"I still don't—"
"Go to sleep, Grace," he murmured.
"But—"
"Sleep. For now. I'm not going to disappear this time. Not anytime soon, at least."
"Promise?"
He kissed her softly, his warm mouth against the side of her neck. She shuddered against him. It felt so good.
"I promise," he said.
And she realized too late what a leap of faith she'd taken. She never asked anyone to promise her anything, and yet in the space of two and a half days, he'd promised her the world, and she'd put her faith wholly in him.
She was too tired to even think of the fact that there was a reason she never asked for promises, not from anyone. She simply let herself drift off in his arms.
* * *
Chapter 5
« ^ »
It was merely gloomy when Grace woke the next time. She was immensely grateful for the grayish half light. Her gaze hurried from one spot to the next, confirming what she believed she'd seen the night before.
A cave. A small stack of supplies that looked to be military-issue, some of it quite sophisticated. She'd been up close and personal with soldiers from all over the world. She knew.
Her mystery man was a soldier. She believed he must be, but she hadn't known for sure. Not until right now.
Grace sat up gingerly. Her head didn't really hurt anymore. The blanket was no longer loud enough to annoy her, but the wind and the rain were. Would it ever stop howling and pounding that way?
She felt a bit dizzy, a bit weak. No surprise, given how little she'd eaten or drunk. Her stomach was empty and protesting that fact. Her mouth was dry. But her brain seemed to be working just fine for a change. Apparently, whatever drugs her captors had given her hadn't fried her brain, as she'd feared.
She was alive, awake, thinking clearly. Hungry, thirsty. Alone.
The last part bothered her a great deal.
She searched the parts of the cave she could see. No mystery man.
But he'd promised, she remembered. He wasn't going to disappear this time. Grace had a thing about promises. She didn't want any. Normally, she would never have asked. She wouldn't have let herself trust him or anyone else to keep those promises. Life had taught her that; she'd learned her lesson well.
So, she hadn't been thinking clearly the night before or back there in the cell in the dungeon. Otherwise, she would never have asked him for any kind of reassurances. And she shouldn't be this upset or uneasy now because he wasn't here.
She certainly didn't need to panic, either. She'd been on her own, more or less, since she was eleven, had been in almost every major natural disaster and war in the last ten years. She knew how to take care of herself. Normally, she did it very, very well.
She set out to do just that. First, she found the canteen he'd left by her side, and that's when she found his note – unsigned, of course – wrapped around the canteen. Obviously, he knew she'd wake up thirsty and reach for this.
He was out patrolling the perimeter and warned her not to leave the cave without him, that it was dangerous, booby-trapped, he wrote. Grace frowned and looked around the cave. They had a perimeter? And booby traps?
Which meant, if he didn't make it back, she was stuck here forever?
She pushed her fears aside and drank from the canteen, slowly so she wouldn't be sick. She pushed her blanket down and saw that she was in a T-shirt. A drab, olive-green one that was long enough to almost be a dress. And she wasn't wearing anything else.
Which meant he'd undressed her. Completely.
Because of the rain? Had they traveled for what seemed like forever in the rain? She'd been so out of it, hardly aware of anything. Except that they hadn't stopped moving and she'd thought her head was going to fall off – wished it would – and the rain had been incessant, moving horizontally, it seemed. Eventually she'd been soaked through and through. That's how she'd gotten so cold.
It seemed odd. They were in the tropics, after all. But anyone who was wet enough, long enough, especially in a strong wind, turned cold. And he'd done the right thing to strip her.
As a doctor, she knew just how impersonal a thing it could be, taking off someone's clothes, assessing his or her condition. Still, this was a man who'd had her trembling early this morning, just by pressing his hot, heavy, hard body to hers.
Grace felt her cheeks go hot. What an odd time to be attracted to a man. She hadn't been near one in any kind of romantic way in … well, since the last time she saw him. She was a woman devoted to her work. It kept her on the road and in desolate areas for long stretches of time and left little time for things like men. Which had always suited her just fine.
Oh, she had nothing against men. She just didn't find them at all necessary to her day-to-day existence. Which was why her reaction to him left her unsettled. Especially that she was dwelling on her physical reaction to him when they were obviously in real trouble here.
She didn't even know where they were, but they must still be in danger. Why else would they be hiding out in a cave with him prowling the perimeter and—
Grace froze, a sickening kind of fear invaded her already-protesting stomach.
Someone was here once again. She was actually afraid to look up for a moment, afraid of what she might see. Odd, because until this happened, she couldn't remember the last time she'd been truly afraid. She'd faced so many things with nerves of steel, and they seemed to have totally deserted her now.
"Grace," he said. "It's all right. It's me."
It was the voice she remembered. The man. Her savior. Flesh and blood, but still her savior.
Grace lifted her head and found him standing in the tunnel that must lead to the outside world. Through thoroughly insufficient light, she could see him more clearly than ever before, and he was every bit as big and imposing as she'd always sensed he was.
