by Vicki Hinze
She spoke through clenched teeth and struggled to untangle herself, but the cords wouldn’t give. Westford’s entire body felt hard, and, even in this situation, she had been celibate too long for a hard body to feel anything but good.
Strange, but until Gabby had started her matchmaker-from-hell routine, Sybil had never thought of him as a flesh-and-blood man, only as an agent. That felt comfortable to her. Safe. She had trusted the agent and confided in him, but then he had requested reassignment and left her. She had no idea why, and she wasn’t brave enough to ask, but his leaving proved once again that when it came to men, she had lousy judgment. So this seeing-him-as-a-man business didn’t feel comfortable or safe, and she resolutely avoided feeling anything she didn’t want to feel. It fractured her control.
“I was trying to get you out,” Westford said. “You ordered me to stop.”
Angry at herself for panicking at physical contact with him, she swallowed a sharp retort. She had ordered him to stop. His touch had been unintentional and, like it or not, she had mixed feelings about that. Disconcerting, mixed feelings.
The mid-August heat seeped through the downpour, creating a horrendous steam bath. Drawing breath was like trying to breathe through a hot, wet washcloth. She began to sweat and clenched her jaw. “Where are we?”
“Florida.” On his back in shallow water, he wriggled beneath her, creating eddies and rocking her against him, breasts to chest and thigh to thigh. Finding the sensation more pleasant than wise, she felt her face warm.
Naturally, he noticed her blush. “I’m just trying to get a knife out of my pocket, okay?”
She managed a crisp nod and hoped to heaven he hurried. It was hard for a woman to hold on to her dignity while wallowing all over a man on the wet, marshy ground. Determined to beat the odds, she lifted her chin. “I’m going to be patient, Agent Westford. I’m not going to lose control.” Even as she voiced the denial her control slipped into jeopardy. “But when you get me out of this monstrosity”—she paused to glance down at the bird’s nest of parachute lines, then glared back at him—“you’d better be able to give me a damn good reason for dragging me out of that airplane.”
The rain pattered an unnerving staccato beat on the bent grass, spattered in ankle-deep pockets of brackish water and on the fallen leaves scattered over the swamp’s earthen floor. Heavy drops tapped against the spiky-leafed palmettos and ran in rivulets down Westford’s face. He sawed at the corded lines with his knife. “I have an excellent reason right now, ma’am.”
She watched him hack at another nylon cord. “Well, I’d love to hear it.”
The last of the cords binding her fell slack. She rolled off of him, stood up, and then primly smoothed her skirt. Her bare feet sank into the rank muck and it squished between her toes. She’d lost her shoes. Her stomach fluttered. There was a distinct, unwelcome vulnerability in standing before a man rain-drenched and barefoot in mud.
“Yes, ma’am.” He sat up and stretched to cut his legs free. “The pilot asked for cream in his coffee.”
“What?” She couldn’t believe her ears; she had to have missed something. Maybe Westford had hit his head. She swiped at the raindrops gathering on her lashes and double-checked. Methodically slicing himself free of the ropes, he didn’t look dazed or woozy, though he certainly sounded both. “The pilot wanted cream?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I’m seeing myself passing along that rationale to the president, and the cream isn’t rising to the top, Westford. You’re going to have to give me more than that to take to him.”
“President Lance wouldn’t ask me why” Westford spared her a glance. “He’d trust my judgment.”
Chastised, she conceded that David did have an enormous amount of respect for Westford, and he probably wouldn’t ask. She had trusted him once. Should she again?
Wondering spawned an internal debate that seemed hell-bent on not being resolved.
Okay, Sybil, this is it. You’ve got one life and a choice. Define what kind of person you want to be. One who dares to trust, or one who doesn’t. Courage or cowardice. It’s that simple.
Simple? There was nothing simple about it. It was an obvious life-defining moment.
In the past, some life-defining moments had crept into her life through little, seemingly inconsequential incidents. Others had blown in with all the subtlety of a hurricane. This life-defining moment appeared to be a category-five hurricane spawning killer tornadoes.
