Capturing the Commando

Chapter Four

Shannon’s unruffled demeanor impressed the hell out of Rafe. She was either almost unbelievably cool under pressure or the finest actress he had ever met.

“How ’bout unlocking these cuffs now?” she asked him. “It’s darned awkward, using the restroom, and besides, I’d really like to catch a shower if I could.”

“A shower,” he echoed flatly. “With everything that’s going on, you’re thinking about soap and water and fluffy towels?”

Her smile hinted that, as with everything else she’d said and done since awakening, this new ploy had its purpose. “Fluffy towels? In this place? If that happened, it would be the second-biggest surprise of my day so far.”

“If you’re thinking of escaping, you should know that the bathroom has no windows,” he warned. “And if you’re thinking about potential weapons, I’ll be searching you before I let you out. Thoroughly.”

She stood and approached him, her shackled hands raised and her palms turned up as if in supplication. But there was nothing pleading in her eyes, only the glint of mild amusement. Maddening amusement, just short of mockery.

Or was it something else? Was she coming on to him now? Thinking to seduce her way out of this? Trying to get him worked up with the thought of her tight curves beneath the sluicing water—lathered, naked and hotter than the tropical late-summer night?

He nearly groaned aloud at his body’s immediate reaction. Damn her anyway, for trotting out this tactic. Why couldn’t she stick with something simple, like attempting to claw his eyes out or kick every woman’s favorite target up through the roof of his mouth? Those threats, he was equipped to deal with, just as he had been with her attempt to poison his mind against Garrett.

“I promise, I’m not thinking of anything but rinsing the dried blood out of my hair and the grit off of my skin,” she said innocently.

As if he bought that act for a second.

Confirming his suspicions, she added, “I’m also thinking we could have a long wait for your friend Garrett to come back. A very long wait…if he ever comes back at all.”

“He’ll be back, all right, though I’m thinking it might take him a while to work up the nerve to make your little purchase.” Rafe emphasized the word to show her that he didn’t buy that tampon story for a second.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a handcuff key. Unable to resist the temptation to see how far she was willing to take this latest attempt to distract him, he lifted the key toward her face and leaned in to whisper, “If I unlock those cuffs, how do I know you’ll be good?”

She didn’t step back—didn’t yield an inch—only looked up into his face through beautiful, long lashes, a knowing smile playing on her full lips. But to his surprise, her voice gave away a nervous tremor as she whispered, “Are you sure you really want me…to be good?”

It zinged through his awareness—how close they were standing and how very few steps it would take to sweep her to the bed beneath him. As a distraction, Rafe tried mentally running through the alphabet in reverse. To his infinite annoyance, his thoughts couldn’t make it past the letter x.

As in X-rated. Damn it. How was he supposed to stay two steps ahead of her when he was thinking with his…

“Yes,” he managed to say, sliding his key into the tiny lock, turning it slowly and feeling the click of a steel cuff disengaging. His gaze lingered on her pale wrist, on the reddened indentation, the slight bruising, and the way her skin had chafed beneath the metal.

Yet another injury his actions had inflicted on her.

Before he could stop himself, he stroked his thumb across the subtle damage gently, an attempt to rub the sting from her impossibly soft flesh.

“No,” she said sharply, her gaze dropping as she turned away and shook her head. “I’m sorry… I can’t—I just can’t do this.”

Rafe felt the perspiration beading on his forehead, felt the burn of shame that made him want to crank the room’s noisy AC down to glacial. Laying a palm atop her shoulder, he gave her what he hoped would pass for a sympathetic squeeze. “I’d be disappointed in you if you could. And more disappointed in myself if I weren’t Ranger enough to control my…”

Control what? His attraction? Because it was definitely more than simple lust that he was feeling. It was the perfect storm of his awareness of her body, his appreciation of the intelligence sparkling in her blue eyes, and his growing admiration for the way she was handling herself in one hell of a tough situation. “Control myself,” he finished. Nodding toward the bathroom, he added, “Go on now, sugar, and get that shower, will you? Before I change my mind.” Or stand here like some idiot, fantasizing about joining you.

Stress—that was all this was. Worry and grief, nothing more. Furious at his failure to maintain discipline, he swore beneath his breath, while Shannon wasted no time hurrying into the bathroom. The door clicked closed behind her, and he cursed again to hear it lock. But he couldn’t say he blamed her, and besides that, he had more important worries at the moment.

