“That’s great. A little help here.” Jack grabbed Farouk’s pant leg and yanked it up. He had to use two hands to remove the gun secured against Farouk’s calf.
With a cry of rage, Farouk wrenched free and twisted his body over the side of the boat. He disappeared beneath the murky water.
“We can’t let him get away. Not this time. Riley, can you see him?”
Riley, standing on the deck of the other boat peered at the water. “He’s gotta come up for air sometime. Once his head pops up, I’m on it.”
Riley’s gaze never wavered from the water as he removed his boots.
Several seconds later, Farouk’s head broke the surface of the water. The driver of the big powerboat never saw him. The boat mowed him under, and the water turned red with his blood.
“I suppose I’d better make sure he’s finished.” Riley stripped off his shirt and dove into the water. Treading water, he waved one arm in the air and shouted, “He’s gone.”
Jack slumped to the deck of the boat, panting, sweat dripping from his brow. They’d done it. Prospero had finally vanquished Farouk.
And just like old times, his Brothers in Arms had his back.
Epilogue
Lola clapped her hands as Jack lifted Eddie to place the star at the top of the Christmas tree. Lola was planning to apply as a foster parent and take Eddie into her home as a prelude to adoption. She was going to save that announcement for Christmas Day.
Jack stepped back and slung his arm across Lola’s shoulders. “Looks great.”
Rosa buzzed around the four men, Jack, Riley, Ian and Buzz, refilling their drinks and stuffing them with food. Once she’d gotten a load of Jack’s three hunky friends, she figured she’d died and gone to heaven.
They were enjoying an early Christmas celebration before the guys took off to spend the day with their families. Riley had a woman waiting for him in California, and they planned to sail down to Cabo. Ian was on his way to Colorado to his wife and son. And Buzz planned to fly to New York, pick up Raven and take her back to his ranch in Oklahoma.
Ian asked, “Have you heard from your brother yet, Lola? Is he okay?”
She put a finger to her lips and jerked a thumb at Rosa’s retreating back. “I heard from him two days ago. He’s fine. He’s heading to Africa next to do more work on the vaccine. After all that turmoil, he said his formula is still in its preliminary stages. He tried to tell his captors but they wouldn’t believe him.”
“The Centers for Disease Control have the formula now.” Riley punched Jack in the shoulder. “You sure caused us a lot of trouble.”
“When did you start suspecting Colonel Scripps?” Jack asked.
The other three men exchanged glances. Ian answered, “Things weren’t adding up. We were getting bits and pieces of information, but not from the Colonel. We’d heard that one of your aliases had flown into Miami, but Scripps never told us that.”
Lola tilted her head. “That’s why you all headed for Miami?”
“Yep.”
Lola combed her fingers through Eddie’s hair. “Go join Rosa in the kitchen and wash your sticky hands.”
Eddie rolled his eyes at Jack and stomped off to the kitchen.
Shoving her hands in the pockets of her skirt, Lola asked, “What happened to Scripps?”
Buzz’s square jaw hardened. “The FBI picked him up. I still can’t believe he betrayed us.”
Riley broke the strained silence by picking up his plate of food and aiming a fork at Buzz. “Buzz flew us all in. We’d gotten your name by then and had been here for a day but had no luck tracking you down, Lola. That’s when we were convinced you were with Jack and he was protecting you.”
She wrapped her arms around Jack’s waist. “Yeah, he was. Well, after he pulled a gun on me in my car.”
That got the four of them arguing over what they would’ve done in Jack’s situation. The scenarios got more and more ridiculous until Lola was holding her sides with laughter.
They all still needed some time to heal, but this was a start. The four of them together. What did Jack call them? Brothers in Arms.
Ian, Buzz and Riley settled around the TV to watch a football game, and Jack took Lola’s hand and led her through the sliding doors to the patio in the back.
The light breeze lifted the ends of Jack’s hair, and his eyes gleamed in the darkness. “I feel like we haven’t been alone since the rescue.”
“We haven’t.” She jerked her chin toward the room inside. “Your buddies are kind of clingy.”
He chuckled and drew a finger across her cheek. “I have to get back to L.A., get my life in order.”
“See a doctor.”
“I’m already seeing a doctor…intimately.”
She tapped his head. “You need to get this checked out.”
“I will. I can look after myself.”
“We all know that. You don’t have anything to prove.”
He brushed his lips against hers, sending wild tingles skittering through her body.
“What’s next, Jack? Are you going back to hostage negotiation?”
“Would you mind if I did?”
“Like you said, you can look after yourself.” She kissed his chin, the stubble scratching her lips. “As long as you come back to me after every assignment.”
“Where else would I go?”
“So that’s it? You’re going to continue rescuing people?”
“Actually, the guys and I were thinking of reactivating Prospero.”
Her pulse jumped. That was an even scarier proposition, but she refused to hold him back. “Really? Not getting a little old for that?”
His lips twisted into that halfway smile she loved. “We’d be doing the recruiting this time. Forming another team of men to take up where we left off, allowing them to create that bond stronger than all others.”
She curled her arms around his neck. “Stronger than all others, huh?”
He lowered his head and kissed her, taking her breath away, giving her life and hope and promise.
* * * * *
ISBN: 9781459219687
Copyright © 2012 by Carol Ericson
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com
Green Beret Bodyguard Page 19