At the moment, he was covered in a military-style rain poncho. A big, square piece of dull green plastic that hung from his shoulders, a hood shielding his head and much of his face. The German-made submachine gun she vaguely remembered seeing was strapped across his chest, and he was dripping wet.
He slipped the weapon over his head and placed it by his side, stripped off the rain poncho, too, and then she saw that he was armed to the teeth, like a man in the middle of a war going on patrol. He had a pistol, a Sig Sauer, she thought, strapped to his right side, at least two knives, some kind of radio, fancy binoculars and a lot of ammunition.
Grace had seen her share of big, tough guys. She'd met a lot of cocky soldiers in her day, and it usually took much more than a well-toned set of muscles and an attitude to impress her.
But this man… She swallowed hard and her throat was parched once again. He looked every inch the warrior.
She studied his face greedily, thinking it seemed impossible that after so many years, she was finally seeing him. Not in the bright light of day, but more clearly than ever before.
He had thick black hair with just a hint of what she found a very attractive gray sprinkled sparsely throughout. He wore it short. Not precision, military short, but in a thoroughly no-nonsense way. His eyes were just as dark, his face not without the signs of age, but he wore them all well, too. She guessed he was in his early forties, though built like a man ten or fifteen years younger. His skin was what she thought must be a permanent coppery color, from long exposure to the sun, and his mouth… Well, she had no business concentrating on that wide, full, sensuous-looking mouth. Or thinking about how it had felt on hers, either.
Truth was, she was blown away by the reality of him. Utterly captivated and fascinated and a bit dizzy, as well.
She sensed a raw power inside of him, something that might explode at any moment, and it had nothing to do with the weapons he carried. It came from him, that sense of strength and speed and determination that made him so dangerous, made her feel so safe.
She'd always believed he could do anything, even before she had a clear look at him, an
d now she knew she was right.
"You remember me, don't you?" he said, without a touch of amusement. "Last night? The things we talked about? I'm not going to hurt you, Grace. You're safe with me."
Grace realized she'd been gaping at him with her mouth hanging open and promptly closed it. Opening it only long enough to offer a hoarse "Yes."
He grinned at her.
"How do you move without making any noise?"
"Years of practice." He unhooked his belt and shed most of his paraphernalia, then came and sat on the floor beside her, his big hand going to her forehead. "How's your head?"
"Not bad. Not at all."
"Good." He stared into her eyes. "Pupils look good. No more woozy feeling?"
"I'm hungry. A little weak. But that's to be expected."
"We can take care of that," he said, going for his stack of supplies behind her.
She propped herself up against the back wall of the cave, the blanket wrapped around her from the waist down, and sipped slowly from his canteen while he pulled an MRE out of one of his packs and heated it up in one of those little oven-like cardboard sleeves. She wrinkled her nose just a bit when he tore open the so-called meal and she took it from him with only a hint of distaste.
"Hey, they're a lot better than they used to be," he claimed.
Grace wasn't picky about her food. She couldn't afford to be, given the way she lived. Still, she liked it to be real.
She bit into something that tasted like rice and kept eating because she knew rice should sit easily on her poor stomach. It was warm, and it had some flavor. She tasted something that was probably supposed to be a bit of shrimp, which struck her as ridiculous. Shrimp and rice-flavored … what? She didn't even want to think about it, and either she was starving or it was truly pretty good.
He handed her the canteen and she sipped between bites, until the food took the edge off the shakes she had. She found she could only eat about half of it and decided not to push it.
"Done?" he asked, then took what was left and finished it himself. "We may be here for a while. We can't afford to waste anything."
Oh. She looked around her at the cave. And him. And wondered just what a while meant. But she decided the most logical place to start was by asking, "Where are we?"
"Milero's compound. On a private island in the Caribbean Sea, about forty miles off the coast of Central America. His fortress, as you called it, is on the other side of the island, seven and a half miles by foot from here."
"Oh." Seven and a half miles didn't sound like a reassuring distance to her. "Milero – he controls the whole island?"
Her mystery man nodded.
"Does that mean we can't get off?"
"I'll get you out of here, Grace. Just not anytime soon." She nodded, thinking of the incessant wind and rain. "Because of the storm?"
"It's a Category 3 hurricane at the moment," he explained.
"Oh." She remembered now. The old woman who'd brought her food had told her a hurricane was coming. She'd thought the man who stood before her had somehow arranged it, just for her. "You can't handle a hurricane?"
His gaze narrowed on hers. She thought he might check her pupils again, especially when she started to laugh.
"I'm sane. I swear," she claimed, not at all convinced that she was. A man who commanded the elements? She'd actually wondered about that. "I was just thinking of the last time I saw you. In Bosnia. You told me to go find a nice, simple natural disaster, and I happened upon a string of them."
"And you thought I waved my hand and conjured up the earthquake in Russia, the floods in Nepal and the mud slides in San Reino?"
Grace took a breath as he rattled off exactly where she'd been in the last year and a half. Which was a whole other subject that fascinated her as well.
"I entertained the thought. Briefly," she admitted. "I've imagined just about everything in the world where you're concerned."
