Swept Away (28 page)

“You got what I want, Government Man, and I’m not leaving ’til I get it. Can’t hide on this
little shithole island forever, and I swear to God,” he said on a strange little laugh, “I can smell
you. You’re here somewhere. Close. So close.”

His footsteps inched nearer, and Kat’ s heart threatened to beat through her chest as she fought
down the urge to vomit. Please God, please God, she prayed desperately, sorry she’d cursed
Him for his timing a few days ago.

“So close that I found you, fed.” The movements stilled, Brock’s eyes steeled on the bank
across from them, and Kat followed his gaze to find two dark men with guns, the whack job smiling wide as he lifted his and pointed. “Bang, bang, fed. You’re dead.”

Kat froze in terror, light-headed. But Brock moved, thrusting her behind him against the muddy embankment as he pushed to his feet. “What brought you back, Francisco? Need to show the boss a body?”

Whack Job shrugged. “Since it’s hard to tell when you’re really dead, probably not a bad idea,
yes? But first, you’re going to hand over what you took.” Both gun-wielding men were as
soaked to the skin as she and Brock, curly black hair plastered to their heads, shirts and shorts clingy and heavy with water.

Brock’s gaze narrowed on the mean guy above. “What do you think I took?”

Even looking like a drowned rat, Whack Job’s eyes shone with pure evil, especially when he
ignored Brock’s question and shifted his focus to Kat. “Send the girl up.”

“No good place for her to climb the bank here,” Brock replied. “Need to walk down some.” He
pointed in the direction they’d originally come as he took Kat’s hand to lead her through the gully on one side of the rainwater now trickling through.

“Well, hurry up about it,” Whack Job said, and above them, she could hear the two bad guys
moving through the woods along the ravine again, although a thin row of trees blocked them
from direct view.

“When we get up there,” Brock said lowly, “be ready for my signal to run.”
“Won’t they shoot me if I do that?”

He gave his head a solemn shake. “They want you.”

Her stomach twisted. “I think I’d rather get shot.”

He stopped walking and drew close, speaking firm and low. “This isn’t over, kitten. Don’t give
up on me now.”

As he turned to lead her on through the ditch, the floor of it now mushy beneath their feet, his
words almost stung. She knew he was talking about the hideous situation they were in. But
God help her, she heard more in them, even now—she heard ten years of heartache and knew, in that second, that she still couldn’t quite let it all go, no matter how she tried to move on inside.

“I need you to be tough for me,” he said over his shoulder as they trudged on, then peered back at her. “Can you do that? Be tough for me?”

She nodded. She could. She had to. Because she wanted out of this. And despite her doubt, something in his eyes made her believe they could actually get out.

“Here.” Coming back into view, Whack Job pointed with his gun toward a sloped area in the
gully’s wall that looked climbable. “Get out here.”

Kat’s heart continued to pound as Brock made his way up, then pulled her behind him over slippery mud. Once at the top with the two scary hooligans, she wanted nothing more than to
throw herself into Brock’s arms but knew it would be smarter to do what he’d said—act tough.
As tough as possible. Even if tough, at the moment, just meant not letting herself look needy.

“Hot damn, my brother didn’t lie,” Whack Job said, his accent seeming thicker with excitement
as his eyes moved down her body. “You are a nice piece of ass, chica.”

She wanted to spit at him, but ignored him instead, keeping her eyes glued to Brock’s chest and
wishing her heart would slow down.

Whack Job only laughed at her—then turned more serious again. “Now march.”

Kat went first, then Brock, then the two bad guys—brothers, she presumed from what Whack
Job had said—following behind, guns at the ready. She didn’t quite know the way, of course,
but Whack Job seemed to, instructing her at one point to bear right, and she guessed they
would circle the back of the island and make their way to the dock.

As she trudged through the undergrowth, she wondered when they were going to kill Brock.
Would they do it right in front of her? Probably. The image drew all the breath from her lungs.
After that, it wouldn’t really matter what they did to her—it would measure nothing compared to watching Brock die.

Just then, a hard Ooomf! came from behind, along with a crash on the ground, and when she realized one of the bad guys had tripped and fallen, Brock said, just loud enough for her to hear, “Now, Kat. Run, baby.”

Part of her didn’t want to—it took everything she had to leave Brock behind—but she had to
do what he said, so she gathered her skirt around her thighs and took off, sprinting for all she was worth. She never looked back, fear burning in her chest as she heard a small scuffle, and she prayed again Please God, please God, for both Brock and herself, until she heard Whack
Job say, “Get her, Carlos!”

Like earlier, she concentrated on the ground as she ran, trying to avoid roots and branches,
trying to keep her skirt from snagging on anything and her feet steady—but this time she also
occasionally lifted her eyes because she didn’t want to run in a circle again.

Get away. Get away for Brock. She knew he’d never feel for her what she’d once felt for him,
but she also knew her safety was important to him, and she yearned to do what he’d said, be
tough for him, make him proud.

