Playing for Keeps (8 page)

B
efore Donovan’s man took his first shot, Raven was sprinting across the weed-infested parking lot toward Dani-running interference between their truck and that of Donovan and his men.

Everything happened in slow-mo-the windshield shattering, bullets freaking flying, and the sun blazing down on his head as if holding him in place. “Da-aaaa-ni!”

Squeezing the trigger of his automatic, he laid cover fire as he ran like his life depended on it. He got one man, clambering out of the diesel, in the chest, the next in the right shoulder. As he ran by, he scooped up the fully loaded AK-47 from the fallen guy and sent a barrage of bullets toward the truck holding Donovan and more of his men.

He kept firing, using both weapons, until the Sig clicked empty. He tossed it aside and reached for the door handle, still letting bullets fly with the assault rifle.

Danica yanked on the lock, pulling up on the button, then she flung open the driver’s-side door, shouting, “Hurry, hurry, hurry!” He got off a kill shot over the door, then climbed in, slammed the door, and peeled out of the parking lot in a spray of gravel, Donovan’s bigger truck right behind them.

“Are you hit?” he yelled over the sound of gunfire.

“I’m fine. Turn left.” Dani, his quiet, pacifist, glorious Dani, turned around to kneel on the cracked leather seat and started firing out the back window. The glass shattered and splintered, then fell off in a sheet. No safety glass there. Raven grinned, as he turned left. She’d never fired a weapon in her life, and she never had had an eye for a ball, but she kept firing. The close proximity of their tail, and the firepower of the weapon insured she got in a sufficient number of hits.

The back tire exploded, tilting the truck ominously. He didn’t pause as the large vehicle shimmied and swerved, just flattened his foot on the accelerator, gripped the wheel and kept going. It wasn’t the smoothest ride, but they were still ahead of Donovan. If only by feet.

Danica kept firing, until her weapon, too, ran out of ammo. “Damn it—”

“Here,” Raven shouted against the din of racing engines and the thump-clop-scrape sound of driving on a rubber-less rim. He handed her another AK-47. “Take mine. It’s nice and big, and full of extremely accurate bullets.”

With a wide grin, Danica picked it up, braced it on the back of the seat, and started firing. “From your lips—” Even with her inexperienced aim, eventually she’d hit someone, or something. Right now, the covering fire was preventing Donovan’s people from driving right up their tailpipe. “You’re heading to the palace, right?”

“Hell, yeah!” Raven shouted, rocking and rolling down the streets of San Cristóbal, bullets flying all around them. Morning commuters jumped or drove onto the sidewalks to get the hell out of their way. “We’re about to become Vera’s best friends.”

“My thoughts exactly—Hey! Did you see that? I hit the front tire! Yahoo! They’re running off the roa— no, wait. They’re back on again,” Dani shouted, clearly disappointed she hadn’t run them into the ditch alongside the narrow street. “Oh, my God! Incoming!”
Yeah. He saw them. Two more vehicles barreled down on them from side streets, closing fast. Vera’s people from the look of the heavy, shiny black vehicles.

People jumped clear of the trucks hurtling down Avenida del Sol, with its flowering, brilliant yellow mimosa trees, and picturesque sidewalk cafés. Kids, chickens, goats, and bicyclists scrambled out of the way. “Are we close?” Danica yeled, getting the hang of the rifle and feeling like G.I. Jane without the bad hair and terrible shoes. They screamed past City Hall, flanked by a pretty little park, and turned with a screech of three tires onto Presidente Avenida leading a parade of mismatched vehicle.

“Gate’s closed.”

She vaguely remembered the high, black, wrought-iron monstrosity, about a mile wide and half a mile high. “How—”

“Brace yourself. Now!”

She let go of the rifle, allowing it to drop behind the seat, then braced herself as Jon aimed the truck through the heavy iron gates like a guided missile. Danica, teeth almost jarred from her head, turned to face front as the truck hurtled past the openmouthed, uniformed guards, around the large stone fountain and wobbled crazily up the grand stairway leading from the sweeping gravel driveway directly into the public rooms of the palace. People poured out of various wings, like ants at a picnic, as the vehicle came to a shuddering, smoking stop, wedged partially inside the giant double doors.

“Very dramatic,” she said admiringly as the truck gave an exaggerated death rattle and spewed a plume of steam from the gaping mouth of the hood.

“Wasn’t it, though?” Jon said, turning to run his gaze over her. “Any damaged body parts?”

She held up a finger. “Broken nail. You?”

“My nails are just fine.” He jerked his head toward the front of the hissing, smoking, pinging truck and the horde of men striding toward them. “Check out who’s coming this way to greet us in all his pompous, sleazy glory.”

Danica tucked her hair behind her ears with shaking fingers. Just seeing the monster, knowing what he’d done to her, what he planned to do to the president, made her breath hitch and her palms sweat. “He looks a trifle cranky, don’t you think?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jon said with satisfaction. “That bemused guy next to him must be the president. Why don’t you hop out and go give old Ed a big hug?”

“Why don’t I?” Unfortunately, it was a little hard to “hop out” since the truck was wedged firmly between the heavy wooden doors of the palace. Vera broke away from the president and his entourage and started drifting backward. “Oh, damn. Lookit, he’s slithering away!”

“Come on.” Jon stood on the seat and held out his hand. “This way.” He helped her through the broken windshield, onto the hood of the truck, and then, assisted by some very confused gentlemen, onto the marble floor. Jon jerked his head toward Vera, who had his back to them as he tried to squeeze through the various palace personnel and make a break for it.