Logically, everyone had times where they wondered if their judgment was up to snuff and it would make the grade or survive the cut. No one escaped self-doubt. But when a woman was the sitting Vice President of the United States and she was confronted with a situation that threatened to escalate to a global crisis, it was a bitch of a time to have to fight the battle.
Westford spared her from making a decision. He shoved the cut cords into his pockets, gathered the parachute, and then buried it in short order under a clump of sour-smelling bushes. “Let’s get away from here.” He clasped her arm.
“Oh, no.” Sybil twisted and stepped back, out of his reach. “The last time you grabbed me like that, you took an eight-thousand-foot swan dive out of a plane and dragged me with you. I’ll pass on your next adventure.”
Tense and wary, he scanned the marsh and the thicket of woods to the east, then inspected the swirling gray clouds. “We’ve got to move, ma’am.”
She had seen that look on him before. It drew down the corners of his mouth, narrowed his eyes to slits, and had never been the harbinger of good news. “Could you please call me Sybil while we’re out here? At the moment, your ‘ma’ams’ are driving me a little crazy”
“Certainly. We’ve got to move, Sybil.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you explain yourself.” She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t risk trusting him again.
Coward.
Damn right.
“I told you, the pilot asked for cream.”
A clap of thunder rumbled through the swamp. At least it sounded more distant than the last one. “So, because he wanted cream in his coffee, you shoved me out of a plane and jumped out yourself—without a parachute?” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Tell me, Agent Westford. What would you have done if he had wanted sugar, too?”
Instead of answering, he caught her by the arm and started walking.
“I can walk on my own, thank you.” His hand on her arm was gentle, but his grim expression left no doubt; the man was furious, and that irritated Sybil. She was a little less than pleased herself. After all, he had walked out on her, not she on him, and now he demanded her unconditional trust? Not bloody likely.
He let go and backed off a step. “You do know the plane was under siege.”
Under siege? “Did you hit your head when we landed? There was no siege on that plane.”
Ignoring her remark, he asked a question of his own. “Why did you bump everyone off the flight?”
“Intuition.” The one thing her critics used against her at every opportunity—real or implied.
“You dumped Grace and the others on women’s intuition?”
Here it came. The putdown for considering her intuition as valuable and accurate as any man’s instincts. She turned and looked him in the eye, daring him to laugh at her. “Yes, I did.”
“You issued a skeleton-crew-only order just because you couldn’t shake a feeling? Is that how it went?”
Torn between admiring his acumen and thinking he had lost his mind, she shrugged. “That’s how it went.”
The rain swept down and rolled in sheets across the swamp’s earthen floor. Goose bumps prickled on her arms. Annoyed, she pulled at her sopping-wet jacket, circling her arm.
He removed his suit coat, draped it over her shoulders, and turned up the collar to protect her neck. It too was wet, but it would take the bite out of the stinging rain. “I understand.”
Hearing experience in his tone, she looked up into his eyes and believed
he did. Because that was a known entity and far more comfortable than the shock of a siege, she focused on it. “I’ll be eating dirt for a month,” she predicted. “Knowing Grace, probably two.”
“Maybe not.” He unlaced his sneakers, removed his socks, and then put them on her feet. “That’s the best I can do about the shoes.” He put his sneakers back on, moved away, and then began walking.
Disconcerted by his hands having been on her feet, she blinked hard, mumbled a stilted “Thank you,” and then tromped behind him, her feet making sucking sounds in the mud.
Red maples and tall, pungent cypress trees fought titi and sweetbays for space, so dense that the waning light squeaking through the clouds barely penetrated. Long, dark shadows closed around them, and a distant owl let out an ominous hoot. Sybil shuddered. She knew how to deal with concrete and political jungles, but she was totally out of her element in the swamp. Westford deserved to be canned for putting her in this position. And he would be. But she wasn’t stupid. She’d fire him after they got out of this stormy, sweltering hellhole and back to Washington.
