Danger Close (The Echo Platoon Series, Book 1) (13 page)

She nodded, avoiding eye contact. "Yes."

"Okay. I'll see you soon," he said, reluctant to let her go. "Thanks for coming to me."

Sam waited for Maddy to climb into her Jeep. Her expression struck him as pensive as she turned the vehicle around, pointing it toward her condo.

"Austin, come here," Sam said, catching sight of Bamm-Bamm and waving him back over.

"Sir?"

"I've got a special assignment for you," he said. He nodded toward the retreating Jeep. "The woman you just met is the daughter of a future senator." That was assuming Lyle Scott won a Senate seat, which Sam was pretty sure he would.

"Whoa."

"And that's where she lives," he added as Maddy swung into the alley by her house. "I want you to keep an eye on her. Don't let anyone near her without me hearing about it right away."

"Yes, sir," Bamm-Bamm agreed with enthusiasm, his gaze glued to Maddy as she walked from the Jeep to her door.

Wishing he were in Bamm-Bamm's shoes and not about to face Mad Max and Master Chief, who would want to know, as he had, why Madison Scott, whom they'd recovered out of Mexico, was now here in Paraguay, Sam swiveled on the balls of his tennis shoes and headed toward the Tactical Operations Center in his workout clothes. It wasn't until he was bearing down on the TOC that a belated suspicion skewered him, causing his stride to break.

Ricardo would never have brought Maddy in such close proximity to terrorists that she could make out the color of their leader's eyes. And yet she'd seemed so certain of that detail; he knew she wasn't making it up. The only alternative made him break into a cold sweat: She'd lied about the incident at the lab. She
had
seen the men who'd broken into the facility and stolen the nitric acid. In fact, she'd probably come face-to-face with them and had somehow lived to tell about it.

* * *

Maddy paced the floor of Ricardo's condominium with a tiny bundle in the crook of one arm. After an hour of fussing, baby Isabella had finally ceased to fret, lapsing into a peaceful sleep. If only Maddy's churning thoughts would also subside.

She worried about Ricardo and his prognosis. What if his injuries kept him from returning to work? She'd just gotten to know him and rely on him. She couldn't possibly get the land and water samples required for the lab on her own. Why, oh why, had he wanted to know what the soldiers were up to in the first place?

Perhaps Lucía would have some answers when she returned, which ought to be any minute now. Maddy had been watching the baby for several hours already.

Carrying Isabella to the bassinette beside her parents' bed, Maddy lowered her gingerly into it, and paused to tuck a small, soft blanket around her. Isabella, still so tiny, so vulnerable, slept on.

Resting her hands on her thighs, Maddy studied the baby's perfection with no small amount of wonder. Isabella had inherited her father's long eyelashes. In her sleep, they feathered her plump cheeks. A dark wedge of hair topped her round head. Her chin sported a tiny cleft. Her tiny hands were a masterpiece of craftsmanship, right down to the perfect little fingernails.

A seedling of maternal feelings rooted into Maddy's heart, catching her off guard. For the first time in her life, she wondered what her own child might look like and how she would raise it.

Not here
, she assured herself, suppressing a protective shudder.
Her
daughter wouldn't grow up anywhere close to danger. Her lips twisted at the irony that she now understood her father's reluctance to let her leave the safety of the United States.

The sound of a key jiggling in the lock pulled Maddy's attention from the baby. Lucía was home at last. Easing out of the bedroom, she found Ricardo's wife closing the door behind her, looking careworn and more than a little frazzled at having left her baby for so long.

"How was she?" Lucia asked, depositing a bag on the sofa and peering past Maddy toward the bedroom.

"She was an angel," Maddy assured her in Spanish. "She fell asleep after I changed her diaper and fed her the formula you left me."

"Oh, good. Thank you so much."

Noting the lines of worry etched into the young woman's face, Maddy asked how Ricardo fared.

Lucía grimaced. "His tail bone was shattered from his sudden fall," she relayed. "They'll perform surgery tomorrow to remove the chipped pieces. After that, he should heal quickly. His face will be scarred but still handsome." Her voice wavered and she forced a smile.

Maddy laid a hand on the shorter woman's shoulder. "I'm so sorry this happened to him, Lucía."

"It's not your fault. He's been through worse. It's a small thing."

But one that shouldn't have happened in the first place. "I don't understand why he got out of the Jeep at all. It's not his job to protect those oil wells."

Lucía's expression became impossible to read. "Ricardo is too curious for his own good," she said, dismissing the subject with a wave of her hand.

"I guess he is," Maddy relented. "Well, I'll leave you to rest now."

"Thank you again for watching the baby."

"Any time." With a swift hug for Lucía, she headed to the door. "Good night. I'll check on you in the morning." She would also be calling GEF headquarters to see whether they expected her to carry on her work alone.

As she slipped into the balmy night air, Maddy's gaze went straight to the lights of the military installation across the street. A yearning to see Sam stitched through her. He'd been so concerned and tender toward her this afternoon. She thought about her slip of the tongue when she'd mentioned the color of the terrorist leader's eyes. The explosion had obviously addled her wits, causing her to say too much. Or did she feel guilty for perhaps contributing to Ricardo's injury by giving the terrorists the nitric acid without questioning what they intended to use it for?