The only problem was, if her ears didn’t deceive her, Carlos was gaining on her. She ran as
hard as she possibly could, but he grew closer, closer—she heard him closing in right behind

her, the sound of his footsteps like a locomotive bearing down. And no matter how she tried,
her feet simply wouldn’t move any faster—until he tackled her in the soft, sandy island dirt, his
big body slamming her to the ground.

“Where are we going?” Brock asked over his shoulder as Francisco herded him through the
jungle.

“You tell me, fed.”

Brock sighed. It wasn’t enough that he was worried sick about Kat, hoping like hell she could
outrun Carlos, but now he had Francisco making no sense. “What?”

“Where’s that key, fed?”

Ah, that. The moment the evil Morales brother had mentioned Brock taking something from
him, it had all made sense—that’s why they’d come back. They’d figured out that if the key
wasn’t on the boat, Brock must have taken it. Of course, he’d never admit to having it. As long as they didn’t have the key, they couldn’t kill him. Not unless they wanted to risk never finding it. “What key, man?”

Of course, finding it wouldn’t actually be all that hard. It was still zipped into the side pocket
on his swim trunks, currently tossed over the back of a chair in the bungalow. But they didn’t
know that.

“The key. The fucking key.” Francisco jabbed the gun into his back to shove him along. “I know you’ve got it, fed. Now you’d better lead me straight to it, or I will blow your brains out
in front of your pretty little girlfriend, then I’ll make her eat them.”

Okay, that turned even his FBI-hardened stomach—thank God Kat was nowhere around to
hear it. But he didn’t let it intimidate him. “Look, dude, I don’t know what key you’re talking
about.”

And when Francisco jabbed the gun into his back again, Brock got pissed. By this whole
situation. He knew he didn’t have a gun, and they had two, but they were a couple of
incompetents and he should damn well be able to outsmart them. And he was tired of fucking
around out here.

“Fine,” he said, “you want to know where the key is? I’ll tell you. It’s back in the gully where I left it when you found us.” He stopped, spun, and pointed in the direction from which they’d
traveled.

When Francisco automatically looked that way, Brock grabbed the evil brother’s gun-wielding
arm, forcing it skyward, then gave him a knee to the groin, forcing him down with a deep,
guttural groan.

But despite Francisco’s obvious pain, the bastard didn’t let go of the gun, as Brock had hoped,
so they rolled on the ground, fighting for it. A shot fired, blasting upward through the trees.
Francisco managed an admirable blow to Brock’ s gut—damn it!—slowing his momentum.
“Son of a bitch fed!” Francisco yelled, once, twice, but Brock said nothing, conserving his energy as he focused on wrenching the pistol from the bad guy’s fist.

When Brock finally closed his fingers around the grip, Francisco knocked it free, sending the
gun flying to land with a thud in the brush probably fifteen feet away. Shit. But that was better
than Francisco’s having it.

Both men instinctively seemed to know they could keep beating each other to a pulp all day and
it wouldn’t change this situation—firepower was the key—so they both struggled to their feet.
Francisco lunged, but Brock managed to trip him, sending him face-first into the dirt. Brock
rushed past his fallen form and, after a moment, spotted the gun, resting deep in the fronds of an enormous fern. He started to reach for it, then pulled back upon realizing a large brown
snake happened to be gliding past right next to it, but it had stopped, lifting its flat reptilian head
to eye the encroacher. Damn it to hell.

Brock lifted his gaze to his opponent to see Francisco had stopped short, too.

Then he thought—Shit, I’m going for it, and took a smooth step past the snake, carefully watching its head, ready to dive away if need be. The snake’s eyes followed him, but Brock
swiftly snatched up the gun and backed away without harm.

He turned to see Francisco sprinting through the jungle away from him, with a good head start.
“Stop or I’ll shoot!” Brock yelled, and when Francisco kept going, he cocked the pistol and
fired. But the evil Morales brother continued running, and two seconds later disappeared into
the thick foliage.

Brock jogged all the way back around the island while trying to watch for trouble. He kept the
gun cocked. And he thought of Kat, who, wherever she might be, was scared shitless by now.
I’m coming, kitten, I’m coming.

Please be okay, he thought, but then he decided she had to be, because the brothers would
surely try to ransom her when he caught up with them. And he’d trade the damn key for Kat in
a second—except for one thing. Give them the key, and he and Kat were both dead, no
question. No way the brothers could let him live, even before, let alone now. A thought that brought home the cold, hard truth: Someone would die before this was over. Just don’t let it be
Kat. He remained pretty determined not to let it be him, either.

He headed for the dock, figuring it was a likely meeting point for the brothers—and if he found
no one there, he’d make the short run to the bungalow.

But as first the water, then the dock, then the big, shiny, white yacht came into view through
the trees, he realized he wouldn’t have to look any further. Francisco and Carlos both stood on
the boat’s front deck—with Kat. Carlos held a gun to her head.