She was turning away when the glint of sun on metal caught her eye, and then she gasped, trembling hands covering her mouth. Mr. Black?
Was he somehow alive?
Exhilaration swelled her chest.
Leaning further over the edge, she called, “Mr. Black! Can you hear me?”
Her voice jolted him awake. His eyes opened, then shut with a flutter. He raised his hands, shielding them from the sun.
She winced to see his palms and fingertips bloodied.
“Mr. Black? How can I help?”
“Give me a sec.” He half waved. “I’ve got this.”
“You’re covered in blood, and your knee was already hurt before you started. How you survived the van going over the cliff is a miracle straight from God above.” Keeping a tight one-armed hold on the baby, she made the sign of the cross.
“No kidding.” He chuckled. “If lightning hadn’t shown me this ledge, I’d have been a goner, but—”
He’d rolled onto to one knee when a huge section of the ledge crumpled out from beneath him.
She screamed.
He released a string of curses.
And just when Mary Margaret thought their situation couldn’t grow worse, her heart couldn’t beat faster, from somewhere down the road came the sound of an approaching vehicle.
The señora and her men?
10
Jacksonville, Florida
“JUDGING BY YOUR expression,” Nash said to Harding while pacing outside Maisey’s ICU room, “I’m afraid to even ask what Briggs and Jasper reported.”
“It isn’t good.” Harding cupped his hand to Nash’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “Shit . . .” He bowed his head. “I don’t even know how to say this—and hey, so far, our intel on this mission has been a straight-up cluster fuck, but—”
“Just say it!” Nash hadn’t meant to snap, but his nerves were beyond frayed. It didn’t matter that Joe wasn’t biologically his, the love he felt for that baby and Maisey made him whole. Hell, he’d literally helped bring the little guy into the world. For him to be gone? Nash refused to believe it possible. Just like he knew Maisey had to wake soon, he chose to believe Joe and Everett would soon be found safe, as well. They had to.
The alternative was unthinkable.
“At 0735, Briggs and Jasper made contact with a local who reported a convent van had been stolen in the night by a gringo and nun. Might not be significant, but here’s the kicker, the guy also reported that they’re being accused of having stolen Señora Rodriguez’s baby. Compounding the issue, storms in the area damaged the already sketchy mountain road. The van was found by Camilla Rodriguez’s security team after having gone over the edge, where, upon landing, there was an explosion.”
Lips pressed tight to prevent crying out, Nash squeezed his hands into fists. The emotional pain hurt far worse than anything physical he’d ever endured.
“But look, man . . .” Harding was back to squeezing his shoulder. “You and I both know Everett is the best. Who’s to say he didn’t stage the crash as a diversion?”
“You don’t think Camilla’s men would have checked?”
“Apparently, the van’s wreckage is in too deep of a ravine to easily access. They’re scrambling to find someone who can rappel to the site. Another point working in our favor? Everett’s a freakin’ monkey. If anyone can keep your son alive, it’s him. So come on . . .” He turned him toward the ICU exit door. “Let me buy you a coffee and donut. Grab a pager from Olivia at the nurse’s desk and she’ll let you know the second Maisey wakes. And she will. Believe.”
Nash nodded.
He wanted to believe everything would work out in a unicorn-studded rainbow, but he’d used up an awful lot of luck in just saving Maisey and Joe from her psychopath ex. How much more luck could one small family be allotted?
Was this the point when their supply finally crapped out?
11
Piapoco, Colombia
“RUN!” EVERETT COMMANDED of his angel. The approaching vehicle was large enough and close enough for the entire cliff face to shudder.
“I can’t leave you,” she cried. “What if—”
“Go!”
She did. Thankfully.
Eyes closed, he envisioned Camilla Rodriguez being smart enough to bring in big equipment to haul up the van’s wreckage. To make sure she hadn’t been duped. When that happened, he couldn’t be found just sitting here with his thumbs up his ass. But honestly? He wasn’t sure what else to do.
The vehicle stopped.
The acrid smell of diesel dropped to Everett’s ledge.
Rapid-fire Spanish he couldn’t comprehend.
One door creaked open, then two. The sound carried crystal clear on the still morning air.
More talking.
Options? If Everett went up, the black widow’s greeting committee would nail him on sight. If he went down . . .
He glanced at his hands. His fingertips were a bloody mess. If his grip failed—well . . . Suffice to say, it was a long way down.
Leaning back against the stone wall of his new prison, Everett envisioned his angel, drawing strength from the satisfaction he’d feel when he somehow got her and Baby Joe safely out of here. And he would. Just as soon as he devised a solid plan that didn’t involve him meeting his angel’s former boss.
More back-and-forth arguing overhead, and then, “Hola, Señor!”
From Heaven, a rope fell, literally conking Everett on his thick head.
Are you shitting me? Had that vehicle belonged to good guys?
He couldn’t help but smile. He was so happy his angel hadn’t followed his directions that he could kiss her. But first, he’d once and for all slip off her nun’s cap, letting the blond hair he’d imagined fall like a halo.
“Senor! Agarrar la cuerda!”
