Yes. Doc had been wondering himself why the intruders hadn’t already finished off the islanders. There was no reason to delay the inevitable. Unless, of course, the gunmen were squeamish and didn’t want to spend the remainder of the storm stuck in a room with six bloody corpses.
Doc focused on the men with a capital F. But he did his best to pretend hewasn’tspying on their every word by keeping his eyes trained on the set of chewed-up balusters. Their ragged appearance was thanks to Meat, Mason’s fat bulldog, who hadn’t figured out the difference between gnawing on a stick of driftwood he’d rescued from the surf or gnawing on a stick of staircase.
From the corner of his eye, Doc watched Brady shake his head. “That’s not what we agreed to do. We agreed to try to…” The rest of his sentence was lost in the wind and the ringing in Doc’s ears.
Head Honcho raked a hand over the top of his mask. “Come on, Brady. As soon as we heard the island was inhabited, ya had to know it would come to this. There’s no way we won’t be caught if we leave witnesses and—” Again, the roar of the storm swallowed up what else he said, and Doc barely refrained from growling his frustration.
Red, aka Fin, glanced around at his partners but said nothing. He simply pulled his mask away from his ruined nose in a bid to alleviate the pressure. And long, tall Brady, looking more agitated by the minute as he swayed from foot to foot, swiped a hand over the blood trailing out from under his mask to soak his neck and the collar of his blue T-shirt.
That head lac must be something, Doc mused.
Then again, head wounds were always messy. The scalp was thick and full of blood vessels, so even a minor cut there could make a man look like a murder victim.
“This is one pisser of a…” Jace said, but the end of his sentence was interrupted when what sounded like a palm frond slammed into the side of the house. “But it’s what’s gotta be done. None of us want it. But we got no choice.”
“But there’s one problem since we couldn’t get back to the boat before the eye moved on,” Head Honcho said. “What if the trawler sinks? It survived the front half of Julia because I was pilotin’ her. If we off ’em now and then we can’t get off the island, we won’t be lookin’ at grand larceny, we’ll be lookin’ at murder in the first.”
Andthereit was. The answer to the question of why the gunmen hadn’t simply shot all of them as soon as they’d got them secured to the chairs.
“We wait then.” This from Jace. “If the trawler sank that’s that. Game over. But if it didn’t, we do what needs to be done and get the hell outta here.”
“Dalton?” Cami whispered from the side of her mouth. Her head was no longer tilted back, and her lids were no longer squeezed shut. Quite the opposite, her eyes were huge and full of terror as she pinned him with her dark, desperate gaze.
She’d heard everything he had.
Or maybe more.She was closer to the masked men and she wasn’t battling a world class case of tinnitus.
There was nothing he could do to assuage her fear. The only thing he could do was give the subtlest shake of his head, telling her without words to keep quiet. To keep still. To not give their captors any indication she’d heard anything untoward because he had to come up with a counterplan to their murderous intentions, and he couldn’t do that if the thieves knew he was onto them.
Her throat worked over a hard swallow, but she firmed her shoulders and nodded subtly, letting him know she’d received his message.
Thatta girl, he mouthed, giving her a small smile that she quickly returned. Although her lips shook with the effort.
She was so damn brave. He’d realized that a mere twenty-four hours after meeting her. Because within those first twenty-four hours, they’d survived a mid-ocean plane crash, a marooning on a desert island, and the arrival on that island of a group of men bent on mayhem. Through it all, she hadn’t uttered a single word of complaint. And more than that, she’d kept her wits about her.
Which was more than he could say for some seasoned operators his SEAL Team had worked with.
Looking at her now, so vulnerable yet so tough, he wanted to go back in time and kick his own ass for all the sarcastic comments he’d sent her way. Because truly, what had been her crime?
That she was a lawyer? That she was so smart and sassy and beautiful he couldn’t stop thinking about her? That she had him waking up with a skip in his step for the first time in over a decade because he actually looked forward to the day since she was going to be part of it?
That she makes me wonder what if…
That wasreallywhat he’d been punishing her for, wasn’t it? That she made him want. That she made him need. That she made him forget his grief.
Turning his head, he found LT leaning forward. LT’s gaze was eagle-eyed on Doc’s face and the question in LT’s eyes was clear.What are those bastards up to?
Doc let his eyes narrow slightly. Let his nostrils flare wide. Let the truth shine in his expression.
LT’s nod was subtle.Message received.And then LT’s eyes darted to his wife.
The look that came over LT’s face then was something Doc would remember the rest of his life. It was a look of fear that they might not make it out of this. A look of heartbreak that the woman of his dreams might suffer such a terrible fate. And a look of love so fierce and strong that Doc’s own heart ached in sympathy.
“Don’t know if I can make it.” Fin’s clogged voice dragged Doc’s attention back to the gathered group of gunmen. “…can’t breathe. My head is…” Again Fin pulled his mask away from his face. “…think he sent a bone into my brain.”
“And if I keep losin’ blood like I am,” Brady added, motioning to his head, “then I might not…”
Another palm frond slammed into the side of the house, cutting off the end of Brady’s sentence. But Doc didn’t need to hear what else was said before raising his voice above Julia’s fury.
