Family Stone Holiday Box Set: (including Stone Cold Heart, Carved in Stone, and Heart of Stone) (Family Stone Romantic Suspense)

by Lisa Hughey

  And for once Di was silent.

  “We are tired of fighting.” Magtanggol shrugged and placed his weapon on the table. Slowly everyone else did the same. “We want our children to grow up in peace. To be able to learn and thrive.”

  “Why this method of delivering the message?”

  “Because while we may want peace and the Philippine government may want peace, there are factions in the military who do not,” Magtanggol revealed. “That’s what we need your government to know.”

  Riley shot a furtive glance at Di. Her eyes were wide…and angry. Riley had a feeling all that anger was going to be directed at him and soon.

  He’d already gathered intel on the rebels’ weaponry, vehicles, and the general state of mind on the island. Their information confirmed what he’d been able to glean from his conversations of the last few days. Most of the rebels really did want peace. “Anything else?”

  “Yes. You really are in danger.” Magtanggol frowned. “That same faction, the military, has been following your movements around Jolo. Our intelligence says they are going to try to capture you, kill you and blame the rebels, us.”

  “Well that certainly doesn’t appeal to me,” Riley said calmly.

  “We laid a false trail for them. And I know you have been keeping the truck’s owner apprised of your routes each day.”

  Riley nodded. Thinking it was a good thing he hadn’t known about this final delivery, and that he hadn’t given the information to the truck’s owner, or they’d have been screwed.

  Magtanggol pulled out a paper map and spread it over the table. He traced an alternate route back to Jolo with his fingers. “This is the way you need to return.”

  “Won’t that take us straight through the military stronghold?” Riley studied the map.

  “It will, but you also have the capability to travel through the jungle, if necessary.” Magtanggol meant if they were discovered and pursued by the soldiers. “Plus they will be looking for you in an alternate section of the jungle.”

  “We will also draw the soldiers away from your route back to Jolo.” Magtanggol smiled. “But we cannot engage them. It would violate the terms of the peace accord. We cannot. You understand this?”

  “I do.” Riley’s temper was starting to simmer. “You planned all of this?”

  Lailani and Magtanggol nodded.

  Riley shoved his chair away from the table and stood, fists clenched. “And you let your friend walk into possible death without a care?”

  “We did not worry.” Lailani shook her head beseechingly. “Why do you think we told her to hire you?”

  Six

  The silence from her side of the car was deafening.

  She was pissed…and crying. Riley tried to ignore Di’s sniffles. She was tough enough that he figured she wouldn’t want him mentioning her tears. But they got to him.

  Big time.

  Especially the tears of a fairly confident, competent woman like Di. The urge to pull her into his arms and offer her comfort nagged at him, until he knew he had to do something or he would give in to the urge to offer physical consolation. And it was neither the time or the place.

  “You okay?” He took his attention off the road long enough to gauge her response.

  “I’m fine,” she answered but it was watery. Too watery. “Except for the fact that you had another agenda.”

  Okay. He hadn’t figured she’d learn of his secondary mission but it was too late to hide it now. The reality was that her friends had put her into a dangerous situation and he was more equipped than someone without his training to get her out of this mess.

  “My primary objective is to keep you safe.” But Riley couldn’t lie. The intelligence that they’d given him was golden. Because he was pretty sure the prevailing thought in the U.S. was that if anyone broke the treaty it would be the more radical factions of MNLF. So assuming that her friends were telling the truth, the U.S. government needed to understand that the true threat to peace was a faction of the Philippine military. Not the members of MNLF or the other rebel groups.

  And if that faction knew that Riley and Di had that information, and that Riley had the connections to relay it to the U.S. government, they were dead.

  Shit. It all circled back to her friends. “Shouldn’t you be pissed at your friends?”

  He was still angry that they’d put Di in danger.

  “She tried to stop me from coming with the supplies.”