Everett had no idea what the grizzled old man had said, and he didn’t much care. His wild gestures said it all—grab the rope. So he did.
Testing the sun-faded and frayed rope’s hold, he gave it a tug and found it solid. After pulling himself upright, he aligned the rope with his good leg, then used a classic brake and squat technique for wrapping the rope around his foot to push off, then alternately pull himself up. His fingertips screamed with each upward lurch, but he maintained a solid pace for twenty vertical feet.
He looked up to find his angel holding the baby, peering over the ledge, smiling, motioning him higher. He barely even knew her, yet the curve of her lips spurred him on, faster and harder to reach her, to get her and Baby Joe safely back to the States where they could take their time getting to know each other in a setting that didn’t involve a murdering, kidnapping, and a drug lord’s widow.
Closing the gap between them, he ignored burning pain in favor of focusing on her blue eyes. They matched the sky. Would they lighten or darken with her moods? He’d like nothing more than to discover all of her moods at their leisure.
Up and up he climbed until sweat dripped from his forehead into his eyes.
By tonight, they’d have reached a town far enough from Camilla’s influence that they could share a steak dinner before arranging for transport home. By tonight, he’d have seen her blond hair. He’d have heard all of her story. He’d have bought her new clothes and be partway to convincing her that maybe a new life away from the convent might not be so bad . . .
With only five-feet to the go, the time-worn rope creaked, and then he dropped an inch when one of the strands popped. And then another and another so fast that he frantically searched for a handhold before—too late.
The rope broke, and he was no longer gazing into his angel’s welcoming sky, but falling, falling into the black nothingness of his mortality.
Mary Margaret screamed. “Nooooo!”
He’d been so close to the top. Why, God? Why would You cruelly let him almost reach safety only to let him fall? To let all of us fall? For without him, any victory would only serve as a reminder of how much she’d already lost.
In her arms, the baby fitfully cried. She’d prayed that by the time he woke, she and Everett would be underway, safely en route to another town, another place far, far from the pain of this awful mountain.
The two locals she’d guessed to be coffee farmers by the sacks of beans in the truck bed, carried on an animated discussion with much gesturing back and forth between the truck and Everett and herself. Had they heard the señora’s infant had been taken? If so, had they guessed she and Everett were to blame? Would the men keep their secret or were they paid too well by the señora?
Mary Margaret’s stomach churned at the thought.
On the truck’s grill was a winch spooled with cable.
The younger of the two men fished behind the passenger seat in the truck’s cab to pull out a nylon rope that he looped around his waist, then knotted.
The white-haired man climbed behind the truck’s wheel, then maneuvered the lumbering vehicle around so that the winch faced the cliff’s edge. The sideways truck blocked the narrow road to oncoming traffic.
After affixing the cable’s hooked end to his rope, he stood at the ready until the older man exited the truck to work the winch’s controls.
All the while, the baby cried and Mary Margaret forgot to breathe.
Even if these two saints got Everett up alive, how badly was he hurt? She would need to find him medical help—fast. But where? The nearest hospital was the convent, but obviously, she couldn’t take him there.
Realizing that standing around fretting would get her nowhere, she lurched into action. A short march up the hill landed her at the Jeep where she used canned formula to prepare a bottle for the baby. While feeding him, she stood alongside the boulder, watching, waiting, holding her breath while the kindly old man worked the winch, shouting directions back and forth with his partner.
Time stretched into an impossibly long thread.
She paced, patting the baby’s back, and when the tension grew to be too much for her to bear, she dragged the camouflage netting off of the Jeep, then rummaged through the back of the vehicle for makeshift infant car seat supplies. Spying a backpack, she dumped its contents, tucked the infant inside, then securely strapped him onto the Jeep’s rear seat. It by no means was the perfect way to travel with an infant, but in this emergency situation, the temporary set-up would have to do.
With the baby safe, she checked the men and found them still working.
She did the same, searching for the Jeep’s keys and finding them beneath the driver’s seat just as Everett had said.
The day had already grown warm. After the previous night’s rain, the air felt thick with humidity. As she climbed behind the Jeep’s steering wheel, her habit’s long skirt bunched about her ankles, making it hard to even see the pedals. After hiking the skirt up to her knees, she tucked the fabric beneath her. The air on her legs felt foreign and uncomfortable, yet at the same time, freeing.
The Jeep had an automatic transmission.
She fit the key into the ignition.
In case of an emergency, her father had taught her to drive an old Ford Explorer they’d used for supply runs. Her throat tightened at the memory of his patient smile. Over and over, he’d explained that she couldn’t have her feet on the gas and brake pedals at the same time.
In an odd way, that’s how she felt about the sudden changes in her life.
Part of her desperately missed the convent’s peace and satisfying routine. Another part of her, the part disillusioned by the sisters’ countless lies, longed to press her foot hard to the accelerator and travel as far from this place as the Jeep would take her.
She forced a deep breath, then settled her foot on the brake before starting the engine. Once it chugged with a satisfying rhythm, she squeezed her eyes shut for the briefest of moments, knowing that when she left the safety of this glade, her life would never be the same.
