by Olivia Gates
She slumped back and they remained like that, coming down together, merged in ultimate intimacy, her thighs stroking his sides, her sated smile stroking his soul, his hands and eyes roving over her in a soothing, reverent ritual.
They hadn’t used protection. Not once. The need to ask was constantly there. Was she using birth control? If she had been from the start—why? If she wasn’t, then—then…
An image of a baby girl with moonbeam hair and heaven-colored eyes burgeoned inside him, pushing aside everything, taking precedence.
Ask her. Offer her. Everything that you are.
And what was that? Strife and danger and exhaustion? In exchange for what? This? What was this to her? Sex? How long would it last?
But she said she loves you.
Figure of speech. Savannah would tell you straight if she did. And even if she does, how long will that last?
He bent, collected her to his body, sat with her wrapped around him, buried his face in her neck. She flowed around him, blanketing him with serenity and simmering passion, imbuing him with resolve.
He would make it last. He would keep her with him. There was a way. There had to be. He just hadn’t found it yet.
But he would.
Savannah accommodated Javier deeper into the curve of her neck, into her depths, tightened her hold around him inside and out. She stroked his silky hair, his velvet muscled back and arms and thighs, wondered again at how smooth and polished he was, his native American legacy. She wondered what was going on in his powerful mind.
She’d as good as told him she loved him today, this time in words. She’d told him in every other way in the past ten days. He hadn’t reciprocated.
Oh, he had, incessantly, every time they made love. Mi amor, mi vida, mi corazón, mi alma. His love and life and heart and soul. And, boy, did he sound convincing. But that was only during delirium. When they were out of bed, everything he did said he couldn’t wait for the next time, that it was always on his mind, that he loved being with her, working with her, counting on her. Did that amount to love?
Not really. A lot remained. Believing in her enough to ask her again, for one. Trusting her with his name and honor and children, for another. Wanting her for more than now, wanting her for ever…
“Mi amor, you’re uncomfortable.” Javier must have felt her tensing. He laid her back, massaged her cramped thighs, his tender touch relaxing her then winding her up again. Then he loved her again, long, long and gentle, building to the same ferocity, the same sweeping, annihilating release. Then he surrounded her, slept.
Sleep didn’t descend on her. The ticking in her head that was counting down her remaining time in Colombia always kept her awake. Carmela’s revelations had accelerated the ticking and made her frantic, if only for a couple of days after they’d left Neiva. Disregarding Carmela’s warnings had been easy when Javier acted as if no other woman existed, not only in his life but in the world.
But that’s what men do when they’re cheating. Remember Mark? All over you at night, all over his nurse in the morning?
No—Javier wasn’t like that. His integrity ran all through him. If there was another woman, he hadn’t made any promises to her, hadn’t even raised her expectations. He hadn’t been intimate with her, not even familiar. She knew it, believed it. He wasn’t capable of pettiness or duplicity, of such disrespect to a woman. She wasn’t hurting another woman, being with him.
But she also believed there was such another woman, a hopeful, a candidate for the position of his wife, picked and approved by his family. Convenient, conservative, conventional.
Well, tough! There was no prior claim, and she was damned if she was giving him up to any convenient “helpmeet”. To anyone!
She was the woman who sent him into frenzies of desire, who satisfied him out of his mind, the one who challenged him, made him dissolve in laughter, provoked and sustained his interest, his respect. She was, and always wanted to be, his partner.
What had that other woman done to deserve him? She was convenient by an accident of birth. Her life expectations were so limited that Javier was a dream come true to her, and any hardship in living with him would be a luxury.
But Savannah had chosen to be who she was now. Her choices had been open, and she’d chosen his path. Hardships with him would be neither adversity nor luxury, but quests, challenges, aspirations. She’d gone on a quest and she’d discovered her strength, had found herself. Now she was as self-made as he was. That made her his equal at last. That was what a true partner was. That was what Javier deserved, what he must want. He wouldn’t stomach an inferior, a dependant, but would only consider being with a match. And that was her.
What was more, that other woman could make do with any other man. She couldn’t. For her, it was Javier or nothing.
She had to believe that, if he had a place in him and in his life for a woman at all, it would be her he’d choose. Even if he hadn’t made a new offer.
Suddenly it hit her. He might be afraid to make one. Considering her reaction the last time, she couldn’t blame him.
Fairness dictated she even out the balance. It was her turn to ask.
“What was it you said again?” Savannah adjusted the scarf over her hair, unsettled by the way the guerrilla’s eyes were glued to the tendrils that had escaped. “You spoke too quickly.”
“Are you American?”
She flashed her MSU credentials at him. “I am a doctor—a surgeon. I am with the MSU visiting San Vicente del Caguán. Those are my patients. As you can see, one of them is critically ill.”
The guerrilla was withdrawing, about to let them go on their way, when his colleague, a younger guerrilla who didn’t look a day over seventeen, talked to him, this time in Spanish so fast it went over her head.
The older guerrilla shoved his face into hers again. “You will come with us.”
OK, don’t show any sign of unease or revulsion. “I and my team will be at your disposal in any medical services, as soon as we take care of our patients.”
