Deadly Promises

by Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Those eyes. They saw too much. Said too much. The way she looked at him was as disarming as her hand was pleasing, as it drifted back to the tense muscles of his thigh.

  This is the woman I've been waiting for...

  He kept coming back to that. What was the point? Where was the logic? Besides, she'd made it clear that all she'd needed was a moment in time. Well, they'd had it.

  And it had been astounding.

  "Cav?" she pressed softly. "How did you get this scar?"

  "The scar's not a big deal." He needed to follow her lead and enjoy the moment. They still had over an hour before they could leave to meet up with the extraction team. He reached for her hand and lifted it to his lips.

  "Hum." She sounded as skeptical as she looked. "Yet it looks like a big deal."

  She didn't need to know how he'd gotten it or the scar on his biceps or any of the dozen or so others that seemed to intrigue and worry her. When this was over she'd go back to her life in Georgia, and he'd... Well, he didn't know where he would go.

  "When I told you that you worry too much, you said it was an occupational hazard." She offered him a grape. He sucked it off of her fingertips. "So what exactly do you do? Or does that fall into the 'if you tell me you'll have to kill me' category?"

  He plucked some fruit off the plate. "Have another grape," he said evasively, then grinned at her put-out look.

  "I still don't know how you know Wyatt," she said, respecting his privacy on the occupation question. "Or is that off-limits, too?"

  For the life of him, he didn't understand how he could feel so content in the midst of a life-or-death situation, but he did. Carrie's "good moment in time" philosophy had apparently rubbed off on him.

  He stretched back, folded his arms behind his head, and closed his eyes. "You first."

  "This is just an observation..."

  He could hear the smile in her soft southern voice.

  "But it occurs to me that you practice avoidance better than anyone I've ever known."

  He smiled, too, because she was not only beautiful and sexy but smart and funny. "It's that occupational-hazard thing again."

  She made a sound that was something between a snort and acceptance. "We grew up together," she said, giving him his way. "Stayed friends."

  He opened one eye. "Define friends." That issue had been working on him since Wyatt had called him in Jakarta.

  She cocked her head and considered. "More than friends once. In high school we were an item."

  "And he walked away from you?"

  She leisurely traced a fingertip from his left collarbone to his right and back again. Her touch made him shiver and burn at the same time.

  "Not so much away from me, as from Adel, Georgia." She lifted a shoulder. "Lotta people do. Not much excitin' goin' on around there."

  He loved how her drawl had intensified as she relaxed.

  "Were you heartbroken?"

  She was quiet long enough that he opened his eyes again. And by the time she said, "For a while, yeah, but not anymore," he was pretty certain he didn't believe her.

  She still had a thing for Wyatt.

  Which probably answered his next question. "Why did you come to Myanmar, Carrie?"

  Another hesitation. Another Ah ha moment when she had to think about it a bit too long.

  The truthful answer probably went something like: Not long ago, Wyatt had come home to Adel with a new wife. It had stung. So Carrie Granger had gone looking for adventure. Something to help her douse the old flame and soften the blow.

  He understood. Savage was a great guy. Carrie-worthy. Something he wasn't.

  "I might have been a little disenfranchised," she said, breaking into his thoughts.

  It occurred to him that these were the kind of moments he'd been missing for a long time. Quiet, intimate moments with a woman who mattered. Moments where barriers fell and truths came out. Dangerous moments for a CIA asset. Moments he'd had to avoid at all costs, for more years than he wanted to count.

  The same years that had brought him to the place he was today: a man who could not possibly be someone good for someone like her.

  "Maybe I was a little hurt that Wyatt was once and for all off-limits," she admitted.

  Her soft words drew his gaze back to her face.

  Her smile was whimsical. "A girl never forgets her first love, you know."

  Her candor didn't surprise him; it was who she was.

  "But that was then. I'm over it."

  Didn't change a thing where he was concerned. He was still no good for her.

