Rescue Me (6 page)

"Adventure." This time her voice was dry, but it held a faint thread of nerves.

Adventure
, for God's sake. He didn't remind her that he'd pointed out all the dangers inherent in going to one of the most dangerous countries in the world. AndSouth Africa was a cake walk compared to Huren . "You're lucky you weren't killed. Next time you want goddamned adventure, take me up on
my
offer."

"Which offer was that? A ride on your motorcycle? Or the ride on
you
! I don't consider sex an adventure. Sorry, Sam, but that can't compare with
this
experience. Other than in both instances I'd be sweaty. Possibly panting."

"I'm insulted," he said, amused as hell. She'd be panting and sweaty all right. He couldn't wait. "You find sex boring do you?" A statement like that from a woman, especially
this
woman, was like waving a red flag at a bull.

"It's pleasant," she muttered, damming one of life's greatest perks with faint praise.

"With
Bob
it was pleasant."

"Rob."

"Because you weren't that into each other."

"We were married."

"Sex between two people who want each other more than their next breath can be explosive."

"I'll take your word for it. I've taken life far too seriously up until now. School, school, and school.

Opening my practice, building my practice. Long hours at the clinic—I've been living life in black and white. I
want
a little Technicolor." She sounded resolved if not enthusiastic.

"Admittedly not as much Technicolor as being kidnapped at
gunpoint
, but something a few notches down from this would suit me just fine."

Sam vowed she'd have as much Technicolor as she could handle. Soon. "What does your family think about this wild hair you got about coming toAfrica ?"

"My sister's been inMallaruza for a couple of months, and loves it. I thought starting out slowly by going toCape Town would give me theflavor ofAfrica . I also wanted to experience the people and different culture—"

"You were kidnapped and taken to a country even more dangerous than the first."

"Thank you for reminding me. I'm already scared out of my wits. I bet my sister would love every insane second of this.
Kess
isn't scared of
anything
!'

"Then she's a moron," Sam told her bluntly. He hadn't met Beth's sister. But she sounded like a flake with a death wish to him. He had no idea why Beth was so determined that she could or
should
match her sister's rashbehavior . Especially when she didn't have the stomach for it.

"So you're the sane one, and she'd the wild one?"

"I'm the boring daughter, andKess is the bold one. She's always taking exciting vacations, which is why I wanted to do something bold for once."

"But whyAfrica ? With your love of Italian food, why notItaly ?"

"I'm saving that to go with—"

"With?"

"Somebody.

"Who?"

"I don't know yet," she said, sounding cross. "Someone special. Probably my sister."

Liar. If she were going to go with her sister she would have done so already. "Why didn't you go with your husband?"

"He liked American vacations."

"Yeah? How many of those did you take together?"

"We were too busy going to med school and starting the practice. There are plenty of places in the States where you can learn new techniques. Plenty of places that are exciting and different. Didn't have to

beAfrica ."

"Didn't have to be. But was."

He set agrueling pace to make up time. When necessary, he slashed a path through the vegetation with the machete. Gnats and mosquitoes swarmed around them, heard but unseen in the dark. He'd made sure that every inch of exposed skin was covered inDEET , but the chances of getting bitten anyway were high.

Thank God she was able to keep up, her hand, a small, hard ball of a fist clutching the back of his belt.

He'd always wanted DoctorGoodall's small hand down his pants, Sam thought wryly as he shoved a large leaf out of the way, then held it so it wouldn't lash back. This wasn't what he'd had in mind.

He was aware of her every breath as she trudged along behind him. He was pushing it, trying to put as much distance as he could between them and the compound before they realized she'd flown the coop.

Trying to get to the river. Trying not to give her the tongue lashing she deserved for coming to a war-torn country in the middle of fucking
nowhere
to prove a point that wasn't even important.

A rustle in a nearby shrub made him turn his head just in time to see the horizontally striped butt end of an okapi. Thedeerlike animal, closely related to a giraffe, darted through the underbrush unleashing a troupe of chimps, who chatted and screeched their annoyance at being woken.