A solid hour of tromping through ankle-deep water passed before he uttered a word. “Stop.”
She halted automatically and looked around, but saw only rain-beaten foliage, felt nothing but cold raindrops pelting against her skin and wind-whipped sawgrass slapping against her thighs. Westford cupped a hand to his ear. Clearly, Commander Conlee was transmitting a message from Home Base. And just as clearly, Westford wasn’t liking what he was hearing. That had her frayed nerves threatening to snap.
Finally he looked at her. “An unknown terrorist phoned the White House and said you wouldn’t be returning from Geneva. You’re … dead.”
“But they know I’m not, right?”
Jonathan shrugged. “The president is stepping on shoulders for status updates on us. Home Base knows there was trouble on the plane.”
“Do they know we’re trying to get back?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, shouldn’t we tell them?”
“My transmitter is malfunctioning. I’m not sure if it got damaged in the fall, or if the storm is messing up communications.”
“What about the emergency frequency? Can’t you transmit on it?”
“That’s down, too. I’ll check the device for damage at dawn. In the meantime, our communications are in receive-only mode.
“Terrific.”
“Bitch later. Right now focus on moving. We need distance between us and our drop point.” He resumed walking. “As much distance as we can manage.”
He looked a little ashen and a lot worried, but he didn’t look unsure of himself or his judgment. Since he was one up on her there, she followed him.
Another hour passed before a cramp in her side throbbed, the pain so severe it threatened to knock her to her knees. She grabbed the hem of his coat, wadded it, and then dabbed at the sweat and rain pouring down her face. Her eyes burned like fire and she swore her feet had died a good hour ago but were too sore and mud-caked to notice.
The twinges deepened and her leg muscles cramped. Pain stabbed through her side. She pressed a hand against the stitch, but the pressure didn’t help. Finally it grew too intense to ignore. “Westford, I have to stop a second.” Twenty minutes on a treadmill every morning just didn’t prepare a woman for this kind of hike.
“We can’t stop.” He didn’t slow down or even look back.
“I have to,” she insisted. “I—I can’t go any more.” True, but admitting it still left a bitter taste on her tongue.
He turned abruptly, reached down, and scooped her up. “Rest a little.”
Too stunned to speak or move, she just stared at him.
“You might want to put your arms around my neck for balance, ma’am.”
Holding his gaze, she reached over his shoulder. The briefcase collided with his back. A thump vibrated through his chest into her side and he let out a grunt.
“Oh, hell, I’m sorry, Westford.” Being so close to him, being held by a man for the first time in nearly two years, had her battling an attack of nerves and hormone overload. Both knocked her off-balance.
Get a grip, Sybil, and stop being stupid. Gabby is wrong. You’re only of interest to him because of your job. As a woman, you’re of no interest to anyone.
She listened and cringed at that cold reality.
“No problem, ma’am. I get hazardous-duty pay”
A stab of humor from the habitually serious and detached Westford? She chuckled. “That’s for threats against me, not from me.”
His lips didn’t twitch much less curl, but a pleased twinkle lit in his eye. “Threat’s a threat, ma’am.”
“Sybil.”
He nodded.
She had to steer the topic back to this siege business. Had he avoided bringing it up because he had gathered his wits and realized it hadn’t happened? Or because he’d been giving her time to accept that it had? “I know David wouldn’t ask, but I’m not him, and I’m not passing judgment on your character, I’m curious. What’s significant about the cream in the captain’s coffee?”
“I’ve known Ken Dean for fifteen years.” Westford slid her a sobering glance. “He drinks his coffee black.”
Determined to hold his gaze, she blinked hard three times. “I guess he could have been signaling trouble. But don’t you think we should have stronger confirmation than a man asking for cream in his coffee before bailing out of a plane? I mean, maybe he was taking a stroll on the wild side, just breaking his routine. Or maybe he had an upset stomach or something.”
