Crossing the Line

by Candace Irvin

  “Eve, I…”

  She smiled softly, sadly. “I know. You wouldn’t have joined the Army and escaped into the jungle years ago, much less still be here, if you could.”

  She’d nailed it so cleanly, he didn’t know what to say.

  So he just held her in the dark, breathing, feeling.

  Regretting.

  When he found the nerve to seek out her gaze again, he swore he could make out compassion. Understanding.

  He didn’t deserve it.

  “We need to go. We should have been gone hours ago.”

  She shrugged. “You needed the sleep.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. But he should have.

  Their situation had changed.

  He had a whole lot more to worry about than some roving squad of Córdobans. Whoever had sabotaged that chopper had to be searching for it. They’d need to make sure that the evidence of their tampering hadn’t survived the crash as well as he and Eve had. He brought his hands to Eve’s face and cupped her cheeks, smoothing his thumbs across the lingering evidence of her tears. Tears she’d shed for their fellow soldiers who hadn’t survived.

  “I know you miss her.”

  She nodded. “But it’s more than that. It’s more than them. When we found that picture, I thought maybe you knew, that maybe you were protecting them, too. But when we visited the graves I realized you didn’t. You couldn’t have. After everything we’ve been through, you would have said something. If only to me.”

  Regret blistered him.

  It was now or never.

  He sucked in his breath. “Eve, I did know. I should have come clean yesterday. I was at the restaurant when that photo was taken. I counseled Turner afterwards, then I spoke to Carrie. I don’t mean to offend you, but you said it yourself. Carrie liked men. A lot. But this time she was in danger of damaging more than her reputation. I warned her to break it off before someone else found out and she lost her career.”

  Eve sighed. “I know. And you’re right. But it wouldn’t have mattered. She was about to turn in her wings.”

  There was no way he could respond to that.

  Not without hurting her.

  He’d learned firsthand in Panama City that Eve could be blinded by friendship and loyalty, at least as far as her sorority sisters were concerned. Look at Anna Shale. Even so, he couldn’t fault her for it. Given her childhood, he understood it, even respected her for it. Unlike her mother, Eve would never abandon someone she cared about.

  It sure as hell wasn’t his place to make her try.

  She grabbed his arm. “You don’t believe me, do you? You think Carrie was just using your sergeant. Well, you’re wrong. She would have married the man if he’d asked her.”

  Her precise conditional wording of that last part slammed into his face with the force of a percussion grenade. He tried shaking his head, tried shaking it off. He couldn’t. A good ten seconds later, his ears were still ringing. And he still refused to believe it. Eve was wrong. She had to be.

  But what if she wasn’t?

  The tension in her grip told him he’d better push it. He swallowed hard. “Carrie…told you that?”

  Her eyes glistened as she shook her head slowly. A tear slipped free, coursing down her cheek, shimmering in the sliver of starlight as she pulled her hand away and sighed. “She didn’t have to. She was pregnant.”

  A baby?

  The hell with a percussion grenade.

  Rick sucked in his breath as the bombshell effectively drop-kicked him out of the back of a C-130 troop transport three hundred miles above the ground. He flailed around, struggling to find the ripcord to a parachute that just wasn’t there. He closed his eyes and tried to slow his spinning brain. It didn’t help. He could still hear the air whooshing past his ears as he careened straight for the ground.

  But as he crash-landed, Eve was there. Staring up at him, worry in the furrow of her brow, in her touch, as she cupped the side of his jaw. “You didn’t know, did you?”

  No.

  And neither had Turner.

  If his sergeant had, the man would never have let Carrie fly. Rick closed his eyes again and scrubbed at his own bitter tears. He no longer had one death on his conscience.

  He had three.

  Something was wrong.

  Very wrong.

  Eve could feel it humming in her blood. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but when she heard the sudden catch in Rick’s breath two feet behind her, she knew he felt it too.

  “Hurry.”

