Second Nature (When Seconds Count) (16 page)

“Natalie, don’t jump
!”

Hanging on by her fingertips, she clawed her way across the side of the building to the railing surrounding the balcony. Her knees and bare feet scraped along
the wall as she dropped to the balcony platform, the cut on her thigh pulling against the stitches as she landed in a heap. A familiar burning sensation washed over her leg as a dark red splotch bloomed on her pant leg, confirming she had reopened the wound on her thigh. Without a look back, she flung herself over the railing, the rusty bars cutting into her palms as she looked over her shoulder to the ground below. The fall wasn’t going to do her leg any favors, but she didn’t have a choice. Before she could talk herself out of it, she relaxed her grip and fell the rest of the way to the street. Shards of splintering pain exploded in her left ankle, barely cushioning the blow to her already butchered right leg as she crumbled against the broken pavement.

The crowd swirled around her,
laughing and shouting as the parade finale floated by, oblivious to her awkward arrival or any attempts she made to stand. She could barely hear her own screams of pain as her hand was crushed beneath the heel of someone’s shoe. She pushed against a prison of legs and limbs surrounding her. Her efforts to free her hand were meaningless against the crushing crowd as they stumbled over her, drunk and ignorant of her pain until her entire body had been kicked or crushed beneath the throng of partygoers.

Three loud gunshots rang out
in the distance, the laughs and shouts turning into screams as the crowd around her peeled away and a pair of meaty hands wrenched her from the jagged gravel street. What little breath she had left was punched from her lungs as she was thrown over someone’s shoulder, her ribs caving in against each jarring blow as she was hauled away from the crowd. The last thing she saw before her blood rushed to her head and a deep blackness overtook her vision was the soles of the stranger’s worn and tattered boots as they beat against the pavement at a frantic pace.

“Sonofabitch!”
Grant held back a knowing grin and concentrated on Thalia as Daniel rubbed the ache from his jaw. His girl was a survivor and he was damn proud of it, even if she had busted herself up pretty badly and unknowingly slugged her own father. Repeatedly.

“S
he has one hell of a right hook.” His cheek still bore the remains of her last unconscious battle with him. He couldn’t believe just under two weeks had passed since he lifted her lifeless body from his beach. Capturing her wrists in his hands to keep her from striking out at him again when she finally came to, he carefully caressed the raw scuff marks marring her knuckles. “I would have warned you if I knew you were coming.” He turned his head to glare at his friend. “What the hell are you doing here, Daniel? I left clear orders to meet us in Chennai.”

He could barely hold back the growl of frustration that clawed at his chest.
By not following those simple instructions they had not only nearly gotten Thalia killed, but now the local rag-tag guerilla security forces were chasing them. God only knew what kind of bullshit he’d have to wade through if they didn’t get this damn plane off the ground before they caught up to them. “How the hell did you find us?”

Daniel cupped the back of his neck and
paced the length of the otherwise empty cabin. Empty except for his female friend Grant had yet to be introduced to. He’d quickly dismissed the leggy redhead as a non-threat. Considering her conservative business suit and dry no-nonsense attitude, she was definitely another department lackey he’d just as soon not know. Probably a Fed. What the hell had Daniel been thinking bringing someone else into this nightmare? The last thing Thalia needed was a damn audience as her life was ripped to shreds…again.

“
I don’t give two shits what your orders were!” Daniel shouted over the jet engines as they fired to life. “That’s my goddamn daughter!”

Grant’s patience was wearing fatally thin. With the
determined vipers they were hiding from still out for Thalia’s blood, he couldn’t afford any leaks. He needed to know who compromised their position, and he needed to know right fucking now! “Who the hell told you where to find us?”

“
I had your man on the ground redirect the flight through DC instead of Newark to pick up Rebecca. He was rattled enough to give you up. Hell, I had to threaten to tie his ass to his shiny new sports car to keep him from boarding the damn plane. He was more than willing to update the flight plan to intercept you here.” Daniel stopped pacing and came to stand in front of him, a crimson flush firing beneath the aged skin on his face and creeping beneath the collar of his casual button-up. He looked anything but casual. “I’ve fought too damn hard to find her, Grant. I wasn’t about to let her slip through my fingers again, and I don’t give a
damn
if that pisses you off.”

Grant’s teeth popped as he ground them together to keep his temper in check.
He didn’t blame Daniel. Diver had given up their position after one frantic fucking phone call. Sure, he’d been a little crazed when he’d called him, but everyone is entitled to at least one meltdown in their life. Right?

