Taken by Surprise (16 page)

Rhonda bit the inside of her cheek to hold back a giggle. "Intimate scenes?" she supplied after a moment, hating to see a man flounder.

His hazel eyes twinkled. "Yeah."

Rhonda struggled with the urge to laugh as he returned to examining her feet. Her fingers dug into the ground behind her in her effort not to twitch.

"Ticklish?" His lips spread in a wide, goofy grin.

"Terribly."

"Go ahead and laugh if you want. It might help. You hurt yourself pretty good, a few contusions, nothing deep enough to require stitches. Do you feel any pain when I press on them?"

He applied pressure to several points on both feet, obviously careful not to push directly on the contusions. It felt more like a massage than an exam. She nearly moaned before another urge to giggle replaced the pleasure.

She shook her head. "Believe it or not, they don't hurt that badly. They make walking rather uncomfortable, but just sitting here or even standing in one place isn't too terrible."

"It's good you kept the shoes on most of the time, even if they were difficult to walk in. I'm going to apply an antibacterial ointment to the scratches, then put a bandage over them. Unless you plan to let one of us carry you everywhere for a while, I should probably wrap up both feet so they'll be protected."

"As much as it turns me on to be catered to by a team of muscle-bound hunks, I prefer to walk on my own, thank you."

He dug in his medical pack, pulled out what he needed. "Yeah, I figured you would say something like that."

The ointment he squeezed on the bottom of her foot felt cool, soothing. "That's not so bad."

"I haven't put it on the cuts yet," he warned. "You might want to take a deep breath or laugh." He shot her another wide grin, showing off a perfect set of white teeth. His actions mirrored his words as he continued. "I'm going to spread this all over the surface area. There may be some fainter scratches I can't see. This will clean the wounds as well as protect from infections."

His fingers moved methodically over the bottoms of her feet, spreading the ointment and working it into her skin. She braved the sting and the tickle for all of a second and a half before giving herself over to the strongest fit of giggles she had experienced since she was a little girl.

* * * *

"CO to retrieval team. Spaz. Report."

Michael's gaze slid to where Rhonda sat with the medic as Lieutenant Commander Korbin Ziegler contacted the three-man team he'd ordered to retrieve the crate. He should've been swamped with relief right about now. It was almost over. He'd gotten Rhonda safely out of Phay's compound despite unforeseen events and violence. They'd made it through the forest, connected with the SEALs, and would be boarding a chopper out of here shortly after nightfall.

So why didn't he feel relieved?

Because you have to let her go
.

He wanted to argue.
No. Damn it, not again.
But he knew the truth the moment he'd fired that kill shot into the tango in the forest. The leer that split Xavier's lips as he spat his last words etched itself in Michael's memory to taunt him with every step he took through the forest.

"You do all this for nothing. You come after the boss. You lose. Mr. Phay nowhere around tonight."

Which brought about the ultimate question Michael desperately needed answered: where the fuck did the kingpin go this time?

"Be advised you're not alone out there," Ziegler said into his lip mic.

Michael couldn't hear the SEAL's report. Instead, he focused on the end of the conversation he could hear, guessing from the CO's words the retrieval team hadn't yet reached their mark.

"A little birdie confirms at least three tangos in the vicinity of the prize," Ziegler continued.

Michael would be the little birdie, the crate the prize.

"Carry on as ordered. Stay low, stay hidden, weapons at the ready."

Ziegler's orders didn't surprise Michael. He'd pushed to arrive at the LZ in enough time to give the SEALs ample warning, but he hadn't expected them to pull out of the mission. Three tangos, three SEALs, despite the goat fuck potential of another compromised operation, this one would be a cake walk.

"Permission granted. Secure the area and retrieve the prize by any means necessary. Touch base in twenty. Over and out."

Awareness prickled at the fine hairs on his body. He glanced back at Rhonda to find her watching him, her expression starkly sexual. For a fleeting instant, jealously swamped him. The medic SEAL touched her feet with the tenderness of a lover's caress. Then her gaze slid pointedly down Michael's length, the blue depths swimming in a river of sparkling lust. He clearly caught the implication. She wanted him, not the SEAL, but for how long?

"I guess the only thing left for me to ask is if there's any room for me in this new, solitary life you've built?"

She'd never answered him, never got the chance. He had spotted the tangos, and the moment had been lost.

Why did he feel that moment would never be found again, when he made clear to her what needed to be done?

"I'm guessing you didn't encounter any other problems getting here."

Michael dragged his gaze from Rhonda, pushing aside the sudden urge to snatch her up and run. He wanted to disappear back into the forest with her, keep her all to himself, give her no choice but to lean on him for the rest of their lives. He realized the stupidity of the impulse. That didn't stop him from feeling it.

