by Cindy Dees
Gavarone. A jumble of images flooded his head almost too fast to process. Rebels. Revolution. Reconnaissance. The jungle. His guys. A helicopter.
“Where are my men?”
“They’re safe. They come to visit you when they can.”
“They’re still in-country? Why didn’t they get out?” He frowned, trying to fill in the blanks. “I remember a helicopter…”
A shadow crossed the face of his angel.
“It was supposed to take us out. Fly us to—” He broke off. Good grief. They must really have him drugged up. He’d almost divulged classified information.
He lurched, or at least tried to lurch, upright. What if this woman worked for the Gavronese government? He’d just compromised his team. Holy smokes.
“How did I get here?”
“I drove you here in my car.”
“No. I mean, what happened to me?”
“What do you remember?”
Dangerous question. She might be probing for information.
“Not much,” he answered cautiously.
He did remember standing in a clearing in some of the thickest jungle he’d ever crawled through. He was watching his guys ride up a steel cable into a helicopter. Somebody was chasing them. No, a lot of people were chasing them. The memory stopped.
The blond angel was giving him a funny look. He’d better distract her.
“What’s wrong with me? Why am I here?”
“You have a number of broken bones. Three cracked ribs, both your legs fractured, your left arm broken. That was your most serious break. They had to do surgery to set it. Both bones in your forearm had to be pinned. Your jaw was fractured, your right collarbone broken. You had cuts and scrapes all over the place, but they’re mostly healed. A number of your wounds needed stitches. I insisted on a good plastic surgeon to stitch you up. You shouldn’t get too many new scars out of it.”
She said that like she’d seen his old scars.
“Anything else busted up?”
“One of your kidneys was badly bruised, but it’s stopped hemorrhaging. The doctors say it’s all right, now. I think you broke a couple fingers, too, but I lost track.”
Geez. Maybe she should just list the things that weren’t broken.
“How long have I been here?”
“Forty-five days.”
“What?” Disorientation swirled about him. Six and a half weeks? All he remembered were a few snatches here and there. Mostly of this woman standing watch over him and promising to make the pain go away. She’d always kept her word, too.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Going on where?”
“In Gavarone.”
She smiled. “Why don’t you get a little more of your strength back before you dive into Gavronese politics?”
“Is there war?”
Her features tightened, grew serious. “Not yet.”
“But it’s close.”
“Very close.”
He nodded. “Then you’re right. I will need my strength. By the way. Is there something to eat around here? I’m starving.”
She laughed. “I’ll go see what I can find. I’m sure I can scrounge up something.”
Scrounge. An imminently American slang word. And her accent. Not to mention she was the only true, Kansas-wheat blond he’d seen in this godforsaken place. She had to be American. Relief washed over him.
He tried to stay awake until she returned, but the drugs still coursing through his system called to him. He drifted off, cursing himself for his weakness as he fell asleep.
He hoped she was there when he woke up.
She was. Sleeping in the chair beside his bed. The room was mostly dark. A single small lamp burned on the table beside his head.
He smiled at the picture she made, curled up like a little girl, her feet tucked up on the seat, her head resting on her arm. Even in her sleep, she was alluring.
He caught sight of the water glass and tried to reach for it. He noticed for the first time that his arm was encased in a plaster cast. No wonder it felt so heavy.
His angel awoke with a jerk. She looked around for a second, trying to place where she was. He knew the feeling. A person with a job like his woke up that way a lot.
Her smile, when she noticed he was awake, was sleepy and sexy as heck.
“Hi, Tom.”
Warning lights flashed wildly and alarm bells clanged in his head. How in the world did she know his name?
“Who are you, lady?”
She murmured under her breath, “My name’s Ann O’Donnell. Most people call me Annie. I’m here to take care of you. To make sure the hospital does right by you, to translate if a non-English-speaking doctor needs information, that kind of stuff…”
She was babbling at him. Why was she so nervous? And why was she whispering? He stared at her speculatively.
“How did you know my name?”
She did an odd thing. She laughed.
“What a ridiculous…oh, I get it. Stop teasing me, darling.”
His brows slammed together, and he opened his mouth, but she frantically gestured him to silence before he could speak. He watched, frowning, as she went to the door and opened it a crack, peeking out into the hallway. Then she went into the bathroom and did something to the toilet. It flushed, and continued to run.
Background noise. She was creating interference in case the room was bugged.
Who in the hell was she?
She came back to the bed and leaned close. Her golden hair swung down over her shoulder and brushed his cheek. It felt like corn silk, slippery and soft. And it smelled good. Like a field of wildflowers. His heart pounded all of a sudden. It had been a long time since he’d been this close to a woman. A very long time.
She pushed her hair back and tucked it behind her ear.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“Who are you?” he whispered back.
“I’m your cover. You had to have hospital care, but you couldn’t exactly be admitted under your own name.”
Now that was an understatement. In Gavarone, he was as illegal an alien as they came.