His gaze drifted back to Thalia as she stirred in his arms. He would deal with Diver and the rest of this bullshit
later. Right now his hands were literally full of the woman he loved, and he needed to tend to her injuries in private. The last thing she needed was to wake up inside a plane full of strangers before he could stop her bleeding and clear this clusterfuck up for her. He should have told her everything the minute they found their way back to civilization. He simply couldn’t find the words.

His attention focused on the unconscious woman in his arms
, he waved Daniel and his guest away. “Take a hike to the back while I wake her up and get her injuries taken care of.”

“She’s my daughter, Grant. I’m not
—”

“
I told you, she doesn’t fucking remember you!” Grant held tight to the last vestiges of his control, trying to remember that Daniel held more of a claim to her than he did. That fact hadn’t escaped him. Maybe he was making decisions based on emotion just like Daniel had been, but his friend would have to kill him before he’d let anyone else get near her. Not now. Not until he knew she was okay.

Daniel held his stare, his silence speaking volumes as he quietly assessed Grant’s protective posture. He watched as a kaleidoscope of emotions colored his friend’s face. Hurt and confusion sparked to life in his eyes
, and Grant could see him fighting to deny it. Finally understanding filtered its way in, and Grant could feel the man’s disbelief as it rolled off him in an electrifying wave.
Yeah, I’m in love with your daughter. Shocks the hell out me too.

Thank fuck
they were spared the impending conversational disaster by the pilot’s announcement to secure the cabin and buckle up for departure. Daniel’s friend took him by the arm and dragged him toward the back of the plane while Grant laid Thalia across the front row of leather seats and began the task of tending to her injuries. The sedative he’d raked into the bag along with her antibiotics at Salina’s clinic had come in handy when she had regained consciousness on the way to Daniel’s vehicle and began kicking the living shit out of everything within reach. The last thing he wanted was to knock her out again, but she had been completely lost in her rage and fear, causing a scene and attracting the kind of attention they were running from.

“
Wake up, fossa.” He cupped the top of her head in his palm, his thumb rubbing soothing circles on her forehead, waiting for her ghostly gray eyes to appear from behind her twitching eyelids as she fought her way back to consciousness. She was going to be in one hell of a mood waking up in mid-air again. A secret smile pulled at his heart from somewhere deep inside him at that thought. He really did love this woman, even when she was spitting mad. Especially when she was spitting mad.

Just as he was beginning to fuss with the buttons on her pants to take a look at her busted sti
tches, the redheaded woman stepped up and held out what appeared to be a fresh change of clothes.

“I brought these
in case she needed them. I’m Rebecca Danes, International Organized Crime Intel.” A familiar, bitter taste soiled his taste buds as he heard the title roll off her tongue in the usual arrogant tenor of a Fed. It was nice to know his sixth sense about people hadn’t taken a hike with his common sense. Without so much as a nod, he took the clothes from her outstretched arms and went back to work removing Thalia’s blood drenched ones. When the persistent redhead didn’t retreat from her post next to the row of seats she was perched against, he paused and turned his lethal,
what-the-fuck-do-you-want
stare her way, a not so subtle warning to either spill what she came to say or move the fuck on. To her credit she didn’t seem to scare easily.

“I’m not a spectator, Mr. Kendal.
” She crossed her arms over her chest and Grant noticed how that one confident move seemed to add at least three inches to her five foot six frame. He met her challenge and popped to his feet, enjoying the way her face drained of color as the blood rushed toward her rapidly increasing heartbeat. He wouldn’t hurt the woman, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to let her bully her way into interrogating Thalia before she’d even had a chance to process what had happened to her.

He
knew how the game was played. She needed information. Thalia was nothing but a new source, an untapped well of information she needed to access to make her next big move up the departmental bullshit ladder. She and her career could go to hell. One lean closer and he could smell her fear as she tried to swallow it back.

“
Mm…” She cleared her throat, and Grant would have been amused if Thalia wasn’t lying unconscious and bleeding on the seat behind him while this woman was wasting his fucking time. Grant watched as she quickly gathered herself back together and was mildly shocked when she opened her mouth to speak instead of turning on her prim three inch heels and running for her life.