  If he was honest, he had to admit that he was teetering very close to alcoholic status. He couldn't count the number of times he'd wished he had a drink in the past twelve hours.

  He was burned out and just plain tapped out of goodwill toward man. He didn't know if he had enough left to pull himself away from the abyss, let alone be the man that a woman like Carrie needed.

  "Why did you come for me?" she asked.

  At last, an easy question. "Because Wyatt asked."

  "And he knew you'd do it."

  He closed his eyes again. "Yeah. He knew."

  Her hand lay flat on his bare chest now. Warm and light and the most sensual presence he'd ever known.

  If she had thoughts or questions about why Wyatt hadn't come himself, she didn't voice them. She lay down close to him instead and rested her head on his shoulder as if she needed the contact to keep her grounded.

  "How did you find me?"

  He touched a hand to her hair, pulled her closer, and thought, Fuck it. He was going to enjoy the moment. "Wasn't easy. Do you know why you were arrested?"

  She made a sound of frustration. "No idea. I got out of the cab, saw a girl in trouble, and I tried to help her."

  He knew the rest of the story. Had spent a lot of money and a lot of hours ferreting out the facts.

  "That girl was a prostitute who had stolen from a customer, who had sent a hired enforcer to punish her. As it turns out, that same customer was also a high-ranking military official--the judge presiding over your trial."

  "Oh my God," she whispered.

  "And since the girl was a known prostitute, when the police saw you aiding and abetting a criminal, they assumed you were a working girl, too, and hauled you off to court."

  "Some court." She shivered and snuggled even closer. "How did you find all of this out?"

  "I have... sources," he said evasively, then laughed when she punched him. "My contacts checked out all the taxi companies in Mandalay, found a driver who remembered a fare for a blond English-speaking woman. He filled us in on what happened and that it was the military, not the city police, who made the arrest. After that, it was just a question of finding the judge."

  A greenback still talked louder than the Myanmar kyat. A little grease on the palm had helped a court clerk remember the trial of a blond woman, possibly American, who had been sentenced and shipped off to the ruby mines.

  "Did they really think they would get away with it?"

  "They did," he said soberly. "You weren't going to get out of here through any diplomatic channels. The Junta military regime would never have acknowledged that you went through their system. We're talking international incident of epic proportions here.

  "So once the top brass figured out what the judge had done, they went into full cover-up mode. Their intent was to leave no trace that you ever set foot on Burma soil. I'm betting some heads rolled over this, but they were in too deep to let you go."

  She was quiet for a long moment. "The entire military must be looking for us by now."

  He nodded. "That they are."

  "How are we going to get out of the country?" She rose up on an elbow, her eyes intent on his. "My purse with my passport and all my luggage were in the taxi when the driver saw the MP and took off. I don't have a shred of ID."

  "You don't need ID," he promised her. "You've got me."

  He didn't want her worrying; that was for him to do. So
he pulled her down and kissed her. Not because she looked like she needed kissing but because he needed it. Because he needed to feel her soft and giving beneath him one more time. Because he needed to feel the pulse of her body take him inside and remind him of the good things life had to offer.

  And because he needed, even more, to have one final memory of what it felt like to make love to her in this incredible moment in time.

  Eleven

  Cav was pulling on his pants and making plans to get going when he heard an increase of activity outside the window.

  He touched a hand to Carrie's shoulder to wake her.

  She sat up abruptly. "What?"

  "Something's happening. Get dressed."

  An urgent knock sounded on the door. He opened it up a crack. "Soldiers have arrived," Tun said, sounding panicked. "They search the village."

  "How many?"

  "Two trucks. Two jeeps."

  Cav swore under his breath. They hadn't skimped on the manpower. This was an all-out manhunt.

  "We must go now," Tun said.

  "No," Cave said adamantly. "You take the children and Thura to a safe place. I don't want you implicated in helping us." God only knew what the Junta would do to Tun and his family if they discovered they'd helped criminals.

  "But--"

  Cav laid a hand on Tun's shoulder, cutting him off. "We'll be fine." He checked his watch. The extraction team would already be in flight, so he had to come up with alternate transpo fast.