“We only want you. But I guess the rest will have to come along, too.”
Damn. So this was what she’d felt half an hour ago. The foreboding that heralded a catastrophe. She’d mistaken her emergency for it.
She should have waited for Javier, for any of the others. Now this checkpoint had materialized on their usual route, just when she’d decided to transfer her patient back to the MSU with only Caridad along.
But she’d had to do it. When the emergency had arrived, Javier had been busy in the local clinic, continuing the hands-on training of the only doctor there, in the middle of a surgical procedure using the facility’s capabilities. He had Alonso with him, while Luis and Miguel had been similarly involved. Esteban was with the rest of the guards back in the MSU. Come to think of it, it might have been even worse if any of them had been along. Things might have gotten violent and out of control. This way Javier was safe and free. He’d get them out of this.
“Follow us.”
In a minute she had guerrilla vehicles in front and behind her, and the young guerrilla beside her, squeezing Caridad in the back with their patient, his wife and two sons.
Alert Javier before they take you out of cell phone range, before they take away the cell phone itself.
The phone was in the left pocket of her baggy pants. She felt for its pads through the fabric. The green handset pad for dialing—here, and Javier’s number had been the last she’d dialed. She hit it.
She started talking to the guerrilla so he wouldn’t hear Javier’s voice when he answered the phone. “So, what did you say to your partner that made him change his mind about letting us go?”
The young guerrilla shifted in his seat, looked out of the Jeep. Had her question made him uncomfortable? “I just told him who you are. I recognized you from TV.”
TV? GAO and local authorities weren’t airing footage of the MSU mission complete with photos!
The guerrilla’s next words made it a
ll clear. “I watch international channels. It was a commercial, from a very big American health group. They said you were one of them, and you were in Colombia with the MSU.”
Oh, no, no! Her father was using her presence here as propaganda for Richardson Health Group!
She hoped he’d be satisfied when his propaganda coup cost him his daughter.
She looked at the young man. Would he be her killer?
No time for morbid projections now. Get Javier as much information as you can.
She raised her chin at the guerrilla, along with her voice. “So you know me. Mind telling me who you are, now you’ve kidnapped us?”
CHAPTER TEN
KIDNAPPED.
Javier stared ahead, kept his cell phone glued to his ear. Savannah’s voice was filtering through engine and road noises, filling his head. Something hot and wet and blinding burst in there, with every word he heard.
It wasn’t true. None of it. He had to be hallucinating. It had to be him fearing for Savannah too much, living in dread of all sorts of worst-case scenarios. She was next door—next door…
The local doctor’s exclamation echoed from another reality. Javier looked down at him, at the patient with the half-drained abscess, at Alonso’s alarmed face, and realized he’d leapt to his feet and knocked over the surgical tray.
“Just keep on, just—just…” No more words came, just blind panic, propelling him, seeking Savannah. Savannah.
She wasn’t next door. She’d taken an impending perforating appendicitis patient, and Caridad, and had gone back to the MSU. And she’d been kidnapped.
Kidnapped.
His Savannah, surrounded by rabid beasts, like that first night. This time he wasn’t there to hack the monsters who’d abducted her to pieces and—and…Dios, what would they do to her? What were they doing to her now…?
His mind blinked on and off, attempting to ward off panic and desperation and their insidious whispers to fall to his knees and let madness consume him.
No. No despair, no taking refuge in breakdown. His precious, brilliant Savannah had called out to him, had warned him and given him vital information. She needed his strength, his stability. She’d sense it, as she always sensed danger and disaster. And, as those always made her cold and anxious, his determination would warm her, steady her, sustain her until she was back in his arms. And she would be. She would.
Mi vida, I’m saving you, no matter what!
“What did you say?” Savannah focused on Caridad’s pale face. Caridad repeated her question and Savannah still only heard Javier’s voice, soothing, bolstering. She must be wishing for it so hard she was imagining it. Or was she breaking down?
No—she wasn’t that agitated. Oh, she was afraid, fully realized the mortal danger they were in. But she felt nothing like that night in the woods. She wasn’t panicking like Caridad, or resigned to her fate like her patient and his family…
Her patient! He was all that mattered now. The man had to have an immediate appendectomy or die.
She gave Caridad’s hand a reassuring squeeze and surged up to her feet. “You. Diaz!”
Their young guard snapped around, his slanting black eyes widening at her tone, at her moving against his superior’s orders.
“Tell General Gomes I need to operate on Señor Herrera right now!”
General Gomes was just coming in, and heard her imperious order. “Well, Dr. Richardson, you may be a high-and-mighty American doctor, but here you’re just our hostage.” His semi-automatic weapon jabbed her hard in her right shoulder, sending her stumbling backwards. “Sit down and shut up.”
Images of scratching the man’s eyes out flashed in her mind. Not wise. At least, not now. She recovered from her stumble, came back in his face. “You may want only me as a hostage, but the more the merrier, right? People will negotiate for him, too. Any money’s better than nothing.”
The big, coarse mercenary bristled. “You don’t need to be in one piece when we return you to your people, you know? If we return you.”
