A SEAL Wolf Christmas (5 page)

He chuckled and headed next door. Next time, he’d plan the logistics better so he didn’t have his hands full of anything but Anna. Finn unlocked the door for him, and Bjornolf left the food on a table while Hunter gave them the guard schedule. They ate the spicy tamales and mango-pineapple cranberry sauce—typical South American fare for the holidays—and drank the beer, and then it was time to sleep. Bjornolf took first watch.

Afterward, Hunter took Bjornolf’s seat at the window while Bjornolf lay on his sleeping bag by the door. But he found sleep wouldn’t come. He finally got up and looked out the window, watching the cabana where Anna was staying, unable to quit worrying about her.

Still observing the street, Hunter said to Bjornolf, “Sleep. You already had guard duty. You need to be well rested for tomorrow. The women will be all right. Hell, you couldn’t have gotten much sleep last night.”

Bjornolf frowned at him. “I don’t need much.”

“Anna is a big girl, and she will be just fine.” Hunter continued to watch their surroundings.

Bjornolf smiled to himself. He saw Finn watching him from his sleeping bag, nodded to him, and retired to his own, wishing he was sleeping on Anna’s bag and smelling her delightful scent instead.

***

Still feeling her lips swollen from Bjornolf’s hot kiss and wishing she could have had a lot more, Anna climbed into the double bed nearest the window, thankful that both Paul and Allan insisted she take the bed—while the mother and kids slipped into the one closest to the wall of the cabana.

Anna turned to Helen Wentworth. “What are your plans for Christmas?” she asked softly so she wouldn’t wake the kids.

The woman turned around on the bed and looked in Anna’s direction. The room was dark, but because of Anna’s wolf vision, she could make out the woman’s facial features perfectly.

“The usual. Christmas party at the company. Open a present Christmas Eve with the kids. The rest of the presents Christmas Day. You know. Because Santa will have left their gifts after they’ve fallen asleep that night.”

“Yeah,” Anna said, forgetting that was the way it was supposed to be.

“You?”

Anna only wanted to ease Helen into talking about what was going on with her husband and his brother. She didn’t want to get drawn into a discussion concerning
her
Christmas plans. Which meant avoiding the holidays as much as possible. “Haven’t decided yet. So what do you have to eat?”

Helen took a deep breath and expelled it. “Turkey, ham, sweet potatoes… too much food, really.”

“Yeah. Wreaks havoc with a diet.”

Helen smiled a little.

Now for the tough part. “So what were you doing in the Amazon exactly?”

Helen didn’t say anything. Paul was watching Anna, a frown furrowing his brow. Anna didn’t expect the woman to know what her husband and his brother were up to, but if Helen had heard anything at all suspicious or out of place before they were taken hostage, she might have a clue.

“One of the major firms my husband owns has to do with pharmaceuticals. He had a business trip down here, and he wanted to take the family on a vacation at the same time. I would have preferred somewhere else, honestly. My idea of a pleasure trip is visiting the Swiss Alps or the Riviera. He said we’d have a fun adventure.”

The mention of a business trip surprised Anna. “So he had some business meetings before you all took the trek into the jungle?”

“Yes. A couple of meetings. The cottages had a swimming pool. I took the kids swimming. We were there a day before we went on the trip into the jungle.”

“Who all knew you were going to be here?”

“Everyone. It wasn’t a secret.” The woman closed her eyes, then opened them. Her eyes shimmered with tears.

Anna glanced at Paul. He was still watching Anna, his eyes meeting hers, waiting for her to say something that would encourage the woman to speak the truth.

Time
to
drop
the
bombshell
. “I know that we weren’t supposed to rescue you.” Anna let that information sink in.

Helen’s heartbeat kicked up another notch. She was barely breathing, as if she was afraid she’d give her rattled emotions away.

“My team knows, too,” Anna added, to emphasize that they
weren’t
about to be bamboozled by William Wentworth.

Helen swallowed hard, then bit her lip.

“You don’t want to lose custody of your children,” Anna prodded, shifting the focus so abruptly that Helen’s eyes widened.

“What do you mean?” Helen asked, trying to sound innocent, her words choked by unshed tears.

More silence. Heavy pauses were important, unsettling to someone being interrogated. The time gave the person being questioned a few seconds to reflect, to sweat, to make mistakes.

“We came here to rescue you, but your husband and his brother had some
other
agenda. We were set up, Helen.”

“No,” Helen gasped.

Anna studied her, unable to ascertain whether the outburst meant Helen couldn’t believe the team had figured that out, or that she hadn’t known what was going down.

“If anyone on the team dies during this mission, it’s on your and your husband’s and his brother’s heads.”

