by Bruhns, Nina
Darcy didn’t return her hug, but she didn’t push her away, either. “Thanks,” she said, her voice thick. “I’ll be okay.”
“You know the State Department will do everything we can to get him out. STORM, too, I’m sure.”
Darcy swallowed. “It’s not the first time he’s been locked up. He knows we’ll come for him.”
All at once, a chorus of sirens began to wail. DeAnne sat up with a start, along with the others. Even Darcy whipped her head around.
“Harbor police.” Kip gestured to a small patrol boat scudding toward them, giving chase with loudspeakers blaring warnings in Chinese. “It’ll never catch up,” he said. But it was soon joined by a bigger gunboat. “Okay, that one might.”
Alex let out a string of curses as he dove for the stash of weapons the driver revealed in one of the holds. Alex tossed them each a deadly-looking rifle, but DeAnne passed hers to Kip and went for the shotgun in the duffel, remembering what Darcy had told her about not having to aim it as accurately.
She checked the magazine and racked the gun one-handed as she stashed another magazine in her pocket.
Kip was watching her again. This time the look on his face was pure admiration. After a moment he shook his head and turned away to check his own weapon, an odd smile curving the very corners of his lips. Despite the dire situation and ridiculous odds, that little smile made her feel invincible.
And gave her the courage to believe that anything was possible.
Even a life with him.
As soon as they were clear of the crowded marina, the harbor police started shooting at them. Thankfully, they were still out of range.
Even so, the driver steered the speedboat into a series of high-speed zigzags. DeAnne swayed with the rhythm of the turns and the waves, getting her sea legs.
“Get down,” Kip commanded, putting his hand on her shoulder to urge her into one of the smuggling holds.
She shrugged him off. “Not a chance.” She took a knee on the deck with the others, one elbow propped on the bench, aiming her shotgun over the aft rail. “We need all the firepower we can get.”
The gunboat was catching up fast. They started shooting at them, too. The bullets were hitting precariously close. Then she saw the police crew swing their big, deck-mounted machine gun so it pointed right at the speedboat.
She sucked in a breath.
The driver zigged, and everyone leaned.
“This could get ugly,” Kip muttered.
“They wouldn’t actually shoot that thing at us?” she asked, horrified.
“Depends on if we stop or not,” Alex murmured, the boat zagging.
She was even more horrified. Was he kidding?
One look at his face told her he was deadly serious.
Stray bullets started to hit the aft hull.
“We’re not stopping,” said Darcy evenly.
Everyone looked at her, then back at the gunboat. Bullets whizzed past and they all ducked. A whole zigzag went by.
No one contradicted her.
DeAnne swallowed. Okay, then. Maybe not so invincible.
More like Butch and Sundance.
“Aim for the petrol tank,” said Nikolai, lifting his rifle to his shoulder. In his melodic Russian accent, he described exactly where the tank was located.
“Will it explode?” she asked worriedly. They were back to the Archduke Ferdinand thing.
Was there no happy medium?
He shook his head. “That only happens in the cinema. But if we’re lucky, it leaks and they run out of gas.”
Better.
The speedboat completed another pattern. Kip was giving her that strange look again.
“What?” she asked, pressing herself close to the wall of the bench.
“Nothing. Later,” he said.
Suddenly, she remembered when they were in the trunk he’d been about to confess some terrible thing about himself.
No doubt what he was referring to now.
Yeah. And she was really looking forward to that conversation.
Not.
Invincible, she reminded herself.
What was the worst that could happen?
Oh, God. She didn’t even want to think about it.
Besides, right now there were more urgent things to think about. The shots plinking into the side of the boat were getting deadly.
“Ready?” Nikolai said.
They all raised their weapons.
“Aim,” he said.
She did her best, positioning the shotgun as Clint had taught her.
“Fire!”
The roar of the guns made her ears ring.
They may have hit the target. She couldn’t tell from this distance.
The big deck-mounted gun lowered its sight on them.
She ducked down. Holy crap.
Suddenly, an even larger boat, big, shiny, and white, swooped down on them. Where had that come from?
Two dozen men lined the rail, weapons aimed.
But not at them. They were pointing at the Chinese gunboat.
In English, a bullhorn roared out at their pursuers, “This is the U.S. Marine Corps. Lower your weapons and stand down!”
DeAnne’s jaw dropped.
Saved by the Marines?
How the heck—
She darted a look at Kip. He appeared even more astonished than she was. His lips parted and a deep furrow sank between his brows.
The bullhorn swung toward the speedboat. “That goes for you, too, Marine.”
Startled, Kip’s arms jerked down, lowering his weapon abruptly. He peered up intently at the man holding the bullhorn.
She looked, too. Because there was something vaguely familiar about the man dressed in battle fatigues. It had been a long time, but—Oh, my God. Wasn’t that—
“Colonel Jackson?” Kip called up in surprise.
At the exact same moment as she said, “Dad?”
