“Leave the lights off, okay?” Melina asked.

John followed her across the room, vividly aware of the bed looming on his left. Melina stood in front of the window, silhouetted against the city lights and the night outside. The woman had a body made for sin. He stepped close behind her and looked over her shoulder.

She turned to face him, coming up practically against his chest. “Hi, there.” She giggled, and tipped up the brandy bottle, taking a hefty swig. “I hate drinking alone. You have a drink, too.”

“I can’t afford to. I’m on a job.”

She was almost more temptation than he could stand. But he had a responsibility to her. To the mission.

“I want to kiss you,” she announced.

“I work for you. It’s totally inappropriate.”

She reached up, placing a soft hand on either side of his face. “John, you’re fired. Now kiss me.”

Dear Reader,

From the first time I met John Hollister in The Medusa Seduction, I just knew he had to get his own book someday. What I wasn’t expecting was the story he whispered into my ear…and then kept whispering at me until I finally agreed to write it down for him. Thankfully, Melina Montez came along, and she was fully up to the daunting task of taking on John and his personal baggage.

This story holds a special place in my heart. I wrote it at a time when both my mother and mother-in-law were fighting cancer. I wanted to write a book for them about the power of love overcoming death and thoughts of death. In many ways, Melina is the two of them. She’s a fighter who laughs richly, loves without reservation and lives with gusto. And isn’t that, after all, how we all should live every day of our lives?

So to Mom, Mom Dees, and all of you, dear readers, here’s to a great read and to a life well lived and well loved!

All my best,

Cindy Dees

Night Rescuer
Cindy Dees

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CINDY DEES

started flying airplanes while sitting in her dad’s lap at the age of three and got a pilot’s license before she got a driver’s license. At age fifteen, she dropped out of high school and left the horse farm in Michigan where she grew up to attend the University of Michigan. After earning a degree in Russian and East European Studies, she joined the U.S. Air Force and became the youngest female pilot in its history. She flew supersonic jets, VIP airlift, and the C-5 Galaxy, the world’s largest airplane. She also worked part-time gathering intelligence. During her military career, she traveled to forty countries on five continents, was detained by the KGB and East German secret police, got shot at, flew in the first Gulf War, met her husband and amassed a lifetime’s worth of war stories.

Her hobbies include professional Middle Eastern dancing, Japanese gardening and medieval reenacting. She started writing on a one dollar bet with her mother and was thrilled to win that bet with the publication of her first book in 2001. She loves to hear from readers and can be contacted at www.cindydees.com.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 1

Somewhere in the Caribbean

Major John Hollister, commander of the Wolf Pack, an elite special operations squad for the H.O.T. Watch, highly decorated combat veteran, and the only man ever to lose eight men on a single H.O.T. Watch mission, placed a rickety chair in the middle of the storeroom and stepped onto its wobbly seat. Balancing carefully—wouldn’t want to screw up the maneuver at this delicate juncture—he flung the end of a heavy rope over the giant log beam overhead. Gotta love these islanders. They knew how to build a heck of a solid building, what with all the hurricanes in this part of the world.

With ease of long experience with ropes, he made a quick hitch knot that secured the rope tightly to the beam. He grabbed the thick hemp in both hands and gave it a good yank. Yup, it would hold his weight.

He grabbed the noose he’d fashioned earlier at the other end of the rope and gave it a long, hard look. This was it. The end. What was a man supposed to think at this final moment of his life, when he was staring his own death square in the face? What was he supposed to feel?

Thing was, he thought nothing. Felt nothing. And that was the problem. John Hollister was an empty shell of a human being. A waste of space on planet Earth. First he screwed up his own life, and then threw away those of his men. Guilty times eight. Yup. Definitely time to check out. He leaned forward to place his neck through the noose. Just kick the chair away and it will be over. The whole useless, pathetic mess he’d managed to make of it all.

He started at the cheerful tinkle of a bell out front in the main room of the shipping company announcing that a customer had opened the front door. Oh, for the love of Mike. Couldn’t a guy hang himself around here without someone interrupting him?

Disgusted at the delay, he hopped down off the chair, landing out of habit in complete, stealthy silence. He stepped out of the storeroom and up to the scarred wooden counter.

“Can I help you?” he asked wearily.

“I certainly hope so.”

He looked up, startled at the smooth, dulcet tones of the female voice that answered him. Whoa. The woman who went with all that come-hither velvet lived up to her voice, and then some. She was slender, her skin a delicious caramel color. Her hair would probably be called brown if it weren’t streaked with all those golden, sun-kissed blond highlights. Her eyes were light brown and looked right through him to the blackest depths of his soul.

Shockingly, an emotion actually registered in his gut. Embarrassment at what she’d almost caught him doing. He reeled back from her steady gaze, stunned.

“Uhh, what is it you need today?” He pulled himself together enough to ask.

“I need something delivered. Something…unusual.”

“That’s what we do here at Pirate Pete’s Delivery Service. Anything, anywhere.”

At the mention of his name, the large green parrot dozing in the corner of the shabby office roused himself on his perch and gave his wings a shake. With a squawk, the bird announced, “Baawwk. Pirate Pete is a dirty old bird. Repeats every joke that he’s heard. Tells the girls with big tits, which guy licks the best—”

“Quiet, Pete!” John cut him off sharply. That damned bird was forever spouting off some filthy limerick. And always to the attractive female customers, it seemed.

“Baawwk!” Pete retorted, clearly offended at the interruption. “John Cowboy is ever so quick, sees a girl and he whips out his—”

“Pete. Shut up.”

The woman’s worried expression gave way to a dazzling, toothpaste-commercial smile that belonged on the big screen. Wow.

He mumbled, “Sorry ’bout that. Should’ve strangled and stuffed that bird a long time ago.”

“I think he’s cute.”

John rolled his eyes. “All the girls say that. I don’t know what they see in that feathered old reprobate.”

The customer replied, “He’s direct. It’s refreshing. A girl can relate to it.”

The way she was gazing into his eyes was pretty damned direct, too. If he planned on living past the next ten minutes, she would be the kind of woman who would give him serious pause. He cleared his throat. “You said you need something delivered? Where and when?”

“To Peru. As soon as possible.”

“Well, we can package it and express mail it for you or, if it’s really urgent, we can courier it down there for you. We can have it in Lima late tonight if we take it ourselves.”

“Oh, this delivery isn’t going to Lima. I’m afraid it isn’t that simple. It’s going way up into the Andes mountains. I’m told there aren’t even roads to the final destination.”

No roads? Man, that was remote. “We can fly it in by helicopter or even air-drop your package…but that would be pretty expensive. You might want to consider having us arrange a Peruvian guide to hump your package back into the mountains by llama. It’ll take longer to get there, but it won’t bankrupt you.”

“I’m not worried about money.” But the look in her eyes said she was plenty worried about something.

His invisible warning antennae wiggled. Something was up with her. What wasn’t she telling him? After almost fifteen years as an army officer, much of it in command positions, he had a finely honed sense of when he wasn’t hearing the truth…or in this case, the full truth.

“So when’s your drop-dead date?”

The woman started violently. “I beg your pardon?”

He rephrased quickly. “When does your package absolutely have to be there?”

“There’s not a set deadline. But the sooner the better.”

“In that case, I’d go with letting us fly it to Lima and then handing it off to a Peruvian pack train.”

She turned over the plan for a few seconds. Her fawn-colored eyes gazed deeply into his, measuring whether or not he was someone to be trusted. “If you think that’s best…”

What the hell. He might as well close the sale before he went in back and finished himself off. He asked smoothly, “What are we delivering, ma’am?”

“Me.”

Navy Commander Brady Hathaway jolted as one of the floor controllers below abruptly barked, “Commander. Come here! We’ve got a problem.”

He descended from the observation deck to the floor of what they fondly called the Bat Cave—a hundred-twenty-yard-long, fifty-foot-high cavern hollowed out millions of years ago by magma from a now extinct volcano. His shoes rang in quick staccato on the steel steps. None of the two dozen computer and surveillance technicians on duty at the rows of consoles took that sharp tone of voice with him lightly. Plus, when Carter Baigneaux—a longtime Special Forces operator himself—said there was a problem, it was guaranteed to be a bona fide crisis.

As Brady’s long strides carried him across the floor, the question foremost in his mind, though, was why Carter had told him to come down onto the floor. Why hadn’t he sent whatever image had his Cajun knickers in such a twist to one of the big screens on the far wall for everyone to see? Six JumboTrons lined the far wall, at the moment displaying various satellite tracking maps of the world.

