Blue Forever (Men in Uniform) (23 page)

38

DeAnne could tell the cigar boat had been specially outfitted for smuggling. It was full of secret compartments and hollow spaces. Not that she was noticing . . .

She and Darcy hid in a shallow hold while the driver steered the small craft into the crowded Sanya harbor. Customs officials weren’t looking for people being smuggled
in
to China, and because the small boat had a Hong Kong registry, it slid through with just a casual wave.

Even so, DeAnne was shaking in her sandals. How did these STORM operators do this dangerous stuff all the time? She’d be a nervous wreck. Heck, she
was
a nervous wreck.

And this was the easy part. The hard part would be getting the guys back to the boat. She didn’t even want to think about what would happen if the customs agents wanted to inspect the speed boat on the outbound trip.

Approaching the forest of docks, she and Darcy crept from their hiding place and straightened their clothing—just plain jeans and T-shirts, along with black wigs. They didn’t want to attract any kind of attention. Definitely saving the bikinis and light hair for the return trip.

The boat driver pulled into the marina where Julie had arranged for a car to be left for them in the parking lot.

“Wait for us here,” Darcy told him. “Be ready to rock and roll when we get back.”

They found the car, and Darcy got behind the wheel. “Now comes the fun part,” she said with an irreverent grin.

“You are utterly insane,” DeAnne muttered, but without a bit of heat. Truth be told, she was terrified and nervous as hell . . . but she was also excited. This was way better than composing dry, ineffective, diplomatic memos.

She was actually
rescuing
four people. Talk about an adrenaline rush.

As much as she hated to admit it, she was starting to understand the appeal, and how it could so easily become addictive to a man . . .

Although there was never a good reason for abandoning your wife and child. For that, she would never forgive her father.

Darcy stuck the GPS onto the windshield and took off, following a circuitous route to the back-alley hotel, just to be sure they weren’t being followed. Along the way they spotted several PLA jeeps roaming the streets like sharks. They smiled pleasantly at every one of them.

“Jeez Louise,” Darcy said. “They are really out in force.”

DeAnne clung to the strap of the duffel bag in her lap holding the guns, making sure the zipper was down. “What do we do if they stop us?” she asked nervously.

Darcy cut her a look. “I’m relying on your diplomatic skills. But when in doubt, shoot first and ask questions later.” DeAnne opened her mouth to protest, and Darcy added, “With the stun guns, of course.”

DeAnne let out a breath. “Of course.” Thank God for those. The whole international-incident-leading-to-World-War-Three thing weighed heavily on her mind, to be honest. She did not want to go down in history as the new Archduke Ferdinand.

Especially since he’d died.

“Then why did we bring the shotguns?” she asked.

“It’s always good to have options. If it comes down to us or them, we definitely want it to be us.”

DeAnne still struggled with the idea of pulling an actual trigger on a fellow human being . . . but if they were shooting at her, she could probably get past her aversion.

Following the GPS arrow, Darcy crept the car past the rundown hotel, and DeAnne peered up through the window to the second floor where one of the guys was supposed to be watching for them.

She spotted a tall, dark man standing at a flyspecked window, mostly obscured by a dingy curtain. When he saw their car slowly passing by, he flicked the curtain back for a moment. She’d only seen Nikolai Romanov from a distance that one time just after she and Kip were “kidnapped,” but the man looked like him. She lifted her hand in greeting . . .

Just as another large figure filled the window. He leaned his forearm on the glass pane, his other hand gripping a white band across his midsection.

Her heart stopped, then took off and soared like a dove in flight.

Kip!

Her hand reached for him, her fingers splayed against the car window.

His face was grim, but when he spotted her in the car he straightened and his expression went rigid, first with dismay, then with pain.

“You didn’t tell him I was coming,” she said.

“Not exactly,” Darcy admitted. “No sense worrying him.”

They drove past the hotel and were about to turn into the alley behind it when they saw another PLA jeep coming in the opposite direction. Darcy kept driving.

“Crap,” she muttered. “They are freaking everywhere.”

This time, the soldiers in the jeep turned in their seats to watch their progress.
Uh-oh
. Despite the black wigs, she and Darcy were obviously Westerners. And this was not exactly a tourist district.

“We may have trouble,” she said.

Darcy kept checking the rearview mirror. “Spread out the map over that duffel,” she instructed as she whipped the GPS off the windshield and stuck it in the bag.

DeAnne snapped open the thin roadmap on her lap, as if she were studying it, sliding the duffel onto the floor, but still within reach.

To her horror, in the side mirror she saw the jeep do a tight U-turn and speed after them. DeAnne’s pulse skyrocketed.

“God
damn
it,” Darcy swore. “Okay, just be cool and follow my lead.”

The jeep zoomed after them, catching up, and drawing even. Brandishing their weapons, the soldiers indicated they should stop the vehicle.

Darcy stopped.

None of the men spoke English, and DeAnne wasn’t about to let them know she spoke Mandarin. They were speaking some kind of dialect she wasn’t familiar with, but she caught enough of it to understand they were very suspicious of two Western women in this section of town.

Darcy was amazing. Using sign language and a lot of smiles and deprecating laughter, she pointed at the map and showed them where they wanted to go—an ethnic tourist zone somewhat nearby—and said they’d gotten hopelessly lost. She was so convincing even DeAnne believed her story. She just sat there and nodded and kept a big smile plastered on her face . . . and her trembling fingers gripped in her lap.

As the lead guy showed them the way to the tourist zone, the other soldiers looked into the backseat and asked Darcy to pop the trunk, which she did.

Apparently they passed muster, and the head guy finally indicated they could go. Which they quickly did, waving and calling their thank-yous. Darcy carefully followed their directions. At least for a few blocks.

