Micki hesitated. What he said was true; she didn't possess the physical strength to pull him to freedom, no matter how much she wanted to.
"Go," he repeated deadpan. Then he gave her a cocky grin meant to abate her misgivings. "That's an order."
There was nothing cheerful about her decision. "I'll be back," she said, aware that she was mimicking him when he had abandoned her on the sandbar in the Keys. "I promise I'll be back."
"I know. And Micki?"
"Yes?"
"Just in case... if they find me first, I want you to know..."
She looked into his eyes and found herself looking into his heart.
"I love you," he said simply, honestly. "Whatever happens, I just wanted to tell you that."
For an extended moment, she struggled with something to say. A very large part of her wanted to repeat the words to him, to tell him the feeling was mutual, and yet that small niggly, nagging, doubting part of her sealed her jaws firmly shut. Since the moment dictated she at least come up with some sort of reply, she finally settled for repeating herself.
"I'll be back, Luke," she promised in a quivering voice.
When Micki rolled away from the opening, she did it with an aching constriction in her chest. She lay there for several moments, before slowly picking herself up, pausing to regard the silent hole that was to remain Luke's cell of solitary confinement for an unspecified length of time. Without food, she wasn't sure just how long he could survive, and that pooled rainwater at the bottom of the natural skylight wasn't going to last forever.
Nearly blinded by unshed tears, she started up the sandy slope, away from the ocean and toward so many uncertainties.
***
An island was an island was an island—at least as far as Micki was concerned. Just one big circle. Maybe not circular, but if she kept walking in the same direction, following the seashore, then no matter how many twists and turns it made, it would eventually lead her back to Van Allen's main compound where there was a marina and, more importantly, boats. For the moment, Micki was focusing on simply getting there. When she arrived, she would come up with a plan on how to 'commandeer' a craft to go for help.
Luke's catch-phrase brought a smile to her lips, then an ache to her heart. She had to do this, survive this, if not for herself then for him.
Micki stuck close to the underbrush bordering the seashore, ready to use its dense cover if needed. So far it hadn't been. She had skirted the gentle curve of three beaches, spanned between as many rocky headlands, without seeing anyone or anything.
On the second beach, she ventured down to the water's edge to wash the dirt from her hands and fingernails. The saltwater made the scratches on her hands and arms sting like hundreds of tiny needles, making her regret her decision to wash up. Rounding the second headland, she was forced a little farther inland, since the rock face blocking the end of the beach was too steep and too sheer to climb safely. It was a detour that actually turned out well, since it led her through a grove of wild mango trees and an impromptu breakfast.
On the fourth beach, her luck changed for the better. Crouching in the brush beneath a cluster of palms, she studied a deserted speedboat, run aground on the sand, for at least fifteen patient but wary minutes. The boat was a match for those she'd seen from the bedroom window in Van Allen's compound, and caution reasoned that speedboats usually didn't run aground all by themselves.
Studying it, she considered the remote possibility it had broken from its mooring in last night's storm and drifted there. The idea was as tantalizing as the craft itself, beached just a hundred yards in front of her. It was the only way off this island; it was Luke's only chance.
She waited, crouched low in the scrub, for at least another five minutes, this time scanning the surrounding trees for any signs of life. Finally, she concluded that there wasn't another living soul for miles.
"Since when are you afraid of taking a chance, Micki?" she asked herself. She should make her move now and be done with it.
With a soft disgusted sound at her indecision, she pushed to her feet and stepped out onto the sand. Breaking cover immediately filled her with the same sense of vulnerability that she'd had when stepping out onto that beach in the Keys. Luke had been at her back then, pretending to be one of The Bad Guys, and Reynolds had been headed toward her from the beached boat.
Hesitation made her come to an abrupt and unexpected standstill. Micki stood there, in the open, trying to swallow her unfounded fears while staring longingly at the vessel so close within reach. Reynolds was nowhere in sight this time... even if she did have a creepy crawly feeling that made her skin tingle.