Which was more than she cared to tell him when he wouldn't tell her anything. But he claimed they'd be here for a while, and he'd promised he wasn't going to disappear without a word this time. There would be time, at last, for all the questions she had about him. Whether or not he'd answer, she'd at least get to ask. For now, she really needed to know what kind of predicament they were in.
"So you can't actually snap your fingers and turn off the hurricane," she said wryly.
"Not even for you, Grace. I told you. I'm just a man."
She reached for his hand and turned it over, exposing the underside of his forearm, and there was the thin line, the wound she was looking for. The one from last night, when he'd cut himself just to prove a point to her, to settle her rattled nerves and maybe to keep her from getting hysterical. She'd never been hysterical in her life, but she must have been rattled enough to worry him greatly.
"Need another demonstration?" he asked.
"No." The scar was enough. She let go of his hand, and he withdrew it. "And you should cover the cut."
"I did. Must have lost it in the rain this afternoon."
"It's afternoon?"
"Almost six."
Which meant she'd slept for hours yet again.
"Have you been getting any sleep at all for the past month, Grace? Are you that exhausted?"
"Maybe," she admitted. They'd been particularly shorthanded in San Reino. She'd pushed herself to the limit, maybe beyond that.
She wondered if he was going to scold her for that, as Jane might. But he didn't. She had a feeling he knew all about pushing one's self to the limit, that it was something he'd done all his life.
"So," she said, "you didn't conjure up the hurricane and you can't make it go away. We're going to wait it out?"
He nodded. "No choice. Our only way off this island is by boat or aircraft, and nothing's going up in this."
Okay. They were stuck here. "How long?"
"You remember the storm that caused the mud slides? The one that came right up to the edge of the coastline and sat there for days?"
She nodded. Hurricanes brought with them tremendous amounts of rain. But they usually had some forward motion to them. The rains were heaviest for the period of the time the innermost portions of the storm passed through. Which could still be enough rainfall to cause widespread flooding.
The hurricane this summer that struck San Reino and much of Central America had stalled off the coast, trapped by an unusual pattern of prevailing winds. It just sat there and dumped torrents of rain on a seventy-mile stretch of the coast, weakening areas to the point where the ground started moving, mud flowing much like water normally did. It had wiped entire villages off the map and created one of the most devastating natural disasters Grace had ever had the misfortune to see.
"We've got another hurricane doing the same thing," he said. "It's stalled practically on top of us."
"For how long?"
"The outer bands of the storm reached the island not long after you and I did, and then it lost nearly every bit of its forward motion. The eye of the storm still isn't close enough to put us under hurricane-force winds."
She was stunned. And a bit worried. "That howling outside isn't hurricane-force winds?"
"Not quite," he said, amazingly calm.
Grace had never been in the midst of a hurricane, but she'd seen the aftermath. Trees thrown around at will, landing in piles this way and that like tiny spears of wood in the children's game pickup sticks. Houses simply gone or reduced to rubble. Flooding. Cars thrown around. People, too.
"Hey," he said with a whisper of a smile. "We'll deal with it. Whatever happens."
She managed to smile back. "You're prepared for anything?"
"Of course," he said, as if she'd insulted him by even insinuating that he might not be. "We knew it was coming when we put the mission together."
"We?" She looked around again. "We're not alone."
"There are two other operatives on the island—"
"Operatives?"
"Yes."
"Soldiers?"
"Not exactly."
She frowned. Game time wasn't over. Even now, he wasn't going to tell her anything about himself. "But–"
"Two operatives. One other hostage. An American businessman."
That was interesting. As far as she knew, the American military didn't involve its soldiers in the rescue of businessmen who found themselves taken hostage in Central America or anywhere else. At least, it didn't acknowledge involving its military in such operations.
"Milero had the two of you in separate areas of the compound," he continued. "We split up to get you out, had supplies stashed in a second hiding place on the island, and the other team found it easier to get to the second spot than here. They'll stay there until the weather clears."
"Oh." So they were alone. "How long do you think it will be?"
He shrugged easily, as if it didn't matter at all. "I wouldn't have thought the storm would just sit on top of us for this long, but it has. The forecasters are stumped."
"You've been hearing weather reports? Here?"
He nodded.
She was developing serious envy of his equipment. Anything that could receive a signal through a hurricane…
"We'll just have to wait it out," he said.
She nodded and thought about days alone with him in a cave. Nights. With a man who wouldn't even tell her who he was.
"You don't have somewhere you need to be, do you?" he asked.
"Actually, I do." Another hurricane meant more flooding, more mud slides, more sick and dying people.
"Someone else is going to have to take care of this one, Grace."
"It's my job." One in which she took great pride. One for which she felt a great responsibility.
"It's someone else's turn to deal with it."
"I think that would be my decision," she countered.
"No," he insisted, a hint of steel in his voice and an amazingly irritating sense that he somehow had the right to tell her what to do. "Once I get you out of here, there's no way I'm letting you back in San Reino."
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