Ultimate Escape (4 page)

C
ruz marched
out of the hotel with Nola Bailey behind him. She hadn’t released so much as a peep, and he knew that shock was taking hold. Her wide eyes were shadowed, and if he’d had any doubt about the veracity of her story, it was gone. In its place now resided responsibility. He had to take care of her, at least until he had a better hold on what was going on and who was involved.

When they’d put some distance between themselves and the hotel, he stopped and faced her, the ever-present crowd moving around them like a river around a rock even as the hour got later.

“Nola Bailey, right?” he said, and then she nodded.

“I’m Cruz. Just stick with me, okay?” he said, holding her eyes with his own. “Okay?”

She nodded again, and he continued, eyes scanning the crowd for any threat, his senses heightened in a way he knew wouldn’t leave until they reached their destination. He marched Nola through Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1, passing expensive, high-end hotels and shops and other tourist destinations as they went. Cruz watched the crowd like a hawk, but he and Nola didn’t seem to be garnering any extra attention. When they finally got to the safe house, he entered quickly, relieved when he saw Ace and Sam waiting, curious but otherwise unruffled.

Nola looked at the two men and then moved a bit closer to Cruz, something that gave him an unexpected sense of satisfaction.

“Is there a restroom?” she asked.

Neither Ace nor Sam spoke, so Cruz jumped in and led her to it.

“You good?” he asked, gaze searching her face.

She nodded quickly and after one last searching look, he left her.

“What happened?” Ace asked when he returned.

“That’s Nola Bailey. And there’s a mess at the hotel,” he replied.

“You recognize them?”

“No, but I got what they were looking for,” Cruz said, handing the memory stick to Sam, who brightened immediately.

“Let’s see what we got,” he said, rushing to his computer.

Sam had only been with the team for a couple of years, one of Lucian’s projects, but if he could help unravel this, he’d more than earn his keep.

“You’re buying her story,” Ace said, voice gruff and suspicious.

“Yep. I don’t think she knows anything, and she’s definitely never seen anyone die before.”

Ace shrugged. “That’s not proof. She could be in operations and not necessarily involved with the more messy aspects of the business.” Ace then turned to Sam.

His friend was unconvinced. The two men had been through more fires than Cruz could remember, but Ace’s mind was his own, and he wouldn’t change it until he was good and ready.

“What do you see, kid?” he said to Sam.

“Stick is encrypted, so this might take a while,” Sam responded, gaze moving across the screen as he typed furiously.

“But you can find out what’s on there?” Cruz said.

Sam stopped typing and glanced up from the screen, looking offended. “Of course. It’ll just take some effort.”

“That’s your priority. Figure it out.”

Ace looked over Cruz’s shoulder, and then turned and watched Nola as she eased back into the living room.

“Have a seat, Ms. Bailey,” Ace said, his voice easy, but the wolfish grin on his face anything but.

“So you’re from Thornehill Springs?”

Nola wanted to scream in frustration, but she bit back the urge. “Yes, I am, like I told you a hundred times already,” she said, letting at least some of her frustration out. It was bad enough that she couldn’t really remember what had made her think this trip was a good idea, when, as the evening’s events and this relentless third degree proved, it had been a very bad one.

The man who was questioning her narrowed his eyes, and Nola slammed her mouth shut quickly.

“Ace,” Cruz said, sounding as dangerous as he had when she’d first spied him in her hotel.

But Ace didn’t let up.

“Name the three high schools in Thornehill,” he said.

Nola’s patience snapped, and she sat up straighter and met Ace’s gaze head-on.

“There’s only one high school, and I’d expect you to know the same, considering it’s the same as yours, Asa Thornehill IV,” she gritted out through clenched teeth.

He’d left town long ago, but she’d immediately recognized him, his dark hair, dark eyes, and intense demeanor things that had always made an impression. Her answer made him pause, but only for a moment.