“The American Embassy worked up papers for you, saying you’re my husband, and backdated a visa placing you in Gavarone before you got hurt. We told the authorities you fell in a rock-climbing accident.”
“They bought your story?”
“So far. But with the rebels getting more aggressive by the day, the government’s getting pretty paranoid. There’ve been some questions asked about you. I’m glad you’re getting better, because we may have to move you soon.”
“You still haven’t answered my question. Who are you?”
She jerked at the sharp tone of command in his voice. “Captain Ann O’Donnell, U.S. Air Force, Assistant Air Attaché, American Embassy in St. George to the principality of Gavarone. Do you want my serial number and date of birth, too?”
“We can skip those for now. I can’t verify them until I get out of here. What level of security clearance do you hold?”
“Enough to know your name, rank, serial number and date of birth, mister.”
“Is that a fact?” He grinned. Who’d have guessed angels had claws? “And do you know what I was doing here?”
She shrugged. “Not exactly, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to guess what you were up to.”
“Do you know how I got hurt?”
She opened her mouth to speak but stood upright abruptly. The door to the hallway swung open. A white-jacketed hospital employee stood there. He spoke in heavily accented English.
“Excuse me, ma’am. But the toilet, it stuck. I fix, no?”
Tom blinked as she smiled graciously and answered in Spanish as smooth and flawless as his own.
“That would be wonderful, señor. I’d have reported it, but I didn’t think anyone in maintenance would be awake at this hour.”
The man nodded and disappeared into the bathroom.
Interesting. That was certainly a
prompt response to a running toilet. Two minutes at most. Just about as long as it’d take a guy to get from his listening post to this room. Somebody was suspicious about him, all right.
He and his angel, Annie, she’d called herself, waited silently until the man fixed the toilet and left the room. She sagged with relief when the door closed behind the guy.
So, she didn’t make a habit of doing clandestine stuff. His adrenaline had hardly budged over the incident. Every now and then it dawned on him how different he was from regular people.
“Annie, I need to know. How bad am I hurt?”
“You were busted up pretty bad. But you’re recovering great. Your legs, collarbone, fingers and jaw are about healed. Your left arm’s still going to take some time to knit, and your ribs aren’t quite there yet. But then, you probably know that, if you’ve tried to take a deep breath.”
He thought about it for a second. His ribs did hurt. Right side, front. Three of them, she’d said. He hadn’t noticed it in the underlying background of pain until she pointed it out.
“Can I walk?”
“Not in those casts.”
He lifted his head off the pillow and discovered both his legs were encased in white plaster, the left leg from the knee down, and the right leg from the hip down.
He smiled wryly. “I’m a wreck, aren’t I?”
Relief and a hint of…guilt maybe?…crossed her face. “It could’ve been a lot worse.”
“You mean I could’ve died.”
“Yeah.”
“Nah, not me. I’m too stubborn to die by falling off some stupid mountain.”
She blinked and then nodded in comprehension. His, or rather her, cover story for the benefit of the bugs.
“How ’bout a kiss for your long-suffering, wounded husband, honey?”
Annie’s green eyes snapped, but her voice dropped into that sexy drawl he remembered from his waking dreams. “I don’t think so, darling. The excitement of it might kill you in your weakened condition.”
He smiled widely at her. “Later, then, when I’m stronger.”
“Of course.” She flashed him a look that promised hell to pay if he ever tried it.
Tom grinned. He never could resist a challenge. “I’ll hold you to that.”
Her response was dry. “Somehow I thought you might feel that way.”
“How much longer till I’m out of here?”
“Hopefully, you’ll only be here a couple more weeks.” She leaned close and placed her luscious mouth practically on his ear. She whispered, “I don’t think you’ll have anywhere near that long before we have to get you out of here.”
Oh, Lord. Her breath was warm and moist against his neck. How long had it been since he’d been with a woman? Not just sex with the nearest willing female to satisfy his craving, but real affection with someone who cared about him?
He shook off the thought. He was losing it. Here he was in the middle of a blown mission, thinking about a woman. He had much more important things to concentrate on right now.
Like how to get out of this hospital in one piece, and how to get his team out of Gavarone alive.
Chapter 2
T om woke instantly, at full alert, when Annie touched his shoulder in the predawn hours a couple of mornings later.
She whispered in his ear, a bare breath of sound. “We’ve got to leave. Now.”
He didn’t bother to ask questions. There’d be time enough for that later, assuming they got out in one piece.
“It would attract too much attention if I pushed you out of here in a wheelchair. Can you walk if I take off your casts?”
“I’ll do what I have to.”
The men chosen for his unit were trained to be capable of nearly superhuman feats of strength and self-discipline. Walking on two broken legs sounded doable.
He watched in silence as Annie leaned over his legs. She used a wicked-looking pair of shears to start cutting away the plaster. Her hair swung over her shoulder the way it always did when she leaned down over him. His fingers sent the imagined feeling to his brain of it sliding beneath his hands.
He jerked his attention back to the task at hand. No wonder the military didn’t send out women with teams like his. He was going to get them both killed if he didn’t concentrate on business instead of her.