Helen had turned into a statue, her expression horrified.

“You’d be an accessory.”

“I didn’t know anything about it,” Helen said hastily.

She hadn’t denied that her husband and his brother had set the whole situation up, Anna noted.

“Until when?” Anna asked.

Helen didn’t say.

“At the hut where we stayed several days ago?” Anna asked. Had Helen heard her husband and Jeff whispering that night? “Before that? When you were first taken hostage? When did you know this was a setup?”

Helen backtracked as if she’d finally managed to get a grip on her thoughts. “They didn’t set this up. We were with tour guides on a trek through the Amazon to see the kinds of plants my husband uses in his pharmaceuticals. They… the men… barged through the jungle and killed our guides.”

“You weren’t with a group of other tourists?”

Helen turned up her nose. “Of course not. We always have private tours when we go on vacation.”

“Okay, well, we know your husband and his brother are involved in something underhanded. Just be forewarned that if we get you and your family out alive, the team isn’t letting this go.”

The woman’s face hardened. Then she finally said, “You won’t discover anything more than what really happened.” But she didn’t sound sure of herself. She turned her back to Anna and settled down to sleep.

“Your kids could have been shot and killed. They could have died.”

Helen didn’t say anything. Anna was dying to know what she was thinking, feeling. Anna let out her breath, exasperated that she couldn’t get a confession out of the woman.

If Helen hadn’t known, or only suspected something more was going on, she might try to speak with her husband about it sometime soon. Paul, Allan, and Anna would watch William and Helen’s interactions tomorrow. One way or another, they’d eventually learn the truth.

“Maybe you don’t know what this is all about,” Anna said. “For your sake, I hope not.”

Let Helen try to sleep on that.

“Finn and I are getting breakfast for everyone,” Hunter said to Bjornolf early the next morning. “Go ahead and rouse the Wentworths. We’ll be right back. Vehicles will be here momentarily.”

Neither of the brothers had said a word to each other last night. Jeff and William had taken turns snoring, but the team still didn’t trust them.

When Bjornolf woke them up, they both had sat up in bed looking a little dazed.

Jeff was still sitting on the bed, not making a move to leave it. “When do we get our cell phones back? I need to make a few calls. Let people know we’re all right.”

“When we get you to the embassy,” Bjornolf said. “Safer that way.” Safer for the team, he wanted to say.

Hunter and Finn were gone for some time as they picked up breakfast burritos for everyone. When they returned, the men were still dawdling at getting dressed. Bjornolf hustled them to dress faster and hurry up and eat, suspecting that their snail-paced response had something to do with them trying to slow the team down. He wolfed down his own burrito, like Hunter and Finn did theirs.

Hunter was watching out the window when his cell rang, and he said, “Okay, I see you.”

As two dusty black SUVs and a blue Ford Taurus pulled up in front of the cabanas, Bjornolf stayed with the Wentworths, watching Hunter’s back as he went out to speak to the drivers.

Finn’s cell rang. “Got it. Be right out.” He turned to Bjornolf. “I’m going out to help Hunter. You stay with the Wentworths.”

Bjornolf nodded.

Finn and Paul joined Hunter outside, and they began to inspect the SUVs while the men who had brought the vehicles drove off in the car. Anna and Allan remained with the woman and the kids inside the other cabana.

Bjornolf surveyed the area around them, looking for anyone suspicious, and saw a man speaking on a phone, watching the cabanas. Bjornolf got on
his
cell to let Hunter know. “Trouble might be coming. A man appears to be relaying our movements.”

“Got it,” Hunter said.

They couldn’t do anything until someone made a move. Even then, they had to be careful not to create an international incident. Killing what appeared to be everyday, normal Colombian citizens wasn’t an option.

“Vehicles are all clear,” Hunter said to Bjornolf over the phone. “Bring the Wentworths out.”

“Come on. Time to roll out,” Bjornolf said to the brothers.

When he and the men vacated the cabana, he glanced in Anna’s direction to see her herding the mother and kids outside. He gave her a curt good-morning nod.

Most of the team members were wearing jeans and T-shirts, vests featuring embroidered university emblems, and combat boots, and they looked like tourists. Paul was wearing that gaudy hot-pink palm-tree shirt. Bjornolf shook his head before he could catch himself, but he had to admit, Paul
did
look like he was on vacation. Bjornolf’s vest was camouflage, not quite touristy, but close enough.

Bjornolf couldn’t help but stare at Anna’s clothes. No matter what she wore, she wasn’t just one of the guys. Her black T-shirt had a scoop neckline and stretched across her pert breasts. She wore a black vest over the shirt that hid her concealed gun. She was provocatively sexy and downright lethal. What better combination could an undercover operative like him want to watch his back?