He reached the technician’s desk and the array of monitors on it. “What’ve you got?” he asked tersely.

Carter stabbed a finger at his far left monitor. “I was cruising through a routine check of the surveillance cameras in the cave complex and I spotted this upstairs at Pirate Pete’s.”

Brady took one look at the noose dangling damningly in the middle of the cluttered storeroom. “Who’s on duty up there?” he bit out.

“Hollister.”

Brady swore violently. He took off running, sprinting across the floor, leaving rows of startled technicians in his wake. He raced down a low tunnel hollowed out of volcanic rock and skidded to a stop in front of the large freight elevator that carried people back and forth between the Bat Cave and Pirate Pete’s Delivery Service up on the surface. The decrepit shipping company and its ramshackle office acted as a front for the H.O.T. Watch’s surveillance operation here in the Caribbean. It allowed his guys to move around on missions with a credible cover, and it explained to the locals some of the supplies and personnel that came and went from the island.

C’mon, c’mon, he urged the elevator. He knew Hollister was messed up after that last mission, but he’d had no idea the guy was actually contemplating offing himself. Brady shoved a distracted hand through his hair. It hadn’t been Hollister’s fault. Nobody’d seen the ambush. They’d all been suckered. It had been a miracle that Hollister himself hadn’t been killed. The guy’d been shot in the back—it had taken months to heal and he still wasn’t cleared to go out on operational Special Forces missions.

The elevator’s double doors started to slide open, and Brady turned sideways, jumping into the space before they’d fully opened.

Thank God.

The noose still hung empty from the beam in the middle of the room. The entire storeroom and all its sloppy contents were, in fact, the elevator down to H.O.T. Watch Ops. He opened the rusted electrical panel and punched the button disguised as a circuit breaker that would return him to the surface and Pirate Pete’s. As the elevator lurched into silent motion, he climbed up on the chair quickly and untied Hollister’s knots. He flung the rope away in distaste.

The storeroom/elevator came to a halt. He heard voices out in the front room. A woman laughed. Ahh. That explained why Hollister hadn’t finished off the job, yet. He’d been interrupted by a customer. God bless her.

He took a calming breath and stepped out casually. “Hey, folks.”

The woman jumped. Edgy, she was. Hollister jumped, too, and threw a chagrined look past Brady to the storeroom from whence he’d just emerged. Brady ignored him and instead nodded pleasantly at the woman—who was a hell of a looker.

Hollister spoke up. “The lady, here, wants to have herself delivered to a remote area of Peru. She says there are no roads to where she wants to go, and she prefers a ground insertion to an air insertion.”

Brady’s eyebrows went up. An unusual request. Peru wasn’t exactly the safest place on the planet, particularly back in the mountains. Shining Path guerrillas still roamed the region, not to mention various drug growers and runners, and plain, old-fashioned bandits. “That’s a pretty dangerous destination. May I ask why you want to go somewhere like that?”

Her expression became closed. Stubborn. She replied smoothly, “It’s personal. I really can’t go into the details.”

“Fair enough. When do you want to leave?”

“As soon as possible.”

Brady thought fast. All the shrinks had talked to Hollister. They’d prescribed painkillers and sleeping pills and declared him mildly depressed, but that was to be expected after a traumatic loss like he’d experienced. In private to Brady, the shrinks had declared him ready to return to duty. But Hollister had, as of yet, made no move to get himself removed from the injured reserve list. And something Brady couldn’t quite put his finger on didn’t seem right with John. He’d hesitated to put his old friend back in the field for a couple of months now.

No matter what the docs said about the guy being ready to get back in the saddle, that noose in the back room shouted otherwise. Like many experienced field operators, Hollister apparently could successfully bullshit a psychiatrist.

Brady tapped his front tooth thoughtfully. The fact remained that he had a suicidal operator on his hands. And if Hollister really wanted to kill himself, there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot he was going to be able to do to stop the guy. The problem with men like him and Hollister was they were trained in too many forms of killing. There was really no way to stop them from successfully turning that knowledge on themselves if they so chose.

He eyed the woman before him speculatively. Hollister was a responsible guy. Too responsible. It was the reason he was such a mess now. If he put Hollister in charge of getting this woman safely to her destination, the major would take that responsibility seriously. Enough to stay alive and finish the job. He still might kill himself out in the mountains of Peru after the woman was delivered to wherever she wanted to go, but it might buy Brady a little time to figure out how in the hell to talk Hollister into living. It was worth a shot.

Decision made, he announced, “We’d be glad to take you to Peru, ma’am. Cowboy, here, is just the man to escort you there.”

Hollister’s gaze jerked to him in surprise and denial. Brady blandly ignored the frown and miniscule negative shake of the head that Hollister threw him.

The woman’s gaze swiveled to Hollister. Her mouth curved up into a sudden and blinding smile. “Cowboy? As in John Cowboy?”

Hollister glared over at Pirate Pete in the corner. “That’s correct. John Hollister, ma’am. Pleased to meet you.”

She held a slender hand across the counter. “Melina Montez.”

Brady interrupted smoothly. “Why don’t you go over Miss Montez’s travel documents with her and figure out what visas and shots and the like she’ll need for the trip. In the meantime, I’ll have one of the boys bring over your gear, Cowboy.”

He damn well wasn’t giving John Hollister a second alone until the guy walked out the door with the woman.

Hollister must’ve figured that out because he sighed in resignation. “Fine. I’ll take her to Peru.”

But the promise to finish what he’d started in the storeroom hung heavy in his voice. Brady made brief eye contact with his best field commander, sending him a silent plea to reconsider. But the look in Hollister’s eyes was firm. Implacable.

The guy’d made his decision and he wasn’t budging. Brady might have delayed the inevitable with this little stunt of sending him to Peru, but inevitable it was.

Dammit.

Chapter 2

Melina was a bit shell-shocked at how quickly these two men verified her travel papers, which she’d already secured for Peru. They outfitted her with a backpack and assorted clothing and gear from a local sporting goods store and drove her by Jeep to a long but deserted-looking airstrip. No more than an hour, all told.

The second man—Brady, he called himself—climbed into the pilot’s seat of a twin-motor, eight-passenger airplane he called a King Air, while Hollister threw their gear in the back and helped her climb in.

The airplane buzzed down the runway and leaped into the air, bumping through some afternoon turbulence, then settling into a steady drone.

Brady, up front, set some sort of autopilot and leaned back to relax. Hollister slipped out of the copilot’s seat and came to sit across the narrow aisle from her.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“We’ll make a fuel stop in Colombia, but then we’ll go direct to Lima. It’s going to take about eight hours. Go ahead and make yourself comfortable back here. Snacks are in that cupboard and coffee’s below it. The boss and I will be up front. If you need anything, just tap on one of our shoulders.”

She nodded and enjoyed the view of his broad shoulders and narrow hips as, half crouching, he made his way back into the cockpit. A handsome man he was, with that dark hair and those mysterious gray eyes. Classy. Mature. A certain…sadness…clung to him, though. It made her want to take him in her arms and comfort him.

Her hunky guide disappeared into the cockpit and she leaned her head back against her seat. Finally, she was on her way. She’d both dreaded and wished for this moment to arrive. She was very quickly approaching the point of no return. Once she made contact with Huayar’s men, she was committed. They would not let her leave Peru alive. They’d made that very clear when they had contacted her yesterday morning.

It wasn’t like she’d had any choice, though. They had her brother Mike and both of her parents, and if she didn’t come, they’d all die. Horribly.

She had no illusions about what she was journeying into. It would be terrible beyond imagination. Rough, uncivilized, perhaps cruel. With death likely waiting at the end of it all. She dreaded this trip more than anything she’d ever had to do in her entire life. At least her guide came across as knowing his stuff. Once he’d reluctantly given in to his boss and agreed to do this trip, he’d been all business, focused and efficient. For the moment, she felt safe.

And right now, she was living moment by moment. What lay before her was simply too immense to process all at once. How did that old adage go? A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step?

Well, she’d taken the first step. The ball was in motion now. All that remained was for it to gather speed and roll to the inevitable end of the road. Why then, did she feel like throwing up?

Sometime later, a light touch on her shoulder made her start violently awake.

“Easy, Miss Montez. We’re in Colombia. You’ll have to come inside with me to a Customs holding area while Brady refuels the plane.”