A glance up at the jigsaw puzzle pieces of charcoal-coloredsky now visible between the tree canopy told him dawn was on its way. Once the sun rose, the animals would be in search of food and water, making them even more alert to predators. Which was precisely why Sam had set up the extraction point at the most likely spot they used to drink.

The original plan had been to arrive hours before the beasts of the jungle came down to the river. Letting the activity of the animals mask their departure. So much for
that
plan.

Changing strategy as he walked, Sam decided that he'd park Beth somewhere upriver, and go down and get the boat on his own. He'd move faster and could, if necessary, misdirect anyone on their tail.

They
would
come after her.Thadiwe had worked too damn hard to get a physician here. He wasn't going to let Beth go without a fight.

Well, Sam wasn't going to give her up without a goddamned fight either.

"How did you know where to find me?"

"I know people in low places." He didn't bother mentioning that he'd almost puked with fear when those people had informed him who had snatched Beth.

He'd comeAfrica to bring her body home.

Chapter Five

Sam had said it would take three hours to get to the river. Surely they'd walked for longer than that?

While Sam moved through the stygian darkness with a lithe powerful sure-footedness,Elizabeth 's calves and lungs burned, and her skin itched despite the temperature-regulated suit. She was damn sureKess wouldn't be huffing and puffing, mentally begging to stop so she could sit down and rest. No, her sister would be leading the way. She might not know where she was going or how to get there,Elizabeth thought with a small smile, but no one followingKess would know it.

The only reality inElizabeth 's world was her grip on Sam's belt as she stumbled blindly in his wake, stubbing her booted toes on roots and vines. And while she could easily picture him in her mind's eye, that image didn't in any way gel with the man who'd come to rescue her. With the man who'd kissed her so passionately it had made her blood race through her veins and her heart hammer.

She hated not being in control. And she hadn't been in control of her own fate from the moment she'd been snatched from Lynne's hotel room.

"How's the hand?"

It throbbed, but that was to be expected. "Okay."

"Tell me if it isn't. Don't try and be brave. An infection here can kill you."

"I'm a doctor, Sam. I know. Thanks to you, it's f—"

Suddenly his palm covered her mouth.Elizabeth gulped down the reactive scream, but felt it vibrate in her chest as he whispered against her ear. "Shh. Company."

She froze. Oh, God. She hadn't heard anything out of the ordinary. If walking in the pitch dark through a rain forest filled with snakes and monkeys and more birds than anyone could imagine could be considered ordinary.

"Down." He tugged at her arm, bending low with her. His voice was so muted it was almost more a feeling than a sound. His arm brushed hers and she realized he was removing the pack from his back.

She heard a soft thud as it landed on the damp ground next to her. "Know how to fire a gun?" he whispered, his lips against her ear.

Elizabethshook her head. "I sew up holes in people, not make them."

"I'll give you a crash course."

She shook her head again. A tiny thrill of adrenaline swirled in her belly. A big believer in self-defense, she'd spent too much time in the ER to actually pull a trigger. Or so she thought. Life or death.

Despite her refusal, Sam wrapped her non-sliced hand around what was clearly a big gun. A very big, very heavy gun. Her fingers closed around the ribbed stock. It felt weird, foreign. "I'd rather
you
take it,"

she whispered back urgently. It was only as she flexed her stiff fingers that she realized just how tightly she'd been gripping his belt.

Sam positioned her fingers, his touch playing havoc with her good judgment. "Won't need it. Safety's off.

Point and shoot. Fires eight hundred rounds a minute. You won't miss. When I come back I'll whistle like this." He whistled a sweet, sharp incredibly realistic bird call.Elizabeth hoped to hell no birds came to see

who was calling them.

"Wait—you're leaving me?"

Screaming sounded more humane than aiming a gun and taking a life. The scream was again building in her chest. She tamped down the fear. She needed to think rationally and be alert. Being scared right now wasn't an option. She eased into a slightly more comfortable crouch bymillimeters .

Now she heard them. Footsteps. Leaves rustling. Breathing. She wanted to plead with Sam to hunch down with her, to wait until whoever it was passed. But she knew he'd be proactive.