  “Wait. What?” Riley continued to scan the road. They had at least an hour before they were back in Jolo. He likely wouldn’t rest until they were on the plane back to the States tomorrow. Nothing like being in country with a military target on your back.

  “I ignored her. I wanted to come home.”

  “Home?”

  “I told you I grew up here.” Di swallowed down a sob.

  She’d stopped crying. And she wasn’t yelling at him. Which he’d like to avoid. Distraction was the key to diffusing her anguish and her anger. Riley was pretty sure if he could get her talking she’d forget she was pissed at him.

  “So what made you start Tools for Schools?”

  “Books, school were a place of safety when I was a kid.” She wiped away the tears from her cheeks. “We didn’t have much.”

  Based on his knowledge of the island’s history, he knew that when she was growing up that the entire island was a haven for terrorists of many persuasions. Definitely not a calm, peaceful environment. It was only in the last twelve years that with the U.S. government and corporate sponsors that the day to day violence had tapered off.

  Riley waited patiently, knowing she wasn’t done.

  “Then when I was fourteen, my parents sent me back to the States to boarding school.”

  She was quiet. So quiet, that he chanced another look at her. But her gaze was focused far away in the past. “I hated it. Everything was different. Bigger, louder, more chaotic. I didn’t fit anywhere since I’d spent my childhood in a rural island culture. And I missed my friends. But I found my way with books. I buried myself in books. Found new worlds. Found myself.”

  Books. His nemesis. Her saviors.

  “But my friends here weren’t as lucky,” Di said quietly. “So I started collecting leftover books, mostly for teens and I would mail them to my friends. When I finished a book I would send it along. If the library was cleaning out their stacks, I’d send those.”

  Riley admired her for thinking about her friends at such a normally self-absorbed age.

  “But soon it got to be too expensive, because the boxes were heavy. So I solicited donations to pay for the shipping.”

  “So your activism roots started early.” He glanced at her and smiled a warm, real smile.

  She smiled back, her face lit with genuine understanding. “Yep.”

  “That’s great.”

  “Then I went away to college. But I kept sending books whenever I could. And then my friends started asking for their younger siblings, or their cousins, or now, their kids. And boy is that weird.”

  Riley shuddered. He couldn’t even imagine.

  “So after college I used my business degree and I set up Tools for Schools.”

  “That’s great.” And he meant it. What a fantastic way to give back to the place that had nurtured her through her childhood.

  “Thanks.” She smiled tremulously.

  They were just passing through the area that worried him the most so he turned his attention to their surroundings. “Keep a lookout for anything out of the ordinary or unusual.”

  “Why?”

  “According to my intel and Magtanggol, this is the most dangerous pass we have to traverse right here.”

  Riley was worried. There were so many variables at play. If anyone from their little band leaked their route back to Jolo they were dead. If the military decided to send out multiple convoys, instead of just following the route Riley had given the truck rental place, they were dead. If the MNLF were wrong about the military’s
plans, they were dead.

  He really didn’t like how much dead kept popping up in his vocabulary right now. “I need you to be hyper-vigilant.”

  “I got that.” Di propped her chin on her fist and kept a lookout.

  The temptation to rev the engine and get the hell out of here was strong. But for one, the car that her friends had given them for the trip back likely wouldn’t go much more than thirty-five. Any car in this area wasn’t going to move fast. To blend in, they needed to maintain their cover speed.

  The tension in the car rose as they slowly puttered along. And Riley’s feeling of unease grew. Riley heaved a silent sigh and willed the hard knot of tension to loosen. “About another hour.” Maybe a little more if the rain kept up.

  Riley scanned their surroundings. Then he noted the deep furrows on the side of the road. Furrows likely made by heavy truck tires as in military trucks. Shit. That wasn’t a good sign.

  He glanced in the rear view mirror, looking for any other signs of soldiers or heavy trucks. But he didn’t see any.