“
Mr. Gregory asked me to come along because I’m also a victim’s advocate. I’ve helped many other girls, uh, women like Natalie. I’ve personally worked her case for the last five years, Mr. Kendal. I’ve given my life’s blood to find the evil psychopaths who did this to her and I won’t stop until I see them either castrated and locked away in a sweat box in the middle of a South American jungle or dead. Preferably both.”

Grant cons
idered her for a moment as they locked stares in an unspoken challenge. There was more fire in her green eyes than he gave her credit for. Maybe his sixth sense had taken that hike off a cliff after all. When she refused to look away he shrugged and gave her a smirk. “Both is good.” He nodded and turned back to Thalia, resuming his inspection of her wounds as the woman turned and gifted them their privacy.

She stopped
a few steps down the narrow aisle and looked back over her shoulder at him. “If you need my help explaining this to Natalie...I mean, she might need a woman’s perspective to see this clearly.” He nodded wordlessly and watched her retreat the rest of the way down the aisle before settling in next to his friend.

Would he ever get used to calling her Natalie? Would she ever forgive him for not telling her sooner?
Damn, this was going to be hard. A part of him, a small, completely selfish part didn’t want her to remember. Not for him. He hated the idea of awakening such morbid memories she’d so successfully locked away. To him, she would be better off not remembering, even if that meant forgetting some of the good things too. He would give just about anything but her to be able to forget his past. He couldn’t take that choice away from her though. No matter how horrid, they were her memories to command. He only hoped he still had a place in them when this was all over.

Nearly thirty minutes after they had taken off from the small private airstrip outside
Mutare, Grant tied off the last of the few stitches Thalia had ruptured in her thigh. The wound had looked far worse than it was, but her ankle was a different story. She moaned when he pushed on the swollen flesh to see if anything was broken, and he quickly moved up to see if he could rouse her.

“Wake up for me, Thalia,” he crooned in
to her ear as he peppered her face with gentle kisses. Reading her movements, he gathered her wrists back into his hands, anticipating her fight or flight reaction just in time to keep her from bolting up from the makeshift bed he’d nestled her into. “Easy, fossa. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

“Grant?” He watched as her brow
s furrowed in confusion and her sleepy, glazed eyes cleared of the drug induced fog.

“Yeah, it’
s me. You’ve had one hell of a night.” He coaxed her back into a prone position and pulled the blanket further up her naked body.

“Ugh, tell me about it. I had a terrible nightmare.”
She closed her eyes and he could feel her muscles coil beneath his palms as her memories broke through the haze from the sedative. He braced himself just as she shot up again and began to fight his hold on her. “Oh shit! It wasn’t a dream! Where the hell am I? Who were those people?”

“Shh, fossa. Don’t get up yet.” He waited patiently as she marginally relaxed back into the seat, her eyes wild as she tried to catch up. “We’re on a plane to Mozambique. Can you tell me if anything other than your thigh
or ankle hurts?” Her eyes squinted shut as she rotated her ankle, a muted moan escaping her lips. “I don’t think it’s broken, but you won’t be running anywhere for a few days.”

“Grant, they knew my name.” He pulled the shirt from the pile of clothes Rebecca had given him and gathered the hem in his hands
as he moved to help her put it on. “I can do that.” He smirked as she snatched it from his grip and feebly maneuvered it over her head and worked her arms through.
That’s my girl.
“Did you hear me?” She pulled the shirt over her bare breasts and then pushed herself up to lean against the seatback. “Ugh, why does my head hurt so badly?”

Careful not to snag her ankle, h
e worked her legs halfway through the soft material of the slacks, effectively trapping them from kicking out at him before he answered her. He was sure he was going to need all the advantage he could get. “Yeah, about that,” he sighed. Unable to procrastinate further he stood, resting his hands on his hips, every molecule in his body preparing for the coming fight. “That would be the sedative I gave you.”

He flinched when she moved, his hands rushing out to catch thin air
instead of her flying fists as she lethargically pushed further up into the seat and shuffled the slacks over her hips. Christ, had he overdosed her? He expected her to at least throw something at him.

“
The rounds I fired off attracted too much attention. And the way you were fighting Daniel…” He crouched in front of her and pushed her tangled hair behind her ears. The look in her eyes held more fear and confusion than anger. He hated seeing her like that. He’d never been one for apologies, but he’d beg her forgiveness if that’s what it took to rid her of that look. “I thought I’d lose my mind when I saw you drop from that balcony. I’m sorry, but you were frantic when Daniel finally got to you, and I had to—”