Her hero. He’d been that for so long…never more so than when he’d let down his guard and allowed her to see him vulnerable and hurting…allowed her to be strong for him. She could do that now. She cradled his cheek with a gentle hand.
“It’s what we do, Master. Together. And I think there’s someone else who needs to know what’s happening.” She paused, searching his face for the strength to tell him what was going through her mind. “I saw Stacie today.”
“Stacie?”
“I didn’t plan it. I’d just left the meeting and…well, I was going to do some shopping before getting the train back, and I just happened to see her. We ended up having lunch together.”
His expression one of deep thought, her husband nodded, taking in everything she’d told him. “How is she?”
This was it. She’d tell him the truth—just not all of it. A promise was a promise. “She didn’t admit it, but it was obvious—she misses him. And she still loves him. I believe he still loves her.”
A sceptical eyebrow slowly rose. “And what gives you that idea? He never talks about her.”
“Exactly—he never talks about her. Never. But more than that, it’s the way he dumped her. Over the phone? The phone, for God’s sake! Cam is one of the most honourable men I know, and he would never do that, any more than you would. Not to mention the fact that he left the country the same night and he’s not been back since. I’m sure he was trying to make her hate him. I may not know why he wanted to do that, I may not have known him as long as you have, I may not know him the way you do…but I know him the way I do. He still loves her, I’m sure of it.”
“Beth, this isn’t one of your books. Real life doesn’t always have a happily ever after.”
She looked at her husband—her stubborn, frustrating, brave, beautiful man. “We have our happily ever after. Cam and Stacie deserve to have theirs too.” She could be just as obstinate.
“What if you’re wrong?”
“I’m not. I know I’m not. But when I call her, I’m going to be in serious trouble.”
A certain expression developed on Alex’s face—an expression she knew only too well. “And you think you’re not already?”
A short time later, Beth sat staring at her mobile phone, trying to summon up the courage to make the call. Her backside was still smarting. It wasn’t just that she hadn’t told him the whole story—Alex didn’t like her to worry about anything, and she’d let her worry over Cam get the better of her. Alex’s answer to that had been to take her to the playroom, and with a sound spanking had reiterated the fact that, while Cam was missing, everything was being done to pinpoint his location and by the time they had the co-ordinates, Alex would be ready to mount a rescue mission.
This phone call was going to require some finesse, Beth decided. It would be very easy for Stacie to cut her off before she had a chance to apologise and explain. The apology was going to be crucial in making this work. Stacie had made it clear that she didn’t want or expect anything from Cam or her or Alex, and the way she’d said goodbye, gracious though it was, was a clear indication that she never expected to hear from Beth again.
Thumb poised over the call button, Beth experienced a moment of doubt as to whether she was doing the right thing. The doubt was all in her mind—her heart was utterly convinced that she should go ahead. Cam and Stacie belong together.
“Stacie? It’s Beth—please don’t be angry with me…”
*
This time, Stacie knew exactly where she was going. This time, she was going there in a new car that wasn’t going to break down…which was just as well, because her knight in shining armour wouldn’t be there to rescue her. She was on her way to rescue him.
A fanciful notion certainly, but having heard the awful news from Beth, she’d gratefully accepted the invitation to go and stay with her and Alex at Winterleigh. She’d felt this inexplicable need to be with them, no matter how stupid and irrational it might be. It wasn’t as if she could actually do anything, but waiting on her own in London just wasn’t an option.
She hadn’t wasted any time either. Even though it was after hours, she’d left a message for her manager to let her know that she was taking a few days off due to a family emergency, then she’d thrown some clothes into a couple of bags and set off for Hampshire. Cam probably wouldn’t want her involved, she knew that, but he wasn’t there to object. She’d also told Jen what had happened, and that she’d be absent from work for a few days.
Winterleigh was just as impressive as she remembered. She’d barely stopped the car and got out when Beth came running out of the house. The two women hugged, and then they were both brushing away a few tears.
“Come on in,” Beth said, linking arms with Stacie. “Alex will get your luggage. You are staying, aren’t you?”
Stacie managed a watery smile. “For as long as you’ll have me,” she replied. “I’ve missed you both so much.”
Beth’s husband appeared at the door. Stacie’s steps faltered as a bolt of trepidation flashed through her. She’d seen Alex Lombard in full-on Dom mode once or twice and found him positively scary. Given the way things had ended between herself and Cam, she was almost expecting him to be stiff and distant, but his darkly handsome face broke into a warm, hospitable smile as he greeted her with another hug.
“Stacie, welcome back,” he said kindly. “I just wish it were in better circumstances. Give me your keys and I’ll bring your bags in. You go with Beth and make yourself at home.”
She followed Beth into the house, surprised by the other woman’s chuckle. “What are you laughing at?”