  “I have a bad feeling about this.” He handed her the extra weapon. “Be ready.”

  Di nodded, her face reflected the same unease that was pulling at his gut.

  And then Riley heard the rumble of heavy trucks over the light rain. Trucks plural. Shit this could not be good.

  “We need to bail.” Riley quickly pulled the car as far off the road and into the brush and vegetation as possible, turned off the engine, and hoped that the indeterminate color would be hidden by the rain and bushes.

  Not to mention that there were enough abandoned cars along the roadsides on Jolo that hopefully whoever was in the trucks would take note but not stop. If they touched the hood of the car they would know that it had been recently driven.

  But they should be looking for the delivery truck. Not this old sedan.

  “What?”

  “Now.”

  “But—”

  “Not the time to argue.” He grabbed his backpack from the back seat, shoved open the driver’s door. “Trust me.”

  Thankfully she shut her mouth and sprang into action.

  They exited the car at the same time and slammed their doors shut. Riley hustled around the front of the car, grabbed Di’s hand, and tugged her into the overgrown cover of the jungle just as a convoy of trucks came from the direction of Jolo city. They shouldn’t even be on this road. Dammit.

  Riley pulled Di behind the trunk of a Narra tree and pressed her back against the wide trunk. Fortunately their clothing should blend right into nature’s color palette. He leaned into her, pressed her head into his neck, surrounded her. If he could absorb her into his skin so that no one would notice her, he would.

  “You understand that if they find us. They will kill us and blame your friends.” Riley said softly into her ear, “It’s a lose-lose for us and them.”

  “More for us,” she said drily.

  Riley held his weapon down by his leg but realistically he knew that his one weapon against a truckload of well-armed soldiers was worthless. Di’s heart beat so hard he could feel the tremble of her breasts. And if he wasn’t so worried about the possibility of discovery he’d be enjoying the way Di was pressed up against him, her body closer to his than ever before.

  The trucks, two of them, lumbered along the muddy road. Riley could see two rows of soldiers, lined up on benches in the back, sixteen or so per truck.

  He rested his forehead on Di’s shoulder and swore softly. There was no way he could hold off thirty-two men. He had to pray that they kept driving. The first truck slowed. “Fuck,” he gritted out softly.

  Di’s body tensed beneath his. “What’s wrong?” she whispered.

  “They’re slowing.”

  The driver peered through the windshield at the car. He called out something indistinguishable to the soldiers behind them, then lifted a piece of paper to his face. Riley had never prayed harder in his life. Hopefully they were looking for the truck.

  “Drive on by,” Riley muttered. For fuck’s sake.

  “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” Di’s lips moved against his neck.

  He wanted to laugh. Instead he kept his gaze trained on the soldiers. And tried to come up with anything he could do to protect Di if they got out and came to investigate the car.

  Finally the driver shook his head. One of the guys in back lifted a two-way radio to his mouth and began to speak. The driver of the second truck gave the first driver a thumbs up.

  “Don’t move.” He nuzzled the skin of her neck. “Looks like they’re driving on by, but we need to stay perfectly still, in case anyone is watching the jungle.”

  “Okay,” she said breathlessly.

  The soldiers in the back of the trucks continued to scan the vegetation. Riley prayed to every God he’d ever heard of that he and Di hadn’t left any major tracks that they soldiers could see. Their exit from the car and into the trees hadn’t exactly been stealthy.

  Di held her breath as they waited for the trucks to pass.

  Finally the trucks disappeared around the bend in the road. And still Riley didn’t move. But he was suddenly far more aware of the world around them. Rain dripped from the canopy above, and slid down the back of his neck, his clothes were soaked. The supple strength of Di’s body heated his front, her nipples were hard buttons against his pecs, and her breath was hot against the shell of his ear.

  Monkeys chattered in the tree tops, frogs croaked, and birds clicked and clacked. Steam rose from the jungle floor bathing the entire area in a soft, white mist as the rain trailed off.