  She didn’t bother glancing over her shoulder. She hooked her hands on the charred frame of the cockpit door and pulled herself into the wreckage instead. She twisted around in the dark and reached out, automatically locating the access panel before Rick could illuminate it for her. “Forget the flashlight. Get the cutting torch. I swear I just heard a—”

  “Chopper.”

  She and Rick stiffened simultaneously. This time the thunder of distant—but incoming—blades was unmistakable.

  “It’s a Huey.”

  Unlike six weeks ago, Rick didn’t ask if she was sure. He grabbed his ruck with one hand, her right arm with his other, hauling her out of the cockpit in one smooth motion before practically dragging her across the clearing and into the tree line beyond. She grunted as a thick vine smacked against the side of her jaw. Two seconds later, she stumbled over another.

  Rick didn’t even slow down.

  He just tightened his grip and dragged her faster. He sealed his mouth to her ear as they reached the rest of their gear. “Stay down.”

  She nodded.

  A soft click followed as he switched off the AK-47’s safety. His breath filled her ear a second time as he tucked the rifle into her right hand, his K-Bar into her left. “It’s set on automatic.”

  She nodded again.

  It took a full ten seconds to realize Rick hadn’t just left her side, he’d left her section of the jungle. She had no idea how long she sat there in the dark, nervously fingering the serrated edge of the K-Bar, but it felt like an eternity. If anything, the blood-letting groove running down the flat of the blade underscored the bizarre shift to her priorities. Five minutes before, she’d have given anything to understand the silent, brooding wall Rick had slowly but surely erected between them over the past two hours—and how to blast through it. The tension had gotten so bad, she’d reapplied her camouflage paint and suggested they return to the crash site in the dead of night to slice off a chunk of the tampered rod. And now, because of that blasted Huey thundering overhead, she didn’t even have that.

  All she had were more questions.

  Like who was flying that damned bird?

  She’d called Anna’s pilot herself earlier that evening while Rick slept. The man wasn’t due to arrive until dawn. It was still a good hour until midnight, dammit. Had he sold them out to the Córdobans? Had Anna’s cousin?

  And where the hell was Rick?

  A Huey could carry twelve men easily. The thought of Rick confronting a reinforced squad armed with God only knew what by himself scared at least that many years off her life.

  “It’s me.”

  His warm breath in her ear tripled the loss.

  “Sorry. Needed to recon the immediate area.” Rick retrieved his K-Bar from her nerveless fingers and tucked it into the nylon scabbard at his waist as he stood. He donned his ruck and grabbed hers before latching on to her again. This time he half led, half dragged her by her hand. “Follow my lead no matter what, understood?”

  To where?

  And to whom?

  She nodded anyway, feeling every inch the bobbing dog. But at least her head was still firmly attached to her body.

  For the moment.

  Seconds later, she received part of her answer. They were headed back toward the crash site. Straight toward the Huey. She could feel the leading edge of the breeze kicked up by the rotor’s downwash, the earth vibrating beneath their boots, as the bird closed in on the same clearing
she’d have willingly given her wings to have safely landed in all those weeks before. Another few steps and the jungle thinned enough for her to see the chopper as well. Definitely a Huey. Those running lights proved it.

  They reached the tree line as the Huey touched down.

  Rick clamped his hand on her shoulder and nudged her firmly down into the concealing foliage. “Stay low.”

  Not a problem.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere. Yet.”

  He pulled the nine-round magazine out of his rifle and locked in a thirty-round banana clip as the pilot powered down the Huey’s engine. Six men in fatigues vaulted out from the chopper’s gaping belly. Rick sighted in on the leading man.

  “Captain Bishop! It’s Colonel Arista! Ernesto Torres sent me!”

  Rick lowered the barrel a fraction of an inch.

  “Ernesto says to tell you, you never could hold your milk!”

  The rifle fell away. “I’ll strangle the son-of-a-bitch.”

  From the shock on Rick’s face as well as his voice, there was one hell of a story behind that pass phrase. However, now wasn’t the time to ask about it. Eve studied the soldiers as they spread out around the Huey. The chopper’s running lights glinted off several rifles. The barrels were drawn low, non-threatening. “Who is that man? Who are they?”