She stumbled inside a blindingly bright, antiseptic room with garish, orange plastic chairs. The stagnant, humid air, smelling of too many unwashed bodies, assaulted her. Closing her eyes, she told herself it was the first of many hardships to come. She might as well get used to it.

A warm hand cupped her elbow. “Are you all right?”

She opened her eyes to gaze up into Hollister’s concerned gaze. His eyes were a stormy gray that mirrored her emotions. “I’m fine. Why?”

“You went pale all of a sudden.”

And he’d noticed? Wow. Observant guy. “The heat in here…and the smell…I’m not used to them.”

He frowned faintly. “Are you sure you’re up for this journey? It’s going to be primitive out there.”

“I’ve got no choice. It has to be done.”

“Why’s that?”

Her gaze fell away from the penetrating stare he leveled at her. “The less you know, the better. It’s a family thing.”

“So, you’re going to see your family?”

She suppressed bitter laughter and managed to answer dryly, “Something like that.”

She was saved from any more questions by an airport employee sticking his head through a door and announcing that their plane was ready to go. A baby-faced Customs official, who looked no more than sixteen, escorted them back out to their airplane and stood there just outside Melina’s window until the engines started and they’d taxied out of their parking space.

On to Peru. The second step taken. One step closer to her death.

It was dark when they landed in Lima. Her back was sore from sitting in an airplane seat for so long, and her entire body vibrated with the residual aftereffects of the propellers. She was surprised when Brady handed their backpacks down to her and Hollister but didn’t get off the plane.

“Here’s where we part company, ma’am. You stick with John. He’ll take care of you. There’s no better man anywhere.”

She smiled up at the pilot and then over at her escort, who was frowning again.

To him, Brady said, “Take care of yourself.”

Hollister’s frown deepened.

“I mean it,” Brady added.

The atmosphere between the two men was thick with something unspoken. Hollister broke the tension by plucking her backpack off her shoulder and turning away from his boss. “C’mon, Miss Montez. Let’s get this show on the road.”

“Call me Melina.”

“If you’ll promise not to call me John Cowboy.”

She grinned and hurried to keep up with him as they crossed to a low passenger terminal under pink halogen lights.

There was a lengthy delay getting through Customs. The Peruvian soldiers didn’t like some of the equipment John had in his bag, and seemed even less impressed by his bland explanation that they were planning on going camping. She was startled that the soldiers didn’t end up confiscating any of his gear. The Peruvians were notorious for helping themselves to electronics and gadgets out of tourists’ bags. But then, one look at Hollister and she’d think twice about taking anything from him, too. He was big. Powerful. Dangerous-looking. It wasn’t so much an expression, but the way he carried himself. He looked…competent. Like he could handle any situation that came his way.

Apparently, the Peruvian Customs officials read him the same way. Eventually, her passport and John’s were stamped and they were cleared into the country.

The third step taken. She was getting very close now, to that irrevocable step. She felt it closing in on her like walls collapsing on her head, suffocating her—

“Are you all right?” Hollister asked, concerned. He’d paused in front of the terminal under a streetlight. His big body hovered close, protective. One of his hands came up, landing lightly in the middle of her back, an unconscious offer of support. Warmth spread outward through her from that light touch, awakening nerves that had been far too long asleep. Feelings unfolded in her core that she barely recognized anymore. A feeling of femininity. Of being attractive. Of being attracted. Of mattering to another human being.

Her pulse sped up even more. She was perilously close to panicking. Her head spun and stars danced before her eyes. “Uhh, I’m okay.”

“The humidity can get crazy bad here, not to mention the altitude. It may not feel like much at first, but the combination can really sap your energy. You’ve got to take it easy for a few days until your body adjusts. Try to breathe deeply and slowly.”

She nodded and tried to take a deep breath. Best to let him think it was the altitude making her hyperventilate. He was a decent guy. No need to involve him in this fiasco.

In short order, he hailed a taxi and gave the name of a hotel to the driver. His Spanish was effortless, as fluent as hers, and she’d lived in Mexico City for the past eight years. He’d obviously been to Lima before, because he leaned forward and challenged the taxi driver when the guy tried to take an overly circuitous route to wherever they were going. The driver shrugged and grinned and took the route Hollister told him to. Gratitude at not having to deal with these annoying travel details flooded her. It felt great to have someone take care of her for a change.

The building they stopped in front of was built in the classical style; its limestone facade old but elegant. A brass sign announced that this was the Hotel Alvarado. The old-world elegance continued inside.

Hollister stepped up to the counter. “Mr. and Mrs. Taylor. We have a reservation.”

They did? When had he arranged that? She masked her surprise. The clerk handed over a key, and Hollister smiled down at her fondly. “C’mon, honey. You look exhausted. Let’s get you to bed.”

Her gaze snapped to his. To bed with him? As husband and wife? A thrill rippled through her. It had been far too long since she’d even entertained such a thought about any man. His gray eyes went darker and stormier than usual as they registered where her thoughts had obviously drifted. And just as quickly as it had come, the expression disappeared, carefully banked.

She all but rocked backward on her heels. John Hollister was a force to be reckoned with. Definitely not a man to be taken lightly. And she was about to go traipsing into the wilds of South America with him. Alone. A sudden urge to fan herself nearly overcame her.

He spun abruptly on his heel and headed for the elevators. She followed cautiously. They rode up to their floor in silence, the close atmosphere of the tiny space felt charged. He led the way to a brass-numbered door and unlocked it, holding it open for her. She brushed by him, and was startled to catch a whiff of something masculine and expensive. He worked in a ramshackle hut in the Caribbean and wore a designer after-shave? Who was he?

The door closed behind her as she stared in dismay at the single, king-size bed dominating the room.

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll sleep on the floor,” he said from behind her. “But it helps us blend in if we appear to be a married couple.”

She snorted. Like who she slept with was going to matter for squat in a few weeks. “I don’t care if you sleep in the bed. You strike me as the kind of man who’d be a gentleman.”

“You consider yourself a good judge of character, do you?” he replied.

She turned to face him. “I’ve had a couple of colossal misses in my day, but my instincts are usually right.”

“What are your instincts saying about me?”

He asked the question casually enough, but all of a sudden thick anticipation hung in the air between them. She studied him closely. No two ways about it. The man was gorgeous. But there was more to him than that. There was the whole competence thing she’d already noticed, but the way he held himself…ramrod straight, dignified…

“My instincts say you are a formidable man, John Hollister.”

He cocked an eyebrow and said nothing.

“You’re honest. Maybe to a fault. You’re—” she searched for a word “—demanding of the people around you.”

That made him start a bit. She must have hit a nerve.

“But you’re more demanding of yourself. How am I doing so far?”

A shrug. But his eyes had gone nearly black.

“I think you don’t laugh nearly enough. You’re goal-oriented. Probably don’t know how to relax.”

“I can relax,” he disagreed.

She wagged a finger at him. “Ahh, but do you choose to? I think not.”

“How do you come to all these fascinating conclusions about me?”

“Your jaw. It’s all there in your jaw.”

“My—I thought the window to the soul is the eyes.”

“Not in your case. You don’t show anything of yourself in your eyes.”

“That, I can believe,” he muttered. “Thank God.”

“Okay. Your turn. What do your instincts tell you about me?” she challenged.

“You don’t want to know.” And with that, he whirled and headed for the door. “I’ve got to go out for a little while. There are a few supplies I still need to get for our trip.”

Things he couldn’t get past the Peruvian Customs officials? Like weapons, maybe? She didn’t say anything aloud. Her evasive escort wouldn’t have told her anyway, if she didn’t miss her guess.

“Stay here,” he ordered. “Don’t answer the phone and don’t let anyone into the room. I’ll be back soon.”

He slipped out of the room quietly, the door closing silently behind him.

John leaned against the wall of the elevator, breathing hard. Damn, that woman had pegged him cold. How in the world had she done that? For some reason it scared the hell out of him that she could see through him so easily. He was supposed to be a rock. Never show any emotion. Be in complete control at all times. Had he lost his edge completely for a civilian to read him like an open book?

What in the hell was he doing out here? He was in no shape to go on any sort of field operation. But then, this wasn’t an actual mission. It was a simple delivery job. Just take the woman to see her family wherever they were tucked away up in the mountains.