“You know me, so why don’t I know you?” he asked, his features, which had always been menacing at home but seemed downright lethal here, twisted with skepticism. An improvement over the outright disdain and disbelief that had marred them earlier Nola supposed.

“No reason you would. The Thornehills don’t get over to the east side too often,” she said. She might have been skirting the edge, sparring with this dangerous-looking man, but her quota of fucks to give had been exceeded.

The younger guy at the computer chuckled under his breath.

“Sam?” Ace called over his shoulder, voice a mix of danger and question.

The younger guy stopped laughing and then began to spout off facts.

“I have employment records and school transcripts for one Nola Bailey, born at the Thornehill Springs Medical Center, graduate of the aforementioned Thornehill Springs High School, associate’s degree from a community college outside of Charlotte.”

“Satisfied?” Cruz said, glaring at Ace. And as silly as it was, Nola felt a flood of warmth for him sticking up for her.

Ace looked at her and then back at Cruz. “I buy it.”

“So, you see, this is all some kind of terrible mistake. You can let me go now,” Nola said, not bothering to try to hide the pleading in her voice.

Cruz, who was now facing the computer screen, replied, “’Fraid not. Looks like you’re stuck with me for a while.”

“Stuck with… No!” she exclaimed, looking around the room wildly. There was no way. She
had
to get out of here, get to the airport, and get her butt back to North Carolina where she belonged and doubted she’d ever leave again.

Ace and Sam stared at her, but there was no laughing; no one popped out with a camera and giant microphone telling her that this had all been a horrible joke. No, to a man, each of their faces was set and determined. But maybe…

That fledgling little seed of hope was crushed when she looked at Cruz again. He’d turned away from the monitor and now glanced at her with eyes that were deep, rich, and, much to her annoyance, as damn dreamy as they’d been on the shuttle.

They were also completely, absolutely, utterly unyielding.

“You can let me go,” Nola said. “I’ll go straight to the embassy.”

Cruz moved from the computer, stalking over to her with precise steps, his bulky body somehow more intimidating now than it had been before. She’d seen the man kill, for God’s sake, had nearly had a heart attack when she’d first glimpsed him in her hotel room, but neither time had he seemed as uncompromising and implacable as he did now.

When he stood directly in front of her, he stopped and stared down at her, his expression growing even more unyielding with each second that passed. But Nola, finding courage she didn’t know she had, didn’t shrink away. She wanted to, couldn’t think of a situation in her life when she wouldn’t have, but something, probably the loss of higher brain function due to fear-induced psychosis, made her hold her ground.

“I need to go to the embassy,” she said, keeping her eyes on Cruz’s.

“Do you have a passport?”

“Yes!”

She brightened and lifted the tiny handbag that she’d somehow held on to during everything that had happened, and thanked the Lord that she hadn’t cared how nerdy she might have looked. The travel guides had warned her against standing out and wearing anything that would make her more of a target, but the small cross-body bag that she hadn’t had a chance to take off in her hotel room was still around her midsection, the strap nestled between her breasts. She unzipped it, reached into the second zipped compartment, and retrieved her passport. It was still stiff from disuse, sporting a single stamp, but she held it up as if it were a talisman. And in a way it was, the one thing that might get her out of this mess.

“See! I have it, so I can just go to the embassy. They’ll help me.”

She watched Cruz, trying to figure out what was happening behind those intense, unreadable eyes. He moved before she could even process it, and plucked the passport from between her fingers.

Her mouth dropped open with shock. Without her passport, she had no way to prove her identity, no way to get out of this country. If he had it, she’d have no choice but stay with him. That or take her chances in a foreign country, which he knew she wouldn’t do. He was forcing her hand. But Nola wasn’t giving up so easily.

Gritting her teeth, she stretched up and grabbed at the document, but Cruz easily lifted it out of her grasp. She shot out of the chair, stood chest to chest with him. He was close, his strong, masculine body dwarfing hers, and Nola didn’t doubt for one instant how easily he could crush her without even breaking a sweat.

