Christmas Captive, page 9
The words jumbled together to make mostly nonsense, but Amy held up her hand and stopped so suddenly that the women behind him slammed into his back. The maid immediately stepped around him, shooting him a scowl and mumbling something under her breath.
Jordan shifted Amy out of the main flow of traffic as her eyes darted in every direction.
“I remember the sound of clashing pots and pans. I could hear it in the closet. They were muffled, but I’m sure of it. I couldn’t have been far away.”
He looked around, following her lead, but nothing struck him as unusual or out of place. It was just the ship’s bustling hub.
“Well.” He shrugged, only one ridiculous plan playing in his mind. “If you were down here, then maybe Elaina is, too.”
“I hope so.” Her voice barely reached him over the din, but her movements were sure. Before he could even tell her his wild idea, she’d implemented it, grabbing the nearest door handle. The door swung open, and an invisible cloud of steam swept over them. Industrial washers and dryers clanked and tumbled in the relatively shallow room.
As she stepped inside, she looked over her shoulder and silently challenged him not to follow.
They’d already decided that wasn’t an option, so he ducked after her, checking every nook and cranny.
They poked into every open door and knocked on the few locked ones, but there was no sign of the storage closet. And no indication that Elaina had ever been there. Everything looked exactly as it should.
But they knew the truth.
This was only a facade covering something sinister.
And the sinister knew how to hide.
As they exited another empty laundry room, Amy sighed. “I don’t understand. I thought for sure that we’d find something.”
“I know.” He wanted to pull her into his arms. To comfort her. As a friend would.
But somehow he knew that she wouldn’t appreciate that, so he pointed upward. “Let’s regroup and figure out our next steps. Maybe Xavier has some new information about—”
A sudden commotion at the entrance to the kitchen jerked his attention away from her and made his skin crawl. Every hair on his arms stood on end as voices raised.
“I’m telling you, I saw her.” The voice had an American accent, and Amy’s entire countenance changed when it registered with her.
She whipped around and stared toward the man, but she didn’t have Jordan’s height or his vantage to look over the heads of the crowd.
“There are two of them.” He kept his voice low and spoke directly into her ear, even as a shiver racked her whole body. “One blond and the other definitely Middle Eastern.”
“Where? Where is she?” the blond man screamed in a high-pitched voice, pushing people aside and crashing into a service cart.
With closed eyes, Amy said, “That’s him.”
Jordan didn’t wait for her to repeat herself. He simply spread his hand across the small of her back and steered her between obstacles.
“Where did she go?” the high-pitched voice said again. “Find her!”
The clatter of a bumped cart and the hollers of an angry housekeeper behind them threatened to steal his attention, but he forced his gaze to methodically sweep the path ahead. Back and forth, checking for potential hurdles.
Amy’s pace picked up with each step, and he used his free hand on her arm to keep her pace more casual. “Don’t draw attention,” he cautioned her. “Not until we get to the stairs.”
She gave him a curt nod, and he focused on following his own instructions. It was so much easier to say than to do with a man looking for her in the bustling crowd. The same with keeping his breathing even when his lungs wanted to burst and his body ached to make a break for it.
“Get over here. Help me out!”
Jordan risked a glance over his shoulder to see three more men join the blond. All wore jackets with conspicuous bulges. Even without his training, he’d have recognized that they each carried a weapon.
His heart lodged in his throat. This was not the place to take them on. It couldn’t be. So he forced a warning past the pounding at his Adam’s apple. “He’s got more company.”
She sucked in a loud breath, and he took it as confirmation that she understood. They were outnumbered, outarmed and in the middle of a ship full of defenseless civilians.
He couldn’t afford for their pursuers to catch up.
The mass of people parted, and the stairwell door appeared to their left.
“Are you ready to run?”
“Always.”
He gave her a little push. “Now.”
She was running before he’d even finished the word.
And the shout that followed picked up right where he left off. “After them.”
EIGHT
Amy slammed her shin into the first step and nearly landed on her face, but a thick arm around her middle caught her in time. Fire shot up her leg and she hobbled for several strides, drawing on all of her training to ignore the pain and push through.
Jordan kept his hand on her, pushing her forward and holding her upright, somehow relieving a fraction of the pressure that released a burst of flame with every step.
Not that she needed his help. But she wasn’t going to complain or pull away. Especially as they rounded the next flight and the entrance door crashed again. Booted feet slapped against the metal stairs. The din of each footstep made her heart pump a little harder until she was gasping for air.
It didn’t help. There wasn’t enough oxygen in the Amazon to slow her breathing to normal. Her ears rang with the rush of adrenaline zipping through her system.
But there was also a quiet voice in her ear. “You’ve got this. Keep going.”
It was soothing and calming, but he stopped at the same time as a hole burst out of the wall in front of her. Another quickly followed, and she ducked out of instinct.