“Let’s go.” He grabbed her hand and ran after the chief of security. People parted for them like the Red Sea.

As he ran, Jon started shouting in rapid-fire Spanish. With much screaming and drama, everyone scattered. “Hey! Ed!” Jon yelled, closing in on the man, Danica trying to keep pace with his long strides.

There was a small flight of shallow marble steps leading off the grand entrance to the bowels of the palace. Vera’s shoes tapped out an imperative beat as he ran. Danica eyed the back of his shiny black head then launched herself off the landing, slamming into him. She clung like a monkey, arms and legs wrapped about him as he crashed to the floor face-first. They sprawled there, Danica on top as if the entire move had been choreographed, her thighs straddling his butt. Her knees stung like fire, and she’d bitten her tongue as they landed hard, but she punched the air with a fist and gave a rebel yell.

Then, leaning close to the terrified man beneath her, Danica said, “Let’s see you blow me up now, asshole!”

Jon jumped lightly down the stairs and held a nice, big, black gun to Vera’s temple. Then he roared with laughter.

Raven wasn’t laughing an hour later as he paced outside Dani’s bedroom door. The musty-smelling corridor, with its funky-colored wallpaper, lined with useless antiques, was crowded with people, from el presidente’s weird-looking kid and members of his cabinet to a dozen dark-suited men from the FAA, the NTSB, Interpol, and other assorted agencies.

Raven stormed the length of the corridor–194 paces–and back again-for the fifth time.

What the hell was taking so long?

The president of San Cristóbal had been in there, alone, with Dani, for thirty-four minutes. Thirty-five minutes. He sure as shit didn’t want to speak to the alphabet soups, all spit-and-polished in their official-issue suits, who kept trying to question him.

He tilted his wrist to see the face of his watch in the gloom. Thirty-seven minutes.

She could’ve borne the next freaking royal heir by now. Raven raked his fingers through his hair as he paused outside the door. Hell, no. If she was going to bear any heir, it would be— The door opened.

The president shot him a smile as he emerged. Your wife, she is a remarkable woman, señor Raven.

“Yeah, she sure as hell is. All done?” he asked, striving for polite, but pretty damn sure he sounded as surly as he felt. The man stepped back to let him into the room.

Without a backward glance, Raven kicked the door shut behind him and moved to the high, canopied bed, his heart in his throat, on his sleeve, and in his mouth. That about covered its calisthenics. “Hey, look at you, all pink and clean.”

And heartbreakingly beautiful as she lay there, sweet-smelling and sleepy-looking, watching him with shadows in her pretty eyes and a small smile on her luscious mouth. The white Band-Aid on her neck looked completely innocuous. Just seeing the damn thing made bile rise to the back of his throat.

He could’ve lost her. Again.

How many chances was God going to give him to make this right?

He sat down carefully on the bed beside her, wanting to gather her close but mortally afraid to touch her. Afraid he’d blow this reprieve, this last chance to get it right. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like someone stuck me in a bad action movie without a script,” Danica said wryly, watching the uncomfortable shift of his gaze and painfully aware of the awkward silence stretching between them.

Apparently, they could communicate just fine when fists and bullets were flying, but stick them in a room and expect a meaningful conversation-that was apparently beyond their capabilities.

The thought made her throat ache.

“How’s your neck?” He started to reach for her, then clearly thought better of it and dropped his hand to the bedspread, curling his fingers into a fist.

“You were in here the whole time they removed it,” she said, keeping the wobble out of her voice with an effort. “You know how I am.” He’d held her hand tightly as she received a local anesthetic to deaden the site. He’d talked to her, sung a bad rendition of “Margaritaville,” and distracted her from thinking her head was going to explode at any minute. He didn’t leave her side until the president’s personal physician successfully removed the device.

“You had a shower, I see.” His hair was still damp at the ends, and he smelled of an unfamiliar soap. But beneath it he still smelled like Jon. He was warm, brave, and strong, and he loved her. She knew he did. Just as much as she loved him. All she had to do was wait him out and make him say it.

“Yeah.” He pinched a corner of the lace-trimmed sheet between his fingers and started unraveling a thread. Danica, in all the years she’d known him, had never seen Jon Raven nervous. “Nice chat with the president?” he asked, not glancing up from untatting the probably priceless linen.

Danica wanted him to look at her. Wanted him to see her. Instead, she could tell he was itching to get out of the room, already feeling stifled by the weight of what he would perceive as obligation. He would want to get back to his uncomplicated computers and fail-safe security systems. His “people” and his ordered life. She’d been too unpredictable for his well-structured world. Well, too damn bad.

“He’s very grateful to both of us,” she said thickly.

The doctor wanted her to rest for seventy-two hours before flying home. The president still wanted to award her keys to the city. Rigo wanted to introduce her to his dog. Barring the one itch that hadn’t been an insect bite after all, she still itched like crazy. And for once, her composure in the face of disaster was deserting her.

How was it possible for a heart to break twice?

Could she really just lie here and let him weasel out? Should she really let him leave? Pretend that they didn’t share the connection that was so strong between them?

However, the other option was to force him to admit his love. Then what good would it be?

“Jon, would you—” Just go before she started begging him? For what? Another shot at being ignored? Of feeling like the loneliest, neediest woman on the planet?

Not true, she reminded herself. Okay, the loneliest part was accurate, but that was as much her fault as his. She sat in that house, expecting him to entertain her. Never seeking a life of her own, never cultivating other interests. No wonder he stayed at work all the time. When he did come home, she’d clung to him like a barnacle. But she wasn’t that woman anymore.