Watch Over Me: A Military Romance (Uncharted SEALs Book 1) (8 page)

The woman’s face was cold as granite, but her gaze darted to a stairwell at the end of the hall. Hoping she’d given away their direction, he loped to the stairwell. Below him, he heard a door open and close. Taking steps three at a time, he raced down the stairs and out a door that led outside to the hotel’s parking lot. A glance right, and he spotted a dark sedan next to the sidewalk, a slender woman clutching the top of the open door, until the man behind her shoved something against her back. Her head turned toward the side.

Nicky!

She spotted him, and the man standing behind her with a gun looked back, as well.

Because Deke didn’t want to risk Nicky being shot if the man’s Plan B was to kill the congressman’s daughter, he ducked backward, hiding behind a palm tree.

A moment later, Nicky sank into the car, the man sliding into the back seat beside her. The car sped away with a screech of tires as they burned rubber.

Deke dug for the keys to his rental and ran hard for his car, hoping they’d take the main highway. If they took a side street, he might miss them altogether. Seconds later, he peeled out of the parking lot, leaving off his lights, letting the streetlamps on the main road provide all the illumination he needed so less chance existed he’d be spotted in any rear-view mirror.

Luckily, the sedan was just ahead. Deke let loose his hard grip of the steering wheel and grabbed his cell. “They have her,” he said to his handler.

“There’s only two ways off the island. Boat or air. Do you have eyes on her?”

“Dark sedan, heading south on the main drag.”

“South’s toward the marina. If they get her on a boat, we’ll lose her. It’s four hours to the mainland, and we don’t have anything in the area to intercept.”

So her rescue was all up to Deke. Cold sweat dotted his forehead. His stomach roiled. The last time someone had depended on him, he’d failed to keep them safe. Not that anyone blamed him for what happened to Mark. However, Deke still laid the man’s death all on himself. Mark had been new to the unit—his responsibility because he’d landed on his squad. He’d trained him hard, up until the night they’d fast-roped onto a rocky hill in southern Pakistan. The extraction of a mid-level terrorist with knowledge of his group’s financing was supposed to be easy.

“We’ll follow the money,” the CIA analyst had said. “That will get us the targets we really want.”

Only their intel had been woefully inadequate. Rather than the half-dozen insurgents they’d expected, they’d walked into an ambush. Right behind Deke, Mark had been second through the door. Deke had seen the long cylindrical profile of a weapon lifted atop a shoulder, but hadn’t had time to signal a warning. Instead, he’d reached for Mark’s arm and pulled him as he threw himself to the side. But he hadn’t been fast enough. The RPG blasted out the doorway and took Marcus’s lower body with it. Although the team had regrouped and managed to sweep the site clean—they hadn’t achieved their mission. The financier hadn’t been there, and the few laptops they’d managed to grab on their way out the door hadn’t given them any new actionable information. Mark and Sting, who’d caught a bullet to the neck, had died for nothing.

Deke could still feel the weight of Mark’s demolished body on his shoulder.

His stomach boiled with acid. Every muscle in his body was tense, clenched. He’d be damned if it happened again. Damned if he lost Nicky.

He gunned the engine, keeping the sedan in his sights as it careened recklessly out of the town and into the hills winding toward the bay. With only his compact Beretta and a couple eight-round magazines of ammo, he’d need more than luck on his side.

He’d need a fucking miracle.

‡

T
hey drove to
the same marina where Deke had rented their boat earlier.
How ironic
. The starting place for one of the most enjoyable experiences of her life had become part of an unending nightmare.

After being dragged from the back seat of the sedan, she’d fought the urge to glance around and see whether Deke had followed. If he was close by, she shouldn’t alert her two captors. And likely he wasn’t because she heard no other cars in the distance.

The driver said something in rapid-fire Spanish and grinned, putting the strap of a nasty-looking, short-barreled weapon over his head and shoulder before loping down one of the docks toward a boat.

In the dim light from the lamppost at the end of the dock, she got her first good glimpse of the man who’d been stuck like glue to her side throughout her ordeal. She was surprised by how young he was, and by his cruel expression. Her throat closed tight and she forced herself to breathe evenly. Dressed in jeans and a ragged t-shirt, with his black hair greased back, the kidnapper looked like a thug. His black gaze was steady, narrowed as she stared back. He’d show her no mercy if she resisted. She knew it in her bones.

With the muzzle of the weapon, he pushed her down the dock, toward the waiting boat at the end of the pier. Not as clean as the one she’d been on earlier. Not as large, and with only two seats. Likely, she’d be shoved to the floorboard behind their seats. She wondered where they were taking her—whether they’d simply dump her in the ocean, or intended to deliver her to some cartel to be held in a jungle camp or seedy
barrio
prison.

Her fate seemed grim. So grim, she was tempted to take her chances and jump into the water beside the dock and risk being shot right away. Maybe if she could swim deep enough and hold her breath long enough, she could make it beneath another long boardwalk and wait for a chance to escape.

Again, the muzzle of the handgun bit into her ribs. She’d have several bruises. Bruises on top of bruises from where he’d butted her with the damn weapon. She glanced back, past his shoulder, wishing for a glimpse of hope, but saw nothing in the darkness around them. Heard nothing other than the creak of boards, the soft laps of waves against boats and wood. As she neared the boat, she deliberately tripped on an uneven board, going down to her knees with an exaggerated cry.