Everett had backed in the vehicle, making her task in getting it to the road no big deal. All she had to do was place the gears in drive, then let gravity take over. The tricky part would be stopping before she drove right over the ledge like the convent van.
She accelerated just enough to drive the vehicle over a brush pile Everett must have created, then ever-so-gently accelerated down the hill.
Progress was slow and steady until her long, full skirt worked free, tangling between her ankles and the brake. Suddenly, the Jeep rolled faster and faster until hitting the road’s squishy mud, then fishtailing.
She yanked the wheel as hard as she could to the left, but the mud sucked in the tires, taking the car where it wanted to go—straight toward the cliff.
12
Jacksonville, Florida
“NASH?” MAISEY FOUND it difficult to say even her husband’s name. Her breathing tube had been removed and her throat ached and burned. But nothing could hurt worse than the knowledge that her son and now Everett were still missing and presumed dead.
“I’m right here, babe.” Her husband had been dozing in an armchair beside her. Maisey’s love for him was so much bigger and better than anything she’d ever prayed to find. Her love for her son? Somehow even more grand, because even though Nash wasn’t Joe’s biological father, the fact that he’d welcomed both her and her tiny son into his heart and soul had filled her to an indescribable degree.
Which was beautiful.
But also made their current situation all the more untenable.
Without her son, life felt impossible.
Hot, messy tears fell and refused to stop.
Nash silently rose, then lowered the rail on her hospital bed to gently draw her into his arms. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
“B-but what you said about the e-explosion, what—”
He drew back, framing her face with his big, strong hands. Meeting her tear-filled gaze he said, “I refuse to believe the worst, okay? Everett is one, tough S.O.B. If anyone can get our son safely home, it’s him.”
She nodded. Maisey wanted to believe her husband’s words were true, but another part of her was terrified that this time Vicente Rodriguez might ultimately win—even from beyond the grave.
“I love you.” Nash kissed her forehead and nose and finally, softly, her lips. “The doctor said you’re getting stronger by the hour. At the rate you’re improving, Nurse Olivia said they’ll soon be moving you out of ICU. Which means that by the time Everett and Briggs and Jasper get back with Joe, you’ll have ditched a bunch of these tubes and might even be home.”
“B-but what if Camilla doesn’t stop? What if we get Joe back only to lose him again?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. All you need to worry about is getting better. Joe needs his mom.” He kissed her. “I need my wife.”
I need you.
What Maisey didn’t need was to live the rest of her life fearing Camilla Rodriguez. The woman was even more insidious than her husband had been. And since she rarely left her compound, she’d be even more difficult to kill.
Maisey didn’t like thinking of herself as being capable of taking a life, but when it came to protecting her husband and son, all bets were off . . .
13
Piapoco, Colombia
“MUCHAS GRACIOUS,” EVERETT had said to the man who’d saved his sorry ass. Unfortunately, his relief over finally returning to the muddy road was short lived.
Over the diesel truck’s chugging idle rose another engine—this one, from the adjacent hillside. Still on his knees, it was then it occurred to him that his angel was missing. Had she taken it upon herself to not only coordinate a second rescue mission, but prep his Jeep for travel?
A glance in that direction had him grinning, but then cringing.
“Babe! You’re taking that hill too—” There was no time to finish his observation befo
re she’d careened the Jeep onto the road’s mud, then damn near decapitated him before finally stopping a scant three inches from the edge of the cliff it felt as if he’d spent three lifetimes climbing.
“You’re safe!” Before Everett took his next breath, she’d hopped from behind the wheel, gingerly avoiding the ledge before running through the muck to him. Her once pristine habit hung from her too-thin frame in a depressing, mud-covered mass. Regardless, she was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen. On her knees in front of him, she looked as if she might kiss him, but then, as if checking herself, she drew back.
“It’s okay,” he said with a lopsided smile. “Go for it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her darting gaze told a different story, but they could sort that out later. For now, it was time to get while for once, the getting was actually good.
The virile young man who’d saved him sported spiky hair and a Rolling Stones T-shirt. Through his bickering with the older guy with the wiry white hair and beard, Everett guessed they were grandson and grandfather. Through much painful handshaking, hugs, and relieved smiles, Everett hoped they understood how grateful he truly was.
He was also suspicious about why Camilla Rodriguez and her men hadn’t yet returned. Surely, she was smarter than to take the wrecked van at face value. Could they really be so lucky as to have her permanently out of the picture?
Everett was skeptical, but not complaining.
“Hand over the keys,” he said to his angel once the men climbed back into their truck.
“Not a chance,” she said. “After what you’ve been through, you need rest and a bath—not necessarily in that order.”
He laughed. He wasn’t used to being around such a bossy, take-charge woman, but she was growing on him . . .
“Let me help you.” He did, and by the time she assisted him in limping to the Jeep’s passenger side, then opening his door, the relief of sitting on an actual padded seat shimmered through him. For the moment, life was good.
Shunned (SEAL Team: Disavowed Book 3) Page 6