  "Go take care of your family."

  Tun hesitated. "You can find the way? You are certain?"

  While Carrie was sleeping, Tun and Cav had gone over the map and he'd plugged the coordinates into his GPS. "I'll get there."

  Tun finally gave in with a sober nod. "Be safe, my friend."

  "You, too."

  He shut the door and turned back to see Carrie had already pulled on her T-shirt and was zipping up her pants and toeing into her sandals.

  "I take it we just lost our ride to wherever we were supposed to go, to meet whoever was supposed to get us out of here?"

  "That pretty well sums it up." And since there were no cell phone towers for a hundred miles around, he had no way to contact the team to change the rendezvous point.

  "I'll figure something out," he said, as he quickly tugged on his boots, then stuffed any shred of evidence that they'd been there into his backpack. "Ever fired a rifle?"

  She paled.

  Fuck. "I'll take that as a no. Okay, let's give you a crash course. This'll be fast and dirty."

  He set the AK's selector switch to semiautomatic so she wouldn't dump the entire magazine on a five-second blast. Then he showed her how to work the safety and warned her to keep it on until she knew she was going to fire.

  "Put the front site on the target," he said, helping her position the butt at her shoulder, "and squeeze the trigger. Thats it. Don't fight the recoil but be aware that it's gonna have some kick."

  If she actually fired she was going to have a helluva bruise on her shoulder, but the adrenaline would be pumping so hard that she'd never feel it.

  "You're going to miss more than you hit and that's okay. Just keep your head and avoid yanking on the trigger, or you'll dump your ammo too fast. Like my old DI used to tell me, squeezing a trigger is like touching a woman's nipple. A caress is appreciated but a yank will get you slapped."

  "Well, we can't have that," she said in a tone that told him she was way out of her comfort zone.

  "You'll be fine." He wished he had a set of earplugs. If she ended up firing that puppy her ears were going to ring for a week.

  He policed the room one last time relieved her of the rifle, and headed for the door.

  "Got one more hide-and-seek game left in you, sweetheart?" He wanted to get a read on her frame of mind.

  She gave him a brave smile. She was rock solid and steady. "Monopoly's more my style. But I suppose I'll let you choose the game, being you've got the gun and all."

  He didn't know many women who could keep their sense of humor over a broken nail, let alone keep their head in a life-or-death situation. He was damn proud of her.

  "You're a pretty good time, you know that, Carrie Granger?"

  "Oh, honey, wait till you see me when I'm not scared half out of my mind. I'll show you a real good time then."

  "It's a date."

  He hoped to hell he could keep it, because he needed to get them to the extraction point in less than half an hour.

  THE SUN BURNED like a brand. Sweat trickled between Cav's shoulder blades as he hunkered down behind a small wagon hitched to a donkey and watched the military jeep parked across the street.

  The wagon was filled with vegetables and fruit, and the owner was currently relieving himself in an alley. For the most part, the street was as quiet as the rest of the village. Most of the residents were either napping out of the sun or loafing and shooting the breeze with friends. The only ripple in the pool was the military presence. Four Junta soldiers had just pulled up in the jeep, jumped out, and started working their way down the line of shops.

  Cav gauged the distance to the jeep, the distance of the soldiers from the jeep, and the probability of reaching it without being seen. Doable. It wasn't as if they had a lot of choice. Of the dozen dilapidated vehicles he'd spotted in town, Cav didn't think he could count on a single one to transport them across a street, let alone over twenty miles of winding mountain roads.

  But a sure thing sat just ten yards away, provided they could get to it. And provided he could start it once they did. He figured it for a 1988, maybe '90 model. No roof, no doors, just a roll bar and sprung seats. Strictly a bare-bones imported civilian model, which meant it would need a key that was most likely with the driver.

  He drew the Warthog out of his leg sheath. There was more than one way to skin a cat.

