pdf - Eye of the Storm.PDF (6 page)

Keely stamped her foot. "Okay, let's stop all this testosterone bull-hooey. Listen up, boys. Stay off the path. Head due west, following parallel to the path, for approximately three and a half klicks. Vanko has my GPS and will definitely be taking point." She shot Ren a fierce look. It was a visual dare for him to disagree with her. "We'll be climbing at the end. The helo is in the village's marijuana field. It was the only clearing for miles."

"Who's the boss here?" He tapped the tip of her nose, accepting her unspoken dare.

"Me—since I rescued you and I know where the bird is. Problem with that, big guy?"

"Yeah." He grabbed her hat from Tweeter's hands and plopped it on her head. Her nose was red from the sun. "I'm in charge—you're a civilian consultant from here on out."

"Fine, if that's the way you want it." She tucked her hair up under the hat and moved to join Vanko.

Ren caught her arm and pulled her back to his side. "You're with me."

"Wonderful," she murmured, her lips thinning. "Men are Neanderthals."

He choked back a laugh. She could call him anything she wanted as long as she stayed put—next to him.

Vanko took the lead and Tweeter brought up the rear.

"Why stay off the path?" Tweeter asked from behind them.

Good question, and one he would have asked eventually.

"Mines."

Her tone was short and clipped. She was pissed. The woman didn't give an inch. In her place, neither would he. Then he groaned, remembering the explosion they'd heard earlier. The bartender had explained the absent villagers were blasting stumps to clear new fields. The explanation had made sense at the time. "How did you find that out?" He was afraid he knew the answer.

"Well … something about the clear path from the field to the village bothered me.

Tweetie calls it my spider sense. Anywho, I saw a trip wire." He stiffened and muttered

"hell." She patted his arm, her annoyance with him disappearing as quickly as it appeared. "Chill, big guy. It was a red herring for the claymore planted a few feet ahead."

His insides turned to ice at an image of Keely stepping on a mine. "So … I got off the path, found some old rock pile that used to be a drying shed or something, got behind it and lobbed a rock on the mine."

"Then you waited like a good girl to see who or what the noise brought out," Tweeter put in.

Keely laughed. The sound skittered over his skin, burrowing inside him and chasing away the cold. His contrary cock grew hard. When in the hell had he ever gotten hard from a woman's laugh? Never—until now.
Shit
.
Shit
.
Shit
.

"My brother knows me well. We played this game enough with the other kids on the Marine bases where Dad was stationed."

"And who came out of the forest?" Vanko asked from point. The Ukrainian was paying too close attention to Keely.

"Two mercs." Keely looked around the jungle. "We should be coming up on their bodies soon."

"You killed them?" Ren gripped her elbow tightly. At a low moan from her, he loosened his hold and absently soothed the pain by gently massaging the spot with his thumb. He'd heard her tell them she'd taken out three total bad asses before coming to the bar, but it hadn't really registered. Well, how could it? He could barely accept what he'd seen her do. Then they'd gotten busy shooting people shortly after that little tidbit had been delivered. Now that the actual incident had been underlined, he was angry—and scared after the fact. She could've been killed before he ever found her.
Now where the
fuck had that thought come from?

"No." She glanced at his grip on her arm and narrowed her eyes. "Um, loosen up, big guy. I need that elbow." He gentled his hold, but did not let her go. She looked at his hand once more, then shrugged. "Anywho, you saw what I did to the bartender. That's what I did to them—and I used all of my flex-cuffs on them."

She didn't sound at all upset about having to subdue two hired killers, just ticked off about using her whole supply of restraints. Every time she opened her mouth he had to revise his assessment of her abilities.

"How did they come at you?" he gritted out. Various scenarios flew across his mind's eye, and he didn't like any of them.

"One at a time, thank God. They were skinny. I could've taken them both at once, but I was glad they played it cautious—one man to investigate and one man to cover the rear." She grinned. "They were really shocked to see little old me."

All of a sudden she held up her free hand then stopped. He followed her lead, keeping a hold of her so she wouldn't go off to single-handedly challenge a unit of terrorists or something.

