
Hard on their heels came pure, unadulterated lust. The force of it damned near rocked Jack back on his heels. He could feel it take root deep in his belly. Feel it spread to all parts of him. His chest squeezed, and his blood went straight south. Rock hard and hurting, he told himself not to do anything stupid. Like drag Charley Dawson down to the jungle floor, strip off as many layers as he could and cover her body with his.
He wanted to, though. Sweet Jesus, he wanted to. He settled for transferring his grip from her wrist to her waist and hauling her up against him. Widening his stance, he took everything she had to give.
Chapter 4
Talk about getting snared in a trap of your own making! A corner of Charley’s mind mocked her flawed plan to take Jack Halliday down a peg even as the rest of her went up in flames. The urge to raise her arms, lock them around his neck and press even closer to his hard, muscled contours shocked her down to her boots.
She wasn’t some hyperhormonal teenager! Or a green recruit, fighting to survive in a testosterone-heavy environment. She’d learned to turn a blind eye to men emerging from the shower with just a towel slung low on their hips. To walk away from jokes and banter with sexual overtones. To shrug off all but the most blatant attempts to come on to her.
That wasn’t to say she’d never fallen in lust. Oh, yeah. She’d tumbled down that rabbit hole. Despite his other flaws, Alex had known all the right buttons to push. Just her bad luck that she’d expected other attributes in a mate besides skill in bed. Like the same interest in her career she showed in his. Or occasional tenderness. Or monogamy.
Yet every hard lesson she’d learned with Alex seemed to desert her as Jack’s mouth moved over hers. Her determination to avoid another stupid mistake... Her months of self-imposed celibacy... Those rigidly suppressed urges... They all seemed to combine into a whirling vortex of need. She could feel herself coming alive. Feel desire curl deep in her belly and race through her veins.
Then her mind went blank and her senses took over. Her palms slid up his arms, tracing the sinew and muscle under his layers of uniform. She breathed in the sharp tang of sweat. Felt his whiskers scrape her chin. Over the sudden, swift hammering of her own heart, she could swear she heard Jack’s thudding inside his chest.
She wasn’t sure who ended the kiss. Her mind was whirling too much and too fast to know whether she pulled back or he did. What she did know was that she’d gone into his arms angry and come out totally confus
ed. And so mortified she almost wished another anaconda would drop out of the tree and spare her the embarrassment of having to apologize.
It didn’t, so she did. Stiffly, but with soul-searing remorse. “I’m sorry. That was...completely unprofessional and totally irresponsible. I don’t... I’ve never...”
Oh, crap! Why bother? After this little display, there was no way Halliday would believe she’d never slipped away with one of her crew for a little friggin’ in the riggin’. Thoroughly disgusted with herself, Charley shrugged into her BDU blouse and gathered up the rest of her gear.
“I would very much appreciate it if you forgot this little episode. I certainly will.”
Yeah, right. Like that was going to happen.
Lungs pumping and chest heaving under his body armor, Jack watched Chief Dawson stride back toward camp. His narrowed eyes remained locked on her stiff back and swinging hips until they disappeared behind the fronds of the giant ferns.
He didn’t follow. He needed a few moments to relieve the ache in his groin and let his mind sort through what just happened here. It had started as payback. He got that much. Copper-haired, fiery-tempered Charley Dawson had fully intended to rip him a new one for even hinting that he gave credence to her ex’s slander.
Then she’d melted in his arms. For a second or two, Jack indulged the sheer male fantasy that it was his skill, his expertise that had awakened the female in the chief. That egotistical thought imploded almost as quickly as it formed. Charley Dawson was already all female.
And that summed up the problem in a nutshell. Jack had crossed the invisible line. Started seeing her as a woman when he should see only her uniform. The eyeful he’d gotten of her breasts molded by that wet T-shirt sure hadn’t helped matters, either. He’d be a long time getting that image out of his head. Even longer forgetting how her mouth had fit against his.
Still hurting, still wanting her with a hunger that wouldn’t go away, Jack muttered a vicious curse and headed back to camp.
* * *
Charley racked out on the RCB with her crew that night. The well deck made for close quarters, but they’d slept on deck before and would likely do so many more times during their tour in the Amazon. Try as she might, she couldn’t shut down, couldn’t wipe the encounter with Jack Halliday out her head.
Why in God’s name had she let her temper get the better of her like that? She’d never allowed personal feelings to intrude on a mission before. Never compromised her authority by losing her cool in front of her crew or the amphibious assault teams they worked with. Yet a mere twenty-four hours after meeting a certain Delta Force operator, she’d locked horns—and lips!—with the man.
All she could do, Charley decided, was follow the advice she’d thrown at him. She’d forget the ridiculous incident. Carry on as though it had never happened.
She finally fell into a troubled sleep with Snowball nested next to her in an empty ammo box and the RCB rocking gently against its mooring lines.
* * *
When she woke to a hazy jungle dawn, Jack and his team were already up and brewing coffee with smokeless canned heat. She cleaned up in the RCB’s head. After the previous evening’s episode with Halliday, she wasn’t about to go downstream and invite another encounter. At least not until she wiped that searing kiss out of her head.
She was still working on that when she prepared to go ashore and join the assault team. As she left the RCB, she spotted something caught in a tangle of exposed roots at the water’s edge. It was a jacunda, one of the Amazon’s most colorful fish. Usually one of the Amazon’s most colorful fish. This one was dead, and had acquired a bluish-white tinge that made Charley frown.
