Army of Two (6 page)

“No problem.” He cracked his knuckles, then set to work at the computer keyboard.

Five minutes later, Lewis was scowling at his helicopter crew. They were too cocky, and he wanted to be sure they saw the displeasure on his face. “Can you guarantee that they’re dead?”

“Oh, yeah,” Hillock said. He flashed a gap-toothed smile. “The gas tank on that pickup went up like a bomb. They’re a pair of crispy critters.”

“Did you check?” Lewis persisted.

“We circled around and watched them burn.”

“Then you saw two bodies.”

Hillock’s grin dimmed. “Didn’t need to. That truck was a torch. Believe me, they’re dead.”

“But you didn’t land to be certain.”

Molitor, the pilot, lifted his beefy shoulders in a shrug. “The area was too rough to set down. I wasn’t going to risk hitting the blades on a tree. I took us in as close as I could. Hillock’s right. They’re toast.”

“They had it coming after what they did to Benny,” Hillock said.

“Benny Brown got sloppy,” Lewis said. “He let them escape.”

“It had to be a lucky punch.”

Lucky? No, it would have taken considerable skill to get the better of a man the size of Brown. That blow had been meant to crush his throat. Interfering with a man’s air supply was the surest way to incapacitate him. It was one of the reasons why Lewis had wanted assurances the person who had done it was dead. Their contact hadn’t been able to give him any details about the army men. This one evidently hadn’t been a desk jockey.

“You got sloppy, too.” Lewis leaned his hips against the edge of the desk and crossed his arms. “You should have shot them instead of causing an explosion and fire.”

“Dead is dead, Knox. What difference does it make how we did it?”

“The neighbors spotted the smoke.”

Hillock glanced at Molitor, then back at Lewis. “Want us to take them out now?”

Lewis had already considered the idea and rejected it. They had brought enough ordnance to vaporize a small town, but it wasn’t yet the time to deploy it. “Not at this stage. We contained the damage, but we can’t afford any more mistakes. Go find Walsh and Ferguson. See if they need any help setting the charges.”

The men left. Lewis checked his watch, annoyed to see they were already behind schedule. They’d managed to get the situation under control, but they had one man out of commission, they’d lost two potential hostages and had attracted unwanted attention.

They still had a long way to go. This was the kind of unforseen complication that could have derailed his entire plan.

Chantal woke to the warmth of sunlight on her face. That was odd. She never overslept. Yet for the moment she was content to drift in the remnants of her dream. She was enveloped by the scent of leather and…Mitch.

That was strange, too. She’d stopped dreaming of Mitch years ago, yet the sensation of his presence was so real, so intimate, she felt as if his arms were around her….

A crow squawked above her. Chantal blinked.

She wasn’t in her bed. She wasn’t in Mitch’s embrace. She was lying on the ground at the base of a maple tree.

Full awareness surged over her. Her pulse tripped as images collided in her head. The helicopter. The fire. “Mitch!” she cried, pushing herself to her elbows.

The crow took off. Wind rustled the leaves overhead. Other than that, Chantal could see no movement. She tried to stand, but a spurt of dizziness made her sit down fast. She braced her hands on her knees. She had to breathe deeply a few times before she attempted to lift her head again.

She was at the edge of a small open space in the forest. A short distance away, a shallow stream burbled over rounded rocks. She didn’t recognize where she was or remember how she got here. The sound of the helicopter was completely gone. How long had she been unconscious? Had she been wandering in a daze? The last thing she remembered clearly were the flames that had stretched toward Mitch’s face.

Mitch! Where was he? Was he all right? She got to her knees, crawled closer to the maple and used the trunk to pull herself up. The movement brought on a fierce pounding at the back of her skull. She waited until the pain receded then took a more thorough look at her surroundings.

That’s when she spotted Mitch’s jacket. She’d been lying on it. The gun he’d been using was propped on a moss-covered log a few yards beyond that. A hazy memory rose in her mind: a hard shoulder pressing into her stomach, leather rubbing against her cheek while the ground moved past upside down beneath her.

Mitch must have carried her. He’d brought her here. That meant he was all right. He’d pulled her from the truck and had taken care of her, in spite of how she’d been snapping at him earlier.

