Under Fire (Elite Force #3)(53)
Author: Catherine Mann

No one would have the authority to smack him down to his knees ever again.

***

Wind in her face, Rachel hooked her hands in both dogs’ collars as Liam steered the airboat along the Everglades swamp. She did not need the dogs leaping out for an impromptu swim. The ripple of knobby alligator spines scored the water.

She’d barely had time to catch her breath since Liam found that missed call from his teammate Jose. At least Brandon had been found and was safe, and they would all be meeting soon. Beyond that, Liam hadn’t told her much—just the basics. He’d relayed how someone in a silver sedan with heavy-ass weaponry had been stalking Brandon and Catriona. Jose had witnessed the whole thing go down. No one was imagining jack.

Liam had rushed to throw on clothes and hustled them out of the motel room, promising they could discuss in great detail along the way. The next thing she’d known, he was renting an airboat and they were driving deep into the Everglades. She hadn’t had time to process the news about Brandon, much less analyze the shift in her relationship with Liam.

The mind-blowing sex.

Her fears of falling for him.

If she wanted a lifetime to sort out her feelings, she needed to focus on the present, where they were going, and what she could do to hold her own rather than be another responsibility for Liam to rescue. The speed of the airboat eased the heat somewhat and kept the mosquitoes at bay. Ahead of them, snakes left a trail around herons in the saw grass. She’d worked a search mission in the Everglades once and was briefed to expect water moccasins, coral snakes, rattlesnakes—all poisonous, out in a place where medical help was a long way off.

She nudged Liam with her foot. “How much farther to this ‘safe place’ to meet up with Brandon? With over two million acres of wetland in the Everglades, this could be one monster of a commute. Much longer and I’m going to start wondering if you plan to dump my body overboard in a plastic bag weighted with cement blocks. You wouldn’t go all Dexter on me, would you?”

“Five more minutes. Tops.” He stroked her arm briefly. “Trust me, it’s worth the effort.”

He’d said much the same in the Jeep as they’d driven a mile to the boat rental. He’d sworn this place was totally secure, no risk of listening devices. And it was where he’d hoped to reach the day before, but they simply hadn’t arrived before dark and he preferred not to travel out here at night.

She just wanted to lay eyes on Brandon and be sure he was okay. Someone had actually tried to shoot him and Catriona in a drive-by. That would have been inconceivable a mere month ago, but now anything seemed possible. Thank God, Brandon and Jose had been around to protect Catriona—an unsuspecting, complete innocent in all of this. Although for someone who’d been shot at, Catriona had been surprisingly composed on the phone as she’d shared the details of Tabitha’s flesh wound with Rachel. At least her dog was okay, treated quickly thanks to Catriona’s training as a vet tech.

Rachel drew in a humidity-laden breath, her shirt sticking to her back. A gator scrambled onto the shore and snapped up a wood duck. Or at least she thought it was a gator. This was a rare place in which alligators and crocodiles cohabited. Hopefully she would never be close enough to one to check the shape of the jaw to distinguish one reptile from another.

She secured her hold on the dogs. “And you’re sure Brandon’s meeting us out here?”

How was even he supposed to locate this place?

“With Cuervo. Don’t worry. Cuervo can find his way.” He steered the craft, the monstrous fan in back powering them over the murky surface. “They’re also bringing the dog-sitter along to keep her safe.”

“Catriona?” Her friend hadn’t mentioned that, but they hadn’t been able to talk long and the connection had been sketchy.

“Uh-huh. That’s what Jose said.” Liam whipped the craft around a narrow bend in the marsh. An osprey flapped away from its perch.

“What happened to all the dogs at her place? My dogs are there.”

“What does she do if she has to leave home?”

“She rarely goes anywhere.”

“She’s a recluse?” Morning rays beat down on his sun-burnished face. His bristled jawline was taking on a look actors worked to cultivate. Tall and lean, Liam’s raw masculinity came naturally.

Going dreamy over him at such a crazy time seemed strange and wonderful all at once. Didn’t she deserve a moment to soak in what they’d shared last night?

She pulled her attention off her handsome lover and back to their conversation. “Just shy. Not much of a social life. She’s a truly nice person, devoted to the animals in her care… Although now that you mention it, she does have a backup for when she has to shop or if she’s sick. She hires vet tech students looking to make extra money while they’re in school.”

“Then I’m guessing that’s what she did now. All the more reason it was crucial to keep the plans from her at first. She isn’t trained in this sort of crisis. She will be able to say with all honesty to the students that she would be staying at a hotel.”

“You’re right. Still…” She scraped her hair back from her face. “The thought of someone trying to hurt them, getting so close, scares me. Factor in that the gunmen were driving the same kind of car that followed me to base in the first place, and I’m really freaking out.”

He pinned her with his glittering green gaze, as lush and virile as the Everglades. “This nightmare is going to end soon, Rachel. I promise you. We’re going to put together a plan for reentering the base, depending on what Harris is able to tell us.”

“Do you still think he’s unbalanced?” Even though her instincts told her otherwise, she had to take Liam’s concerns seriously.

“How am I supposed to know if I’ve never met the man?”

Valid point. “That’s the real reason you have your friend along, isn’t it? To make sure you outnumber him.”

“Just playing it safe.” He swooshed past a jutting cypress.

Safe? Where foxes and bears—not to mention the Florida panther—lived in this fragile wetland? Although the human beasts in the real world lately were every bit as lethal.

Liam navigated the airboat around another sharp bend with the skill of a race car driver, then cut the power back to idle. A shack came into view in the middle of a cypress swamp. A no-kidding shack. When he’d said a little out-of-the-way place and not to expect much, she’d expected to be pleasantly surprised, figuring he’d been downplaying so she wouldn’t get her hopes up. Cedar red planks closed in what appeared to be a lean-to on stilts. The front porch doubled as a dock and it didn’t appear there was much of a backyard.