"Nothing related to the operation," he answered Ziegler.

A keen understanding moved through the CO's eyes. Korbin Ziegler hadn't become the respected leader of a team of SEALs by missing clues. "The harder they work, the harder they fall."

Michael lifted a brow.

"Or so I've been told." Ziegler angled his head in Rhonda's direction. "We might think there's no room in our lives for anything outside of the duties we've sworn to perform. Then something like that comes along and knocks the wind right out of our sails."

"He took her to get to me." Michael knew he didn't have to tell the SEAL that, but he said it nevertheless. Maybe he needed the reminder himself. It could happen again. If he didn't bring Phay down once and for all, it very well might happen again.

Catch the kingpin, and you can have the woman
.

That is if the woman didn't get fed up with him pushing her away until he accomplished the mission.

"It worked," Ziegler countered. "Though not likely as Phay planned."

"He didn't go down in the raid on his compound the other night."

"Nope, bastard slipped away again." Ziegler slanted him a look. "I didn't know if you were aware of that yet or not."

"I got it straight from the dying lips of one of his closest men."

"Boran Roumduol?"

Michael scoffed. "Don't I wish? No, this one went by the name of Xavier. He went after Rhonda back at the compound, followed her into the forest. By the time I got to her, she'd already taken him down."

"Christ," Ziegler swore. "She shot him?"

Michael nodded. "Snagged Dregs's gun before she started to run."

"I heard you lost a man in the takedown."

Ziegler didn't have to voice his apology and condolences. Michael saw them in the man's eyes. Michael didn't think the full impact had hit him yet. He'd bottled Dregs's death, put a lid on it, and set it on the shelf in his mind until he could properly pay his respects.

"I want the motherfucker, Korbin." Michael leveled a gaze at his friend that he knew the other man couldn't mistake for anything other than furious intent. "I'm not leaving this damned country until I know he's taken down for good."

"You're not alone." Ziegler spat on the ground, his jaw working with a fury of his own. He was no doubt thinking of the years he spent making a similar vow, the lives of his men disrupted or taken out by the kingpin. "As soon as the rest of my men get back, we'll radio the helo for extraction. Your buddies from the bureau and the rest of your men are holed up at the safe house waiting for us. We'll plan our next plan of attack when we hook back up with them."

"I want her on the first helo back to the States." The words left a bitter taste in Michael's mouth. The knife he already felt penetrating his chest at the thought of sending her away pushed a little deeper.

"Consider it already done." Ziegler slapped his shoulder in what he knew the SEAL meant to be a comforting gesture.

"She's going to hate me this time." He knew it, felt it, and couldn't do a damned thing about it.

"Are you kidding?" Ziegler barked a laugh. "That woman is going to be calling you a hero as you strip that amazing body naked and treat her like the goddess she is."

Just then Rhonda threw her head back and started laughing so hard it brought tears to his eyes. The medic chuckled, too, as what he did to treat the wounds on her feet obviously tickled the laughs right out of her.

"You don't know her like I do," Michael told Ziegler. "She's about as far from the damsel in distress as a woman can get. Damned if I know how to protect her, make her happy, and keep her all at the same time."

* * * *

Rhonda blinked as the headlights of the ATV landed on the safe house. It surprised her to find what appeared to be an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of the Cambodian forest. Obviously fallen to disrepair, the sagging roof appeared on the verge of collapsing. The paint-chipped outer walls might be blown down in the faintest wind. Windows, either broken or boarded over, offered little promise of a respite from the harshness of the forest.

Some safe house, she thought as the ATV came to a stop. She started walking, moonlight illuminating the path to the front porch. She felt oddly amused by the skeletal, dilapidated appearance of the rickety structure.
Think I'd be safer staying with Mother Nature
.

"Charming, isn't it?" A SEAL they called Spaz leaned in to say as he passed her.

She found herself grinning at the bubbling excitement in his tone.
Must be how he got the nickname
.

"It's not as bad on the inside," Ace, who kept pace with her on her right, assured her.

She decided his nickname might be Ace with the team, but to her, he quickly became Mr. Sweet because, well, he was just too freaking sweet. "Ah, it's one of those concealed treasure sites, then?"

"It has electricity and running water," he said enticingly.

Rhonda sighed dramatically, playing along. "If that's not enough to certify it a paradise among the trees, then I don't know what is."

"You can head straight for the shower if you like." On her other side, Michael hooked an arm around her waist, steering her to walk a little closer to him.

The possessive gesture almost made her forget the anger still simmering in the pot he'd set to boil when he helped her board the helo back at the LZ. Why he even bothered to let her off that helo once he put her on it was anybody's guess. He planned to put her right back on another one in short order anyway.