  And still he waited.

  “Can we move yet?” But there was no sense of urgency to her question, and her body had softened and melted against his.

  “Not yet,” Riley said. “We need to wait, make sure they don’t double back.”

  “Do you really think they will?” Di asked doubtfully.

  “I refuse to let anything happen to you.”

  Riley’s mind was moving at Mach speed as he flipped through different possible scenarios. If they were lucky, the soldiers would assume they would stick to their plan. The one that even Riley had thought they’d be following and they’d given to the truck owner. Di’s deception may have just saved them. If her friends came through, then the soldiers should continue up that hill and into the mountains.

  “Do you think Lailani and Magtanggol will be okay?”

  “If the soldiers follow our originally planned route, your friends will be fine.” Riley nuzzled the delicate skin beneath Di’s ear. “They should get back to their sitio before the soldiers intersect with the original route we filed.”

  Damn he wished they still had the SAT phone. But they’d gotten rid of it just in case the military had the radar to track them if they used it. He’d hated to leave it behind but no one could get here to help them and the chance that the military could find them if they used it convinced Riley to leave it.

  “Can we get back in the car soon?” Di asked. Her hands had come up to hold onto Riley, fingers fisted in the belt loops at his sides and her hips canted toward his.

  His cock, which had been at half mast, surged to life at her surrounding heat.

  Adrenaline had dumped into his system at the danger when he’d heard the trucks. The chemical now morphed into raging desire. Desire he couldn’t assuage here and now, dammit.

  But they could have a little fun until they needed to move.

  Riley kissed a slow path down the side of her neck and nudged aside the collar of her cotton shirt to press soft, sucking kisses against her delicate collarbone.

  Di was pulling his shirt from his combat pants, her palm hot and smooth against his back, when he heard the tell-tale rumble. Fuck.

  “They’re coming back.” Riley jerked away from her. “Let’s go.”

  “Go where?” She tugged at her hand ineffectually.

  “In there.” Riley nodded toward the jungle. “Quickly.”

  Di’s eyes
widened but she nodded, and they took off.

  ***

  Hours later, Di sagged against the trunk of a Narra tree. Every bone and muscle in her body was sore and aching. And all she’d done was follow in Riley’s footsteps. Once they’d ventured further into the jungle and could no longer see the road, Riley took a wicked-looking machete from his pack and started swinging to clear a path.

  He’d stop and consult his watch, then adjust their direction, so minutely that it didn’t seem to her that it would make much difference, but he seemed to think it would.

  Gone was the suave, charming guy. Several hours in the jungle, and he was stripped of that veneer. Instead, Riley was pure primal male. The stubble on his face should have softened the line of his jaw, instead he seemed more hard angles and uncompromising strength. His arm muscles rippled with exertion as he swung the machete through the vegetation. Sweat blotched his t-shirt and sheened his body. Every line screamed predator, and protector. His face was feral and fierce. And she had no doubt that he would defend her with his life.

  Darkness would fall soon. And she was woman enough to admit that the idea of spending the night in the open, such as it was, jungle was terrifying. She’d managed to put all the bugs and snakes out of her mind while they were moving. But now that they’d stopped, every swish and rustle of the leaves made her wonder what was beneath them or crawling on the trees and ferns.

  So far they hadn’t seen any snakes, but honestly she hadn’t been looking too hard.

  Riley had mustered on, stopping when she needed to rest, never judging, never complaining. From the bowels of his never-ending backpack, he’d pulled out a water bottle and some purifying tablets.

  He glanced at his watch, then looked up. The sky was a gray blur above the thick canopy of trees. “We’re going to need to stop.”

  “Stop?!” Di protested. “Shouldn’t we keep going?” Even she could hear the panic in her voice.

  “Di.” Riley laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, but even the reassuring weight of his capable palm couldn’t quite calm her. “We’ll be okay.”