OK. She knew the odds. She shrugged. “What have you got to lose? Just let me save him now, then you can kill us all later anyway.”
“Are you out of your mind, mujer? You think you can perform surgery here?”
“That’s for me to worry about. Do I have your permission to go ahead?”
Gomes looked over at his men, laughed. “Oh, why not? This should be a lot of laughs, watching you cut that bastard open.”
The men all laughed on cue. Savannah’s heart bounded with urgency. “The show won’t start without the supplies bag in our Jeep.”
“Get her what she wants, hombres. And get me a chair. I’m sitting through this one!”
In ten minutes, their audience was assembled, Herrera’s family were sobbing in the corner and Savannah and Caridad had him on the floor and were kneeling on either side of him, preparing for the procedure.
“Dr. Richardson, are you sure about this?”
Caridad’s wavering whisper trembled down Savannah’s spine. Of course she wasn’t sure. Under any other conditions, an appendectomy was a piece of cake. But she didn’t have the necessary equipment or drugs, the septic conditions were horrifying and Herrera’s condition was deteriorating. And she’d never handled anesthesia herself.
There’s no other choice. Do it, and do it quickly!
She had already intubated Herrera using thiopental, the quickest-acting IV anesthetic. But it was very short-acting. To attain and maintain anesthesia deep enough for abdominal surgery, she needed an inhalational anesthetic. Which she didn’t have.
Up his analgesia, add a powerful muscle relaxant. “Caridad, another ten milligrams each of morphine and succinylcholine.”
Caridad’s eyes widened. “That will paralyze his respiratory muscles!”
Which meant he wouldn’t be able to breathe on his own and would need manual ventilation with the bag-mask. She couldn’t have Caridad doing that while assisting her. She needed another pair of hands. “Diaz, come here!”
The boy looked at his superior. Gomes nodded and Diaz ran to her.
“Count one, two, three and on four give him a breath—like this.” The boy nodded nervously. She turned to the crowd. “I need your sharpest blade.” She had suture material, forceps, scissors, but no scalpels.
A dozen daggers and switchblades were held out to her. She liked the vicious-looking saber strapped to Gomes’s leg. “General, if I may?”
He handed it to her with a “you’re crazy” smile.
Probably. “Now a lighter.”
Again, a dozen lighters were offered. She snatched the first one, heated the blade until it glowed red.
She took in a deep breath. It got trapped in her lungs. Steady! “Caridad…” Steady! “I go in, you suction. After bleeding abates, you swab and hand me instruments. If the appendix has ruptured you irrigate copiously, so ready three saline bags.” She turned to their audience. She lacked another thing. A retractor. “I need another volunteer.”
Gomes himself rose this time. All right. Let him do something useful for once in his life. She handed him povidine. “Wash your hands with that, then put those gloves on. Once I make my incision, I need you to keep the wound edges apart so I can get to the appendix.”
She performed a three-inch incision. Her hand trembled. Not agitated? Ha.
But as she deepened her access through the layers of the abdominal wall, she lost herself to her task as usual, everything else ceasing to register, to matter. Her nerves steadied as she snapped orders to her assistants, modifying their positions and actions, locating the appendix and searching for additional problems. Finding none, she freed the appendix from its attachment to the colon, ligating and cutting it then stapling the colon hole. The appendix hadn’t ruptured, though it would have in just a few more minutes. But an abscess had formed. She placed drains to siphon off the pus then raced through abdominal closure as Herrera began to move.
Caridad topped off analgesia in his IV drip then r
aised her eyes to Savannah. What next?
What next for them? Savannah only had answers concerning the surgery. “Usual post-operative drill, just double the antibiotic cover and tetanus toxoid and keep the ITT in for now. Well done!” Savannah turned to Diaz and Gomes. “You gentlemen handled yourselves like pros. Well done to you, too!”
Gomes was all incredulity. “You mean he isn’t going to die?”
Savannah gave him a long look. “No. Are we?”
“Are we agreed?”
Javier looked into the guerrilla leader’s cold eyes, squashing down all his frustration and rage, all his personal terror and murderous animosity. Telling the man what he thought of him, just before beating him to death, would sabotage Savannah’s chances of getting out of this unharmed. Out of this at all.
Take the offer, you bastard. Make the exchange.
“We’re no such thing, Dr. Sandoval.”
Javier gritted his teeth. “You want money—here it is. But it’s my ransom, not Dr. Richardson’s. Let her go now and take me, and you’ll get even more money on my release. I would advise you not to hold out for money from her people. Whatever money you get for her from them would only open the gates of hell on you. The Richardsons don’t only have money, they have political power. No one gets away with threatening one of their own, or with taking their money. And if you’ve harmed her…”
I’ll rip your neck out right now and be done with it!
“She’s unharmed. Gomes, my second in command, the one who caught her, tells me he thinks no one would harm her even if he ordered them to. She’s made quite an impression, that one.”
Savannah. Savannah, mi amor. The blow of longing and fear almost drove Javier to his knees. But he couldn’t afford to let the man witness his weakness, give him more advantages. He persisted. “They’ll have no such qualms with me, which will only strengthen your position. So will you take me instead? Let her and the others go?”