Nonetheless, his instincts told him to treat this like a full-blown op. To arm himself and go to ground as if he and Melina were both in mortal danger. And like Melina, his instincts were usually spot-on. Usually. He’d been dead wrong in a cold Afghani mountain pass a few months ago. And his entire team had paid the price. The ultimate price. And here he was, in a swanky hotel with a beautiful woman, alive and kicking, while eight good men—his men—were turning to dust.

He swore and stepped out of the elevator.

Melina stepped out of the shower, having steamed herself to approximately the doneness of a cooked lobster. Out of her original suitcase—the one she’d packed at home, not the backpack Hollister had filled for her on the island—she pulled out a purple lace lingerie ensemble and donned it. Over that she pulled a stretchy black dress that hugged her curves like a fine race car on a fast track. She’d worked off a whole lot of frustrations over her research in the gym over the years, and she might as well show off the results in this, her last hurrah.

She slipped on a strappy pair of black stilettos. She hadn’t the slightest idea why she’d packed them, but they were the sexiest shoes she owned, and she’d wanted to have them with her. For confidence. How pathetic was that? She had to turn to clothing for moral support. Where had the brash, smart, ballsy young woman that she’d once been gone? When had she allowed life to turn her into a meek, uninteresting doormat?

A man like John Hollister would never settle for a doormat. Of that she was sure. And maybe that was why she’d donned her little black dress and these shoes. She turned off all the lights before she opened the drapes and sat down in a chair by the window. She’d gotten the impression from the false names at the front desk that Hollister didn’t want to advertise their presence in Lima just yet. And frankly, that was fine with her. The longer she delayed making herself known to Huayar’s men, the better. They’d close in on her like circling sharks, and then the jig would be up.

How long she sat there in the dark, gazing out at the lights of Lima and the distant, unearthly glow of the moon preparing to rise over the mountains, she didn’t know. It was peaceful. It had been a long time since she’d been truly alone like this. She spent almost every waking hour at the lab, surrounded by government officials and guards and the pharmaceutical firm’s eager executives, all of them hovering over her work while they waited for her to invent the next designer drug to replace methamphetamine, and in so doing, win a huge government contract to create its antidote.

She started violently when the hotel room door opened behind her. She felt the dark shadow of John Hollister glide into the room on high alert.

“Everything’s all right. I was just enjoying the moonrise,” she murmured.

A shadow on the far side of the bed straightened into the outline of a man and detached itself from the wall. He moved over behind her chair to look out the window. A golden, glowing ball broke free of the Andes mountains and lifted majestically into the night sky, rapidly growing smaller and whiter as it went.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” she said.

“Yes. It is.”

“You sound surprised.”

He replied contemplatively, “I don’t remember the last time I watched a moonrise.”

“Too busy chasing the girls, huh?”

A snort came from behind her. “Something like that.”

“Did you get what you need?”

“Yes. We’re good to go. When are you supposed to collect the final directions as to where we’re heading?”

“As soon as I call to let…my family…know I’m here.”

“And why do we need to get these coordinates, again?” he asked lightly.

She answered in an equally light, but wholly false, tone, “They move around frequently in their work. Once they know when I’m arriving, then they can tell me where they’ll be.”

“And who, exactly, are we meeting?”

She sighed. “Mr. Hollister—”

“I know. Don’t ask.” A pause. “Call me John.”

Silence fell between them. The moonlight took on a cold, metallic hue that sent a chill across her skin. She rubbed her arms to chase away the sudden goose bumps.

“Hungry?” he finally asked.

“As a matter of fact, I am.”

“You’re in luck. People eat late in this part of the world. When I came in, it looked like they were still serving in the restaurant downstairs.”

He held a hand down to her to help her out of her seat, and she reached up to take it. Their palms touched, and the skies opened around them. Infinite possibility soared overhead, wide open and free, inviting her to come fly. Startled, she looked up at him. His eyes blazed out of the shadows, compelling and full of dark magic. It washed over her, drawing her in and seducing her. She threw herself into the promise of his gaze, succumbing without a whimper. He gave an easy tug on her hand, and she floated to her feet before him.

He sucked in a sharp breath. “Nice dress.”

A genuine smile started in her toes and spread upward until it blossomed on her face. “Thanks. Thanks for noticing.”

He cleared his throat. “Kinda hard not to. You look…dynamite.”

She was going to kiss him if he kept that up. Kiss. Now there was a thought. A totally inappropriate one, but my, how tempting. She followed him to the door, feeling wobbly, and not because of the heels.

As the elevator whisked them downward he murmured, “Don’t forget we’re a couple. You’re my woman and I’m your man. Got it?” The door slid open and his hand landed possessively on the back of her neck, his thumb caressing the tender flesh under her hair. The promise of raw, unadulterated sex roared through his fingertips.

She glanced up at him, shock in her eyes.

He nodded, his smile sizzling her all the way to her toes. “Better. That’s how a woman about to be made love to until she can’t stand up should look.”

Her jaw dropped. He led her across the lobby, his hand never leaving her neck, his thumb never stopping that light, possessive caress. Waves of tingling shivered through her, starting at her neck and racing outward in expanding spirals of delight. All the loneliness of the past few years slammed into her full force. How long had it been since a man touched her like that? If only it were real. Intense longing nearly brought her to her knees.

As they approached the French doors into the restaurant, she threw him a sidelong glance. “You know, it’s not nice to tease. If you’re going to say something like that to a lady, you really should mean it.”

His retort stole away what little breath she had left. “Who says I don’t?”

Chapter 3

John was startled at the effect his words had on her. A shiver raced across her skin, and her eyes went so big and dark he could see all the way to her soul. Distracted, he guided her behind the maître d’ to a candlelit table in a dark, secluded corner. John took one look at the table their host had selected for them and a reluctant smile tugged at his mouth. Apparently, the steamy lovers act must be working.

He stepped smoothly in front of the host and held Melina’s seat for her, his hand brushing across her bare shoulders as he moved to her right and took the seat that put his back to the wall.

He leaned back, amused, as Melina made a production out of studying the menu as if she were going to have to take a test over its contents. The line of her cheek captivated him. DaVinci couldn’t have drawn it more beautifully than Mother Nature had. She really was a stunning woman. Polished as brightly as a fine diamond. If she didn’t come from money, and a lot of it, she faked it very well. She seriously didn’t strike him as the type to want to run around in the rugged mountains of South America.

She glanced up. “Do you know what you’re ordering?”

He nodded. “I’m still deciding how I want my dessert, though.”

Her cheeks blossomed twin spots of pink and her chest lifted on a quick breath. Give the lady high marks for catching the subtleties of double entendre.

When the waiter came, Melina exchanged pleasantries with the guy in perfect Spanish before ordering effortlessly in the same tongue. Where did she learn to speak that tongue so well? John wished there’d been time to run a background check on her before they left Pirate Pete’s. But Brady Hathaway had been in such an all-fired hurry to hustle him out of there and away from that noose that he’d barely had time to collect his own gear, let alone outfit Melina.

John ordered a steak—rare—salad with vinaigrette, roasted local vegetables, no mushrooms, and a bottle of wine, lightly chilled. The waiter left, and John turned his attention back to his dinner companion. Time to do his own background check. In the guise of polite dinner conversation, of course.

“For an American, you speak Spanish exceptionally well.”

“I live in Mexico City.”

“What do you do there?”

Her eyes clouded over. “I work for a pharmaceutical company.”

She didn’t look particularly happy about it, though. They sipped their wine in silence while he considered her. He couldn’t come up with a single reason why a cosmopolitan woman like her needed to go on a trek in the Andes that was so obviously not for pleasure. What was she up to?

“Tell me about yourself,” he said casually as he refilled her wine glass.

She swirled the maroon liquid, staring down into it pensively. She looked up abruptly, her reverie broken. “Why don’t you tell me about me? You dodged my question earlier. Let’s see how your instincts stack up to mine.”

Fine. Maybe he could shake loose some information out of her by playing along. He sipped his wine, studying her until she began to fidget beneath his intent gaze.

Only then did he speak. “All right, here goes. My overall impression of you is that you’re generally frustrated.”

Her eyebrows shot straight up. Interesting reaction. He expanded on the impression. “You have a decent education that you’re either not using or don’t like how you’re using. You don’t like what you’re doing with your life. You’re not in a satisfying relationship, and perhaps that frustrates you most of all. And well it should. A beautiful, bright woman like you should expect to have a good man in her life.”

Storm clouds drifted into her gaze.