Before she fully convinced herself that she was just imagining things, she was knocked off her feet from behind by a person or persons unknown. A pair of strong hands wrestled her face down in the sand. Micki struggled and squirmed, kicked and punched, desperately fearing she had just walked head first into one of Reynolds' traps.
God, if this was Reynolds on top of her, then she was already as good as dead.
She waited for the cold, sharp pinch of his switchblade against her throat. Then she remembered his broken arm. Her attacker had two good handholds on her, so that ruled out Reynolds. She attempted to turn her head to see the man's face—for she was sure it was a man who held her virtually motionless on the sand—but he pinned her wrists and thrust his knee into her back to discourage the idea of doing anything but staying motionless beneath him.
"Quiet." His voice was an unrecognizable hiss in her ear. "And hold still!"
In return she tried yelling obscenities, but all she got for her effort was a mouthful of Bermuda beach as his hand cupped around her face to silence her. Micki waited, with her cheek pressed against the sand and his knee still in her back, for him to make the next move.
When it came, it surprised her even more than being jumped from behind. "Thank God you're all right," he said, removing his hand from her mouth.
Next, she was flipped over onto her back by a force not of her own doing, only to find herself looking into the face of the man she had so recently branded as a monster.
"Dirk!"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dirk knew he was grinning like a fool, but he didn't care. How could he? When the one thing in the world he finally realized he loved more than money was right there in front of him. "You're alive!"
"No thanks to you," Micki snarled, struggling against him again. Dirk kept a firm grip on her arms, and after it was obvious she was beaten, she let her belligerent gaze swing back to his. "Let go of me, Dirk."
His heart leapt as he looked down at her, still pinned beneath him on the soft white sand, stirred by a memory from their short but passionate affair. How many nights had he looked down at her in just this manner, with her silky dark hair fanned on his pillow? He'd seen love, then, in the same sapphire eyes where he now saw only hate.
Dirk bowed his head under another realization. Her hair was again loose at her shoulders, but now matted by dirt and grass, and her ivory skin that he so longed to caress was marred by crimson scratches.
And those eyes... those eyes would never show him love again.
He sat back, knowing that the only gesture of tenderness he could make was to let her go. Not only physically, but emotionally as well. To love Micki was to set her free.
To love her, was to live without her.
"I'm sorry," he said. His hesitant gaze lifted to hers as she sat up and glared at him. "I never meant for any of this to happen."
She snorted sarcastically and spat out some sand.
"I only wanted us to be together," he confessed lamely. "All I ever wanted, Micki, was for you to love me, the way I love you."
"You don't want to love me, you want to possess me."
"I just... wanted us to be happy."
She scoffed again. "Do I bloody look 'happy'?"
Angered, she pushed to her feet, and Dirk hastily did the same. Body language told him that she was ready to bolt. So
mehow, he had to make her understand his feelings were genuine, that she could trust him, rely on him. Again.
When she took an experimental step away, he instinctively reached for her arm to stop her. Their eyes locked, and Dirk immediately let go again. As he fumbled to explain his automatic reaction, Micki turned to regard the speedboat he'd beached when he'd come ashore to search for her on foot. Dirk studied her back, clad in that wonderfully sexy black dress, and pondered what divine providence had led him to land at that precise spot.
Escape from the compound and stealing the boat had been as easy as predicted; word of his 'house arrest' had not reached the ears of all employees. Dirk had simply gone down to the marina and ordered a vessel be made available to him. He'd spent the first hour and a half of the new dawn skimming around the foreshore of the estate, following the crescents of virgin sand from the rocky windward side of the island around to that beach.
Although he'd met no resistance thus far, Dirk was sure that word of his breakout would now be common knowledge. What the hell was keeping Van Allen so busy that he couldn't launch a flotilla of thugs after him?
Maybe pursuit was going to come by land. Dirk cast a quick, uneasy glance over his shoulder. Were there armed men, even now, up on a dune, taking aim at them with orders to shoot to kill? From where they stood, arguing on that damn beach, he and Micki were easy targets. Reynolds, for one, would take great pleasure in putting a bullet in both their heads.