Such as where the hell was Garrett? He should’ve checked in by now, at least. Though Rafe hated himself for it, he couldn’t help but wonder if there had been any truth to Shannon’s accusations.

Could a weak-chinned geek like Garrett really have had the balls to screw around on Lissa? Beautiful, sweet Lissa, who had finally turned around after her troubled teenage years and pulled her life together after meeting the straight arrow who would become her husband? But she was no fool, either. She would have known if something had been up with him, would have confided in the big brother who had raised her. And Rafe, when he’d returned from his deployment, would have torn the damned fool’s head off, something he’d warned Garrett of when he’d flown in for the bachelor party. Though they had both been half-drunk that night, Rafe’s warnings weren’t the type that any sane man ever forgot. Especially a guy as “risk-averse,” as Rafe’s CO would have put it, as his brother-in-law had always been.

But as the shower hissed behind the closed door, Shannon’s warnings about Garrett continued to prey on Rafe’s mind, making him wonder how much he really knew about his brother-in-law, who had always claimed he had no family, other than an estranged, alcoholic mother who had abused him for years. No friends, either, Lissa had once complained, other than the tech buddies he spent way too much time bonding with over some shoot-’em-up online game.

“He’s so obsessed with his stupid ‘Battle Bloodcraft,’ I can’t get him off the couch to paint the baby’s room—or do a darned thing to help out when he finally drags home from work.”

Rafe hadn’t thought much about what had seemed like a minor domestic squabble, other than to grin at the idea that he and his fellow Rangers were living the adventure those geeks only dreamed of from their nice safe homes and mamas’ basements. Yet now the word obsessed came back to make him wonder, and his anxiety only deepened when he repeatedly failed to reach Garrett on the prepaid cell phone he was using so law enforcement couldn’t track them.

“This isn’t right,” Rafe grumbled before striding to the bathroom door. “Hurry up in there,” he shouted, banging. “We may have to take off in a hurry.”

But with Garrett driving the borrowed SUV, Rafe would need fresh wheels. Though he hated to compound his crimes, he reminded himself that during a combat mission, ordinary rules were made for breaking. Including the rules against grand theft auto, something he would have to resort to whether he decided to go in search of Garrett or relocate. Because one thing was for certain. He and Shannon couldn’t stay here and take a chance on Garrett giving them away if he’d been picked up by either the local cops or their federal pursuers. And on the slim chance that Shannon’s theory was right and Garrett was somehow wrapped up in Lissa’s murder, the consequences of his defection could be even deadlier.

SHANNON NEARLY JUMPED out of her skin when Rafe banged on the door and demanded she come out. She had barely finished rushing through her shower and hadn’t yet toweled off, let alone had the chance to search the cramped space for anything she might use as a weapon should the opportunity arise. A shard from the mirror, a sharp sliver of chrome broken off the towel rack—she had learned from studying prisoner-made shanks and shivs that almost any item could be turned into a weapon, if one only had enough time.

“Let’s go,” Rafe called. “Unless you want this door coming down on your head.”

She quickly dried herself, absurdly worried less about that threat than the idea that the huge Ranger would break in and find her naked. “Give me a minute. I’m just dressing. What’s wrong?”

“Garrett,” Rafe admitted. “He’s still not back, and his cell phone’s going straight to voice mail.”

Reaching for her clothing, she couldn’t resist smiling. “I thought you trusted him? Implicitly?”

“It’s our luck I don’t trust.” Rafe’s words were hard and empty as spent bullet casings. “Especially not with every law enforcement agent in this part of the country looking to bring us in.”

She dressed in a rush, donning the same tan skirt she had been wearing since that morning, along with the T-shirt she had been given by the older woman. Finally slipping into her wedge-heeled sandals, she raked her fingers through her damp hair and spared herself one last look in the mirror.

She winced at what she saw. With neither makeup nor a brush on her, and a purple lump high on her forehead, she looked like some sort of refugee—or like exactly what she was, the victim of an assault—by stun gun and abduction. No wonder Rafe hadn’t jumped to take the bait when she’d trotted out whatever feminine wiles she could muster.

Thank God. She unlocked and opened the door to find him slinging his duffel over one broad shoulder.

He took one look at her and pulled a comb out of his pocket. “Here you go. Try this. Then we’ll need to put the cuffs back on you.”

