by Elle James
His lungs already burning, the heat dragging him down, Diesel could imagine the woman behind him had to be dying by now. He reached back, captured Brantley’s hand and pulled her along with him. When they arrived at a stand of huge trees with low-hanging limbs, Diesel aimed for them, slowing as he neared.
“Why are we slowing down? They’ll catch up to us,” Brantley said between ragged breaths.
Diesel cupped his hands. “Climb.”
“No. Wait.” The woman ripped her shirt and ran away from him.
“Where the hell are you going?” he called out to her in a whisper he hoped couldn’t be heard by their pursuers.
In the pale glow from what little starlight penetrated the canopy, Brantley raced to the far edge of the clearing that surrounded the base of the tree and hung the piece of fabric on a bush. As quickly as she’d left, she returned to where Diesel again bent and held out his cupped hands. If they didn’t hurry, that little bit of fabric hanging on a bush wouldn’t make a difference.
“Go!” he urged.
Still, she hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t think. Just climb.”
Shouts in the jungle behind them had her stepping into the palms of his hands. He boosted her up to the first limb. When she had her balance, he handed her his rifle, and then pulled himself up beside her.
Without waiting for him to instruct her, Brantley climbed from limb to limb, rising high up the trunk to the vegetation that would provide sufficient concealment from the men wielding flashlights and weapons below.
As the men neared the tree, Brantley came to a stop. Diesel followed suit. For the next fifteen minutes, they sat silent in the tree.
Diesel breathed, held his breath and listened.
The sound of footsteps below indicated the men had reached the base of the tree. A light shined up into the branches.
Diesel glanced up.
Brantley hugged the trunk, pressing her body against the hard wood, making herself appear to be as much a part of the tree as its bark.
Diesel had laid his rifle along a thick horizontal branch, and then he laid himself across the branch, as well, bringing his feet up behind him to keep them from dangling over the sides. If he slipped an inch to the left or the right, he might fall off the branch and all the way to the ground. He didn’t think about falling. Instead, he focused on his balance and maintaining his silence.
A man below yelled. The flashlights were turned away from the branches of the tree and shined toward the far side of the clearing. Footsteps pounded through the brush, toward the jungle and way from the two people up in the tree.
Soon, the sound of humans faded away, and the creatures of the night sent up their own song.
“They’re gone,” Reese said. “Should we get down?”
Diesel sat up, his legs straddling the big branch. When he scooted back into the trunk, he found that there was enough room for two people to sit comfortably without falling out of the tree. “We’re staying the night here.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” she said.
“I’m not sure which direction the rebels went. If we get down and follow them, they might decide to turn around and head back to camp. If we turn back the way we came, we might run into whoever they left behind.”
“Yeah, yeah. I get it. If we go deeper into the jungle, we might be lost for good, and the river is full of its own dangers.” She sighed. “I guess being up a tree for the night beats getting shot at or eaten by crocodiles...” Her words trailed off.
Diesel chuckled. “You don’t sound very enthusiastic.”
“I might be if I wasn’t just a little petrified of heights.” Her voice shook, and her teeth chattered.
“You’re kidding, right?” Diesel shined his flashlight with the red filtered lens up at her.
She remained glued to the tree above him, even though the enemy threat had moved on. As the light touched her face, she opened her eyes and looked down. “Oh, hell.” She squeezed them shut. “Shouldn’t have done that. No, no, no. Shouldn’t have done that.”
“What? Shined the light up at you?”
“No,” she said, her teeth clattering together so hard that Diesel was afraid she’d chip one.
“No. I shouldn’t have looked down.” Brantley’s arms tightened around the tree. “Now that I’m up here, I might as well stay awhile. I certainly won’t be getting down anytime soon.”
Good grief, the woman was beyond terrified. “Don’t move,” Diesel said. “I’m coming up.”