Anna looked unsettled, her eyes flitting from him to Helen Wentworth. Something must have occurred last night.

Hunter said, “Bjornolf, you, Paul, and Anna ride with the kids and Mrs. Wentworth. The rest of us will go in the first vehicle.”

Anna took Hunter aside and spoke softly to him, which had Bjornolf wondering if she had uncovered some new information. As the SUVs rolled out, Anna drew close to Bjornolf and whispered in his ear, “I questioned Helen about her involvement in the hostage situation last night.”

Not entirely surprised, Bjornolf nodded and listened to her account. He glanced back over the seat. Kids had disappeared from view in the backseat. He assumed they’d fallen asleep. Mom had her eyes closed, her head against the seat back. She might not have been asleep, but with the rumble of the SUV’s engine and the sound of the vehicles tires on the pavement as they made their way down the road, she wouldn’t be able to hear Anna’s whispered words.

“I couldn’t get that much out of her.” Anna let out her breath. “She’s no longer speaking to me so I figure I won’t be able to get anything more out of her on this trip.”

“Hunter will be checking into more of the story when we return. I let him know it looked like the word was going out to watch our vehicles. I’m sure we’re going to have trouble up the road.”

To his surprise, Anna wrapped her arm around his and nestled her head against his shoulder. “Good,” she whispered. “The job was getting boring.”

He liked a woman who could be ready for a moment’s danger and would consider it boring when the situation was calm. A woman after his own heart.

But this certainly wasn’t boring for him. Not with her hugging his arm like that, her hair and skin smelling of peaches and cream. He wanted to pull his arm free and put it around her protectively, but he didn’t want to lose the contact they already had. He was also afraid she might move away from him altogether if she thought he was trying to be friendlier than she wanted him to be.

“Are you tired?” Bjornolf asked, still wanting to re-situate her so he was more in charge.

“Yeah, I’m tired,” she admitted, snuggling her face against his chest. “I served extra guard duty to make up for last night. Aren’t you?”

“Wide awake now,” he said, referring to the way she’d aroused him so quickly.

She chuckled softly.

He listened to the way she breathed in and out against his chest, feeling the way her soft body pressed against his, her heart beating faster. His heart’s pace matched hers, and his arousal was growing harder.

Trying to get his mind off what she was doing to his libido, he glanced out the window at the winding road, cliff on one side, jungle closing in on the pavement on the other, having seen nothing for several miles except a couple of cars passing them.

“What… what if you’re right,” Helen said from the backseat, where she sat with the sleeping kids.

Both Bjornolf and Anna glanced back at her. She looked like she had barely slept last night—the skin dark under her eyes, her eyes puffy.

“About what?” Anna quickly asked.

Helen pursed her lips. “About… about…” She took in a deep breath and looked out the window.

“What is it, Mrs. Wentworth?”

Helen chewed on her bottom lip. “I think… I think maybe my husband has been having an affair.”

Bjornolf frowned at her. “What makes you suspect that?”

“He had one fifteen years ago. Right after we were married. He would never say who it was, and when he said he’d made a big mistake and had given her up, I believed him. But somebody’s been calling the house and hanging up when I answer. Unknown caller. I just figured it was someone who had the wrong number. After what happened out here, I just can’t quit considering… what if… if this whole thing had been planned from the beginning?”

“What are you thinking?” Anna asked.

“William plotted to have me and the kids murdered,” Helen blurted out.

Bjornolf felt Anna tense next to him. “Do you have anything to back that up? Anything that leads you to believe he wanted to get rid of you?” Bjornolf asked.

Her gaze on his, she quickly shook her head. Yet, he suspected she wasn’t telling the truth. What the hell was going on?

“Has he ever acted in any manner that made you believe he’s able to accomplish such a thing?” Anna asked.

Helen swallowed hard and hesitated too long to say, which made Bjornolf wonder just what William Wentworth III was capable of.

Helen looked out the window. “No one has to have done anything like that before… to want to do it now. If… if it meant he wouldn’t have to pay out any money for a divorce settlement… stuff like that happens all the time. He never wanted the kids. They were… a mistake—for him, not for me. It would have been so easy to get rid of us if you guys hadn’t shown up. And who would have thought he was lying?”

“Why tell us this now?” Anna asked. “Why not last night when I asked you if you knew he had other plans?”

“I had to think about what you said. I… was in denial that William could have wanted such a thing.”

The spouse was always the last one to know, Bjornolf thought. “Are you certain he’s having an affair?”

“I can’t think of another reason he’d want to have us killed.”

“Mrs. Wentworth, is there anything you can tell us that would prove any of this? Do you feel you need police protection?” Anna asked.