Either way, she wanted desperately for Sam and his SEALs to halt the terrorists' evil intent.

With her emotions in a tumult, she turned toward her own front door, a mere ten steps away. Uncertainty assailed her as she mounted the stoop and reached for the door knob.

What if the terrorist leader had glimpsed her in the Jeep today the same way she'd thought she'd recognized a couple of the men? Even from a distance, her light hair and fair skin would have given her away. He would only assume upon seeing her so soon that she'd broken her promise not to tell a soul about the incident at the lab. That being the case, what would stop him from hunting her down and killing her as he'd threatened?

With Ricardo's Jeep parked right off the main road, advertising her location, it would be so easy for him to find out where she lived. Except she wasn't the only person living in this duplex, which meant that Lucía and her baby were in danger, as well.

Stricken by that terrifying thought, Maddy fumbled to unlock her door. As she edged into her dark house, flicking on the lights, the vision of a man sprawled across her couch brought a cry to her lips. He jerked awake at the frightened sound, sitting up and planting his feet on the floor in less than a second.

Chapter 7

"Sam!"
Maddy's runaway heart slowed to a more acceptable tempo. As she sagged against the door, Sam swiped the sleep from his eyes then lowered his hand to study her intently, taking note of the relief she couldn't hide.

"You were expecting someone else?" he mildly guessed.

Did nothing escape his notice? "No," she refuted, shutting and locking the door behind her and assuming a more assured demeanor. "You caught me by surprise, is all. How'd you get in?"

He ignored the question completely. "Where have you been?" he asked.

What was this about? She gestured next door. "I was babysitting so Lucía could visit her husband."

"Ah."

She got the impression that he already knew that.
 

"How's he doing?"

"He has to have surgery tomorrow to remove the broken pieces of his tailbone. He should be fine after that."

Sam nodded. "That's good," he said.

"Why are you here?" If he stuck around for long she was afraid she'd throw herself in his arms and blurt the truth about the lab incident.

"I want to ask you something." He pushed abruptly to his feet and approached her.

Maddy had to lock her knees to keep from backing up. Sam's jaw, darkened by stubble, made him look doubly appealing. Since the night he'd extracted her from Matamoros, his hair had grown significantly. The glossy waves curled around his ears and at the back of his neck, making her itch to run her fingers through it. Recalling the blistering kiss they'd shared the other night, her pulse ticked upward, accompanied by a rise in her internal temperature.

"Ask me what?" she asked in a huskier voice. He stood within six inches of her, so close that she could smell his alluring, purely masculine scent.

He held her gaze captive. "What really happened the other day at GEF's lab?"

A muted roar filled her ears. So, he had noticed her slip of the tongue earlier—of course he had. And now he wanted an honest answer. Unfortunately, she had no ready lie available. "I can't tell you," she whispered.

He would tell her father who would insist she leave the country, and she wasn't ready to go. Not yet—not when the effects of the oil wells were just beginning to crop up. Not before she could prove their effect on the environment.

Sam's eyes narrowed accusingly. "You came face-to-face with the men who killed the security guard didn't you?"

The awful memory stormed her thoughts. She could feel the blood draining from her face, leaving the top of her head suddenly cold.

"What happened?" Sam's voice roughened. His caught her upper arms in hands that were like manacles and lightly shook her as if that would loosen her lips.

Maddy shook her head. "I can't tell you" she insisted, her voice rising with distress.

His dark green eyes flashed. "Your partner Ricardo almost got killed today, and you can't tell me what you know about the men who did it?"

His quick temper made her own temper rise, but she thought about Lucía and the baby, potential targets to terrorists looking for Maddy, and she shook her head. "No."

With a scowl of frustration, Sam dropped his hands from her shoulders and whirled away. He stalked to the nearest window and stood there peering outside for a moment. Maddy held her breath wondering at his next move.

Suddenly, he yanked the curtains shut so that no one outside could see in. Maddy's heart thudded uncertainly. He swiveled on the balls of his feet, pulling a folded piece of paper out of his back pocket as he approached again.

"Fine," he said, extending a printout of headshots of what she assumed were high-profile terrorists. "Don't tell me anything. Just point with your finger if you recognize any of these men."

In dread, Maddy eyed the swarthy, bearded faces in the photographs before her, fully expecting to recognize her nemesis. When she came to the last picture, she started again at the top, certain she had overlooked him. On her second pass, she stifled a gasp as the scarred face of a heavily bearded soldier snared her attention. The man in the next photo also looked familiar.

"Point," Sam urged, watching her reaction closely.

Maddy raised a reluctant finger and pointed to the man who'd wanted the leader to kill her. "Him," she said. "And him," she added, deciding that the second man had also been present in the lab that day.

"Only two?" Sam persisted. "There were at least four intruders."

Maddy skimmed the printout one more time. "The other two aren't here."

"What about the one with the blue-green eyes?"

She looked again. "Not here." She would have recognized his picture anywhere.

"But these two were?"

"Yes." She wondered what terrible event she had just set into motion by breaking her word. "He said he would kill me if I told anyone," she added, suddenly afraid.

Sam gave a blistering curse. "No one's going to kill you," he vowed. Lifting her chin with his fingertips, he forced her to look him in the eye. "Do you hear me? These terrorists aren't going to get anywhere near you."