“Nope. Keep going. As fast as you can.”
Keep going. Keep going.
She just had to do it. She just had to keep her feet moving.
For Elaina.
The thought of what could be happening to her niece gave her another burst of energy. It was followed by a low chuckle in her ear. “Found something more, did you? Go. Go.”
Grabbing the railing, she swung up to the next flight, only then realizing how damp her palms had become. But swiping them down her pants was guaranteed to throw off her rhythm, so she pushed through.
Suddenly the tenor of Jordan’s voice changed. “This deck.”
Which one was it? She’d lost count of how many they’d covered.
Jordan yanked open a door, pushed her through and rushed after her. Was there a chance that the noise of the door opening had been drowned out by the sound of the men behind them? She could only hope so, because the clambering had grown louder, proving that those men were gaining ground.
How could such big men move so quickly?
But there wasn’t time to analyze. There was only time to look for a hiding place. And pray that the terrorists wouldn’t fire into the crowd of sunbathers and revelers who packed the deck, soaking in the December rays.
Suddenly Jordan steered her into a small alcove. Lifeboats hung overhead, and for a moment, she thought he might boost her into one.
Instead, he pressed her against a wall of unforgiving wood and hovered over her, his face so close that she could feel his breath on her skin.
Her heart slammed into her rib cage as her mouth went dry, and she tried to look away, but there was nothing but him. Up and down. On each side. He surrounded her. Big and broad and ever the protector.
He made her feel small. Petite. Secure.
It was a feat few men had ever managed. Not when she wore a uniform. Not when she was five foot nine in her boots. Not when she normally carried a weapon most men had never fired.
She wished she didn’t like the way he made her feel so much.
Even as she knew her body should be returning to normal after that run, her lungs continued pumping and her heart still beat rapidly. She bit into her suddenly quivering lip. But it wasn’t just that that was shaking. Her hands and legs wouldn’t stop trembling, either.
It was a lethal combination, fear, adrenaline and this strange awareness of the man in front of her.
He turned his head, likely searching for their pursuers, but it served only to highlight the line of his jaw. A day’s worth of beard had grown there. It looked rough but somehow still soft. And before she realized it, she was reaching to run her fingers along it. Catching herself just in time, she yanked her hand back to her side as he turned to her.
“They’re coming.”
“Are we running again?” She hated that she sounded out of breath and confused.
He shook his head. “You saw those couples kissing on the deck?”
“Yes.” She couldn’t have missed them. Limbs tangled and lips pressed together, they’d refused to take their displays of affection out of the public eye.
And then it struck her, sending her stomach to her toes.
“You want to do that?”
“It’s dark in here.” His voice dropped until she couldn’t tell if it was his tone or the words that scrubbed her nerves over a washboard and hung them out to dry. “We’ll look like every other couple out there, like we just wanted a little privacy.”
“Or we could take them head-on.”
She didn’t know why she spit it out so quickly. The idea of kissing Jordan wasn’t so awful. She’d known him forever, and he wasn’t bad-looking.
That’s a big fat lie, and you know it, Amy Delgado.
Okay, he was better than not bad-looking. More like perfectly, classically, ideally handsome. Like he should have starred on one of those TV shows about special forces operatives turned cops.
But he’d also made a complete fool of her in front of his entire family a year ago, and then stood her up for the date that was supposed to be his apology.
“I’m going to kiss you. Right—” he peeked around the corner for a split second “—now.”
Suddenly his hands cupped her face, tilted it back and his lips touched hers.
The entire world vanished.
If he’d surrounded her before, now she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. His calloused hands on her cheeks were surprisingly tender. While his lips remained gentle, there was an urgency in the connection.
It pulled at her, tugging her heart until it skipped a beat, making her forget how to even stand on her own feet.
Grappling with the wall behind her, she found nothing to hold on to, so she reached forward and grabbed the front of his black T-shirt. Her hands clenched into fists as she twisted the cotton fabric just to stay standing.
His arm slipped around her waist. An enormous hand spanned the width of her back as his fingers brushed against her spine. Pulling her closer, he paused for only the briefest breath, and she took advantage of it.
She couldn’t seem to draw in enough air.
Her pulse raced and her head spun.
Beneath her grip on his shirt the beat of his heart felt strong and steady. It picked up speed with every thump until it was flying as fast as hers.
Then, without warning, he pulled away.
“They’re past us now.”
Amy’s chest rose and fell like she’d just run a mile flat out, but Jordan wasn’t out of breath. He gave no indication that the kiss had meant anything at all to him.
And her hands were still knotted into his shirt.
She dropped them, twisting them together behind her back and looking anywhere but at the perfect bow of his lips as she tried to figure out how she’d so easily forgotten they were even being chased. It didn’t take long for her roaming gaze to meet his, and he popped one eyebrow in question.