"I only want to know one thing," Micki said, breaking into Dirk's thoughts and drawing his gaze back to her. She spoke over her shoulder, her back still to him as she surveyed the speedboat. "And that's if you're going to stop me."
As she turned to challenge him with a head-on look, Dirk reached into his shirt pocket for the tiny blue flash card containing criminal evidence against his boss... and against himself. "Here."
"What is it?" she asked, eyeing the postage-stamp-sized square of plastic like it was a piece of toxic waste.
"It's your insurance policy." Annoyed by her distrust but without time to argue, Dirk grabbed her right hand and pushed it into her palm. "This data storage card contains complete records of Van Allen's counterfeit business. His contacts, inventory, associates—you name it. There's enough evidence on it to put him and his friends away for twenty or thirty years."
Micki regarded him warily. "Including you?"
Dirk solemnly held her gaze. Yes, including him. But the law would have to catch up with him first, and he was very good at moving from place to place and pretending to be someone he wasn't. New identities could be bought for a price, and Dirk still had access to the money he had intended to use to buy Micki the house in South Shore. That would keep him out of trouble, and out of the limelight, for a few years at least.
Without answering her question, Dirk went to take her elbow, thought better of it, and instead moved past her toward the speedboat. "Come on, we're wasting time."
He was relieved when she followed without argument, tucking the flash card securely into her bra as she padded after him on the sand. It was one of the things he had tried—unsuccessfully—to change about Micki; her inability to let him choose what was right for her. When he stopped at the water's edge and turned to help her into the boat, he saw the fear shading her sapphire eyes again.
"Where are we going?" Micki asked defiantly.
Dirk saw through the bravado and recognized the wariness. He frowned, the waves lapping midway up the calves of his trousers. Why couldn't she let him lead, just this once? Did she really think he was going to take her back to the compound and certain death?
"I asked you a question, Dirk."
Her lack of trust angered him, even though he knew he deserved it. "I'm taking you away from here. Damn, Micki, don't you get it? I'm taking you to Hamilton, to the police. You'll be safe there."
He thought this was the sort of White Knight rescue routine she wanted. He'd failed her before, when he'd uncuffed her in the back of the van only to confine her in his office, but couldn't she see that he was trying his damnedest to rectify that mistake?
When she didn't gratefully fall into his arms, Dirk just barely resisted the urge to grab her wrist and drag her into the boat. "What, you got a problem with being rescued?"
She surprised him by grabbing both his arms in something akin to desperation, the light of sudden hope in her eyes. "Dirk, you've got to help me!"
"That's what I'm trying to do!"
"No, I mean... you've got to help me free Luke!"
***
Micki watched effort ruddy Dirk's face as he attempted to haul Luke out of the cave. The narrow circumference of the collapsing tunnel only permitted him to reach down into it with one arm, and presumably Luke faced the same challenge below.
"Come on, Yank," she yelled impatiently, as if it were Luke's own fault he was not yet free. In her absence, Luke had piled the debris on the cave's floor into a makeshift step, but it had still proven impossible to pull himself to the surface without the friendly push that she'd gotten from him. "Put a little muscle into it. We don't have all day, you know."
Dirk groaned under the strain of his exertions, the veins in his neck stretched taut like violin strings. Flat on his belly, he wiggled back a few inches... and Luke's hand and forearm came into view. Their grip was so tight that the skin on both men's wrists looked twisted, white, and bloodless. Micki flung both hands into the hole as his shoulder appeared and grabbed two fistfuls of his camo splashed t-shirt. She added her strength to the fight, pulling and straining with Dirk, and Luke came out up to his waist.
Using his free hand, Dirk grasped Luke's belt and completed the rescue, spilling them both onto the side of the sand dune in a spent heap. For the next few moments, all three of them lay panting and exhausted beneath the crisp morning sun, then Micki was on her knees at Luke's side. He had one arm flung across his face to protect his abused eyes from the sudden glare, while the other—the one Dirk had used to haul him out—rested limply at his side.