"Vanko. Hold it." His tone was low, urgent. He readied his weapon; Tweeter and Vanko followed suit. He didn't know what Keely heard, but her body language indicated she heard something. The jungle was oddly quiet. There was something or someone out there. She stood for several seconds, her head angled, listening, then tugged him to the left a few yards where she shoved some palm leaves aside.

The other two moved to join them. They laughed. He stood and viewed the scene with complete disbelief. The two men lying on the ground, bound hand and foot, were typical mercs: tough, muscular and mean-looking. He wouldn't be surprised if the two wouldn't shoot their own mothers for money. "Skinny," his voice cracked with anger,

"my ass."

Head tilted to the side, Keely scrutinized the two thugs. "Next to my brothers most guys are skinny."

"Your brothers aren't out to rape and kill you." He took several deep breaths until the sick feeling in his gut subsided. She could have been killed.

"Well, I should hope not." Her focus was totally on the prisoners. Her hands fisted on her hips. "Well, Jeez-Louise, the one guy moved around too much and dislodged the pressure bandage." She moved to go to the moaning man, but Ren tugged her back against him, his arm snaking around her waist like an iron clamp. His body instantly tensed everywhere her body touched his.
Oh hell, I’m in real trouble.
If his widely careening emotions hadn't convinced him, his body's instantaneous reaction to hers did.

Switching back to using his big brain, he said, "Let Vanko and Tweeter check them out." His nerves couldn't handle her approaching the men who would've raped then killed her.

"They can't hurt me. Dad taught me how to immobilize prisoners really well."

His only responses were a grunt and his other arm coming around her from the other side until she was trapped within the circle of his arms. She wiggled, testing her boundaries. He tightened his hold until she settled against him. She'd soon learn not to fight the limits he set for her.

Vanko eyed his arms, an eyebrow raised. Ren glared at him. The Ukrainian smiled and shrugged, then moved to check out the two immobilized men.

As Vanko checked over the men, Keely fidgeted against him. "Let go."

"No." Her ass rubbed his hard-on and he clenched his jaw, cutting off his groan.

Hell, he envisioned a lot of jerking off and cold showers in his future. Despite his big brain telling him to ignore her, he pulled her hard against his arousal and rubbed it against her tight, perky butt. Maybe that would teach her to stop wiggling.

She stilled as a small animal might when sensing a predator on its trail. Good. She got the picture. He eased his hold and allowed her to move away from the evidence of his desire. He choked back a laugh at her muttered "frick-fracking testosterone."

"Vanko? Status?" His words came out lower and huskier than he would've liked.

Tweeter's sister affected him too easily. On an op such a distraction wasn't good. He had to get his reaction to her under control, or better yet, get her back to the States as soon as possible. Out of sight. Out of mind
. Yeah right—that would work. He was toast no matter
where she was.

"Oh, she did a number on them, Ren." Vanko stood up. "Hands cuffed behind their backs and then cuffed to each other. Duct tape on their legs and gagged with pieces of their own clothing, then covered by duct tape. No way they would get loose. Good work, Keelulya"

"Thanks, Vanko." Keely beamed at the compliment.

Vanko's use of the diminutive version of her name placed her in the little sister or female relative category. Ren felt tension releasing he hadn't even known he had.

He attempted to look at the two mercs with the same level of professional objectivity Vanko displayed, but kept coming back to the purely emotional conclusion she could've been killed. He heaved a deep sigh and shook his head. Jesus, most women would have run in fear from the two ugly characters on the ground. Not her. She took them out and tied them up like a professional soldier. Fuck that, it made no difference that she was competent, she could still be hurt—and he would never allow that.

"What should we do with them?" Tweeter said. "Toss them on the path—maybe on one of those claymores they buried for us?"

The two bound men moaned and shook their heads, their eyes pleading.

"Tweetie, that's not nice." Keely wiggled out of Ren's arms and approached the prisoners. She nudged one of them with the toe of her boot. The man's eyes filled with what looked like fear. He whimpered behind his gag. "This is Pablo. Maybe I should interrogate him? Find out what he knows?"

Ren had to laugh as the man on the ground shook his head vigorously.

Tweeter lifted Pablo's head. "That's my baby sister you attempted to molest. I should just slit your fucking throat."