Shaking her head, she said, “Forget the handcuffs. You won’t need them. I’ve decided I’ll be helping you. Helping find those babies.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“It’s the fastest way, maybe even the only way, to finish this before another family’s shattered.” Though she had only meant it as an excuse to convince him to leave her hands free, Shannon realized that what she was saying—what he’d tried to make her understand before—was true. Working in a small, targeted unit, with the support of hackers who couldn’t care less about privacy laws, warrants or jurisdictions, they could cut weeks, or possibly months, from a cumbersome and complex official investigation.

They could prevent yet another expectant woman’s murder.

All it would cost her was her honor, her career—and the betrayal of the oath she’d sworn to faithfully discharge the duties of her office. A vow she held as sacred as every hard-won lesson she’d gleaned from her father’s storied career.

Even so, Rafe Lyons clearly didn’t buy her supposed change of heart, because the moment she passed him back his comb, he snapped one of the cuffs onto her right wrist. After making an adjustment to the size, he snapped the other bracelet onto his own left hand—shackling them together before pocketing the key.

“It’s not that I don’t want to trust you.” A smile quirked one corner of his mouth. “It’s just that I’m no idiot. And there’s way too much at stake to take any chances.”

There was a rattle at the outer door, the scrape of a key before the door pushed open and was stopped by the security chain that kept it from going any farther than that first half inch. From the back of his waistband, Rafe produced a compact semiautomatic and aimed the handgun at the crack.

“It’s me, Rafe. Let me in, will you? My hands’re full, and—”

“Your head’s empty?” Rafe demanded, dragging Shannon along as he moved to look through the crack before opening the door. “You had me worried, not answering your phone.”

Garrett came in, several plastic shopping bags looped over his wrist and his hands filled with a pizza box that smelled of hot cheese, tomato and oregano. When Rafe had mentioned eating earlier, Shannon hadn’t been interested in anything except finding some way to escape—or turn the tables on her captors. But now that her stomach had reawakened, it was howling urgent demands.

She was suddenly parched, too, and grateful that Garrett had thought of bringing sodas. Not exactly health food, but she found herself straining against Rafe’s wrist in her eagerness to take the can Smith offered.

Turning her annoyance on Rafe, she argued, “Come on, Lyons. Eating chained together is going to be a huge pain. For both of us.”

Her stomach growled noisily, but Rafe ignored her as he stared a hole into Garrett and waited for his explanation. So the Ranger had been listening to what she’d told him after all. Maybe they would finally get some answers to the questions her investigation had raised.

Finally noticing Rafe’s expression, Garrett stopped—the can of soda a frustrating two inches short of her hand. Paling visibly, he stammered, “When you called, I was busy paying for the pizza. I was fumbling for my wallet, worried about getting back, and—”

“So why not call me as soon as you got to the car? Unless you were tied up talking on the phone with someone else?”

“What’re you saying?” Garrett slammed the can down beside the pizza box on the room’s cheap laminate table, his voice turning defensive. “I’ve got a lot on my mind, that’s all.”

Shannon lowered her hand to stare a question at him. Such as talking to your mistress?

“I thought we agreed. Throwaway or not, if anyone figures out we’re using these phones, our location can be pinned down. They’re only for emergencies. Contacting each other. As I tried to contact you three separate times.”

Garret’s pallor gave way to an angry redness. “What is with you tonight?” Flinging a furious gesture in Shannon’s direction, he accused, “She got to you while I was out picking up her damned things, didn’t she? She’s messing with your head, Rafe. Turning you against me.”

Rafe’s stare never wavered as he said, “Why don’t you set my mind at ease, then? Let me see that cell. I want to check your call log.”

“I told you she’d be trouble. I warned you, Rafe. I did,” Garrett shot back, making no move to hand over his phone.

As the silence lengthened, the weight of suspicion crushed the air from Shannon’s lungs. Would Rafe, clearly in charge and all too handy with his weapons, continue to press a man he knew and sympathized with, or would the two of them unite against her?

Or was it possible that Rafe, still shackled to her, would decide Garrett was right about her and opt to leave her somewhere? A shallow grave sprang to mind, or maybe he would just leave her here in this room, dead.

She wanted to say something, to defend her earlier accusations. But instinct warned her that a single word could prove disastrous.

Rafe’s hard gaze moved from Garrett to her, then back to the thin blond man.

With no warning at all, the tension exploded in a shattering burst. Before she could cry out or react at all, she was hurtled off her feet, landing hard on her back with Rafe thudding down across her.