“Don’t move, he says.” Brantley laughed, the sound without amusement. “Trust me when I say, I couldn’t let go if I wanted to. So much for all the MMA training. It doesn’t help you conquer all of your fears. No, you have to climb up to the top of a giant tree to test the theory. You couldn’t just stand on the edge of a cliff. Noooo. You had to climb up a really tall tree in the dark, in a jungle, with an absolute stranger who could be just as much the enemy as the people who kidnapped you.”
A smile twitched at the corners of Diesel’s mouth at Brantley’s long monologue. He knew she was talking to keep from freaking out, but it was funny and kind of cute. She’d kept up with him in their mad dash to evade her captors. And she was a bodyguard and appeared to be capable of protecting herself. To Diesel, that spelled one tough chick.
Until she’d climbed a tree and looked down toward the ground.
Diesel pulled himself up to the next branch and the next, until he finally slung his leg over the limb Brantley was straddling, hugging the trunk with all of her might.
Diesel scooted closer.
Brantley glanced over her shoulder, nervously. “Don’t knock me off.”
“Wasn’t going to.” He inched toward her. “You know, there’s enough room for two to sit here all night.”
“So you say.” She didn’t let go of the tree trunk.
In the dark, Diesel couldn’t see her fingertips, but could imagine them curled into the bark.
When he was close enough to touch her back, she flinched.
“I’m not going to knock you off. I was hoping to reassure you that this limb is big enough for the two of us.” He wrapped his body around hers. “You’re as tense as a tightly wound rattlesnake with a brand new button on his tail.”
Brantley snorted. “Did you just fall off a horse in Texas?”
Diesel chuckled. “How did you know I was from Texas?”
“Lucky guess.” She inhaled, her back rubbing against Diesel’s chest. Letting the breath out in a long stream, she laughed. “I don’t suppose you know of anyone who’d hire a bodyguard who couldn’t keep her client safe?”
“Not off the top of my head. But then the odds were stacked against you on this assignment, from what I know.”
“Damned guide was in on the kidnapping,” she stated. “I should have seen it. Hell, I should have shot him when I realized he was taking us the wrong way.” She shook her head. “But I didn’t.”
“You might have had an international incident on your hands had you killed him.”
“Yeah, and he was driving when I considered it, at a breakneck speed, with Klein out front on the hood.”
“On the hood?”
“You know, in some kind of seat they rig up for the hunter. He was going after a leopard.”
“I thought they were protected.”
“Ferrence paid a hefty price for a real safari hunt. I think the guide assured him he could shoot just about anything.” The disgust in her voice was evident.
“You don’t much care for Mr. Klein?”
“Not really, but that doesn’t mean I wish ill on him.”
“Then why work for him?”
“I’m not. I work—worked—for his father, Matthew Klein. He hired me to protect his son. And a lot of good that did. I wouldn’t be surprised if he demands a refund.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
“Why not? I didn’t do my job.” She snorted. “I can’t even get down out of this t
ree.”
“We’ll worry about that in the morning, when we can see what we’re doing.”
“Hell, I’m putting my trust in a stranger. I don’t even know you.”
“We can fix that. Hi. I’m Dalton Samuel Landon, but my friends call me Diesel.” He reached around her, peeled her hand off the tree and gave it an awkward shake. “And you are?” As soon as she let go, her hand found its way back to the tree.
“You must already know who I am since you were sent to rescue us.”
“Reese Brantley,” he supplied. “How did a girl like you end up as a bodyguard to Ferrence Klein?”
She stiffened. “What do you mean a girl like you?”
He chuckled. “Sorry. I meant how did you get stuck as a bodyguard to the Klein legacy?”
Her body remained rigid for a few seconds longer, and then she relaxed. “His father didn’t want him to know he’d hired a bodyguard. He told Ferrence I would be his assistant while he was in Africa. Had he hired a male, Ferrence would have guessed.”
Diesel nodded. “And Ferrence didn’t want daddy’s protection?”