41
“So, let me get this straight,” Colonel Jackson—DeAnne’s father—said with an ominous scowl. “You hijacked my daughter, got her hunted by every branch of military and police in China, faked her death, dragged her through a hundred miles of jungle on foot, had her kidnapped by some crazy private military outfit and taken out on a submarine, which was then chased by enemy vessels, only to involve her in a goddamn prison break in a foreign country, and then get shot at and practically blown to smithereens?”
Kip cringed inwardly. Well, technically . . . “Yes, sir. That about covers it. Though I didn’t know she was your daughter at the time. Sir.”
The colonel’s scowl deepened. “Would that have made a difference?”
“Probably not, sir.”
Next to him, DeAnne’s toe tapped slightly. “Don’t forget the part where he locked me in a woodshed and ravaged me all night.”
“What?”
Kip could actually feel his ears turn red. “She’s kidding, sir.” Not really.
The colonel was not amused. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kick your worthless ass right out of the Corps and straight into the brig, Major!”
Kip’s throat suddenly felt as though a steel band had tightened around it. He swallowed and cleared it. “Well. Because I plan to marry her, sir.”
DeAnne gave a soft gasp.
The colonel was momentarily taken aback. “What was that?”
“I haven’t exactly asked her yet,” Kip admitted. “But I’m hopeful she’ll say yes when I do.”
He could feel DeAnne staring at him, eyes wide.
“I see.” The colonel’s voice became marginally less aggressive. “And what do you have to say to that, young lady?”
Kip didn’t think she even heard the question. She was still staring at him all agog. “So you’re not already
married?” she blurted out.
“What?” the colonel roared.
Kip blanched. “No! What gave you— How— No!”
Her gaze lasered in on him. “Then what were you going to tell me in the trunk?”
“What trunk?” Colonel Jackson demanded.
DeAnne said impatiently, “We were locked in the trunk of a car for a while.” She turned back to Kip. “Well?”
Would somebody please just shoot me now? Maybe he could get that Chinese gunboat to finish the job it started.
“DeAnne,” he pleaded. “Can we please discuss this in private?”
“A private’s just what you’re going to be if you don’t explain yourself pronto, Major!”
Kip drew in a breath. Jesus. Was he really going to say this? Yeah. He was.
“A court-martial won’t be necessary, sir, because as soon as I’m back in the States I’ll be resigning my commission.”
Jackson seemed even more taken aback by that news, which was odd because he’d just threatened Kip with demotion. “Why the hell would you do that?”
“Well, sir. The woman I want to marry would prefer I’m not a Marine.”
The colonel’s back went even straighter than it had been. He cut DeAnne a look of scorn. “You get that bullshit from your mother?”
DeAnne returned his look in full measure. “No. I got that bullshit from you, Father.”
“Father? What happened to Dad?”
“Yeah. What did happen to you, Dad? Like for the past, oh, twenty-five years?”
He huffed. “I had a job to do. I was busy keeping our country safe for you and your mother! And everyone else who takes their freedom for granted,” he grumbled. It was a familiar tune for Kip.
But he had never seen DeAnne so quietly furious.
He took a step back. This was a private, family conversation, and although the complaints were totally different, the vibe was hitting just a little too close to home for comfort.
“You keep telling yourself that, Dad,” she fumed, fists balled at her sides. Then she made an inarticulate noise in her throat, spun around, and stalked toward the door.
“Where do you think you’re going, young lady?”
“Like you give a good goddamn,” she muttered.
“I’ll have you know I knew exactly where you’ve been every day of your life!” he called after her. Her steps faltered when he continued, “I knew where your Little League team played, and where your math competitions were held, and that year you were in band I even attended your concert. I stood in the back through the whole thing because I’d just gotten back from Afghanistan and couldn’t get a ticket. But they let me in because of my uniform.” He marched a few steps after her. “And I attended your graduation from Georgetown University, too. I’ve never been so proud in all my life as seeing my daughter walk across the stage with that summa cum laude diploma. I’ve watched your career at the State Department, and though that place is a hotbed of worthless geeks, I was proud of the way you outshined every one of them. Deputy director at your age? Unheard of.”
Kip glanced over at DeAnne and saw tears glistening on her lashes. His heart swelled to bursting, knowing firsthand the kind of agony she must have gone through growing up, believing her father didn’t love her, yet needing that love so desperately, wanting his support but never getting it for a single minute.
As he said, way too close to home.
She banded her arms across her abdomen. “For someone who disappeared off the face of the planet for twenty-five years, you know an awful lot about me. I’m guessing you had one of your information officers keep track of me for you.”
Puzzlement flashed across the colonel’s face, as though he couldn’t figure out why that might not be a good thing. “You’re my daughter. Of course I keep track of you.”
Clearly, he missed her point.
“Too little, too late,” she said, the tears cresting, and walked out.
Kip started to go after her, then stopped and turned to the colonel. “You are a real bastard, sir. You’re the one who cheated on her mother and abandoned your daughter. The least you could have fucking done is say you’re sorry.”
With that, he hurried after the woman he loved.
Ah, well. So much for that honorable discharge.
* * *
They’d been talking in a conference room on Impeccable, the navy ship the STORM team had been briefed on before the operation, having been escorted out to it from Hainan by the Coast Guard cutter that had come to their rescue. Impeccable was a big ship, so Kip wasn’t sure where DeAnne might have gone.
