Under Fire (Elite Force #3)(66)
Author: Catherine Mann

He tossed her pack on the boat without a word and started back down the dock. His closed-off face didn’t promise much conversation. His boots hit the muddy bank. He picked his way over the wandering tree roots poking out of the muddy incline.

“Damn it.” She stomped her foot, not caring who heard. “Just talk.”

He turned sharply to face her, smiling. Sort of. “Now isn’t the time.”

“Because I’m getting too close? Too real?”

Cursing, he looked away, but he didn’t leave. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts, and she wondered if maybe, just maybe, he might tell her what was bothering him. What had changed between last night and this morning?

She’d opened up to him after pushing men away ever since Caden’s death. Her relationship with Liam was significant for so many reasons—not the least of which was because she was actually falling for the guy—and now she was scared of something she couldn’t pinpoint.

“Well, Liam? Aren’t you even going to answer me?”

His head went back as he stood tall and hard bodied in the rising sun. The only man who’d hadn’t eventually backed off from her strong will—okay, she’d pushed most men away. But there was no pushing Liam.

He was all man.

So much so, he didn’t even sway as the ground shifted under his feet. She frowned, trying to figure out what wasn’t right about the picture in front of her…

“Liam?”

He looked back at her. “Okay, Rachel, you want to talk, then okay. Let’s talk.”

“Liam,” she interrupted, stepping forward, “something’s wrong with the bank.” A mudslide? “See the ground—”

Move.

She screamed as an alligator emerged from the muck, racing straight for Liam.

Chapter 17

Liam turned hard and fast at Rachel’s warning. But not fast enough.

He stared straight into the cold eyes of an alligator. He didn’t even have time to figure out how he’d been caught so off guard. He zigged and zagged, hard left, then right. Again. And again. It was his only defense against a gator that could definitely outrun him. The beast had to stop and adjust for each turn.

The mud made speedy moves tougher, but not impossible. Shift right. He reached for his gun, already calculating how to shoot the reptile in its one vulnerable spot—where the skull joined the neck.

He heard Rachel cry out to him again a half second before the gator’s tail whipped his feet from under him. Liam slammed to the ground. His gun slid from his hand and into the water. He could see inside the alligator’s open jaws as it prepped to grab him for a death roll.

Instincts kicked into overdrive. He sprang up and onto the alligator’s back. There were a thousand places he would rather be, but the only way he could think to buy time and stay out of the beast’s gullet.

“Rachel, get your gun,” he shouted, arms and legs wrapped around the reptile.

Knobby bumps dug into his gut. His muscles screamed with the force of holding on to the thrashing creature sliding back into the shallow marsh. If they reached deeper water, he was screwed.

Dimly he heard the dogs going nuts in the cabin and Rachel screaming for help as the scaly rough skin scratched his face. But he also heard her feet running along the porch and down the steps. She’d called for backup but she wasn’t waiting around.

Brackish water slid over him and into his mouth. “I can’t let go,” he said through gritted teeth. “You’re going to have to shoot the gator.”

“With you on it?” she asked, only a hint of panic leaking into her voice as she climbed up onto the dock.

“Don’t think I can go anywhere unless you do.” What a time for his humor to come back. “Shoot right where the skull joins the neck.”

“That itty bitty spot right in front of your face?” Her voice cracked. She jockeyed for better positioning as the gator slipped into deeper and deeper waters.

“Anywhere else and it’ll ricochet off and send bone shrapnel everywhere.” All over him. “Aim. Shoot. Don’t jerk back. Hold your arms steady after you pull the trigger.”

Where the hell was his team?

“Right.” She raised her Baby Eagle pistol that he’d never had the time to teach her to use.

Braced.

Shot.

Missed.

Shrapnel bit into his arms. The scrapes burned like a son of a bitch. But not half as bad as the razor-sharp teeth of the alligator would if the scaly bastard got hold of him.

“Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God, Liam, I’m so sorry.”

“Shoot again, damn it. Shoot, Rachel!” He looked at her for what he hoped wasn’t the last time.

God, she was incredible, standing down an alligator without question. Not backing off. Not even shaking. He couldn’t have asked for better from anyone on his team.

She lined up the shot. Hands steady. Pulled the trigger.

The alligator went limp.

Rachel dropped to her knees on the dock.

The shrapnel scratches on his arm hurt, but he kept holding on anyway. “Rachel, hon, you did great. Now, I need you to pass me the tape out of the duffel so I can seal this guy’s mouth closed. I’m not taking any chances that he’s playing possum.”

She bolted into action, leaping into the boat and racing back before he finished catching his breath. She passed the roll of industrial duct tape with hands shaking so hard she almost dropped it in the water. He wrapped it around and around the alligator’s mouth until finally… he gave himself permission to haul himself up onto the planked dock with Rachel. She locked her arms around him and he realized she was sobbing, hard. From shock, no doubt.

He looped an arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “You did good, Rachel, damn good.”

“I missed,” she gasped.

“And then you didn’t miss.”

She was every bit as incredible as the first day he’d seen her. She was so much more woman than she even realized.

The world expanded, his vision widening beyond just Rachel and himself. His team and the other women stood on the porch and along the shore. Guns out. Dogs restrained.

Liam scanned them all, his ragtag team, with Rachel an unofficial but fully contributing member. The enormity of everything he would be losing soon kicked him in the gut as hard as any swipe from a gator tail. “I got us some fresh meat for breakfast.”

***

Rachel had never felt less like eating in her life. Her stomach was stuck somewhere in her throat while she waited for Sylvia Cramer’s call. Or for some other “divine blessing” from the string of computers set up on the rough-hewn table. Periodically, one pinged with a new message, which turned out not to be Sylvia as they’d hoped.