  “The president’s personal guard.”

  She blinked. Not bad. Ernesto must be some friend for Rick to rate this particular escort. She flicked her gaze to the later model Huey.

  And in style, no less.

  “Don’t let it go to your head. Arista can’t stand me. The feeling’s mutual.”

  “Oh.”

  “Wait here. I’ll do the talking.”

  “At least you’re talking to someone.”

  He stiffened.

  She shrugged. “Let’s just say I’m beginning to see why you fit in so well around here.”

  “Eve—”

  “Apology accepted. But I will hear the rest of it and soon.” For a moment, she thought he was going to deny it—the tension, the silence.

  Until he nodded.

  Rick carried his AK-47 with him as he stepped out of the trees, but kept the barrel low. Meanwhile, she kept her hands locked to her own rifle, the barrel high as he approached the San Sebastián contingent. Backlit by the Huey’s lights, Rick and Arista greeted each other as old friends, complete with hands clapped across the other’s shoulders.

  Love thine enemy.

  She waited until she was sure both men intended to carry out the charade to its natural conclusion before she lowered her barrel slightly to study the rest of the men still maintaining their informal guard. Not a one wandered over toward the wreckage less than twenty yards away.

  Shouldn’t they at least be curious?

  Or had they been ordered to stand off for a reason?

  She shifted her gaze just in time to see Rick and Arista shake hands. Another compulsory session of shoulder clapping followed. Rick turned and waved her out as he approached. He slung his rifle over his arm as he reached the tree line and pulled her close—intimately close.

  Darkness or not, she stiffened.

  “Relax. We’re lovers.”

  Panama.

  “Anna?” She couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t.

  There was no way Anna would betray their presence in Córdoba to Ernesto, or anyone else.

  He leaned down to press his lips to her temple. “Not the woman, just the game. It was the best I could come up with.”

  Unbelievable.

  She offers herself to the man on a silver platter and he refuses. Then he all but ignores her for the next two hours, and now he wants her to let the entire world think he can’t stay out of her pants?

  Men.

  “Let me guess. You didn’t mention the photos.”

  “Or the sabotage. I told him I brought you back so you could mourn your friend and bury the ring I mistakenly took from her hand.”

  She snorted. “Guess I’m better in bed than I thought.”

  Fire seared into her cheeks as she realized she’d actually said it out loud. It flared hotter as he murmured something suspiciously close to you have no idea.

  “So—ah—what’s his excuse?”

  “Arista claims human intelligence filtered up to him a couple of hours ago. He says a squad of Córdoban democratic rebels located the wreckage this afternoon. Arista also claims that as soon as the rebels got word to him about the crash site, he told Ernesto he intended to retrieve the bodies.”

  “That’s quite a claim.”

  Especially since they’d spent the majority of that very same afternoon tearing the wreckage apart bolt-by-bolt as she searched for further evidence of sabotage. Arista must have tracked the signal from the call she’d made to their own Huey pilot earlier that night. How else had he known he’d need that cryptic pass phrase? Rick must have been thinking the same thing, because he nodded.

  “I told you I don’t trust the man.”

  “But your friend does.”

  Rick shrugged. “Ernesto was raised trusting him. I suspect he’s about to learn differently.”

  Now there was a loaded statement.

  “What about you? Are you willing to trust him enough to get us to San Sebastián in one piece?”

  “For the moment.”

  Two loaded statements in a row. She could only hope neither blew up in their faces.

  He snagged the straps to her ruck. “Ready?”

  Why not? He’d come this far on her instincts.

  It was time to follow his.

  She nodded. “Let’s do it.”

  Chapter 12

  “Y ou will, of course, stay the night.”

  Despite the fact that Miguel Torres was standing two feet in front of her in his private office in the San Sebastián presidential palace, staring into her eyes, Eve knew damned well the decree was intended solely for Rick.

