Alex’s eyes rounded.
“Told you.” He smiled in vindication.
“Ugh!” Alex threw her hands in the air. “He is the mostimpossibleman!”
As she ran down the steps and across the beach, Bran was left with no recourse but to follow Maddy and the ranger as they herded the teenagers toward the bridge. All the while he triednotto think about how much he wanted Maddy. How much hecravedher.
It was an exercise in futility, of course. Because no matter how he tried not to watch the swing of her plump ass in those cutoff shorts, he found his eyes glued there time and again. And no matter how often he told his lips tojust forget about it already, they continued to throb with the memory of her kiss.
And talk about throbbing… His lips weren’t the only body part suffering the affliction.
Damnit!Maddy was driving him crazy. Totally nuts. And when she turned to smile at him over her shoulder, her pretty eyes sparkling in the glow of the moon and stars and the spotlights, he seriously considered taking Mason up on his offer of trading places.
Eardrums be damned!
Chapter 14
8:54 p.m.…
Ring! Ring!
When the satellite phone came to life, Tony nearly dropped his fourth scotch and soda in his rush to answer it. Punching the talk button with one hand and setting his drink on the end table with the other, he said two words: “I’m listening.”
The response that echoed through the receiver sent chills cascading over his entire body. “We have a problem.”
Tony swallowed and glanced at Gene who had stopped his incessant pacing to skirt the molded fiberglass coffee table and hover over him where he sat on the end of the sofa. Careful to keep his face blank even though his stomach was trying its best to make the scotch reverse directions, he managed to say evenly, “What kind?”
It took every ounce of willpower he possessed not to grab his highball glass and hurl it against the bulkhead as he listened to Rory Gellman—his former high school buddy turned Army Ranger turned high-priced mercenary—tell him that two of the four men who’d stormed Garden Key were dead. And that the remaining two men had been forced to limp back in their dinghy to the trawler Rory was using as a base of operations when their fishing boat ran out of fuel.
Tony gritted his teeth so hard he heard them creak. “What happened?”
“Apparently there are two armed men on the island,” Rory said. “And my guys are saying they’re highly trained.”
“Shit,” Tony cursed, belying his calm demeanor.
That had Gene demanding, “What? Damnit, Tony! What’s happenin’?”
Tony scowled up at Gene and raised a hand for silence. Into the phone, he said, “Who are they, Rory?”
“Hell if I know,” Rory answered. “You checked the logs just like I did. No one but Miss Powers and the girls was supposed to be camping on Garden Key tonight.”
“Shit,” Tony cursed again, his mind racing. Was it possible Madison Powers had hired an armed escort without telling anyone? And then he quickly decided it didn’t matter. He had bigger things to worry about.
“Can the two you lost be traced back to you?” he asked, holding his breath. Because if those guys could lead back to Rory, and if Rory could lead back to Tony…
“What do you mean the two that were lost?” Gene thundered. “Whowas lost? The girls?”
“Shut up and sit down!” Tony yelled right back. “I’m handling this!” Into the satphone he said, “Go on.”
“All the authorities would have to do is run their prints,” Rory admitted. “We were all in the services, so our profiles are in the government databases. And that brings me back to thereallybad news. One of those two mystery men on the island got hold of a radio. I’m not sure how, but I suspect they had a boat anchored somewhere. A few minutes ago, right before my guys showed up, he put in a call over marine channel sixteen to some asshole on a nearby island who used a satellite phone to call the Coast Guard in Key West.”
“Shit!” Tony roared, ignoring the sputtering sound Gene was making. The ocean breeze had been blowing across the back of the yacht, keeping his temper cooled, but now it suddenly felt hot and oppressive. “We have to go back and get the bodies.”
“Thebodies!” Gene howled, stumbling back and nearly losing his footing on the stairs that led down to the small swim deck on the back of the boat.
“I have a second group willing to go in and do exactly that,” Rory assured him. “And they’ll finish the job with Miss Powers and the girls too. But to do that, my men will need to take out the two murderous assholes guarding that island. And I know you said you didn’t want any bloodshed, but—”
“Forget that,” Tony snarled, not hesitating. “Do it. Whatever it takes.”