But what he was asking remained unclear.
Are you all right?
Probably.
Was that okay?
Better than.
Do you want to do that again when no one’s chasing us?
Definitely not. No. Absolutely never. Maybe.
Why was there even a question? The answer should be a given. She didn’t like him. Everyone knew it. She hadn’t even tried to pretend that they were on good terms, despite Neesha’s repeated pleas for her to let go of the grudge.
But that was so much easier said than done. He’d humiliated her. And then, when she’d given him a chance to make up for it, he’d skipped their dinner date and hadn’t even bothered trying to cover his lie.
Her fists clenched hard, and her blood rushed through her veins.
He’d claimed he was called up on a mission. He’d asked his teammate, his best friend, Zach, to call her to cancel the date. Of course he’d called her after she’d put on her new dress, applied thirteen coats of mascara, wrestled her hair into something resembling a French twist and sat on her couch for forty-five minutes.
And the rest of SEAL Team Fifteen? They were all conveniently still in San Diego. Probably right where Jordan had been that night, too.
In town with something better to do.
And she had spent that night alone and passed over.
She clenched her teeth so hard that her jaw ached, and she had to squeeze her eyes closed as she worked it out.
Jordan had treated her just like her dad used to. He’d made big promises—Disneyland, the zoo, even a trip to the mall to buy her a new teddy bear. And each time she’d sat on the couch and waited for him to arrive.
Every promise had been a lie. All of them.
And as a little girl craving her absent father’s affections, they’d crushed her spirit.
But not anymore. She was a grown woman now, and she wasn’t about to let Jordan do the same.
So why on earth would she think about kissing him again? For any reason?
Except that there had definitely been a connection, a spark, and she’d be lying if she tried to deny it.
She rolled her eyes at herself and leaned her head back against the wooden slats that made up the wall as he checked the deck again.
“They’re definitely gone.”
“Good.”
“Did you recognize his voice? Was the American the same one you heard this morning?”
Her face pinched together as she thought about it. “I think so. But it was noisy in the service area. Still, how many Americans can be chasing me?”
His lips pursed, and he scraped his fingers along his beard, the low rasping a reminder that she hadn’t taken advantage of maybe her only chance to do the same.
Don’t think like that.
“Those men are looking for you. Now.” Jordan pulled her from her wayward thoughts, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he frowned.
“You just figured that out, Somerton?” The question popped out before she even realized she wanted to ease his concern. She swatted at his arm, and like lightning he caught her fist in his own. Mouth suddenly dry, she croaked the rest. “I thought you were top of your class.”
Without even acknowledging that he still held her hand captive, he said, “If they came for Elaina, they knew she was part of a wedding party.”
A brick sank to the bottom of her stomach. Couldn’t they just go back to the kissing? Even her own internal battle on that was better than trying to understand what these terrorists were after.
“Maybe they knew you were connected to Elaina.”
She pinched her lips together. “They saw us together. Yesterday—was that just yesterday? When Eric Dean chased us. He saw us.”
“Right. But what about before that?”
“Before the cruise?”
He nodded, and some of the mixed-up puzzle pieces in her mind began to fall into place. Or, at least, they fell into the correct piles. And sorting them might be half the battle.
“So what? They’re not targeting Elaina because of me—it’s Michael they’re after.”
Jordan released her hand and waved a finger in the air to keep her attention. “Stay with me on this. They captured Elaina because of Michael but they captured you, too. Why? Just because you were with her?”
“Right. Why else?”
“Because you could identify one of them.”
Puzzle pieces scattered again, and she let out a slow breath. “I’m not following you.”
“I assumed when you said you’d overheard a man say you could identify him that he thought you’d seen him when you and Elaina were taken last night.”
“That’s right.”
He shook his head. “What if that’s wrong?”
“Jordan, you’re not making any sense.”
“I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath, and when he spoke again, his words were slow, almost methodical. “These men have shown they’re not afraid to fire their weapons on this ship. They’re clearly familiar with it and have hiding places. If you were just another hurdle between them and Elaina, why keep you around? Why not just kill you and get rid of your body?”
She blinked and sucked in a quick breath. “I have no idea.”
“They’re chasing you now. But what if they were always chasing you?”
A deep throbbing began behind her left eye and she pressed her fingers against it in a vain attempt to relieve some of the pressure, only remembering the bruise that swept across her face when she accidentally pressed too hard against the tender spot.
“What if Elaina wasn’t the only target?” he said.
She held up one finger as her stomach took a spectacular nosedive. Pressing her other hand to her lips, she squinted at him and shook her head before asking a question she sure didn’t want to know the answer to. “What makes you ask that?”
He answered it with another question of his own. “Was the man you heard in the storage closet one of the men that took you and Elaina last night?”