"Are you okay?" she asked gently.
Rising to sit with his elbows resting on his knees, Luke nodded. A flick of his head was a wary indication of Dirk. "Are you?"
She pulled him to her for a quick hug, meeting her former lover's watchful gaze over his shoulder. "Yes. Dirk's going to take us to Hamilton."
"And we should get moving," Dirk told her gruffly. Without a word or a glance at the man he had just rescued, he stood, dusted the sand from the seat of his trousers, and headed down the slope toward the waiting speedboat.
"Hey, wait a minute," Luke called. He was up giving chase before Micki could intervene. Striding along side Dirk, he said, "You've got a hell of a nerve, buddy."
Reaching the tapered bow of the sleek speedboat, Dirk ignored him and pushed the hull free of the sand.
"Hey! I'm talking to you, Jurgensen."
"Yeah, well, I ain't listening. Don't feel you owe me any favors."
"Son of a bitch!" Luke grabbed Dirk's shoulder, spun him around, and punched him in the face.
It knocked Dirk right on his butt. He stayed there on the wet sand, rubbing his jaw and glaring up at his adversary. "I hope you're prepared to finish what you just started, Hardigan."
"Oh yeah, I've been waiting for this."
"Stop it! Both of you!" Reaching the two, Micki bit her tongue against further chastising Luke, since his reaction so precisely mimicked her own sentiments. True, Dirk had just saved him from a long slow death, and a little gratitude for that, if nothing else, should be in order. But it was only because Dirk tackled her from behind that had kept her from slugging him in much the same way.
"That was for my little brother," Luke announced in a less-than-grateful tone. "And for the wine cellar." In a swift change of temperament, he offered his right hand to the man on the sand. "This is for hauling my butt out of that hole."
Slowly, Dirk accepted the hand and allowed Luke to pull him to his feet. They stood eye to eye for a moment, glaring, leaving Micki to wonde
r if there was going to be a fist fight or a handshake.
Before either could happen, chaos erupted. Bullets slammed into the ground around them, making the sand dance and the ankle deep water quiver. All three turned to see a group of open top Jeeps coming over the sand dune. Standing in the back of the lead vehicle, with one arm in a sling and the other bracing a rifle against the roll bar to anchor him in place, was Reynolds. With an ugly laugh, he opened fire again.
The trio jumped for what little cover there was along the sides of the fiberglass speedboat; Dirk on one side, Micki and Luke along the other.
Throwing himself over the gunwale and going straight for the helm, Dirk yelled, "Get in!"
The outboard spluttered into life, giving rise to the fear that maybe they were not yet in deep enough water. What if the prop got stuck in the sand?
It occurred to Micki, as she and Luke clambered into the boat and kept low to the deck to avoid another burst of gunfire, that Reynolds was simply toying with them. There was no way he could repeatedly miss his target at this range, even handicapped by the sling. He was just taunting them before he killed them.
"Stay down," Luke instructed her.
There was a pause in the gunfire, during which he lifted his head to squint into the sun, toward the approaching Jeep. That must have been agony on his injured eyes, but he gave no sign he noticed.
"They're too damn close, Jurgensen," Luke shouted over his shoulder. Bent double, he turned to the helm to see why Dirk had not put the motor into forward gear. "Get us out of—"
He stopped abruptly, mid-sentence. Horrified, Micki watched Dirk slip from the helm toward the deck. Equally as stunned, Luke managed to catch him and lower him to a somewhat softer landing between the seats. Micki crawled to Dirk, and it was only after reaching him that she saw how effectively his black shirt hid the gaping holes and the splattered blood across his chest.
Reynolds wasn't such a hopeless shot after all.
"No," Micki gasped as tears filled her eyes. She took Dirk's head in her lap, realizing that despite the trauma of the last three days, she was still capable of feeling compassion for the man who had been an integral part of the last three years of her life.
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