But she was really upset, so he guessed she’d be heading to her quarters to cry it out.
In the passageway leading to their staterooms, he ran into Clint, Darcy, Alex, and another man. They were carrying their duffel bags over their shoulders, each looking somber and downcast, like they’d lost their best friend. Especially Darcy. Every time he’d seen her before this, she’d walked tall and straight and confident. Now, she appeared . . . almost fragile. As though she’d break at any moment.
“Hey, Darce,” he said softly, and gave her a quick hug. “Any word?” He skimmed his gaze to the others, who subtly shook their heads.
Her lips compressed as they trembled a little. “Nothing yet. But thank DeAnne for me again for making that phone call. Her boss has already started petitioning for Bobby Lee’s release.”
Kip nodded. “That’s good. They’ll get him out if anyone can.”
She gave a little smile but there wasn’t an ounce of humor in it. “Either that, or I will,” she murmured.
Alex looked grim. “And I’ll be right there with you, girl.”
The other man at her side squeezed her shoulder. “There’ll be no heroics by either of you. Leave this to the diplomats, and to me. You know I’ll take care of Quinn.” He looked at Kip and stuck out his hand. “I’m STORM Commander Kurt Bridger. I understand you’ve had quite a week, Major.”
Kip shook it, introduced himself, and said, “You could say that, sir.”
“We’re about to head back to D.C. You and Miss Lovejoy are welcome to join us. Plenty of room on the jet.”
He hesitated, then politely declined. “DeAnne and I both have a bit of unfinished business to clear up here before we can take off.”
“Understood.” Bridger handed him an embossed business card. “When you get back, give me a call. We’ll talk.”
Kip glanced at the card, and tucked it into his pocket. “All right.”
Clint Walker stuck out his hand. “Good working with you, Major. You’ve got yourself a good woman. You take care of DeAnne, you hear?”
“Oh, yeah,” Kip said, “I intend to,” surprised when he didn’t feel even a twinge of jealousy. He knew DeAnne loved him, not Walker, or anyone else on the planet. Just him.
It was a great feeling.
He exchanged a shoulder slap with Alex, and gave Darcy another hug. “Hang in there. Let me know if I can help.”
“Thanks. I will.” She nodded bravely, and then the STORM team was off, striding down the passageway shoulder to shoulder, the care and solidarity between them clear as day.
Kip’s thoughts zoomed back to DeAnne, determined to show her just as much care. And show her that she could depend on him. That at least one person would always be on her side, come what may. Against her father. Against the whole world, if need be.
He prayed she felt the same about him.
He knocked on her stateroom door when he got there. “DeAnne? Sweetheart, it’s me. Let me in, honey.”
A moment later the door opened. She was standing there, her cheeks wet with tears, and his heart just broke. He wanted to flatten the colonel for doing this to her.
“Come here,” he murmured, kicking the door closed and scooping her into his arms. “Forget the bastard. He doesn’t
deserve a daughter like you.”
Her body heaved in a sob. “But he’s my father. He should love me. That’s his job.”
He hugged her tight, ignoring the pain in his ribs. “Oh, honey. He does love you. That’s so obvious to me. He just doesn’t know how to show it like a normal human being.” And who did that remind him of? God, was he talking to himself, or to her? “I guess I really get the Marine thing now,” he admitted.
“Yeah.” She shuddered out a breath. “Even so, I know I have to go back there and talk to him. In my head, I understand you’re right and he’s doing the best he knows how. I just need to accept what he can give me and realize in my heart that his issues are not my fault.”
He didn’t think he could admire this woman any more than he did already, but that pushed his respect up to a whole new level. “You’re a pretty amazing woman, you know that?”
She sniffled, and gazed up at him with such love in her eyes he felt about ten feet tall. “You’re pretty amazing yourself, Major.” A shadow touched her expression. “Oh, Kip, I don’t want you to quit the Corps. I know you love being a Marine, and honestly, I realize now that my father’s choices had nothing to do with his career. It was all about him as a person. You are nothing like him. I know you’d never—” Suddenly, her eyes went wide. “Oh, my God. Did you really mean it? I mean about—”
He quickly put a hand over her mouth to keep her from completing the thought. “Wait. Don’t say it. Let me do this properly, okay?”
Her eyes filled all over again. “Okay.”
He let her go, running his hands down her arms and grasping her hands in his, lifting them to his lips. He kissed her fingers. “DeAnne, I know we only met a few days ago, but I feel like we’ve known each other all our lives. The thought of not having you right there, next to me, for the next seventy years makes me realize how empty my life was without you in it.”
She let out a tiny sob, but this time he knew it was from joy. “Oh, Kip, I—”
“Wait. Not finished.” He smiled down at her when she laughed out another sob. Then he got serious. “There are still a few things I need to tell you about myself before I do the official down-on-one-knee thing. Plus, there’s the whole broken ribs situation . . .” He cleared his throat. “So I thought I’d wait until I could do it good and proper. You know, champagne, nice dinner, beautiful ring, the works.”