She leaned her forehead against the tree, swamped by a wave of remorse. There had been a time when she’d convinced herself she hated Mitch. She’d wished he would drop off the face of the earth. That attitude had come from her wounded pride and from a desire to find someone else to blame besides herself for the mess her life had become. She’d never truly wished him harm. She knew he was a good man. An honorable man. If he hadn’t been, she wouldn’t have fallen in love with him so thoroughly.

And if he hadn’t been so honorable, he wouldn’t have rejected her.

That was one aspect of their history that even now she didn’t like to consider. It would mean that her love for him had been doomed from the start. It would also mean the resentment she’d harbored wasn’t justified.

He’d tried to apologize, yet she’d thrown it back in his face. Considering the circumstances, that seemed like an incredibly petty thing to have done.

But if not for the circumstances, would he have apologized?

God, what did any of that matter? They’d been shot at. Her truck had blown up. They could have been killed.

“Chantal?”

She lifted her head and turned in the direction of his voice.

He was moving toward her, his steps uneven. He leaned heavily on a stout branch that he was using as a cane.

She shoved away from the tree and staggered to meet him. “Mitch!”

He dropped the branch and grabbed her arms to steady her. “Hey, careful. Don’t move so fast.”

“What’s wrong? You’re limping!”

“I twisted my ankle. It’s not serious.” He studied her. “I’m glad to see you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Mitch—”

“Any dizziness?” He took her chin in one hand and peered into her eyes, then tilted her face toward the sun and did the same. “Headache?”

“A little.”

“You probably have a concussion. You were out a long time.”

“What happened?”

“What do you remember?”

“I remember you pulling me out of the truck before it exploded.”

“We landed in a patch of brush when the truck blew. The leaves and the smoke screened us from the guys in the chopper. I waited until they left and then carried you here.”

His account was military-terse, only the facts. Most other men would be boasting about their heroism. “Thank you, Mitch. I owe you my life.”

“I might have made your headache worse by moving you. We had to get out of sight in case the helicopter returned for another sweep.” He stroked her hair from her forehead and tucked it behind her ears. His hand lingered at the side of her neck. “We’re safe here. You should stay put for a while until you feel steadier.”

“Don’t worry about me. You’re the one who must be in pain. You carried me on a twisted ankle.”

“You’re not that heavy. Besides, we’re a team, remember?”

She pulled back to get a better look at him. His right cheek and the side of his jaw bore shallow scratches, possibly from the brush they’d landed in. His gray sweatshirt had a small rip at the neckline and was streaked with dirt and what appeared to be soot. It was a Patriots sweatshirt. He’d always been a New England fan. He’d been watching football the last night she’d seen him. The TV had been droning in the background when she’d called to beg him to come….

She didn’t know why she was remembering such a meaningless detail after what they’d just been through.

And she really didn’t know why she had this completely insane urge to kiss him. He looked wonderful to her, despite the dirt and the scratches. He’d always been appealing in a uniform, but he seemed even more handsome like this. Messy, fresh from a fight. A born warrior, he thrived on challenge. It put a special gleam in his eyes that any female, regardless of age, couldn’t fail to notice.

Damn. Her feelings for him
were
over, weren’t they?

She turned away more quickly than she should have. That aggravated the pounding in her head. She had to take a few sideways steps to regain her balance.

Mitch moved behind her and clamped his arm around her waist. “Careful. The ground’s uneven.”

Her back was pressed to his chest. She could feel his voice beside her ear. His warmth, his scent, once more enveloped her. For an instant she wanted to melt into his embrace, but of course, she knew it wasn’t meant as an embrace. It was as impersonal as all the other body contact they’d shared today. She gripped his arm and did her best to ignore the rock-hard muscle beneath his sleeve. “Thanks.”

“Can you make it as far as the log where I left my gun?”

At her nod, he released her long enough to retrieve the branch he’d dropped, then kept one arm around her as he guided her toward the log. Once she was seated, he hobbled to the stream. “You did well back there, Chantal,” he said. “Another few seconds and we would have made those trees.”

She rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know how I managed to drive. My hands were shaking. I could hardly feel the wheel.”

“There’s a guy in my unit named Lang who could learn some evasive driving tips from you.”

“Knowing the caliber of soldiers who get chosen for Delta Force, I find that hard to believe. You don’t need to bend the truth in order to make me feel better.”

Mitch sat on a rounded rock at the edge of the stream. He was wearing low hiking boots. He leaned down to unlace the left one. “Okay. You’re right about my men. Any one of them could drive doughnuts around you, but that doesn’t mean you’re a bad driver. That just means they’re extraordinary men.”

How typical of Mitch. He’d boast about his unit but not about himself. “How far off the road are we?” she asked.

“It’s around half a klick that way,” he said, pointing his thumb back the way he’d come.

“Half a kilometer! Your ankle—”

“Stop worrying about it. I’ve had worse.” He eased off his boot, then pulled off his sock and thrust his foot into the water. His back was toward her, so she couldn’t see his face, yet she heard the grimace in his voice. “Cripes, that water’s cold.”

“Are you hoping to numb your ankle?”

“That, and take down the swelling.”

She watched him for a while, then tugged off her jacket and her sweater. Mitch still had his back to her, so she took off her blouse and quickly put the sweater back on. “Here,” she said, wadding the blouse into a ball. She lobbed it toward him. “Use this.”

He looked over his shoulder, then stretched to pick up the crumpled cotton. He regarded it, then her. “What’s this for?”

“I took some emergency first aid courses when I started managing the Aerie. I remember enough of them to know your ankle should be wrapped to give the joint support.”

“I’ll lace my boot tighter.”

“Use the blouse, too. It has long sleeves, so there’s a fair amount of fabric. You could rip it into strips and fasten them together. It’s worth a try.”

“You shouldn’t be sacrificing your clothing for me.”

“It’s not a sacrifice. I always dress in layers at this time of year. And I thought this team thing works both ways.”

He slid his palm over the blouse. His nostrils flared, as if he were inhaling. “Okay. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. I hope it helps.”

“By the time your headache starts to lift, I should be good to go.”

“We no longer have any transportation.”

“It’s true we’ve had a minor setback—”

“Minor? We were almost killed!”

“But we weren’t. And we now have an advantage.”

“We do?”

“While you were out, I went back to see if I could salvage anything from what’s left of the truck.” He folded the blouse and draped it over his discarded boot, then raised one side of his sweatshirt. The walkie-talkie he’d taken from the guard was strapped to his belt at his hip. “I found it embedded in a rotten stump. It still works.”

“That’s good.”

“There’s more. From what I was able to hear, Knox and his gang believe we’re dead. That means they won’t be looking for us.”

“What about my friends? And the guests? Are they still all right?”

There was a trace of discomfort in his expression. He turned back to the stream. “No one’s been harmed.”

“What aren’t you telling me? Did you hear anything else?”

“Enough to know Knox has a timetable. It’s imperative that we get help.”

She focused on Mitch’s improvised cane. Knowing him, he’d be stubborn enough to attempt the walk to Waterfalls on his injured ankle, but it would be excruciating. She pushed herself to her feet. Though the pain in her skull made her squint, she tried to tell herself it was milder than before. “I’ll go.”

“Where?”

“The other end of the lake. If I get started now—”

“Out of the question.” He pulled his foot out of the water, grabbed his cane and was standing before her in an instant. “I’m not letting you go anywhere on your own.”

“You won’t
let
me? I thought I already reminded you that I’m not one of your men.”

He held up his palm. “Poor choice of word. It’s safer if we stay together, but walking to that other resort is no longer our best option.”

“Do you have a better one?”

“No, you do. You have a boat. A mahogany launch, if I remember correctly.”

“Yes, but it’s at the Aerie.”

“That’s why we need to go back.”

Her first reaction was to reject the idea. It was crazy. They’d barely escaped with their lives.

“Knox’s people think we’re dead,” he went on. “So they’ll probably be concentrating their attention on the hostages they have. They can’t see the boathouse from the lodge. If we wait until dark, we should be able to get the boat onto the lake without detection.”