“Your face! You looked absolutely terrified when you saw Alex.” Then Beth became a little more serious. “Stacie, no matter what happens between you and Cam, no matter how this turns out, there’s one thing that won’t change, and that’s the respect Alex—any Dom—will have for you as a submissive. They all have this crazy, over-the-top instinct to protect. When I couldn’t get in touch with you, back when you and Cam…Alex offered to use his contacts to try to find you, so we could get in touch with you again. He was worried about you—we both were—but I thought we should respect your privacy. I’m sorry.”
Recalling how she’d felt at the time, Stacie knew she wouldn’t have been receptive to any approaches—after all, she’d needed to keep a very big secret, and contact with Beth and Alex would have made that impossible. “Beth, it’s all right. If you’d tried to contact me back then—”
“I understand. Did you never consider telling Cam?”
“I was still struggling to come to terms with it when he called me to tell me it was all over between us—it had only been a few days and…” Her voice trailed off into memory.
“Well, you’re here now, and that’s what matters. I’ll take you up to your room.”
Stacie expected Beth to take her to the blue bedroom again, but instead she stopped outside the door of what had been Cam’s room. “If it helps, you can stay in here—”
“I’d like to—thank you.”
“Good. Now, you take as long as you need to freshen up. We’ll be in the family room—you remember the way? We can talk then. In the meantime, I’ll go and put the kettle on—unless you’d prefer something stronger?”
“I’ll open a bottle of wine. Here you go, Stacie—excuse me, ladies.”
It was Alex, of course, with Stacie’s bags. He took them into the room for her, and then she watched her hosts leave, trying to beat down the pang of envy…to have something like that with Cam was an impossible dream now.
Cam. Oh God, Cam. After Beth had told her he was missing, she’d had to make a dash for the bathroom to throw up. What on earth had happened to him?
There was one more question lurking at the back of her mind…one that she didn’t want to acknowledge, yet couldn’t avoid.
Was Cam still alive?
Chapter 15
“I’m not who you fucking think I am!”
Cam Fraser’s voice was
hoarse with yelling—and hoarse with cursing as his hands made a grab for the chains shackling him to the wall, trying to lift his body up and out of the way of the vicious crack of the single-tail whip across his shoulder blades. Another expletive exploded from his lips at the ensuing trickle of blood that joined the others trailing down his naked back.
He had to endure another half-dozen painfully amateurish strokes before they released him from his bonds and dragged him back to the cell, where once again they chained him by the ankle to the wall. For long minutes he lay there, breathing through the pain, distantly aware of the plate of rice and unidentifiable slop that was left for him along with a couple of bottles of water.
Hell would freeze over before he’d eat that rancid crap. Unfortunately, the cuisine at this exclusive resort sucked in general, and he had the weight loss to prove it. His camouflage pants were now hanging off his hips and without a reliable source of nutrition, it was getting more difficult to maintain muscle tone and mass.
This unexpected free vacation had lasted about eighteen days now—or so he thought. He’d made the rookie mistake of losing track of time just after he’d been taken to the first cell he’d occupied. That he’d been unconscious at the time didn’t cut any ice with him.
Ice. Scotch on the rocks. The chink of cubes in the glass, condensation dewing the outside, and he was ready to take his first sip…
Pushing aside the thought and all the painful reminders of home that came with it, Cam tugged ineffectively at the chain—one end was well and truly anchored in the wall, while the other was connected to the iron band around his ankle. Why the hell did he bother? All the straining did was pull open the wounds on his back that were trying to heal. He needed the key for the lock on the shackle or even a half-decent lock pick would suffice. Failing that, an oxy-acetylene torch to cut through the chain would do nicely, but oddly enough he had a feeling that he wasn’t going to see any of those items any time soon.
Then there was the cell door to get through, his captors to get past, transport to hijack…whether he died trying to escape or died from the punishment being inflicted on his body, it didn’t matter—the end result was still the same.
Alone again. For a little while he could relax—as much as it was possible to relax while being held prisoner and periodically subjected to what could only be described as torture. Cam knew they’d be back before long, though, to take him back to that room and ask him more questions about matters of which he was in total ignorance. Their language was one of the more obscure regional dialects—Cam recognised just enough to deny all knowledge and then the beatings would start again. It was only a matter of time before they moved onto more refined forms of administering pain, in an attempt to extract information he simply did not have. And even if he did have it, he’d see the bastards in hell first.
The fundamental flaw in their thinking was their assumption that he was closely allied to the prince and was a military adviser to the pro-Western government. They believed he was working alongside the armed forces, and wouldn’t be told that he was a security contractor in the private sector.
Cam rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. He should have known better than to agree to clear up the mess left by one of his business rivals. Hell, if it was him, he’d have cleared up his own…strike that, he’d never have made the fucking mess in the first place. His subjects sure as hell stayed protected—they didn’t get kidnapped by radical fundamentalists.
He stared at his bare, bloody feet, using the focus to block out the pain raging across his back. Years of training had given him other techniques to deal with the questioning—not to mention torture techniques that were far more sophisticated and painful than the methods these dilettantes were using. What he couldn’t block out—at least not as easily as he’d been able to at first—was the sense of foreboding that his life was going to end in this place.