The thug’s hand gripped her hair hard and pulled back her head. He pressed the gun against her cheek. His teeth were bared in an ugly snarl.

Did he know he was a cliché? Black shirt, black hair, black eyes, feral smirk? She came up, bumped against him, and jerked away, grimacing because he kept hold of her hair. She’d lost some in his fierce grip, but she had only one shot at this. Pushing hard, she jumped over the side of the dock into black, murky water.

Shots made strange
pfft
sounds around her in the water. But she couldn’t take the time to care. She dove beneath the hull of one boat and skimming a hand against its razor-sharp barnacles, followed its length, before popping up, just beneath the curving bow for a quick breath, then down again she swam.

A loud splash sounded nearby. She curved and dove as deep as she could, her chest skimming slimy seaweed and jagged rocks. Glancing up, her eyes burning in the dirty saltwater, she couldn’t make out much, only darker shadows against the darkness above her.

Her shoulder and her face struck something solid. She pressed her hand against the side, exploring with her stretched fingers. The object was wooden and thick. One of the dock’s pylons. She circled behind it, and with her lungs burning from lack of air, she kicked against the rocky, silty bottom and rose, her head breaking the surface. She fought from gasping too deeply and wrapped her arms around the pylon, pitching her ear toward the wooden slats over her head for sounds of movement.

From above, she heard shouts from her captor’s partner, heavy treads pounding on the boards as he neared her, but no answering shouts from the man in the water. Was he nearing her position even now, trying to slip up and surprise her?

Then she heard a sharp report. A single shot, followed by a heavy thud and another loud splash. She held still, trying not to panic, trying to remain quiet. Softer footsteps ran down the dock.

“Nicky,” came in a low-pitched voice.

Deke
. She closed her eyes and let out a sob.

“Nicky!” came Deke’s call, louder and nearer this time.

She let loose of the pylon and swam from beneath the dock to peer upward. “Deke, I’m here,” she called out in small voice, still scared and beginning to shake.

A hand reached down, and she took it, praying she reached for her rescuer. The hard palm was broad, familiar. She sobbed again as he pulled her up and onto the boards beside him. An instant later, strong arms surrounded her. Deke rocked her against his chest. Kisses landed on her forehead and hair as she curled against him, clutching his arms.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you. Baby, I’ve got you.” He tilted her head and looked down into her face.

In the dim, distant light, all she saw were sharpened edges—his jaw, his cheeks. So much determination in his expression. A wonderful sight.

“We can’t stay. They were likely acting alone, but we can’t bank on that chance, honey.”

She gave him a nod and released her grip on his body, waiting until he stood to help her up because her knees were still weak. He ducked and put his shoulder under hers, wrapped his arm around her waist, and they headed as quickly as her shaking legs would allow, back down to the parking lot to a sedan he’d left with the door open. She slid across the seat, not taking her gaze from his face as he climbed in behind the wheel and turned the key. Not until he’d wound his way out of the parking area did she let out a deep breath. Once on the road, he stretched out his arm, bringing it around her shoulder to pull her against his side.

His body was rigid, so tight there was no give, no softness. She leaned her head against his neck, her ear pressing against his pulse, where it pounded still, heavy and fast. “I saw you in the parking lot at the hotel,” she whispered. “I hoped you wouldn’t lose us.”

His arm tightened around her, his face turned and he gave her a quick kiss before swinging back to watch the road. “I kept my lights off and hung back. Didn’t want them spotting a tail.”

His voice was hoarse and thick. She took comfort in how he still seemed to be affected by her abduction. “I’m guessing we can’t go back to the hotel.”

“No. They likely have people watching all the hotels now. We have to keep moving until the plane arrives in the morning.”

“How long?”

“Eight hours.” He blew out a deep breath. “Not the romantic night we planned, huh?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, glancing up at his stark features. “It’s not every day a girl is rescued by a hero, and a buff SEAL at that.”

Deke snorted. “Baby, you rescued yourself. If he’d gotten you to the boat…” He gave a sharp shake of his head.

Nicky reached across to place her hand over his thudding heart. “I’m okay. You’re okay. And we can watch the sunrise together. That’s pretty romantic in my mind.”

His mouth lost a little of its tension, and he gave her a smile. “You can rest if you like,” he said then he glared sideways. “After you buckle your damn seat belt.”

His wonderful deep rumbling voice washed over her, and she laughed. Maybe it was a little shrill, but the last of the fear that had gripped her over the past hour rolled away. She wasn’t moving from his side. Only when their bodies touched did she feel safe. The moment was pretty romantic all right. With the moon above them and the quiet filling the space inside the car, she leaned against his sturdy body, happy as hell he’d been the one her daddy chose.

*

Deke stood with
a beer in his hand beside the barbeque grill, in “man territory” because stepping outside the zone made him uncomfortable. The scent of cooking meat, freshly cut grass, and the roses from the carefully tended bushes the commander’s wife doted on assailed him. So did the sounds coming from a hundred plus people assembled inside the fenced back yard of the commander’s quarters. The picture was right out of a magazine, the perfect family gathering, but this gathering was comprised of navy SEALs and their families. Today, the group felt a little too incestuous. And he felt edgy and claustrophobic. Too many people. Too much laughter. And to hide his own grumpy disposition, he’d pasted on a smile that was beginning to make his face ache.