“Ahh,” he said in realization. “You thought you had a good man, didn’t you? But you misjudged him. One of those colossal errors in judgment you mentioned earlier.”

A startled look flashed through her expressive eyes. He didn’t even need to attempt to read her body language. Her eyes were an open book. He’d hit it spot on. How long ago had that ugly breakup been? She wasn’t giving him any clues on that. Could be recent; could be an old wound.

“What else?” she asked cautiously.

“You’re hiding something. Something you’re afraid of. You think it’ll shock me.” She opened her mouth, obviously to protest, but he cut her off with a quick wave of his hand. “For the record, you’re wrong. Nothing you could say or do will shock me. Believe me. I’ve seen it all.”

She downed a good half-glass of wine in a single gulp. Bingo. Score another direct hit for him.

“Anything else?” she asked, sounding almost afraid of what else he would say.

“Someone has almost got you convinced that you don’t deserve the best for yourself.”

She nearly dropped her glass of wine at that one. She fumbled the crystal vessel, recovered it, and downed another large gulp of liquid courage.

“Left to your own devices, I bet you like to have fun. To laugh.” He glanced down at where her crossed foot peeked out from under the linen tablecloth to his left. His mouth quirked up at one corner and he continued, “Any woman who’d wear a pair of shoes that sexy has a bit of a brazen streak lurking in her. Since you haven’t shown any hint of it to me…yet…I can only assume it means you’re a fiery one in the bedroom.”

Something flashed in her gaze that he hadn’t seen so far. Challenge. Humor. The very fire he spoke of. A silent dare to him to find out if he was right or not.

And something flickered deep in his gut in response. A spark he hadn’t felt since before…well, before.

Their meal came, and he found himself taking inordinate pleasure in watching Melina eat. She savored every bite as if it were her last. In turn, he found himself enjoying his succulent steak immensely. It was the first time he could remember actually tasting food in a while.

They finished the bottle of wine with their meal. Melina ordered chocolate mousse for dessert and he did the same. He was surprised when she added an expensive, aged armagnac to the order.

“You know brandy?” he asked in surprise.

She smiled. “I used to.”

“Some things you never forget.”

She nodded. “Like the taste of a fine cognac.”

“Or a fine woman,” he remarked lightly.

Whether it was the copious alcohol or embarrassment staining her cheeks that rosy color, he couldn’t tell.

The sommelier decanted the armagnac for them, and John watched Melina over his snifter while he let his palms bring the liqueur up to proper drinking temperature. She anticipated the taste of the fine beverage with almost sexual intensity. It had obviously been a long time since she drank cognac. What idiot of a man hadn’t been giving it to her nightly, just to watch her enjoy herself like this? It was what he would do if she were his.

She raised her snifter to him in silent toast and sipped the dark amber drink. Her eyes drifted closed, reveling in pleasure long denied and deeply savored.

The alcohol esters drifted up to his nose, carrying hints of vanilla, pepper, rose and chocolate. Wow. Give the woman an A+ for her taste in cognac. Delicately, he sipped the liqueur. It was smooth as silk, its round, Monlezun black oak flavor dripping in subtle finesse. He nodded at the waiter, who left the bottle upright on the table. After all, armagnac and cork didn’t mix.

In combination with the chocolate mousse, the fine brandy was sensational. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear Melina entered a near orgasmic state across the table from him. Hell, he wasn’t far behind.

They finished eating in silence and he signed for the meal, putting it on their room tab. He did a double take at the price tag on the bottle of brandy. That was more than he made in a month. And worth every penny.

“Shall we retire to our room?” he murmured.

She smiled, more relaxed than he’d seen her since they’d met. He held her chair for her. She stood up, snagging the bottle of armagnac on her way past the table. Her gait wasn’t a hundred percent steady as he draped his arm over her shoulders and guided her out of the restaurant. When in public in South America with a woman this beautiful, it was generally good policy to stake very obvious claim to her. It avoided no end of unpleasant encounters with single males on the prowl. Besides, the lady wasn’t complaining. In fact, she leaned into him as if she found his presence reassuring.

He led her into their room and she kicked off her shoes, dangling the bottle of armagnac from her right hand as she moved across the room in the dark toward the windows.

“Leave the lights off, okay?” she asked.

“Okay.” He followed her across the room, vividly aware of the bed looming on his left. He actually felt a little light-headed. With his body mass and metabolism, he usually held liquor like nobody’s business. But apparently, mixing a half bottle of wine with the potent brandy had gotten to him a little. Of course, he usually didn’t drink on top of the meds he was still taking for his back pain.

She stood in front of the window, silhouetted against the city lights and the night outside. The woman had a body made for sin. He stepped close behind her and looked over her shoulder.

“I never imagined I’d come to this place,” she murmured. “And certainly not under these circumstances.”

“What circumstances?”

She turned to face him, coming up short practically against his chest. “Hi there,” she giggled.

“I think you’re a little bit drunk.”

“I hope so. I wish I were a lot drunk.” And with that, she tipped up the brandy bottle and took a hefty swig.

“A couple more swallows like that and you will be,” he cautioned her.

“I hate drinking alone,” she announced. “Here. You have a drink.”

“I can’t afford to get drunk. I’m on a job.”

“There’s nothing to do until I call the number they gave me.”

She was almost more temptation than he could stand. But he had a responsibility to her. To the mission. To…hell, he didn’t know what to…That brandy was damned strong. He felt its effervescence rising to his head, scattering his thoughts.

“Drink.” She put the bottle to his mouth and tipped it up. He swallowed a big gulp before he could disarm her of the bottle.

“Easy, darlin’.”

“I want to kiss you,” she announced.

If she’d sounded a little more drunk, he’d have laughed off the announcement. But as it was, he thought he heard an undercurrent of real intent in her voice.

“I work for you. It’s totally inappropriate.”

She reached up, placing a soft hand on either side of his face. She looked deep into his eyes, her face wreathed in moonlight and shadows. “John, you’re fired. Now kiss me.”

He couldn’t help it. He laughed. And he was lost. Her laughter rose up to mingle with his, and she took the short step forward, closing the gap between them. She must’ve stood on tiptoe because her lips nuzzled his ear, sending lust roaring through him.

She murmured, “You think you can make love to me until I can’t stand up, huh? This I have to see.”

Holy—His brain tumbled like a fighter jet shot down out of the sky and falling wildly out of control toward oblivion. If he were going to be around long enough to have a real relationship with a woman like her, he’d never contemplate making love to her now. He’d get to know her better. Woo her. Let her know he cared about her for more than sex. After all, he was no raw boy intent only on getting a cheap lay.

But hell. As soon as he delivered her to wherever she was going, he was checking out for good. She seemed to be celebrating some sort of unspoken last hurrah, too. Why shouldn’t he take her up on the offer? She was an adult, after all. Not to mention beautiful. And sexy. And attracted to him. Hell, she’d initiated it.

How did that old saying go? He who hesitates is lost?While he hesitated, she reached up and pushed her dress’s spaghetti straps off her shoulders. And then, holy mother of God, she pushed her dress down to her waist. The scrap of lace that passed for her bra did more to reveal than cover, and all coherent thought deserted him. He stared, dumbfounded as she shimmied all the way out of the dress, revealing a—sweat popped out on his forehead—lacy thong that was possibly the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.

And he was well and truly lost.

She stepped out of the circle of black fabric on the floor and reached behind her back with both hands for her bra hooks. He stepped forward quickly, reaching around her to stop her hands. “Hey. That’s my job.”

She laughed up at him, “Well, get to it, then.”

“You can’t tell me what to do anymore. You fired me.”

“Please get to it, then?” She smiled up at him.

He bent his head down to capture all that unleashed joy suddenly bursting from within her. It was as if a floodgate had opened. She’d been so serious, so restrained. But now that she’d let loose, she’d completely let loose. This was the woman he’d sensed beneath her worried, drawn exterior. The real Melina.

But he’d been wrong about her. She wasn’t fiery in the bedroom. She was a volcano. In full eruption. Sex appeal not only rolled off her skin until it all but scalded him to touch her, it created a cloud of steam around them that incinerated him from the lungs out. He couldn’t get enough of her. He breathed her in, wrapping her in his arms, drawing her satin body up against his. Skin. He wanted to feel her skin with his. He reached for the top button of his shirt and she pushed his hands aside, all but ripping the garment off him.