"Though you'll probably want to call Lucas first," he added, reordering her priorities. "It's midmorning back in the States. The task force managed to get a sat tower working out here, so we have cell service. I hear it's not the greatest, but it's better than nothing."

Rhonda bit her tongue so hard she thought she tasted blood. Yes, she wanted to talk to her son, to hear his voice, more than she wanted to take her next breath. She also didn't want to cause him any more fear than had he likely experienced already.

"Actually, I would prefer the shower first." She felt crusty as hell after their trek through the forest, both mentally and physically. She needed to clear her mind as well as clean her body. She needed a moment or ten alone to ponder over the strategy that had taken form in her mind during the short helo ride.

Surprise flickered through Michael's exotic eyes, but he didn't argue. He continued to use his hold on her waist to guide her to the safe house, offering her support when they started to climb the shifting front steps to the porch.

A quick survey of the open front room and single darkened hallway proved the electricity and running water to be the only assets of the safe house. Another plus in the safe house’s favor lay in the belief that they could hole up here for as long as needed while the men reevaluated objectives, tossed around policies, and formulated the next step in their operations.

Then again, she mused as Michael led her further into the room, she supposed it depended on the viewpoint. There seemed to be men everywhere she looked. Not just any men either, but muscle-bound bodies clad in solid black or camouflage in various stages from the fully clothed to the barely covered.

Talk about assets
.
It's like an erotic writer's research resort
. She stifled a chuckle and thought of the artist who designed the covers for her books.
Jan would get such a kick out of this!

"The bathroom is this way," Ace said helpfully. "I can take you back if you want. The light in the hallway is out."

Rhonda smiled at the SEAL and moved out of Michael's embrace. She imagined she could almost hear the enamel cracking on Michael's teeth, he was gritting them so hard. He didn't make a move to stop her, didn't utter a sound.

He probably caught on to the fact that you're pissed at him again
.

And most likely he didn't know why. For all his listening to her and understanding, he still didn't get it. He would, though, because she intended to spell it out for him just as soon as she got clean.

"Here we go." Ace pushed open a door that creaked on its hinges to reveal a surprisingly tidy, if rusty and out-of-date, bathroom. "There's soap and shampoo on the shower ledge and fresh towels on the shelf. One of the FBI guys is a clean freak that came prepared."

"Bet that's awkward, being out here surrounded by the many dirty things nature shares."

"Yeah, you bet." The SEAL laughed. "If there's anything else you need, just ask. I don't know if we can get it for you, but we'll do our best."

"Actually, there is." She shot a pointed look down her front and grimaced. The once gorgeous cocktail dress she wore had obviously seen better days. "I don't suppose you could find me some clothes. I don't know, a T-shirt and pants or something,
anything
to get me out of this dress."

His gaze fell between them and slowly climbed up, assessing her body in a way that felt as if he were measuring her every inch. She didn't see anything sexual in his eyes, didn't feel any heat from the look. She could almost see the thought wheels turning in his head, though.

"Wait right here." He held up a finger and disappeared further down the hall, returned seemingly a split second later with a pair of black BDUs and a black T-shirt much like the ones Michael wore. "These are mine. The shirt will probably swallow you, and you'll have to adjust the pants."

"Thank you!" She took the clothes, careful to hold them away from her dress, not wanting to get them dirty before she even got them on. She moved into the bathroom and started to close the door, but he stopped it with a sudden hand to the wood.

"Do you need help with the bandages on your feet?"

She hadn't considered that. He wrapped them so well back at the LZ that she felt almost as if she walked on cotton shoes. "I don't think so. I can take the bandages off to shower, can't I?"

He nodded. "It'll be good for them, further clean out the wounds. Be prepared for it to hurt, though." He grinned. "You might want to start laughing before you step into the shower. We'll put more ointment on them and replace the bandages when you're through."

Five minutes later, she wished she had allowed him to remove the layers of gauzelike stuff he'd wrapped around her feet. It seemed to take forever for her to unwind the cloth. She rolled her eyes at herself, knowing the mere anticipation of the shower awaiting her made time seem to drag.

She ached all over, from the bottoms of her feet to the roots of her hair. Keeping up with Michael had worked muscles in her body she didn't know existed. She didn't laugh when she stepped into the shower. Instead, a soft sigh of pure pleasure escaped her lips as she moved beneath the spray. She only managed to get the water to a lukewarm temperature, but it felt like Summerland to her abused flesh. Every bruise and abrasion smarted beneath the pressure of the shower. The line between pain and pleasure dimmed as the dirt and grime washed down the drain.