With the breath knocked out of her, her rattled brain was slow to react, to piece together the continuing rain of shards behind the drawn curtains, now perforated with round holes.

Bullet holes, she realized as she spotted Garrett where he lay moaning on the floor, clutching at a burst of dark blood that had spread over the lower left sleeve of his white shirt. What she’d heard had been a spray of automatic gunfire coming through the window. What she’d felt was Rafe taking her down, his swift reflexes saving her life—maybe both their lives—in the process.

As he struggled to rise, Garrett clamped a hand over his forearm. “It hurts. God, it hurts. I’ve got to—”

“Stay down.” Sliding off her but staying low, Rafe whispered to her, “Stay down, or I’ll put you down for good—you understand that?”

Sinking back to the floor, Garrett stared around the room with wild eyes. From the parking lot outside, they heard a car alarm’s shriek, but other than that, nothing. Neither voice nor siren made it past the eerie wail.

“Someone followed you, didn’t they?” Rafe demanded. “You were so busy on your damned phone, you didn’t even notice you had a cop on your tail.”

“Not the police,” Shannon whispered. “They wouldn’t fire through that curtain blindly, especially not with me here.”

“Good,” Rafe said, digging the key from his jeans pocket and using it to unlock the cuff from his wrist. “Then we can return fire.”

“Where’d you put my Glock?” she asked, as he crawled toward the duffel he’d been wearing over his shoulder moments earlier.

“You’ve got to be freaking kidding,” he said through clenched teeth. “You just be a good girl and keep quiet—and stay out of my way.”

With that, he unwrapped an AK-47 from his bag, which he dragged behind him as he crawled toward the window.

Riding a wave of pure adrenaline, she glared as fury flooded her veins. Be a good girl and keep quiet? As God alone knew who picked them off one by one?

While Rafe was distracted by an attempt to peer out the window without getting his head blown off, she scooted toward the duffel, reasoning that where he’d stowed one weapon, there could well be others.

What she meant to do with them, she had no idea, other than defending herself as best she could. You could take out Lyons while his back is to you. Garrett might not be armed—or in any condition to offer resistance.

Her heart stopped as a second burst of gunfire erupted, punching into the wall behind them. Instinctively, she dropped to her stomach, hugging the floor while creeping slowly forward. With her hand stretching before her, she drew close as Rafe thrust aside the ragged curtain’s edge and returned fire.

The rattling boom was deafening and the swirling reek of gun smoke choking. Yet Shannon fought her way through it to grasp the duffel’s strap and yank the bag in her direction, then reach inside. It was all she could do when she felt the butt of a familiar pistol under her hand.

“No!” Rafe bellowed, firing only once more before twisting clear of the window frame and turning his head away from the opening.

Startled by his shout, Shannon only gripped the pistol tighter.

Her next move was cut short by the sound of glass splintering against the window frame, followed by the whoosh of the flaming liquid that spattered over the remaining shreds of curtains. The cloth ignited instantly, falling inward as the thin fabric crumbled, feeding the fire with new fuel in the form of the nearby bedspread.

Shannon rolled away, coming up on her feet. Rafe was on her in an instant, his forward motion carrying her away from the open window toward the side of the motel room nearest the door. Garrett was there, too, his face a mask of terror as he cradled his useless right arm and yelled, “We have to get out of here!”

The room was blazing, the cheap, synthetic carpet filling the air with acrid smoke. Their attackers had pitched a Molotov cocktail, Shannon thought, though at this point the delivery system scarcely mattered. All that did—the only thing screaming through her brain—was the hideous decision they were faced with.

Stay there and burn to death in this motel room, or try to shoot their way free through the waiting ambush.

Chapter Five

“Into the bathroom.” Rafe had to shout at Garrett to be heard over the earsplitting scream of the room’s smoke detector. “I need you to fill the tub and wet some towels.”

“We’ll be trapped,” Garrett protested, and Rafe saw raw panic in his white-rimmed eyes.

“Like hell,” he said, turning the gun on his brother-in-law. “Now get in there right now, and don’t come out until I tell you it’s safe.”

Garrett hesitated only a moment before nodding rapidly and doing as he’d been told.

Rafe closed the door, shutting the other man inside. “That’ll keep him out of the way and busy for the moment.” Probably on his knees and praying he would wake up on his own couch, where he could play the night away with his armchair adventures.