His belt slithered from around his waist, and her hands were on his zipper in a trice. He sucked in his stomach, frantic to avoid her touch long enough to get naked before he totally lost control. “Slow down, honey. We’ve got all night.”

“It won’t be long enough for all I want to do with you,” she panted back.

He laughed, but even to his ears it sounded more like a possessive growl. Her palms slid around his waist to the small of his back, pressing him against her. Her breasts pushed impudently against his chest, and his erection pushed even more impudently against his zipper. And his control snapped.

He swept her off her feet and carried her over to the big bed. He followed her down to the cool sheets, lost in her sexual eruption. He had little recollection of how the rest of their clothes came off, but it involved her pushing him onto his back and crawling all over him, and his hands roaming all over her spectacular body while she moaned with need and pleasure.

They should use protection, but he wasn’t going to be around long enough to care about his own health. Nonetheless, out of respect for her, he drew back. “Hold on. I’ve got condoms in my pack.”

She pulled him back down to her. “Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter to me.”

“I insist. For your safety.”

She laughed bitterly. “I’m so not safe, you have no idea.”

His eyebrows shot up. She corrected hastily. “I don’t have any contagious diseases. I swear.” As he continued to hesitate, she added, “As I understand it, a person has to actually have sex now and then to get a sexually transmitted disease.”

That shot his eyebrows straight to his hair line. A woman of this passion, and she didn’t have sex on a frequent and regular basis? It was practically a crime!

Then she was kissing him again. And the lady could kiss like nobody’s business, her whole body getting into the act. She made a swear-to-God purring noise in the back of her throat. It rippled through him like the ground shock of an explosion, rocking him to his core.

And then her mouth was on his stomach, contracting his muscles so hard they hurt. He withstood it as long as he could, and then he surged up over her, returning the favor. Her flat stomach went soft and hard by turns under his mouth, her long fingernails raking through his hair in desperate pleasure.

And then she cried out sharply, her entire body trembling. The smell of her pleasure wrapped around him sweet and warm, brandy and chocolate. She drew him up the sinuous length of her body.

“Please, John. I want all of you. And you can have all of me in return.”

“I never could refuse a lady,” he murmured.

She all but sobbed in relief against him, her slender legs wrapping tightly around his hips. He sank down into her, body and soul, his gaze locked on hers as their bodies became one. Her eyes went wide with delight, fluttering closed on a sigh of pleasure he felt all the way to her core. Almost dizzy with the intensity of her reaction to him, he strained toward her, reaching higher and higher with her. His raw cries joined hers as they built a tsunami between them and rode it like a pair of death-defying big wave surfers.

She pushed on his shoulders, and he rolled onto his back, taking her with him to straddle him even more deeply. He groaned at the sensation. She rocked experimentally, then burst into laughter and rode him with abandon. He clenched his teeth, restraining himself by the thinnest thread.

“You’re killing me,” he ground out.

She threw her head back. “But what a way to go.”

His laughter mingled with hers as he sat up, gathering her in his arms, their bodies still one. She looped her arms around his neck, gazing deep into his eyes. The laughter faded from her expression, and something…unnamed…passed between them.

A moment of naked and total understanding. Of having found a kindred soul. Of seeing past all the artifice, all the emotional defenses, all the petty facades, to the bare truth of one another. Had it been any other moment but this one, they might have recoiled, might have looked away, might have attempted to hide from each other. But as it was, he surged up deep within her and her internal muscles gripped him even more tightly.

He groaned, and she laughed, and the wave of their lovemaking came crashing down upon them, racing up onto shore, tumbling them in its joyous chaos, depositing them upon the sands of a pleasure so intense neither of them could move, let alone stand up. The wave retreated slowly, leaving in its wake a sparkling diamond mist of joy hanging in the sunlight of their souls.

He collapsed onto his back, dragging her down on top of him. She sprawled, satisfyingly boneless, across his insanely sated body. He tingled from the top of his spinning head to the burning soles of his feet.

“Wow,” she breathed. “Double wow.”

He chuckled. “Triple wow.”

She lifted her head languidly, and a shaft of moonlight caught her hair, turning it to spun gold as it draped over her shoulder to tickle his chest. “Wanna do that again?”

“And again, and again, and again.”

“Only four times? I thought you looked like you’re in better shape than that.”

He laughed up at her. “Don’t tempt me. The night is young.”

“Hah. I dare you.”

He narrowed his gaze in a mock scowl. “Thing is, I need you to be able to walk sometime in the next week. Sorry, honey, but I’m going to have to restrain myself.”

Her fingernails raked across his chest just hard enough to make him flinch. They trailed down his side and across his hip. “Restrain this,” she murmured.

His willing body leaped to attention with surprising alacrity.

“Mmm. That’s more like it,” she murmured.

“The woman is a wildcat. What have I gotten myself into?”

“You have no idea,” she replied, abruptly serious. “I’ll do my best to keep you out of it, though. I promise.”

He rolled over, pinning her beneath him. “You’ll do no such thing. I’m involved with you now, whether you like it or not.” They’d looked into each other’s souls, for crying out loud. They were most definitely in this together. Whatever this was.

Chapter 4

Melina woke up to bright sunlight the next morning, and the oddest sensation under her faintly aching head. Her ear rested on something warm and resilient and suspiciously like a…

She sat bolt upright. Her suspicion had been correct. It was a muscular, and very male, shoulder. And it belonged to John Hollister. It hadn’t been a dream. A wonderful, incredible, spectacular dream. A perfect night.

Well, at least she’d managed one perfect night before she checked out of the ol’ mortal coil. She supposed that was something to be pleased about. John shifted beside her and she glanced down. She was startled to see gray eyes gazing steadily back at her, clear and fully alert. No hangover for him, no sir.

“How’re you feeling this morning?” he asked with a distinct note of caution in his voice.

She smiled down at him. “A little dehydration headache, but nothing a couple aspirin and some water won’t take care of.”

“I have some good painkillers if the aspirin doesn’t work,” he mentioned as he sat up, pooling the sheet in his lap. My, my, my. The man had acres of muscles her anatomy textbooks couldn’t have rendered any better.

She shrugged. “I never do anything stronger than aspirin.”

“Lucky you. In my line of work, I end up taking all kinds of stuff to keep going. Or at least I used to.”

And what line of work would that be, exactly? It occurred to her that he’d drawn quite a bit of information out of her last night but had failed to reciprocate with even the sketchiest details of his life. The sum total of what she knew about him was that he worked for a private courier company, he knew where to pick up a weapon in Peru, and he was positively unbelievable in bed. She’d never been with a man even remotely like him. He made the rest of them seem like adolescent boys fumbling their way through the act.

He swung his feet out of the bed and strolled, gloriously and unconcernedly naked, into the bathroom. Now that was a view a girl could get used to.

“Wanna shower first?” he called out to her.

A slow smile spread across her face. In for a penny, in for a pound. She got out of bed and strolled equally as naked to the bathroom. “How ’bout we share the hot water?”

As she rounded the corner, he looked up from a handful of pills, startled. “Uhh, okay. Lemme get these down.”

She stepped forward, curious. “What are those?”

“Carisoprodol.”

“A high-powered muscle relaxant? For what?” she asked.

Now, he looked really surprised. “How do you know what carisoprodol does?”

“I work for a pharmaceutical firm, remember?”

“Doing what?”

“Research, mostly.”

“What kind of research?”

The kind she emphatically didn’t want to talk about. She replied lightly, “The medical kind, mostly.” She stepped over to the shower’s water spigot. “Do you like it cool or screaming hot?”

He stepped up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. He murmured in her ear, “The more screaming, the better, darlin’.”

Laughing she stepped into the shower with him and forgot all about carisoprodol. That was until she moved around behind him to soap up his back. The circular, puckered scar just to the left of his L-4 lumbar vertebra was impossible to miss. Still red, the scar was obviously less than a year old. And was just as obviously a bullet wound.

“Your last girlfriend shot you, huh?” she remarked as she sudsed up the scar.

He started like he’d forgotten it was back there. His back muscles bunched into rock hard ridges of…of what? Embarrassment? Stress? Denial? She couldn’t read him at all. A need to comfort him surprised her. She wasn’t usually the maternal kind, and John didn’t strike her as the kind of man who needed or appreciated being mothered. He was an adult in charge of his own life all the way.

The least she could do was distract him from his scar since she was the one who brought it up. She slid around in front of him, rubbing her slippery, soapy body against his as she went. “Mmm. Nice,” she murmured, smiling up at him.