But she didn’t care.

This was a matter of life or death, and while she was certain he didn’t plan to chop her to pieces, and no matter how handsome he might be, she needed to get the hell out of here, and that passport was her only ticket.

She speared him with her most intimidating gaze, and he had the nerve to look amused.

“Give me that back,” Nola said, reaching toward his lifted hand, trying to snatch her passport.

Swiftly, effortlessly he again pulled it out of her grasp, but Nola was not deterred. She reached again, trying to break the hold his strong fingers had on the paper.

Doing so proved as impossible as walking home would have been, and seized with a heady rush of frustration, excitement, and fear, she pushed his chest, which was rock hard, something that she was annoyed she even noticed.

The…
jerk
had the gall to chuckle. Chuckle! But maybe that was a good thing, because Nola was as afraid and angry as she’d ever been, and maybe that would fuel her, help her draw on reserves she hadn’t known she had and allow her to wrestle the paper out of the iron grip of the mountain of muscle that stood in front of her.

She launched herself at him, ramming into him with all of her not inconsiderable weight as she reached up for his hand.

He didn’t move an inch, not a single, solitary millimeter. But he did loop his arm around her shoulders and, with seemingly no effort, held her locked in place, a prisoner between his chest and arm.

“Sorry, Nola,” he said, voice surprisingly soft and full of regret.

The softness in his eyes seemed genuine, but that didn’t change the fact that this was insanity. She shifted as much as his hold would allow, her breast brushing against his chest, and turned to face the others.

“Ace?”

When he said nothing, she turned her gaze to Sam.

“I just work the computers, ma’am.”

She looked between them and then back at Cruz, who, while his eyes were soft, had also clearly not changed his mind.

“But why? I mean, can we all agree that this is some kind of terrible mistake? I’m a nobody. Entirely insignificant. I shouldn’t even be here,” she said, voice cracking over the last word. “Just let me get to the embassy. Just let me go home.”

Cruz just shook his head softly, and a heavy weight settled in Nola’s stomach, the cold dread of the truth making her dizzy.

There was no way around it. She was stuck.

C
ruz stole
another glance at Nola.

“She hasn’t moved in the ten seconds since the last time you looked at her,” Sam said as he typed furiously without looking up.

“Stuff it, Sam,” Cruz returned, but the retort was weak because Cruz knew he’d been busted.

Nola had lobbied, rather vehemently, in fact, to be dropped off at the embassy. But Cruz had kept his arm wrapped around her and explained that doing so was not an option. She put up a good fight, one Cruz could admit he’d appreciated because it gave him a chance to enjoy the feel of the lush weight of her breasts pressed against him as she’d pleaded her case.

Eventually, and to his regret, she’d given in and flounced over to the love seat, what he suspected were her usually friendly brown eyes stabbing daggers at him until the excitement of the day had gotten to her and she’d fallen asleep.

Cruz had known that once the adrenaline faded, she’d crash, but that didn’t explain why his gaze was so unerringly pulled to her. Maybe it was just curiosity. He’d watched her in the airport and on the shuttle, and during those tense minutes in her hotel room. And through all of them, terrified, angry, panicked, that light, innate goodness had seemed to radiate from her. Even now as she slept, her face marred with tension, he still saw it.

His original hunch had been right.

Nola Bailey was good through and through.

Sexy, too, Cruz couldn’t help but notice. A perfect mix of sweet and sultry, the kind of woman that any man with a brain would rush home to. So what was she doing here alone?

Sam cleared his throat, pulling Cruz out of his thoughts. The kid stopped typing and looked at him warily.

“So…” Sam said.

“Spit it out, Sam,” Cruz said.

“I know I’m just the new guy, but why can’t we send her to the embassy? I mean”—Sam looked over at Nola, his gaze caressing her much the way Cruz’s had, and an inexplicable flare of jealousy sparked in Cruz’s chest—“anybody can see that she doesn’t belong here.”