DeAnne let out a shuddering sigh of relief. “Oh, my God. I thought I was going to have a heart attack.”

Darcy laughed. “That was nothing. You need to toughen up if you’re going to be in this business, girl.”

DeAnne looked at her aghast. “If that’s what you think, you’re delusional.”

The other woman shrugged. “Well, if you’re going to be with Kip . . .”

DeAnne folded the map to give her hands something to do. “I could never do this for a living,” she said. “And even if I wanted to, Kip isn’t interested in a ‘be with’ kind of relationship. He’s more of a no strings guy.”

“So you say. But I’ve seen the way he looks at you. He wants to be with you.
Be with
be with. He may just not have admitted it to himself yet.”

DeAnne refused to let Darcy’s words give her hope. She had decided to tell him how she felt and accept whatever part of himself he would give her. She desperately longed for more than no strings. But she didn’t dare hope.

“Anyway,” she said, swallowing down the twisting knot of emotion stuck in her throat, “I’m not cut out for this kind of life.”

“If you say so.” Darcy took a quick right turn, and doubled back toward the hotel. “Keep your eyes peeled. We don’t want to run into those soldiers again. I got the distinct feeling they didn’t believe a word I said.”

They made it back, and turned into the narrow, garbage-laden alley behind the hotel, driving slowly up it.

“Do you see them?” DeAnne asked, searching for any sign of the men. They were supposed to meet them back here. It would be too risky for a woman alone to enter the hotel. That would be an instant red flag to anyone manning the desk.

“There. Behind that Dumpster.”

DeAnne spotted Nikolai Romanov hailing them. Wow. His face looked awful—full of cuts and bruises. One eye was nearly swollen shut. She tried not to think about what he’d gone through to get that way.

Darcy sped up and pulled in next to the overflowing garbage container they were hiding behind, then leapt from the car, rushing straight for Bobby Lee Quinn. She didn’t quite throw herself into his arms, but almost—just mindful of his wounded thigh. She gave him a quick but passionate kiss. “Hey, baby. Ready to go home?”

He gave her a smile that DeAnne could feel the heat of all the way to where she was standing. She’d gotten out of the car, too.

“Hell, yeah, baby. Get us out of this dump, would you?”

Darcy kissed him again. “By the way. How about a May wedding?”

Bobby Lee looked momentarily nonplussed. “But it’s May now.”

Darcy beamed back at him. “Yeah. I know.”

Alex cut into the happy scene with a groan. “Okay, you lovebirds. Enough of this shit. Can we get the fuck out of here, please?”

The pair broke apart and DeAnne came to with a start. She’d been watching them with such a powerful mixture of happiness for them and pure, unadulterated envy that she had to take a cleansing breath to shake it off.

That’s when she realized Kip was watching her, not them, with an indecipherable look on his face—and it didn’t look like happiness or envy.

Flustered, she opened her mouth to say something, but her mind went completely blank. Which was fine because everyone started to move at once.

“One of you, get in the trunk,” ordered Darcy.

Alex headed for the back of the car, but Kip spun him around again by his good shoulder. “Not you.” He grabbed DeAnne’s arm and hauled her along. “You’re coming with me.”

“Hey!” she protested. She did not want to get in the trunk, with him or anyone else.

“What the
hell
are you doing here?” he growled, practically shoving her into the car boot.

“Rescuing you,” she said testily, landing on her butt with an
oof
in the cramped space. “You could be a little grateful.”

He snorted. “Scoot in more.”

“Is this really necessary?” she demanded.

“Yes!” When she didn’t move, he pushed her down and climbed in gingerly after. He lay down on his back, grunting in pain at his ribs as he squished in next to her.

She canted onto her side and pressed herself as far into the recess as she could get, to give his huge frame more room. Her arms ended up around him, her body half over his, and her face pressed against the crook of his neck.

Nikolai Romanov appeared and shut the trunk on them. It went pitch black inside, and the smell of gasoline and old tires almost made her gag.

“You really know how to show a girl a good time,” she muttered.

“DeAnne,” he said, his voice rife with warning. “You should not be here.”

“That makes two of us,” she returned heatedly.

The car started with a lurch.

He took a deep breath. “It’s my job, DeAnne.”

“No,” she said. “It’s not. Your job is being a U.S. Marine.”

“Maybe not for much longer,” he said darkly.

She stilled, her irritation temporarily on hold. “Why not?”

The car sped around a corner, throwing them closer together.

“Julie left us a cell phone, so I called my commanding officer to let him know where I was. He said he was quite aware of where I am. He said we needed to talk. And that I should start rethinking my career.” He eased out a breath.

She tightened her arm around his shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Kip. I know your career is everything to you.”

Boy, didn’t she.

“I used to think so,” he murmured.

The tires jolted over a series of bumps and potholes, jostling her into him again. He grunted in pain and she felt him press a hand to his ribs.

“Sorry!” She tried to ease away, but he held her fast.

“DeAnne, there’s something I need to tell you.”

A terrible sense of foreboding flooded through her. Her heart went cold with dread.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I haven’t been completely honest with you about . . . well, about myself.”

The dread turned to a tight, hard lump in her stomach.

Oh, God. Here it comes
.

“Oh?” she managed again.

Please, please, don’t tell me you’re married
.

“No. I’m . . .” He hesitated. “I have a—”

Suddenly, the car accelerated fast, swerving hard to the left, then right. They were thrown together and it was all she could do to help keep him from smacking into the sides and cracking his ribs all over again.

“What’s happening?” Panic swept through her as she felt him reach over and pull his pistol from its holster.

“They’ve spotted us,” he gritted out, racking the gun. “And now they’re hunting us down.”