“You’re a beautiful woman, Melina Montez,” he murmured back. He slicked her hair back from her face, studying her seriously. “Not that many women look this good with their hair wet and no makeup.”

“You obviously are blinded by the soap in your eyes,” she replied, laughing.

“I may be blinded, baby, but it isn’t soap doing the job.”

How could a girl resist a compliment like that? She melted against him, savoring the unbearably sensual slide of soapy skin on skin. She stood on tiptoe and wrapped her right leg around his hips in blatant invitation. With the hot water pounding down on them both, he stared down at her, abruptly serious.

“I don’t deserve you,” he said.

She barely heard him over the sound of the water. “You don’t deserve me?” she echoed. “I think you’ve got that backward. I don’t deserve you.”

“Ahh, honey, you have no idea. The things I’ve done—”

The back of her calf rubbed against that telltale scar on his back as she blinked up at him through the shower’s spray. “We’re both adults. Everyone who hasn’t lived in a cocoon has baggage of some kind. I won’t hold the skeletons in your closet against you if you won’t hold mine against me.”

Doubt flickered in his gaze and his eyes glazed with distant thoughts. Was he skeptical of her past or his?

She leaned into him, forcing him to acknowledge her presence. “We’re here together now. No past. No future. Just this moment.”

He didn’t quite come back to her, his eyes were still dark and haunted.

“Come back to me, John,” she murmured. She reached down with her hand to guide him into her throbbing heat. Oh, yeah. That did it. Awareness of her roared back into his eyes, and he aggressively took charge of the moment. Wrapping one arm around her waist, he picked her up and backed her against the cool, tile wall of the shower. With his other hand braced by her head, he drove into her until all thought fled her mind. There was nothing at all except the moment and the two of them, the pounding water and steam, and the rhythm of their bodies slapping into one another as they drove away their demons.

They ordered room service and ate in, lazily watching the morning fog burn off the city skyline below. As hard as she tried to ignore it, the moment came when she could no longer delay the inevitable. She had to make that phone call. So much for her fantasy tryst before she handed herself over to the jackals. Her mouth set grimly, she dug in her purse and fished out the piece of paper with the phone number she’d been given to call when she got here. She reached for the telephone.

A big hand landed gently on top of hers, stopping her from lifting the handset. “I’ll make the call, Melina.”

“They won’t talk to you. They’re expecting me!”

His gaze narrowed far too intelligently. “Who’s they?”

“The people I’m supposed to call,” she replied with desperate calm. He mustn’t mess this up! Her family’s lives rode on it. Huayar had been clear. Any deviation at all from her instructions, and her family would be tortured and possibly killed.

“I’m sorry, honey. I need you to be more specific than that.”

“John, let me make the call. Please just stay out of this.”

He turned at that, capturing both of her hands in his and drawing her away from the phone entirely. He led her across the room and gently forced her down into one of the armchairs. Alarmingly, he continued to stand, looming over her with his arms crossed.

“With all due respect, sweetheart, what the hell’s going on? I already told you that you can tell me anything. And I meant it. But I need to know what I’m up against, here.”

“You’re not up against anything. I hired you to deliver me and nothing more.”

He replied dryly, “As I recall, you fired me last night.”

She glanced up at him, startled. Humor danced in his silver gaze. “That’s not fighting fair to throw that in my face now.”

“I never said I fight fair.”

She sighed. “John.”

“Melina.”

“I can’t tell you, okay? There’s more going on here than meets the eye. But you don’t need to know the details. In fact, you’ll be safer if you don’t know anything.”

She scooted backward as he leaned toward her, planting his hands on the arms of the chair and forcing her to arch back to look at him. His expression went blacker than sin. He gritted out words slowly, enunciating clearly. “Whether you like it or not, and whether you cooperate or not, my job is to deliver you to your family safe and sound. If you won’t tell me what I’m up against to make that happen, then we’re not leaving this hotel room.”

“But I have to go…I can’t stay here….”

“I’m bigger than you, Melina, and trust me, I’m meaner than you are. We go nowhere until you spill your guts.”

She closed her eyes in frustration. And everything had been going so well, marching along exactly according to plan—to Huayar’s plan. Maybe John had a point. Maybe taking a modicum of control of this process wouldn’t be a bad thing for her. If nothing else, it might alleviate a little of her sense of being a lamb toddling along docilely to her own slaughter.

“Fine,” she huffed. “I’m not going to meet my family exactly. It’s a work related thing. I’m going to meet some people…to…exchange some information.”

“In the remotest region of Peru? What the hell kind of information requires that sort of meeting place?”

She folded her arms stubbornly. “I’m not saying any more. I’ve already said too much.”

He studied her speculatively for long enough that she developed a nearly uncontrollable urge to squirm. Finally, he commented, “I can think of about two innocent reasons for you to be heading deep into the Andes and about ninety-five reasons that are anything but innocent. Which is it?”

They’d made love until the wee hours of the morning last night, had bared their bodies and their souls to one another. He’d looked into the face of her desperation and naked despair and he hadn’t flinched. And he didn’t strike her as the judgmental type. He gave off a vibe of having done enough things he wouldn’t want others to judge, so he wouldn’t be the first one to cast stones. Still, she couldn’t tell him the truth. And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to lie to him, either. That would be too easy, the coward’s way out. She pressed her lips firmly together.

He sighed. “Give me the phone number. I’ll make the call.”

“I already said you can’t.”

“And I already said you’re not doing it. That leaves only me to make the call. End of discussion.”

She glared up at him. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a stubborn, unreasonable man?”

“They usually say I’m pigheaded and arrogant, too. But I’ll give you a few days to get there. In the meantime, please hand over the phone number nicely, or I may have to take it by force.”

“You wouldn’t!” she gasped, aghast.

He raised a sardonic eyebrow and merely stared at her. His expression gave away absolutely nothing. Did she believe him, or should she call his bluff? She studied him for a moment more. Nope. He wasn’t bluffing. Calm readiness radiated from him. He was fully prepared to mug her for the phone number. Man. She could see where the pigheaded and arrogant accusations came from. Disgruntled, she passed over the slip of paper.

“Thank you,” he said with quiet dignity.

Damn him. He would have to go and be a gracious winner, too. That made it harder to stay mad at him. She sat back in her chair with a huff.

He dialed the number quickly.

His end of the conversation was painfully brief and in brisk Spanish. He jotted down something on the pad of paper beside the phone, and then, without asking any questions, got off the phone.

“What did they say?” she cried. “Where are we going? When do we have to be there? Is…everything…okay?”

“Whoa, there, Mel. Slow down.”

She reeled back, stunned. Her father was the only person who’d ever called her Mel. Her sweet, absentminded father, whose life hung in the balance. Tears stung her eyelids and she blinked them away rapidly. All of a sudden, John was there, his strong arms wrapping around her and pulling her close. His hand pushed her head down gently onto his shoulder. She drew a sobbing breath. Another. And then she pulled herself together by main force. As much as she wanted to let it all go, she didn’t have the luxury. Not yet. Precious lives rode on her keeping her act together. Just a little longer, and then she could lose it.

He leaned away from her, studying her without turning her loose.

“What?” she mumbled.

“You’re a strong woman, I’ll grant you that. But you’re not strong enough to do this alone. You need someone. Let me help you.”

“I am letting you help—whether I want to or not,” she replied a little peevishly. “You stole the phone number and talked to my contacts, and now you know where to go and I don’t.”

He nodded slowly. “Good point. And I think I’m going to keep it that way, too. I’m sorry, honey, but I don’t entirely trust you not to dump me once we get up in the mountains. I don’t know what you’re tangled up in, but I damned well know you’re in way over your head.”

She stared at him, her jaw hanging open. He wasn’t going to tell her where they were going? But it was her trip. He was just along to act as a guide and travel companion!

“When do you want to leave?” he asked casually.

“Oh, now you’re asking for my opinion?” she retorted with light sarcasm.

He smiled serenely at her. “No need to get bitchy. This arrangement is for the best and you know it. You’re grown-up enough to admit it.”

His bland comment stopped her in her tracks. He was exactly right. She was an adult. She wasn’t going to lose her cool. She’d traveled thousands of miles and was only days from making a deal with one of the deadliest snakes on the planet. She had bigger fish to fry. As much as she’d enjoy drinking more cognac and hiding from reality with him for a few more days, duty—and her family—called.