  "On my go, we head for that jeep," he told Carrie, who was mouse quiet beside him. "You dive for the floor in the back. Keep your head down and pray like hell that I can get that sucker started before the nice men with guns come back for their ride."

  "I can do that," she assured him.

  He shoved the AK into her hands and hoped his lesson had stuck. "On my word, you point at the bad guys and squeeze the trigger, okay?"

  She gave him a quick nod.

  "One major point: even with the safety on, keep your finger off the trigger when we're running. Then neither of us has to worry about you shooting me in the back."

  All the blood drained from her face. "Oh, God."

  "You can do this. Ready?"

  She drew a bracing breath and gave him another nod.

  "Atta girl."

  He did another visual recon of the street, saw the soldiers disappear inside a building, and shot to his feet. "Go."

  He sprinted across the dusty street, peripherally aware of Carrie keeping pace beside him. The few seconds it took them to cover the ground felt like an eternity, but they made it without being spotted.

  Carrie followed orders like a good soldier and scrambled onto the floor in the back. He dove for the floor in the front, then checked around for a key. No such luck.

  Keeping low, he smashed the hilt of the Warthog against the steering column until he broke the plastic molding around the ignition and exposed the lock. Then he held his breath, unfolded the blade, stuck its tip into the hole, and turned it.

  Nothing.

  Cursing and sweating, he fiddled with the blade, reached down and depressed the clutch, and tried again. Bingo! The engine grumbled to life with a hiccup and a whine. He shot up off the floor before the motor fell into a rumbling purr, slid behind the wheel, and shifted into first gear.

  "Keep your head down," he reminded her and peeled rubber, sending a rooster tail of fine dust flying in their wake. They'd made it! Almost.

  The unmistakable pop pop pop of an AK-47 shattered the passenger-side windshield. So much for getting out of here unnoticed.

  He glanced over his shoulder. Four Ju
nta soldiers were squared up in the street behind them. All four had shouldered their rifles and were firing on full auto.

  "Need some cover fire, sweetheart!" he yelled over his shoulder. "Just aim and squeeze. And keep your head down!"

  Less than five seconds later he heard the AK shucking out rounds from the backseat.

  The return fire stopped immediately.

  He laughed out loud. Jesus. What a woman.

  "Nice going, deadeye!" he yelled over the whine of the motor as he lead-footed the accelerator and they roared out of town.

  Twelve

  "Still clear," Carrie told Cav from the passenger seat.

  She'd climbed into the front shortly after they'd cleared the village.

  That had been a good ten miles ago and if his GPS coordinates and crash map lesson were correct, this narrow, serpentine road would lead them to the designated landing zone where the extraction team would be waiting for them in--he checked his watch again--less than five minutes.

  Providing the team was waiting for them.

  And providing they could limp their way there with one flat tire. One of the Juntas had scored a hit. The flat had slowed then down, but there was no way in hell Cav could stop and change it.

  Blind faith was a powerful thing. It had to be, because right now that's all they had going for them.

  Cav kept both hands on the wheel and one eye on the rearview mirror as they topped the rise of yet another steep grade, then rolled down a thirty-degree decline toward a long metal expansion bridge.

  Straight out of an old erector set, it spanned a wide river basin flanked by deep ravines and lush grass. Small green islands floated like clouds on water the color of cafe au lait. A herd of brown horned cattle grazed placidly along the banks. Tall, jagged mountain peaks towered in the distance. And directly ahead of them hung the blazing ball of the sun, guiding their path down the road like a beacon.

  The scenery was beautiful, idyllic and serene, and all Cav could think about was how in the hell a chopper was going to manage the wind currents that were bound to be prevalent at this altitude.

  "How much farther?" Carrie yelled over the wind and the motor and thump thump thump of the deflated tire.

  Cav glanced at her. She looked like a Rambo wet dream with the AK balanced across her lap, her unbound breasts straining against her tight olive T-shirt, and her long legs encased in green camo pants.

  And she looked like a woman he did not want to let down. Ever.