“No. Not when he’d made plans to hunt endangered species.” Again, Reese’s body tensed. “Had I known he’d come to hunt anything but some plentiful deer, I’d have told his father where his son could go.”
“I take it he was more interested in a trophy than food?”
“He was hunting a leopard when the driver veered off course.” She half-turned toward him. “By the way, where are we? I have a feeling we aren’t in Zambia anymore.”
Diesel’s arms tightened around her. “We’re not. We’re in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”
The woman sat stiff. “Okay. Well. We’ll just have to get the hell out of here. I don’t suppose your team is coming back anytime soon?”
“They will.” He couldn’t say when. Since they had Klein to get out, the powers that pulled the strings might not want to redeploy the team to extract one SEAL and one civilian. Not in a hostile country. And not when they weren’t supposed to be there to begin with. With current tensions between the new presidential administration and international trade relations, Diesel wasn’t sure they’d risk a second insertion into the DRC.
“In the meantime,” Reese said, “we’ll have to get out of this area, or risk being caught.”
A sound alerted Diesel. He touched Reese’s arm. “Shh,” he said softly. “I hear someone coming.”
Chapter Three
Reese froze and listened. The animals and insects were suddenly silent. A slight breeze rustled the leaves around her. Then the snap of a twig alerted her to movement below.
Someone whispered in a language she barely recognized, and didn’t understand. Then shots rang out, and the rapid report of a semiautomatic weapon filled the air.
Diesel pressed his body against her, smashing her against the tree trunk. Something hit close to where her fingers dug into the bark, splintering wood fragments over her hand.
As quickly as the burst of bullets began, they ended. Voices below spoke in rapid-fire anger. Then they moved away, heading back toward the camp where Reese and Ferrence had been held hostage for several days. As much as she hated being high up in a tree, she’d rather face the heights than her former captors.
Diesel remained pressed to her back for a couple minutes after the sounds of movement below had dissipated.
The solid strength of his body was unexpectedly reassuring. Reese frowned. She didn’t like that she needed reassurance. Having spent the last three years rebuilding her life and confidence, she didn’t need a man to reassure her about anything. She was the bodyguard, not Diesel.
Then again, she’d failed in her first real assignment as a bodyguard and had fallen into a situation she’d sworn she’d never allow herself to be in, ever again. She’d been captured. This time, her captors hadn’t been as quick to torture and rape her. Had they tried, she’d have died fighting them off. Never again would she allow anyone to violate her, to abuse her like she’d been abused at the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The mere thought of what they’d done to her had the usual effect on her. She broke out in a cold sweat, her heart raced and she felt as if she might explode if she didn’t get away and suck more air into her lungs.
“I can’t breathe,” she whispered through tight lips.
Immediately, the man behind her eased back. “Were you hit?”
“No,” she said and dragged air into her lungs. The desire to move, to get away, took hold of her and refused to let go. At that moment, she had the uncontrollable urge to throw herself out of the tree. But she couldn’t. The enemy could return. They might be lying in wait just beyond the clearing around the tree, hoping to capture them as they came out of hiding.
Instead, she bit down hard on her lip, clenched her fists and started counting to one hundred. Her body shook with the effort to control her reaction.
“Are you sure you weren’t hit?” Diesel asked, his voice quiet, his mouth close to her ear, his body leaning into hers.
Reese couldn’t respond, couldn’t utter a word. She remained focused on not losing her cool.
Diesel’s hands gripped her arms and pulled her back against his chest. “You’re shaking like a paint mixer. It’s okay. They’re gone,” he said, holding her close.
“I’m okay,” Reese said, forcing the words out from between her teeth.
Diesel’s arms wrapped around her midsection and held on tightly. “Clearly, you aren’t.”
“You don’t have to hold me,” she insisted, hating herself for her reaction and the need to feel his arms around her. “I can manage on my own.”
“I’m afraid to let go. You might shake yourself right out of this tree.”
“I’ll manage,” she insisted. “Please. Let go.”
