Matt—The Callahan Brothers (Brazos Bend Book 2)

Matt—The Callahan Brothers

Emily March

Published by Emily March

Originally published as NEVER SAY NEVER by Geralyn Dawson

Copyright 2014 by Emily March

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author'
’
s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without express permission in writing from the author or publisher.

Cover design by Stephanie Knautz, A2Z Creative

Artwork by Margie Whittington

Edition September 2014

ISBN:
 
978-1-942002-02-4

www.emilymarch.com

Chapter One

If they caught her, she’d die.

Torie Bradshaw’s pulse pounded with fear as she crashed through the island’s dense tropical foliage. In the dim, dappled sunlight, she pretended she didn’t see the snake coiled around a low-hanging branch on her right or the huge ball of termites hanging from a high branch on her left. Razor sharp palm fronds sliced at her exposed skin, and thorns pierced the negligible protection of beach shoes on her feet.
If I’d known fleeing for my life was on the afternoon’s agenda, I’d have worn something more than a bikini and flip flops.

Torie fought to keep panic at bay. So she was in a spot of trouble. She’d been in trouble before, hadn’t she? What about the time she got arrested by the French gendarmes for taking photographs in the Louvre? Or that time when the Federales nabbed her because of a shot that included a government official frolicking on the Mexican Riviera with a woman who wasn’t his wife? It hadn’t been pleasant, but she’d found her way out of those scrapes, hadn’t she? She could make her way out of this one.

Maybe. Possibly.

If they caught her, they’d kill her.

She stifled a sob.

Ironically, for once the trouble was not of her doing. Her work had nothing to do with her being on the wrong beach at the wrong time. She’d come to this godforsaken island off the coast of South America as a favor to her sister. Helen had wanted her to see firsthand that Collin Marlow wasn’t the snake Torie suspected him of being.

Torie had seen, all right. She’d seen the sorry S.O.B. in action and had taken pictures to prove it.

If only she’d been satisfied with the kissing shots. If only she hadn’t decided her sister might need stronger evidence to break off her engagement. Then Torie wouldn’t have put herself in plain view on the beach, angling for what was basically a porn shot with her zoom lens, when the other boat approached.
 

She wouldn’t have the photos of a man shooting Collin Marlow and dumping him over the side of his yacht.
 

I am so screwed.

If she’d settled for the kissing shots, she’d be back at the compound instead of running through the jungle for her life, the digital camera’s memory stick tucked snugly between her swimsuit top and her breast.

From Torie’s left came the haunting cry of a howler monkey. At least, she hoped that was what it was, and not the cry of some other poor sap who’d gone out for a swim and stumbled across a murder.

Torie swallowed a fearful whimper and forged ahead, breathing hard in the heavy, humid air. Every few minutes, she paused a moment to catch her breath and listen beyond the cacophony of birdsong for the sounds of human pursuit. On her third such rest break, she heard it. Sure enough, something or someone—multiple someones—thrashed through the forest behind her.

She shuddered in fear, praying they weren’t as close behind as they sounded. Weird things happened to sound in the rain forest, right? The canopy above messed with acoustics. The killers could be a long way away instead of right on her tail.

Oh, please God. I don’t want to die.

She still had dozens of items to accomplish on her To Do list. She hadn’t gone whitewater rafting yet. She hadn’t seen the Great Wall of China. She hadn’t had sex with a man she loved in broad daylight on a secluded tropical beach.

Torie startled when a bird let out a shrill shriek right above her. Her heart no sooner calmed from that bit of excitement than the tiny hairs on the back of her neck rose.

She wasn’t alone. Somebody was close.

She lifted a foot to take off running just as a hand shot out of the shadows and clapped hard over her mouth, muffling her scream. Simultaneously, an arm gripped her waist and yanked her back against a hard body. Startled, scared to death, Torie froze stiff as a rough voice whispered in her ear, “Quiet. I’m here to help. You need to follow me.”

Not believing him, she struggled, trying desperately to get away. His grip on her tightened. She felt the warm heat of a gun barrel against her bare stomach.

“Stop it. Your father sent me.”

Dad? Hope rose within her, and she trembled as her thoughts came in a flurry. Was the general here on the island? Had the cavalry arrived? Was the island surrounded by a small army of soldiers, sailors, and marines waiting for the signal to attack? Would they sweep onto shore and arrest the bad guys and free the damsel in distress?

Except nobody would consider her a damsel. Most people—her father included—lumped her in with the wolves of the world, predators who preyed on the innocents. They didn’t understand that eighty percent of the time, the innocents weren’t innocent at all. But then, they’d come to rescue Helen, hadn’t they? Not her. She wasn’t supposed to be here.

Maybe this wasn’t a rescue at all. Maybe he’d lead her back toward the house, where he’d turn her over to the killers for interrogation, torture, and execution. Maybe by going with him, she’d be acting as naive as her sister.

The gun in his hand was no toy. This man was a real predator. By throwing in her lot with him, she might be condemning herself to the very fate she tried to escape.

Yet, what choice did she have? She knew the other guys were bad guys. They’d shot at her, chased her. They’d kill her if they found her. Mystery Man, here, might just be the answer to her prayers.

Behind her, the sounds of pursuit grew closer. The stranger’s arm tightened around her waist as Torie nodded her agreement. The hand over her mouth moved away, but he tapped her lips with his finger twice, signaling the continued need for silence.