He had to face facts. They’d moved him three times already, always at night, always blindfolded and in the back of a death trap of a truck—he had no idea where he was now, and he doubted that anyone else would know his location either. The chances were that they’d long since assumed he was dead. He was on his own, and the odds weren’t looking good.
Cam had had a hunch from the start that taking on the job of rescuing the consultants would be a poisoned chalice. As he’d laid down covering fire for his team to get the group of civilians to the extraction point, his gut had told him repeatedly that he was in deep shit. He’d signalled to them to head for the incoming helicopter, knowing that someone would have to take the rear to cover their escape—knowing that that someone would have to be him.
The plan had worked too, until his men and the civilians had boarded the chopper. At that point, his men should have been providing covering fire for him to make the sprint to join them, but some of the civilians had panicked and got in the way. Those vital seconds were all the rebels had needed to overpower him and take him captive. At the same time as he was going down under the weight of at least four, maybe even six of his adversaries, he’d seen another group setting up a rocket launcher. Cam’s last thoughts had been to get everyone out of there and that he’d figure something out—he always did.
Except this time, maybe he wouldn’t…
*
Waiting was the worst part. Days of it, waiting for a call from Conor or Bax with news of Cam’s whereabouts. Alex used the time to go through various possible scenarios, until he reached the point where he could do no more—not until he got something more definite to go on. He was seriously tempted to fly out there and assist with the search himself.
Every time the phone rang, it elicited the same reaction—adrenaline would course through his veins, readying him for the mission to start in earnest, while Beth and Stacie would immediately seek each other out, anticipating that the call would be the start of the process of getting Cam back where he belonged.
When the call finally came, Alex took it in his office, knowing that when he eventually emerged, the ball would have started rolling—and once started, it would only stop when they had Cam back safe and sound. He listened intently to what Conor had to say. At the same time, he assessed the potential plans he’d come up and discarded those that were not feasible. Fine details would need to be ironed out but by the time the call with Conor ended, Alex had a high-level plan in mind and a mental list of the resources required to implement it.
The first phone call he needed to make was one about which he had grave reservations. He would be asking a lot of the recipient of the call, but for Cam’s sake, he had to try. Given the terrain they would be traversing on the rescue mission, Ros Edwards’ expert driving skills could mean the difference between total success and deadly failure. Ros, however, was still on active service, and if the mission failed, the resulting complications could be anything up to and including a major diplomatic nightmare. That being the case, Alex couldn’t blame her if she declined to offer her assistance.
“Ros? It’s Alex Lombard.”
“I’ve been waiting for your call, Alex. What’s the word on Cam?”
Alex wasn’t surprised that news had reached her about his old friend’s predicament—the bonds of military service transcended the distinction between the public and private sectors. He gave her a concise rundown on the latest intel. “It’s a big ask, Ros, but given the location, I could really use your expertise on the ground. I know that if we got caught it would be—”
“Can anyone say career-limiting?” She gave a short laugh, devoid of humour. “Hell, who needs a bloody Government pension anyway? You don’t have to ask, Alex. I’ll tell Guy I’m taking a couple of weeks’ leave—he’s always on at me to go and spend some time in the sun. I’ll just tell him I’m doing exactly that, and I won’t be contactable. He doesn’t need to know exactly what I’ll be doing in the sun. We’ll just have to make damn sure we don’t get caught—we don’t need an international incident on our hands, on top of everything else.”
�
��I think the chances of our getting out in one piece just increased exponentially. Thanks, Ros. I owe you. We’ll be deploying in the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours—I’ll be in touch.”
Alex put the phone down. That call had been more successful than he’d dared to hope, but there was one more to make—one upon which everything else depended. He picked the phone up again. He hadn’t called the number in years, but if ever there was a time he needed to, it was now.
“Your Highness? As-salamu alaykum. It’s Alex Lombard. How are you? I know, sir, a very long time. You remember my partner, Cam Fraser? I need your help…”
At the end of the conversation, Alex let his breath out slowly. The prince had promised that one of his business jets and its crew would be at Alex’s disposal and available for departure from 20:00 the next day—not only that, his personal physician and a trained medic would meet them when they landed, prepared to accompany them back to the UK, if necessary.
Significantly, the prince was also going to make available all the portable firepower they’d need. It seemed that—for once—fate was on their side.
With Conor and Bax already in transit back to the UK, Ros Edwards on board, and further members of Cam’s team with whom they would meet in country, Alex allowed himself the luxury of believing that his plan might just work. The initial rendezvous would be at a private airport almost thirty miles away, where they would board the prince’s jet. The outbound flight would give Alex the opportunity to brief all three on his plan to rescue Cam Fraser.
When they landed at the prince’s personal airstrip, there would be three armoured Land Rovers, courtesy of the prince but not traceable to him, waiting for them, along with the rest of the hand-picked team, ready to make the journey to the location where Cam was being held captive. Once there, they would effect his release—using whatever means necessary—and then he and Ros would bring Cam back to the airstrip in one vehicle, while the remaining members of the team would disperse, to return to their original assignments.
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