When he moved his arms away from her, Reese let go of the tree long enough to hug herself to ward off the chills threatening to take over. When she touched her arm where his hand had been, she felt something warm, wet and sticky. Blood? She felt around, but nothing hurt.
Because the blood wasn’t hers.
“Hey.” She half turned. “Were you hit?”
“I got nicked. But it’s just a flesh wound. I’m fine,” he said. “I’m more worried about getting us out of here and away from our friends with the AK-47s.”
“You should let me look at your wound.”
“It’s not like you can see in the dark, and I’m not willing to risk turning on a flashlight for a little scrape.”
Reese would bet her best pair of hiking boots the wound was more than a mere scrape. “At least let me apply a pressure bandage to stop the bleeding. Where is it?”
“It’s okay,” he said, his tone sharp.
“Look, you dripped blood on to my arm. If you’re still dripping, you might leave a trail for the goons to follow.” She grabbed the hem of her shirt and, carefully and as quietly as possible, ripped off a section. She tried to turn on the tree limb and nearly tipped over the side. Her heart clattered against the walls of her chest.
Diesel held on to her arm to steady her. “Wait until we get down from here.”
“For all we know, we’ll be up here for a while.” She shook her head. “Let me feel for myself. Where is it?” She touched his wrist and moved up his arm.
“Higher,” he said.
Reese ran her hand up his thick, solid forearm to the bicep. When her fingers encountered fresh, warm blood, she knew she’d found the source of the leak. “It’s more than a scrape. You might need stitches.”
“I don’t. But if it makes you feel better, you can wrap it up to keep me from bleeding and leaving a trail.”
“Damn right I will.” Pushing her fear of heights to the side, she maneuvered herself around to face him, her knees touching his, making it hard for her to reach his arm. She bent close, but still couldn’t get to the spot she needed to reach. “Could you lean closer?” she asked.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” He grab
bed her hips, lifted her off the tree limb and deposited her onto his lap, her legs straddling his hips.
Heat rushed into Reese’s cheeks and farther south to her core. She’d never sat in a man’s lap quite like this before. The angle of their contact was more than intimate, and completely befuddled her thinking. Thankfully, it also took her mind off the fact they were over twenty-five feet in the air, perched on a tree limb.
With his arms holding her firmly around her waist, she went to work wrapping the fabric around his injured arm. The fact he could move it as well as he did was proof it wasn’t as bad as she’d thought. But any injury in the jungle and subsequent blood loss could be life-threatening, especially if it became infected. She did the best she could in the dark. The sooner they got her rescuer to a health-care facility, the better.
“That’s as good as I can manage, without seeing the actual wound,” Reese said. “You can let go, now.”
“And if I don’t want to?” he said, his voice rich and thick like smooth heated chocolate, spreading into every pore of her skin.
Reese’s breath lodged in her lungs, and a thrill rippled through her, culminating at the point where her bottom rested on his thighs. Good Lord. She could not be having lusty thoughts about a complete stranger, while facing one of her most irrational fears in the canopy of a jungle tree.
Diesel’s arms tightened around her for a moment and then loosened. “I’ll balance you, while you turn around.” He grabbed her around her waist and eased her backward.
Reese rested a hand on his broad shoulder, until she was forced to release it and turn to clutch at the tree’s trunk.
A second later, Diesel moved from behind her and dropped to the limb below. Once again, he wrapped his strong hands around her waist. “When I lift you, wrap your arms around my neck and slide your body down mine. Your feet will land on another limb.”
“C-can’t we wait until morning?”
“The more I consider it, the more I’m afraid that if we wait until morning, the men in the camp will see us. We need to get as far from them as possible tonight.”
Reese knew what Diesel said was valid, but climbing down from a tree was so much more frightening than going up. The warmth of his hands gripping her waist gave her the courage to let go of the tree trunk and transfer her hold to his neck. She wrapped her arms around him so tightly, she was sure she practically strangled him.