“She’s with us,” Cruz said flatly.

Sam didn’t take the hint. “But why?”

“Think it through,” Ace interjected.

“What?” Sam replied. “She’s out of her depth, so why shouldn’t we just drop her off?”

Seemed simple enough and probably the approach Cruz would usually have taken. But something in him rebelled at the idea of dropping Nola off, leaving her well-being in the hands of someone else. And there were a couple of pretty huge issues he needed to sort out.

“There are two bodies in her hotel room, Sam. Maybe being discovered as we speak. So what, she just goes to the embassy and explains that it’s all a huge misunderstanding?”

Sam’s eyes widened. “Yeah, that might not work.”

“It won’t. And those guys who showed up at her hotel worked for someone. We need to figure out who.”

Sam’s eyes widened as he considered, and Cruz pressed on.

“
And
someone fed us false intel, making her the suspect, so I don’t know who we can trust. Speaking of, where did you get her name and picture?” Cruz asked.

“My guy at the airline. I trust him,” Sam said.

“Well, I don’t. Get us a full passenger list and pictures if you can. And crack that drive,” Cruz said.

Sam inclined his head toward Nola. “And her?”

“Why are you so concerned?” Cruz said, not bothering to hide the annoyance in his voice.

“We’re supposed to be the good guys, man. I didn’t sign up for hurting people, especially not innocent Americans,” Sam said, voice brimming with conviction.

The kid spoke the truth. But there was no other way. “I’ll make sure nothing happens to her. Now get that information.”

Nola peeled her eyes open slowly but despite the stiffness in her body and stabbing pain in her neck, she didn’t move. The room was bright, blindingly so, and definitely not her own. She’d hoped yesterday had been a dream, a nightmare, and that today she’d be able to finish her vacation and then go home like she’d planned, laugh about that silly but realistic dream her mind had conjured up.

But it hadn’t been, and if the room hadn’t established that, the broad back that met her gaze when she opened her eyes slightly wider would have.

Cruz.

Her rescuer before, and now, apparently, the man standing between her and going home. Maybe this morning she could convince him to let her go.

“You’re awake,” he said, though he hadn’t even looked in her direction.

She said nothing.

“Come on, Nola. I know you’re awake. I can hear you thinking.”

Nola lay still a moment longer, and then finally threw in the towel. Her body screamed as she sat up, and she tossed a hand onto her neck, trying to rub away some of the tightness.

“I can’t even believe I fell asleep,” Nola said.

Then she snapped her mouth closed quickly. She didn’t need to be talking with him, and if she was, it should’ve been about how he was going to give her passport back and let her get out of this mess.

He turned then, and Nola’s breath was momentarily taken. The insanity of yesterday had been real as had the beauty of the man across from her. He was as handsome as he had been yesterday, more so, maybe. Nola was no longer in the midst of a meltdown but he was still as potent and powerfully masculine as she’d originally seen.

“Lots of excitement. You crashed,” he said, voice somewhat gruff but those amazing eyes almost friendly.

“So I still can’t go to the embassy, huh?”

He shook his head slightly, eyes still friendly but still equally unyielding.

She stood, blood rushing to her legs and a full-body stretch taking over before she could stop it. Relief at the burn and pull of her muscles as she moved filled her, and Nola closed her eyes, stood on her tiptoes, and leaned into the stretch. When she opened them, she met Cruz’s gaze.

His intense eyes caressed her with naked interest. No one, not even her boyfriend of seven years, had ever looked at her like that, like plain ole Nola Bailey and her lumpy body were the most enticing thing he’d ever seen.

A fevered rush of awareness stole over her body, and her nipples pulled tight under his scrutiny.

“The bathroom’s that way.” He nodded at a bag on the table. “Get changed and then we’ll talk.”

His deep voice only intensified the tingling pull at her breasts and stoked an intense thrum between her thighs. Again, she knew her reaction was not lost on Cruz. He lowered his gaze to her chest, and Nola’s nipples puckered even tighter. She knew he could see them through the thin fabric of her shirt.