A frown wrinkled Westford’s brow. “You don’t remember it, do you?”
She didn’t want to presume to know what he meant. “Remember what?”
“The explosion.”
The fine hairs on her neck stood on end. “What explosion?”
“Sybil.” He softened his voice slightly. “The plane was under siege. It exploded.”
“No.” She couldn’t believe it. She hadn’t seen anything explode. How could she have missed a damn explosion? “Are you sure, Westford?”
“Oh, yeah.” He nodded. “I’m sure.”
“What exploded?” Had to have been minor. “Something in the galley?”
“The whole plane.”
She shook against him, stunned and confused and unable to believe it. “But—but that’s impossible.” If an entire plane had exploded out from under her, she would know it.
Yet West ford seemed so sure. She stared at him and detected no trace of doubt; he clearly believed this. There had to be a reasonable, logical, plausible explanation. Maybe he had suffered a head injury. He had taken the brunt of the fall. Maybe he’d gotten a concussion and now the poor man was suffering delusions. Yes. Yes, that made sense.
Relief and guilt swam through her shaky stomach. He obviously had been injured and needed medical attention, and here she was, acting like an invalid he had to carry. She signaled him to put her down.
When her feet touched the dirt, she buried her fingertips in his wet, mud-caked hair. Coarse and thick and velvety black, its rain-slick strands glistened and clung to her fingertips.
“What are you doing?” His voice went thick, his gaze warm but wary.
Gathering evidence. She dragged her fingertips over his skull, ignoring her reaction to that warmth. “Checking for bumps or cuts.”
“There aren’t any” He clasped her wrists, moved her hand off his head. “I told you, I’m fine.”
Reason. She had to use reason and simple logic to convince him he was injured and mistaken. “If the plane exploded, Search and Rescue would be swarming all over the place.”
“It happened.” He stopped dead in his tracks. “And they’re not coming, Sybil. No one is coming. Not yet.”
God help her. Darkness was creeping up on them, the rain was slowing them down when the need to rush was more urgent than ever, and here she stood, lost in the jungle with a man suffering from delusions. A scream of frustration threat
ened to escape her throat. She managed to swallow it down and summoned cold resolve. She would get back to D.C. before the deadline. Come hell, high water, or both, she had to make it back in time. So many would… die.
The mud smeared on her cheek itched. She brushed at it. “Why aren’t they coming?”
“President Lance won’t authorize it.” He searched her face as if testing her, gauging her reaction. “He won’t risk leading terrorists to us.”
The panic within her swelled to the size of a boulder. “Terrorists?”
Jonathan let out a heavy sigh. “I can’t see anyone of a friendly persuasion blowing up your plane. Can you?”
She didn’t suppose so, but good grief. Maybe he was fine and she was delusional. “I—I guess not,” she stammered. She had heard a loud pop and felt a jerk, but she had attributed that to the storm and the chute opening. Could it have been the explosion?
Wait. Wait… An image of Cramer and Harrision flashed through her mind, standing in the plane between her and the cockpit with their guns drawn. Gunshots. She’d definitely heard gunshots. Sucking in a sharp breath, she looked at Westford. “What about the others?”
He lowered his gaze, focused on the ground. “They’re gone, Sybil.”
“No.” Shock pumped through her, robbed her of breath. “No, I would have known.”
Pain flashed through his eyes. “We lost them all.”
Denying the truth to the depths of her soul, she silently screamed her outrage. Cramer and Harrison, Captain Dean, Mark, and Julie—oh… Oh, God.
The back of her nose burned, tears stung her eyes. She couldn’t cry. Not here, not now, not ever in front of anyone else. She’d fought tooth and nail not to be considered weak because of her gender. Yet the pain in Jonathan’s eyes was real. As real as the pain carving a gaping hole in her chest. “I—I didn’t know. How could I not know?” She trapped her weeping in her throat, clenched her teeth, and swallowed hard to keep it inside. “When?” Her throat muscles clamped, ached. “When did it explode?”