She nodded and swallowed her need to grill him for information. Despite the surge of patriotic gratitude she felt at the idea that the army had come to her rescue, now was not the time to break out into “God Bless America.”

The arm around her waist fell away. She turned and got her first good look at him. Holy Moses. He wasn’t dressed in fatigues, but in the dark slacks and white shirt the scientists on the island tended to wear to work. And dress shoes! All he was missing was a lab coat. He was no more suited for jungle running than she.

Nor did he have the rough-and-ready drill sergeant look she expected in one of her father’s minions. He looked like ... hmm ... James Bond. The man was a gorgeous combination of Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan salted with a hint of Daniel Craig’s earthiness.

Could he be army intelligence? A soldier spy? That worked for her. As long as he was a good guy, she didn’t care what uniform he wore.

He clasped her hand in his and stepped forward at an angle to the direction she’d been traveling in. He moved like a jungle cat, Torie thought. Silent and graceful. Deadly. She really really really really hoped he was truly on her side.

Plants scratched and sliced at Torie’s skin, but she hardly noticed the discomfort. It took all her concentration to keep up with him while making only minimal noise. He must have considered her efforts inadequate, because he stopped abruptly, shoved the gun into the holster at his hip, scooped her up, and tossed her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. With his hand on her nearly bare butt, holding her.

Well. This was ... interesting. Her instinct was to struggle, but she forced herself to remain still.

His big hand felt like a branding iron on her cheek.

With him carrying her, they moved much faster than they had when he’d dragged her along behind him. For the first time in a long time, Torie was happy that she didn’t have the tall, statuesque build she’d always coveted in other women. Petite was a positive thing today.

She startled at the sound of a torrent of angry Spanish coming from off to their left a short distance away, and she burrowed her head against her rescuer’s back. He smelled of salt and sea and healthy sweat. She figured she must reek of fear.

With her head down, her eyes closed, and her heart pounding, flung over the broad shoulders of a stranger, Torie tried not to feel like a wuss. Ordinarily, she wasn’t a coward. A coward wouldn’t dangle from a helicopter to get the primo shot at a celebrity wedding. A coward wouldn’t sneak a miniature camera into a courtroom to capture the moment a Hollywood star learned his sentence after his conviction for a drunk driving homicide. A coward certainly wouldn’t have crept into the locker room at the Super Bowl to get the money shot of the quarterback lip-locked with the team owner’s wife.

Yet, here in the inky darkness of a rainforest jungle on a tropical island, as she bounced on the shoulder of a stranger and armed with nothing more than her own besieged wits, the only thing keeping Torie from peeing her pants was the fact that her legs were draped over a government agent. Death was preferable to the humiliation of peeing on James Bond.

“We’re here,” he murmured. He eased her effortlessly forward, but rather than setting her on the ground, he stopped when they were chest to chest. Instinctively, her arms encircled his neck and her legs wrapped around his torso. “Get ready. It’s cold.”

“What’s cold?”

“The cenote.”

The cenote? He’d brought her to one of the caves that dotted the island and gave access to the underground river?

“We’re going in.”

“What!” she said with a yelp.

Rather than respond, he stepped forward. Torie loosened her death grip around his neck long enough to yank the memory card from her bikini top and toss it onto dry ground even as she sank into the icy water.

The cold sucked her breath from her lungs and she inadvertently squealed until her rescuer shut her up.

By covering her mouth with his.

***

Matt Callahan didn’t want to be on a South American island. He wanted ... needed ... to be in the Balkans, tracking down the latest rumor about his personal Enemy Number One, Ivars Ćurković, the soulless asshole of a warlord who’d tortured and murdered Matt’s little brother, John. Matt’s main goal in life was to find Ćurković
and kill him, and he resented every minute away from his main pursuit. But he owed a debt, so here he was freezing his balls off in an underground river half a world away from where he needed to be.

At least the job had its perks. Matt had all but swallowed his tongue yesterday when he arrived on Soledad Island and got his first glimpse of Helen Bradshaw, Ph.D.

The sexy scientist was just a little bitty thing, but man, what a package. Full breasts, tiny waist, and legs that stretched surprisingly long for someone who barely topped five feet. He’d always been a sucker for blondes, and he wanted badly to see what her hair looked like out of its tidy long braid. Her face ... well ... Helen was an apt name. Helen of Troy couldn’t have been more beautiful than Helen of Applied Genetics Research Inc.

And he’d formed that opinion before seeing her in her bikini. That incredible sight would be burned into his memory forever—unless he did something totally stupid like lose himself in the heat of her kiss and forget they had gunmen on their asses. But dammit, what red-blooded man wouldn’t take advantage of the opportunity to take advantage of such a fine example of womanhood?

So Matt muffled her with his mouth, then indulged himself a second or two longer than necessary and turned the act into a kiss. She tasted as sweet as she looked.

He wondered what had happened to make the crap hit the fan this morning. After searching the lab overnight, he’d caught a few hours of sleep in the jungle. His plan had been to publicly arrive on the island midmorning and approach Dr. Bradshaw with her father’s concerns about her fiancé, leaving himself plenty of time to snatch her before Marlow’s scheduled afternoon arrival if she chose not to cooperate. Then gunshots woke him and his plans had changed.