Nola turned abruptly and headed to the bathroom, not seeing anything around her. She couldn’t, not when her body throbbed with need that Cruz had stirred with one heated glance. It was ridiculous, especially considering her life as she’d known it could well be over. But neither that, nor Carl and Sidney, nor the sense of failure that had sent her here could distract her from the memory of that heated stare on her skin.

She showered and dressed quickly, using what was left of her tapped reserves to keep her mind focused on getting out of this. After several deep, and hopefully calming, breaths, she exited the bathroom and headed back to the sitting area and kitchen. Her resolve was sorely tested when she saw Cruz standing next to the window, sunlight spilling over his form. She let her gaze take in his strong hands, solid forearms, bulging biceps, and unshaven jaw.

But she didn’t meet his gaze and instead rushed to the small table across the room.

“Where are the others?” she asked.

“Chasing down a lead. They got a safe house set up, too.”

That husky note in his voice was gone and in its place was cool reserve. Before she could stop herself, Nola looked in his direction, met the blue gaze that sparked as warm as his voice was cool, and then she looked away.

“Eat,” he said, moving toward the table.

“I thought we were going to talk,” she said.

“I’ll talk while you eat,” he said.

She didn’t look at him, but she heard as he moved, watched his strong, masculine hands as he slid a glass of frothy green-yellow liquid across the table to her. The loud grumble of her stomach betrayed her, and she smiled quickly at his laugh and reached for the glass and took a sip.

“That’s pretty tasty. What is it?” she asked, again sipping at the sweet, almost-but-not-quite-soda drink.

“
Nuroc mia
, sugar cane juice,” he replied. “And we have
xoi
, sticky rice, and
banh mi
, Vietnamese bread for breakfast.”

“So why can’t I go to the embassy, and where did you get my clothes from?” she asked as she broke off a piece of bread.

“I went back to the hotel to see if there was anything else. I grabbed a couple of things.”

“I thought you said it was too dangerous to go back?”

“It was, but I had no choice. I needed to see if I’d overlooked anything and figure out how much of a head start we have.”

“And how much of a head start do we have?” she asked.

“None,” he said, and with that simple word, a startling realization hit her.

Nola stilled her hand and looked at him. “So they’re going to think I killed those guys and ran off?”

When he didn’t deny it, she dropped her hand and almost threw up the two sips of juice and bite of bread she’d just swallowed.

“So that’s why I can’t go to the embassy?”

He nodded.

“I could tell them it was you,” Nola said. A shiver of unease racked her body at the thought of doing so, but Cruz seemed nonchalant.

“You could, but then they’d think you were a liar
and
a murderer. I’m a legit private security contractor here with the official blessing of the Vietnamese government. My denial would be backed by my two equally legit and equally welcome colleagues. Not odds I’d want to play if I were you.”

Laid out in that almost unassailably logical way, Cruz’s story rang so true Nola herself almost believed it. The statement had been more than halfway a bluff, but his retort clarified, or rather, reclarified, how totally screwed she was. And how dependent on Cruz she was.

Nola rubbed her hand across her chest as if doing so would slow her rapidly beating heart or stop the knowledge she was likely an international fugitive.

“Would you have?” he asked quietly.

“What?” she responded, focusing on him again.

“Said it was me?”

Nola pondered the question, but didn’t need to ruminate long. She shook her head. “No, I wouldn’t have.”

And as nuts as it was, she wouldn’t have. Sure, Cruz had killed those men, but for her benefit, and Nola wouldn’t sacrifice him to save her own skin.

He flashed her a quick smile of approval, eyes going bright for a moment before a more serious expression returned.

“Please tell me you have a plan,” Nola whispered, her voice trembling.

In response, he graced her with the most breathtaking smile she’d ever seen.

“Always. You’re going to eat breakfast, and then we’re going sightseeing.”