While she worked, he methodically disconnected the tubes and needles still taped to him in various places. The last piece of plaster lifted away, and Annie helped him sit upright. He steadied himself with a hand on her shoulder while the dizziness of being vertical for the first time in nearly two months passed. The bones beneath his palm were deceptively slender. Feminine.
Stop that, pal!
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and gently eased his weight onto his feet. Twinges of pain raced up his legs, as much from unused muscles as from protesting bones. But it was manageable.
Annie looked at him questioningly.
He nodded once.
She dug under her coat and pulled out some clothes for him. He sat back down on the edge of the bed and let her help him pull the slacks up over his bare legs.
Oh, boy. Her hands were warm and soft and felt so good easing up his legs under the edge of his hospital gown. His male parts leaped to instant attention. He must be well on the road to recovery to react like that. He pushed her hands away and finished pulling up the pants himself.
Tom noted with grim amusement the way her eyes went wide when he shrugged out of the hospital gown and reached for the shirt. Hopefully it was his physique and not his collection of scars that caused her reaction.
He tugged the polo shirt into place and flashed several hand signals at her. She stared blankly at him. What was he thinking? Of course she didn’t know the Special Forces sign language.
Instead he swept his hand toward the door in the universal hand gesture for You go first.
She nodded and placed her finger to her lips.
Well, duh. Of course, he’d be quiet. He knew things about being quiet she hadn’t even dreamed of. He could walk, stalk, even kill, in utter silence. He picked up the pair of loafers she’d brought for him and followed her to the door. He’d be quieter barefoot.
The hallway was deserted, and the nurse, a gray-haired woman, dozed in her chair behind the nurses’ station. They glided past her, picking up speed farther down the hallway.
He flinched when a bell dinged to announce the arrival of the elevator. Before the door was barely open, he pulled Annie into the elevator and pushed her up against its side, out of the nurse’s line of sight.
Annie’s body felt luscious pressed against his. Pleasure welled up in his gut. But then she looked up at him with dark, frightened eyes. He mentally cringed. The worst missions were the ones involving civilians. They never could be counted on to keep their wits about them. He’d learned that the hard way a long time ago.
Although the smart thing to do was to drag her to the floor and clap his hand over her mouth without further ado, that would mean lying on top of her, belly to belly, with every inch of her pressed against him. He opted merely to smile reassuringly at her and to hope fervently that Annie recognized the delicacy of the moment.
The hall remained empty during the eternity it took for the door to slide closed. Relief and chagrin warmed his skin.
Dammit. He was going to get them both killed at this rate. And all because he was afraid of his reaction to a woman. This operation had disaster written all over it.
Tom closed his eyes. He wasn’t a particularly religious man, but he offered up a rare prayer for help in getting him out of this one alive.
When Tom finally relaxed, Annie closed her eyes and gave a deep, heartfelt sigh of relief. The elevator began its quiet descent.
“Thank goodness that’s over! That was the hard part, Tom. Now we can just stroll right out the front door.”
She’d spoken too soon. Two hundred pounds of bulky man abruptly sagged against her.
Her arms came up around
him. Good grief, he was big—rock solid underneath the cotton shirt. He was also trembling.
“Hey. Are you gonna make it? My car’s right out front.”
“Yeah. I’m just a little dizzy.” His voice was no more than a sigh. “I’ll make it. I gotta collect on that kiss you still owe me.”
“If you walk out of here under your own steam, I’ll give you two kisses.”
“Deal.”
The elevator door opened. He dropped the shoes and slipped them on. Tom kept his word to her and resolutely walked out of the hospital. But he practically collapsed into the passenger seat of her car.
She had to help him lift his legs inside, and his head lolled back against the headrest by the time she got around to her side of the car.
“If you puke in here, you have to clean it up.”
“Yes, ma’am.” His lips curved upward faintly but his eyes stayed tightly shut.
She didn’t want to think about the kind of pain he must be suffering. “Hang on. It’s not a long drive to the place I’ve rented.”
“What place?”
“I got us an apartment. The owner of the building does a little work on the side for us.”
“For Uncle Sam?”
“Yup.”
“Do you trust him?”
“Yes, I do.”
He shrugged. “That’s good enough for me.”
Annie blinked. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“For trusting me.”
“You’re the attaché. You know this town better than I do.”
That might be true, but it didn’t mean she’d ever done anything like this before. The enormity of having another person’s safety rest entirely on her shoulders stilled her tongue for the rest of the car ride across town.
The next hour passed in a nightmare of anxiety and physical strain. Tom was grimly silent. He was obviously at the end of his strength, but he did what he could to help her. Somehow, she managed to half coax, half drag him up the stairs to the third-story apartment she’d rented.
To her vast relief he fell into an exhausted slumber the second she got him horizontal on the bed in the flat’s single bedroom.
Drained, she slumped on a chair beside him and watched him sleep, the way she had for the past seven weeks around the clock.