He brushed a quick kiss across her nose, light as a butterfly's wing. "Stay low." One second he was right there, the next he was gone. She knew he'd left, not because he made any noise, but because she could no longer feel his presence beside her.

"Be careful," she mouthed.

The raucous sounds of the jungle closed in on her, as did the oppressive darkness. She'd outgrown her fear of the bogeyman in her closet long before her tenth birthday, but this darkness scared thebejesus out of her. The dangers here were very real. And imminent.

Crouched uncomfortably in the thick, inky darknessElizabeth waited, her heartbeat sounding like thunder in her ears, her jaw clenched to prevent crying out every time something crawled over her bare hands, or some creepy critter brushed her face. She tried not to imagine what that was sitting lightly on her cheek, or what the weight was on the instep of her right boot. She bit off the scream that surged up her throat as a bird shot out of a nearby shrub as if catapulted. Dragging in a shuddering breath, she held it until her heart settled down. She was dammed if she'd have a freaking heart attack because a
bird
flew past her.

Better than thinking about men tracking her with guns, mile-long centipedes, poisonous ants, poisonous frogs and, of course, a multitude of poisonous snakes.

The only thing she had between herself and all those dangers was SamPelton . The thought was so wrongly comforting.

Five men.Camo .NVGS . AK47s. Well trained. Cautious. And definitely tracking their missing doctor.

There was no other reason for their presence. No nearby villages to pillage, and Sam doubted they were hunting forbushmeat .Thadiwe was too sophisticated to eat the local flora and fauna, and the compound was miles from anywhere. No. It was Beth thatThadiwe's soldiers hunted.

Damn it to hell. He'd miscalculated, and they'd discovered her absence, and the hidden Jeep, hours before Sam thought they would. Removing the KA-BAR from histac belt with his left hand, Sam circled around, slipped in behind them. Matching his steps to the man bringing up the rear, hemaneuvered up close. With no warning he brought his forearm around and beneath the guy's chin. Pulling him back and off balance, Sam struck directly up, into the man's kidneys. It was a quick, silent death, the pain so intense the man couldn't scream before he died. Sam caught the soldier as he soundlessly collapsed against him, and lowered the body quietly into the bushes.

Sam wiped the bloodied knife on the man's shirt. One down, four to go.

Killing the soldier had taken all of three seconds. Didn't bother Sam right then, but later he'd remember why he'd gotten out of combat and into the training side. But for now he had absolutely no compunction killing as many people as it took to keep Beth safe.

He took the second and third guys out the same coldly efficient way as he'd done the first. The fourth and fifth might have been slow on the uptake, but the second they realized that they were under attack they got with the program and both rushed Sam at once.

Good. No weapons fired to draw the attention of any other hunters. The first guy came at him in a flurry of well-trained arms and legs. Sam blocked the first blow with his forearm, thenswiveled to kick out at number two who had come in from the side, his AK47 raised to fire. Kicking out, Sam got rid of both man and weapon. The second guy went flying, striking a tree trunk with a hollow thud that set off a flock of birds in a screeching flutter of wings, ghostly through theNVGs . A group of chimps shot out of the lower branches, screaming annoyance as they swung from branch to branch.

Bending his arm, Sam used a chopping motion from the elbow, his entire body weight behind the edge-of-the-hand blow to the first guy's throat as he came at him full tilt. His hand made a satisfying connection just below the enemy's Adam's apple. The guy gagged and dropped.

The other soldier was already up on his feet and charging back for more. With a feral smile Sam sidestepped the punch to the jaw, grabbing his opponent's wrist with one hand, and pulled him off balance. With the other hand he yanked off the guy'sNVGs , then melted into the high bushes to his right.

The man came blindly after him. Sam stayed dead still.

The man turned in a circle, scared now, babbling God only knew what. Sam came up on him from behind, wrapping his left arm around the guy's neck, bearing down on his throat in a Japanese stranglehold. One arm across his throat, the other on his shoulders, his palm on the back of the man's head. Pulling him backwards, Sam pressed the guy's head forward.