The man looked down at his gag, then up at Tweeter. Tweeter removed the gag.

"
Senor,
I did not molest your sister. Never would I do such a thing."

Vanko reached over and slapped the man on the back of the head. "Then talk, shithead. And we might leave you enough slack to get loose—eventually. The way I see it, you're both lucky some hungry jaguar hasn't followed the scent of the blood."

Keely backed away as Tweeter and Vanko asked questions. She bumped into Ren, then stopped, didn't move away. He frowned as she leaned almost wearily against him.

This wasn't the Keely he'd come to know in the last hour or so. He slid supporting arms around her and braced his chin on the top of her hat-covered head. "You okay?"

"Tired. Hot. Achy. Wish I had snagged a couple more bottles of Coke." She angled her head and looked up. "I want my air-conditioned suite at the resort hotel. Waste of time asking these two anything. I'm betting they only knew they were hired to kill you guys and then they'd get paid. They probably have never even seen Reyo Trujo."

"I have. Ugly bastard. They aren't missing anything special."

"I know what he looks like." He stiffened against her. "Stop it with the protective posturing. Back in Boston, I read his CIA and DIA files, silly. Stop worrying. No matter what it looks like, I normally don't go haring off on dangerous missions. This was an exception. I'm an analyst. I program computers to search and recognize patterns, then analyze the data."

She started to add something, then hesitated. He nudged her. "What’s wrong?"

"We need to talk about something I chanced upon when I was working for the NSA through MIT—it's the reason I sent my resignation to MIT. It has to do with all this—and more. It'll be easier to show you. I had my luggage delivered to the hotel and my laptop is there."

"If it isn't stolen," he muttered. The Triple Frontier, in particular, Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, was the largest black market and free-trade zone in South America. Light-fingered porters at the hotel probably made a living pilfering through hotel residents'

luggage for marketable goods and ferrying them across the river border. The borders in this part of the world were looser than a pimp's morals.

"I have all the data on a flash drive in my pocket. All they'd get are the programs, which are also duplicated on my flash drive. Plus, they wouldn't understand them even if they could get past my security—which they couldn't. The computer would wipe itself if they tried."

He smiled. She'd sounded all stiff and huffy. "Shh, little warrior. I know you wouldn't leave anything around that was government sensitive."

"How would you know that?" she grumbled. "You don't know me at all." Adding under her breath, "And don't want to know me either."

"Ah, that's where you are wrong. I plan on knowing you … knowing everything about you." His tone was one he didn't recognize. The feelings that went with it were ones he'd never felt before, but they were real.

She wiggled and turned into his body, her hands braced on his chest, and looked up at him. "You really want to…?"

"Yeah." He couldn't help it. She looked so cute. He placed a chaste kiss on her sweaty, flushed cheek. He frowned. Taking her hat off, he lay his cheek against her forehead. "You're burning up. Are you sick?"

"No … uh, well, I don't think so." She scrunched her forehead then let out a weary sigh. "I really don't do heat well. And I'm thirsty." She pushed against his chest, shoving her lower abs against his cock. His unruly cock pulsed against her. She looked down and blushed. "Oh my…" She shoved harder, attempting to get away from his arousal.

His reaction was to gather her closer. She buried her face in his chest. "Stay there."

He didn't like it when she tried to get away from him. His hand gently cupped the back of her head, his fingers combing through the wild red-gold curls. They were burning strands of silk. "Nothing's going to happen."

She muttered something under her breath.

He choked, then coughed. "Did you just use the f-word?"

Her head jerked up and she glared at him. "No. Now let me go. You don't like me.

You're teasing me. You don't want me here. You are an … ungrateful … man!"

His little spitfire uttered “man” as if it were a nasty word. He couldn't help it, he laughed.

She hit his chest with one little fist. "The next punch will be the heel of my hand up your nose."

He released her because she asked and the other two stood grinning at them, not because he felt threatened. He tapped her nose with his finger. "You don't know anything about what I like, sprite. I wasn't teasing you. And you did use the f-word, little liar. I may have to tell your Mom." But she was correct, he didn't want her here. He wanted her in Idaho, on Sanctuary where it was safe. And he was very grateful she had come into his life.