Once ashore, she joined the men but found herself avoiding Jack before deciding that was juvenile. So they’d generated a few sparks? Swapped some spit? She’d get over the embarrassment of yielding to that impulse. Sometime.
Deliberately, she snagged his gaze. Those penetrating blue eyes met hers, but she was damned if she could interpret the message in them. If there was one. Stone Face Halliday was back in the saddle. With a mental shrug, she hunkered down beside Bear and gratefully accepted the cup he passed her.
“Better be careful,” he warned with a grin. “Delta Force coffee will put hair on your chest.”
“Just what I need.”
A cautious sip told her that the black sludge wasn’t any worse than that brewed aboard most navy vessels. She took another swallow, and the caffeine zipping through her veins gave her the kick she needed to address Jack with an expression as cool as his.
“I need you to come look at this.”
He tossed the dregs from his cup and followed her to the channel’s bank.
“There,” she said, pointing to the dead jacunda. “Notice the bluish-white tinge around its gills?”
“I see it.”
“That’s a classic sign of mercury poisoning. Fish can absorb mercury efficiently enough, but excrete it very slowly. Over time it builds up in their viscera and muscle tissue and inhibits their ability to absorb oxygen from the water. Eventually, they suffocate.”
Halliday shifted his gaze from the dead fish to Charley. “Looks like we may be following the right channel.”
“That’s my guess. Although,” she felt compelled to add, “there’s so much mercury entering the Amazon watershed these days, this guy could have ingested it hundreds of miles from here.”
“Well, we’ll know soon enough. We can start up channel as soon as you and your crew are ready.”
“We’re ready.”
They walked back to the campsite in silence. Halliday was so remote and focused on the mission that Charley might have imagined those wild moments locked in his arms last night.
“We detected three possible mine sites,” she reminded him. “Odds are the first two played out and the camp moved upriver.”
“True, but we can’t take that chance. I need you to put us ashore five clicks from the first site. We’ll go in on foot from there.”
Charley chewed the inside of her cheek. She’d lost count of the number of Special Ops teams she’d inserted and extracted during her years as a river rat. For some reason, though, the idea of depositing Jack and his crew on the bank and letting them trek their way through the rain forest without covering fire didn’t sit right with her.
“We can take you closer in.”
“I want to recon first. If we need backup, we’ll call for it.”
Right. Okay. He knew his men. Knew their capabilities. Yet when Charley nosed her craft into the bank a little more than an hour later and watched the Delta Force team fade into the jungle, her stomach knotted.
* * *
It didn’t unknot until Halliday radioed an all-clear and told her to bring the boat up. She navigated the sinuous curves with one eye on the instruments and the other on the narrow channel. When the RCB rounded yet another turn, a sudden swath of sunlight appeared dead ahead.
It was without doubt an illegal mining operation. A wide strip of cleared earth stretched along the channel bank, as wide as a football field and three or four times as long. As they neared the site, the air went from wet and hot to bone-dry and dusty. And without the filter of the canopy and understory growth, the harsh equatorial sun beat down with unrelenting fury on a scene from hell.
Huge, muddy pits pocked the denuded area. Trash lay everywhere. Rusted oil barrels were tipped on their sides. Flies swarmed piles of refuse close to what must have been the kitchen area. The skinned tree trunks that had once been lashed together as tripods to support the hoses that sucked up mud and water now lay like giant, discarded toothpicks. And the harsh stink of chemicals rose from the pits like an evil miasma.
As Charley’s gaze swept this evidence of man’s disregard for the very environment his planet needed to survive, a familiar anger kindled in the pit of her stomach. It heated to white-hot incandescence when she spotted a row of crosses at the far end of the site. Made from rough branches tied together with ju
te, they no doubt marked the graves of kidnapped workers whose bodies hadn’t been tossed in the river.
“We need to call in the policia and a forensics team,” she told Halliday when she’d joined him ashore.
He nodded, but she could see his attention was focused more on the object he held in one hand than on the crosses. She moved closer, her nostrils quivering at the combined stench of rotting refuse and chemicals.
“What’s that?”
He took his time answering. “It’s a shell casing from a 5.56 mm round,” he said finally. “The kind of round fired by a 416 assault rifle.”
She sucked in a swift breath. Halliday carried a 416 slung over his shoulder. Although there was no official confirmation of the rumor, word was Delta Force had worked directly with Heckler & Koch to develop the weapon as a replacement for the M4. It was their weapon of choice.
“So he was here,” she murmured, staring at the casing. “Your pal McMasters.”
“He’s not my pal.”
The savage reply jerked her head up, and the ice-blue of his eyes almost made her take a step back. “Hey, don’t jump down my throat. You’re the one who told me you trained him, remember?”
His jaw worked. “I remember.”
Whoa! Charley sincerely hoped she never got crosswise of Sergeant Jack Halliday. She’d skirted close to it last night, she knew. Dangerously close. She had sense enough to back off now, though.
“I’ll go back aboard and radio in the coordinates for the policia. Do we wait for them or press ahead?”
“We press.”
* * *
They reached the second site just before noon. Once again, Jack insisted his team go ashore down channel and recon before calling up the RCB. And once again, the devastation at the abandoned strip mine lit a fuse in Charley’s belly.
Her anger simmered while she noted the signs of more recent occupation. The pits still contained several inches of muddy water. The trash had yet to be scattered by scavenging animals. The stink of chemicals lingered in the air, though, still strong and harsh enough to make Charley’s nose twitch.
“They haven’t been gone long,” Halliday said grimly.