By the time she forced herself to get out of the shower, she felt like a new woman inside and out. She dressed in the clothes the SEAL had loaned her, sans underwear of any fashion seeing as she couldn't bring herself to put the dirty ones back on. The black T-shirt indeed swallowed her whole, the hem stretching to her knees, the arms nearly to her elbows. She rolled the sleeves, shoved the tail of the shirt into the BDUs as she stepped into the pants.

The medic SEAL was height-challenged. She had registered that almost immediately when she realized, at her five foot seven, they stood nose to nose. Swamped with gratitude for his shortness, she pulled the BDUs to her waist, adjusted the string until she felt fairly certain the paints would stay on her hips, and secured it with a quick knot.

"Now, to find a tie for this hair," she muttered aloud, scanning the bathroom. "Bingo!" She snatched a black band off the back of the toilet, refusing to consider things such as head lice as she plucked off the dark strand of hair wrapped around it. She twisted her still wet blonde strands in a loop and used the band to hold them in place. Without a mirror in the bathroom, she couldn't see how she looked. Quite frankly, she didn't care. She felt comfortable, clean, energized, and ready to take on the world.

"Or the sexy as sin, deliciously dangerous DEA Agent Michael Cosmos," she whispered and pulled open the bathroom door.

The darkness of the hallway engulfed her, coaxing a quick wave of panic to move through her system. She pushed it away, shaking her head at the absurdity. After everything she had gone through lately, would she let a short dark hallway frighten her?

I think not
.

Male voices spoke in turn, drifting to her on the stuffy air of the safe house. She used them as a guide, following the sound as she moved toward the light at the end of the hall. Her muscle-bound playground still occupied the front room. A heavy silence fell over them when they noticed her. Surprisingly, it didn't make her feel uncomfortable.

"Gentlemen," she greeted the room at large and got murmured versions of "ma'am" and "hello" in response.

With all of them dressed in field clothes, she found it difficult to discern who belong to which agency. She knew the six men of SEAL Team Six, though four were decidedly absent, only because they had been the ones to pull her and Michael out at the LZ. She recognized a couple of other faces as well. The tall man with the goatee seeming to keep an eye on the perimeter through the knothole in the boarded-up window belonged to the DEA. She saw him talking with Adrien Bingham outside the DEA HQ when she met her friend for lunch several months back. She recognized the deeply tanned bleached blond who sat on the upended crate near the tilted table in what she presumed to be the dining part of the large room. She remembered him from the day at the docks, the FBI agent Cameron Stone.

She quickly counted five other bodies in the room with faces she couldn't place and didn't bother to try. Her gaze flicked to Nelson, the other SEAL besides Ace in the room, and settled on his shoulder-length dark hair.

"I'm guessing the hair band I snagged in the bathroom belongs to you."

He rested his forearms on the back of the folding chair he straddled and assessed her through wintery pale eyes. "You'd probably be right."

When he continued to stare at her, not giving any outward sign of whether he was okay with that or not, she felt compelled to ask, "Should I return it?"

"Naw, you can keep it." His thick drawl came from somewhere other than Mississippi. She made a mental note to ask him where if she got the chance later. "Looks better on you anyways."

She smiled her thanks and shifted her attention to Michael. He had commandeered a spot at the table with the FBI agent, though he didn't appear anywhere near as relaxed as Cameron Stone. "Can I make that call to Lucas now?"

"Of course." Even as he answered her, he got to his feet and closed the distance between them in a few long strides. He pulled a cell phone from his pocket, handed it to her. "Do you want to go in another room so you can have some privacy?"

"Please." Rhonda followed him to one of the closed doors down the darkened hall. The bedroom beyond the door wasn't much larger than the bathroom. It contained a single twin bed covered by faded sheets and a table that seemed to barely support the weight of the lamp atop. "Thank you," she said when he gestured her inside.

He didn't go in with her, but stayed in the doorway. "Rhonda."

She turned, her breath catching as she met the steely coolness in his gaze. A definite tension had forced its way between them on the helo. It hadn't stayed there, she saw now, but followed them right into the safe house, right into this room. It felt alien to be this way with him. No matter what transpired in the past, the space between them had never felt this suffocating, this strained.

"Use the speed dial. Number one will get you in contact with Lucas. He's still in protective custody."

That's right. Gods, how could she have forgotten that? Tears swam into her eyes, blurring her vision. "Thank you." She choked on the words, hoping he understood she wasn't merely thanking him for the instruction, but for taking care of her boy when she hadn't been able to.

"I'll give you a few minutes alone. Then we need to talk." He closed the door softly, leaving her staring through shimmering eyes, dreading the conversation ahead.