Helen continued to look out the window, then wiped away a tear and then a few more. “No. I can’t prove anything. You’re probably right. There’s nothing to it.”

“But if there is…” Anna said.

“We’ll be fine.”

“This isn’t the kind of work we normally do,” Bjornolf said. Hunter
would
have his people investigating because William had put the team’s lives in danger, but he couldn’t let her know they’d be checking into the kidnapping behind the scenes. “If you feel threatened in any way or learn anything further about this, let Hunter know. He’ll give you his number so that you can reach him at any time.”

“Thanks,” Helen said dismissively, her back steeled as she avoided looking at Bjornolf.

He and Anna exchanged looks. Even if William wanted Helen dead, he might not try again. Not with the team knowing something about the case. But still, who knew what lengths someone would go to when they had loads of money and wanted to keep every penny of it?

Thankfully, the man making the calls in the jungle village, who seemed to have been monitoring their moves, either hadn’t been or his cohorts missed stopping the team, because several hours later, the SUVs arrived in Bogota without further incident. The team and the Wentworths quickly made their way to the American Embassy. They dropped off the family so that embassy personnel could make arrangements to secure new passports for them and flights home. A sparkling Christmas tree sitting in the entryway of the embassy reminded Bjornolf of his next mission—with Anna.

Bjornolf towered in front of Elsie and smiled. “You be good and take care of your mother and brother.”

She tugged on his hand. He leaned down and she whispered in his ear, although at this close range, anyone with wolf hearing could hear. “Can you spend Christmas with us?”

He smiled and gently pulled affectionately on a length of one of her curls. “I’ve got to rescue another kid. You be good and Santa will bring you lots of presents.”

Paul patted Jimmy on the shoulder. “It’s been good knowing you, son.” He pointed to Bjornolf. “Like he said, be good. Santa should be coming real soon.”

The mother profusely thanked them. Bjornolf couldn’t figure her out. Did she really believe her husband wanted her and the kids dead, or had it been a case of an overactive imagination? Trauma like she’d been through could cause that. The two Wentworth brothers said nothing, looking glum.

Bjornolf noted that once Helen and William had left the vehicles, William made no effort to approach her, offer her a hug, or hold her hand. Nor had he done anything to show affection toward the kids. He hadn’t before he retired to the other cabana last night, either. Hell, if the kids and wife had been Bjornolf’s, he would have been hugging them to pieces and not letting go.

Finished with the job, Hunter and his team took one of the SUVs, leaving the other behind for Hunter’s contact to pick up at the embassy. On the way to the airport, Bjornolf and Anna related the talk they’d had with Helen.

“You know what I think?” Paul asked.

“What’s that?” Anna asked.

“The wife knows more than she’s letting on.”

“I thought the same,” Anna said. “Like she knows William is capable of murder. And how would she know that?”

Hunter shook his head. “Hell, I thought it was a simple case of blackmail, trying to steal money from his company, avoiding taxes, tax write-off. I’ll have some men look into it.”

Everyone was quiet after that, tired and ready to go home. Hunter didn’t tell Anna all about the new mission, but she agreed to do it, whatever it was. Bjornolf hoped she would still be willing when she heard what it entailed. When they arrived at the airport, Hunter arranged for Anna to fly home with Bjornolf and him. They still had another two hours before their flight left for the States, so they dropped into one of the VIP lounges to drink a round of beers and sat in several lounge chairs circling a coffee table.

Bjornolf wondered what Anna was thinking as they all wound down from the mission. He was glad to be here with them, finishing the job like this.

Hunter turned to Anna. “I need to talk with you about another mission. You don’t have a contract of your own anytime soon
after
Christmas, right? This might take a bit of time.”

She shook her head, but she looked a little wary. “Bjornolf is working with you?”

“Yeah. But this assignment’s close to home.”

“Oregon coast,” she said.

“Yeah. You’ll need some winter clothes. When we arrive in Portland, we can take you shopping. Funds will come out of my budget. You’ll actually need an assortment and Tessa can help you with it.”

“An assortment?” she asked, looking puzzled.

“To blend in,” Hunter said.

“And Bjornolf, too,” she said.

Bjornolf dipped his head in agreement.

Looking intrigued, Allan and Paul shifted their gazes from Anna to Hunter.

Seeing their interest, Hunter asked, “Sure you guys don’t want to come along for the ride?”

“Still got plans,” Allan said.

Bjornolf was looking forward to this new mission. He smiled at Hunter and raised his beer to him. Hunter saluted him back. They both polished off their beers, and Hunter ordered another round.

This was one Christmas Bjornolf thought he might enjoy.

Anna gave him a pointed look.

Or
not.