She sighed. “I want to leave right away.”

He nodded. “Okay, then. Let’s dump that ridiculous stuff you packed and then hit the road. We can drive the first part of the trip, but as you suggested, the last part of it’s going to have to happen on foot.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Which part of my clothing last night did you find ridiculous? The slinky black dress you couldn’t take your eyes off of all the way through supper, or the sexy shoes that made you think naughty thoughts while you were sipping your cognac, or maybe my purple lace bra? Oh, I know. It was that thong you couldn’t wait to peel off of me.”

He threw up his hands in surrender. “Uncle, uncle! You can take your sexy clothes with you. Let’s have a look at what else you’ve got in your bags and we’ll see what we can lose to lighten the load.”

As it turned out, most of her non-clothing items—things she’d thought would be vital on a mountain trek—John deemed worthless. It was depressing that she was so unprepared for what lay ahead. But by the same token, he seemed to know precisely what he was doing. Gratitude for his competent presence flooded her yet again…even if he was a bully.

It took them nearly an hour to sort through her luggage and box up the stuff she wouldn’t need. John carried it down to the concierge, who promised to mail it to her home in Mexico City. She didn’t have the heart to tell John that she wouldn’t be needing any of it again. Ever. What he didn’t know truly wouldn’t hurt him.

She waited impatiently in their room until he secured a vehicle—a banged up Land Rover that might once have been white, but was now permanently stained a dusty beige. She was startled when he hustled her out to a loading dock behind the hotel where he’d parked the vehicle, but she had faith he had a reason for his caution.

She said nothing as he efficiently guided the Land Rover through the squalor and urban sprawl of Lima’s suburbs. Eventually, he turned the vehicle onto a two-lane, potholed road that apparently passed for a highway in this part of the world. Lima fell behind, and verdant farmland stretched out around them, terraced up the hillsides.

“What did the guy on the phone say?” she finally broke down and asked John.

“Not much. Just that you were to proceed to a set of coordinates and await further instructions.”

“That’s all? No…other messages?”

“What sort of message?” he asked smoothly.

“Never mind.”

They drove on in silence for a while.

Out of the blue, John said, “He said everyone’s fine, so far.”

She sagged in her seat, so relieved she felt like crying. The only thought that went through her head, over and over and over was, Thank God my family’s safe. For now.

And then John asked grimly, “So, tell me. Why would some guy feel compelled to let you know someone is fine? This someone wouldn’t be fine why?”

She winced. That was the question of the hour, wasn’t it? Bucking up her courage, she looked him in the eye and shook her head regretfully. His eyelids flickered in reluctant acknowledgement. It wasn’t a surrender, but it was a declaration of a momentary truce. She’d take it.

She would not…could not…answer his questions. She hadn’t the slightest doubt that to do so would spell a death sentence for her parents and her brother. Even if refusing to answer John’s questions spelled the end between the two of them, she wouldn’t sacrifice her family’s safety for her own personal gratification. Ever.

But in the meantime, she had a very curious and increasingly insistent problem on her hands. And it was named John Hollister.

Chapter 5

The drive—a bone-jarring affair that all but rattled Melina’s teeth loose—took most of the afternoon. John finally pulled into a gas station in a tiny, impoverished village as the sun began to go down. The hamlet, tucked into a valley lined with green pastures and herds of cattle and alpacas, looked like an old Western movie set with its dusty streets, rust-stained stucco cantina, and a few decrepit vintage cars parked along raised wooden sidewalks.

John opened the door and climbed out. He peeled a few bills out of his wallet and passed them to a wizened, dark-haired man who came outside to pump their gas.

“Stay in the car,” John murmured through the window in English.

She sighed. Her legs felt like prickly rubber. She was really ready to get out and stretch. But there’d been a certain tone in John’s voice, a warning that he didn’t like something about this place. She studied the one-street village out the window, trying to spot what was bothering him. Nothing moved. All was quiet—as in completely deserted. The locals were probably at home by now settling down to supper with their families.

She heard John ask the gas station attendant about the condition of the roads ahead and how far it was to the next village. But she didn’t hear the man’s mumbled answers. John climbed back in the car and made a production of stowing his wallet and settling into his seat again. As he did so, he said without moving his lips, “We have a decision to make.”

“Do tell.”

“This place is entirely controlled by whomever you’re trying to hook up with. Frankly, I don’t think it’s safe for us. We can stop here for the night, or we can move on and try to find a village that’s neutral territory.”

“Did the guy on the phone tell us to stop here?” she asked in an undertone.

John shook his head as he latched his seat belt. “Nope. He said this place was about halfway to where we were going and mentioned that it has an inn, though.”

She glanced outside. “Really?” I don’t see one.”

The gas station attendant said the pub has a couple rooms for rent.”

Melina grinned over at him. “For rent by the hour, or the night?”

He grinned back. “I hesitate to think of the state of the bed linens.”

She nodded. “We go on.”

“I can’t promise the next village will be any better,” he warned.

She shrugged. “I’m learning to enjoy not playing by the rules. Let’s do our own thing tonight.”

He grinned over at her. “I like the sound of that.”

They drove for another hour as the sun set behind them and twilight settled outside. When the hills had turned a colorless gray and the trees were black silhouettes looming over the road, John exhaled in what sounded for all the world like disgust.

“What’s up?” she asked quickly, picking up on his disquiet.

“Traveling at night in this part of the world is asking for trouble.”

That didn’t answer her question. What wasn’t he telling her? She pressed. “What kind of trouble?”

He shrugged and glanced at her. “Pick your poison. Anything from roaming wild pigs to Shining Path guerrillas.”

“The way I hear it, they’re not so different.”

John laughed. “I dunno. Those pigs are pretty smart.”

The lightness of the moment faded along with the last vestiges of twilight. She asked soberly, “So what are our options?”

“Here’s the thing. The guy in the last village lied to me. He said the next town was forty kilometers away. No more than an hour down this road. We’ve gone sixty-five kilometers, and there’s no sign of civilization anywhere near here.”

Alarmed, she blurted, “What does that mean?”

“I imagine our friend has called ahead to some sort of welcoming committee who’ll be out here looking for us before too much longer.”

Melina jolted, looking around outside, wildly.

“Easy, darlin’. We’re far from defenseless. I’ve got a few aces up my sleeve.”

Just then he gripped the steering wheel tightly and swore under his breath. She peered up ahead and made out some sort of large, irregular obstruction lying across the road. It looked like a fallen tree.

“Looks like it’s time to pull out one of those aces,” she bit out.

“Climb in the backseat,” John ordered tersely. “Hurry.”

She complied with alacrity, falling in an ungainly heap on top of something hard and sharp in his gear bags.

He continued, “In my green duffel that you’re lying on, pull out the big gun on top and a couple of pistols, and pass them up here. Then buckle yourself in back there. We’re going cross-country. It’s gonna get rough.”

He wasn’t kidding. He swerved hard to the left, off the road. They banged down and up again through some sort of ditch, and then they took off across an open field strewn with stands of trees and brush. In a matter of seconds, the Land Rover was bucking and bumping over the most god-awful terrain she could imagine. John fought the steering wheel like it was a wild bronco, muscling it forward by sheer force of will. It was an impressive display of strength.

Apparently, the field was some sort of drainage or flood zone, for it was streaked by gullies. Thankfully the gashes, varying in size from a few feet deep to large enough to swallow the entire Land Rover, were mostly dry at the moment. Mostly. Mud splashed up, covering the vehicle’s windows until Melina could barely see outside.

A crack of sound, like a truck backfiring, made her jump.

“Get down!” John yelled, flooring the accelerator.

The ride went from horrendous to epic in its discomfort. Amusement park rides had nothing over the pounding she was taking back here! She lay down in the backseat for a few moments, but got so sick so fast that she had to sit up again. She braced a hand against the ceiling to protect her head from banging into the metal roof. How John could see where he was going, she had no idea. It was pitch-black outside, and he’d turned off the headlights. A few more cracks sounded, from behind them this time. She thought she heard faint shouts, but she couldn’t be sure.

After a few minutes, the ride smoothed out some, which was to say it went back to merely terrible. A splash of water slammed the window beside her, startling her badly. However, it also washed most of the sticky mud off the window. They were running along the bed of a river-size gully, a high clay wall looming outside the window. Periodically, they crashed into pockets of standing water, some as deep as the front fenders. But the sturdy Land Rover plowed right through them.

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