  Evidently, so did he.

  “Of course.”

  Ernesto stepped forward and clapped Rick on the shoulder, drawing him from her side before either of them could protest. “Excellent. And now, Señorita Paris—” The man flashed his easy grin in her direction. “If you will allow us a moment or two to catch up, I promise to send him along shortly. Mama!”

  Eve winced as Ernesto waved the subdued woman to his side. She felt bad enough knowing Carlotta Torres had been roused from her husband’s sickbed to help roll out the red carpet at a quarter to midnight, she certainly didn’t expect her to—

  “Please escort Señorita Paris to her room.”

  “It would be my pleasure. Señorita…?”

  Given the cultural climate, Eve deferred to Rick. The look he shot her told her to go. Much as it grated, she was forced to agree. Rick had warned her earlier that evening that even with a chunk of the Black Hawk’s collective rod in hand, it would be difficult convincing Ernesto that the sabotage had been directed at him. Without that proof, it would be doubly so. Given the men’s long-standing friendship, not to mention Ernesto’s patronizing affection for the women in his life, including his stepmother, Rick would fare better without her.

  She returned the woman’s weary smile with one of her own. “Thank you. Just let me get my—”

  “Rosa will bring it.”

  As if on cue, Rosa did. Eve felt sorry for the maid as she struggled to heft and balance the sixty-pound ruck.

  Obviously Carlotta didn’t.

  Before Eve could steady the girl, much less grab the ruck herself, Ernesto’s stepmother turned, her sensible heels sinking into the dark-green carpet of her son’s study as she crossed the room. Moments later, those far-too-energetic heels clipped out onto the tiles of the shadowy hallway beyond, with Rosa and Eve trailing haphazardly behind.

  Eve breathed easier as Rosa steadied her grip.

  Frankly, she wasn’t sure she could have helped the girl if she’d wanted to. Every last ounce of adrenaline had drained from her blood during
the Huey flight, leaving nothing but bone-weary exhaustion behind as they landed. By the time Carlotta and Rosa reached the end of the first hall, she had to work to keep up with both women’s shorter, stockier legs.

  Hope kept her going after the second turn.

  If she was lucky, there was a shower at the end of this dimly lit hall. A bed.

  What there was, was another blasted hall.

  And another.

  Surely there was one tiny, unoccupied bed behind any one of these enormous mahogany doors? Heck, she’d be willing to turn around and curl up on any one of the cushioned benches they’d passed along the way. Just when she was about to give up hope altogether, those too-cheery heels stopped short.

  Carlotta shoved open the slab of wood in front of them and stepped inside to flick on the lights. “Your room, Señorita.”

  Eve followed the women through the doorway and froze. This wasn’t a room, it was another blasted bridal suite. If anything, the pristine feather coverlet made the four-poster at the far wall seem even more intimate, more inviting than the bed in Panama had been. Eve winced as Rosa dumped her grimy ruck onto the edge of the coverlet. Her nylon web belt followed, the flap to her holster falling open as it hit the bedpost. Eve winced harder as her 9 mm fell onto the carpet.

  Nothing like a loaded pistol to make a hostess feel safe.

  Eve turned around to find Carlotta staring at the 9 mm—and then her. Curiosity warred with disapproval.

  She wasn’t surprised.

  She doubted many of Ernesto’s friends showed up in the dead of night with a bedraggled, camouflaged, pistol-packing woman in tow. She could only hope Colonel Arista had kept his mouth shut regarding her supposed personal relationship with Rick. It was bad enough that everyone knew her wings had been stripped. San Sebastián was unabashedly Catholic. She didn’t need the woman fearing her stepson would be seduced into violating the Church’s doctrine on premarital sex.

  From the in-country briefing she’d received weeks before, Eve knew that San Sebastián society tended to pat the studly man on the back with one hand—while using the other to stone the scarlet woman.

  Arista must have talked.

  Because she felt very much the scarlet woman beneath that faint frown. “Is something wrong, Señora Torres?”