Her phone buzzed again and a message popped up from Ramsey, her treacherous co-pilot.Deliver the men to me by tomorrow at sunset or I’ll kill her.
A set of coordinates flashed on the screen.
Marley’s entire body went down. He’d kill her? Was he there with Maddie now? Or had he sent someone else after her—the person who’d taken the picture. Oh, my God. Her body thundered to life, her tears drying instantly. Maddie.
Ramsey, the fucking bastard. She wanted to rip his throat out; she wanted to take her knife and stab it into his chest. But she was stuck in a jungle with no way to warn anybody.
Her phone worked—oh, my God.
Marley nearly dropped it, as she struggled to get a phone call out. She held the phone up high in the air, shooting to her feet instantly, walking to the edge of the water, searching for any ray of a signal. Nothing. Not even one bar. She swiftly scanned the message again—she found nothing new, just that one sickening sentence. A sentence that had the power to end her daughter’s life.
How was he sending her messages? Carefully this time she studied the sat phone. It had seemed like perfect timing back on base when he’d shown up with this brand-new phone after hers had been crushed. She’d been so grateful and he’d been planning to kill her all along.
She dropped it like a hot coal and gulped. The sat phone had never been intended for phone calls – it was a tracking device.
Ramsey had somehow discovered that his attempted plane crash and bomb hadn’t worked—and this man, Jack Mankel, was clearly the one pulling the strings. Ramsey wasn’t stupid, but he wasn’t that smart either. And she knew he didn’t have the connections, or motivation, to pull off a stunt like this unless someone very rich and very bad had lined his pockets.
Unable to help herself, she picked up the phone and swept her thumb across the screen to bring up the picture of her daughter once more, expanding it to fill the screen. A man with the resources to buy off Ramsey and plant a bomb in the C-130 would have no trouble taking out a helpless, unsuspecting little girl. She didn’t doubt he could carry out his threat. But in order to save her daughter’s life, she’d have to betray Mack . . .
“Hey, beautiful.” Mack’s deep voice, right next to her ear, startled her so much she nearly dropped the phone again.
“Mack,” Marley said breathlessly. She practically felt his gaze boring into her phone. Had he seen the text?
“That Maddie? She’s precious.”
Marley sucked in a breath, trying to keep from passing out as her heart thundered out of control. What to do? She didn’t need to tell him what she knew. Not yet. First she needed time to think.
“I’m, yeah, I just wanted to see her face.”
Mack placed a tender kiss on her cheek and Marley rocketed to her feet, quickly powering off the cell phone and shoving it into her pocket. He’d nearly seen the text. Maddie was in danger. Mankel’s minions would kill her if Marley didn’t do as they asked. The thought of anything happening to her daughter sent shockwaves of panic through her so fierce that it nearly brought her to her knees. She squeezed her hands into tight fists in a futile attempt to keep the pain inside.
In order to save her daughter, she would have to sacrifice Mack and his team. And herself.
It occurred to her again that Ramsey had asked her about her life insurance . . .
He wasn’t planning on letting her make it out of this jungle alive. Betraying the team would ensure both their deaths and hers.
Something about Marley had changed. He’d left her with laughter and a smile in anticipation of another night of amazing lovemaking. Channeling his inner Tarzan, he’d raced off into the jungle, eager to bring back sustenance for a woman.
He had trapped a small animal, skinned it, and brought it back, unsure if she was okay with seeing the fresh blood or not.
He’d expected her to look at him with delight when he returned with food. Her stomach had been growling all day. But she kept her face averted and her head down, her shoulders slumped but tense. What the hell had happened in his short absence from their makeshift camp? Had she had too much time to think about last night and suddenly regretted it?
Or was it as simple as seeing the picture of her daughter on her phone? When Cooper was that age, Barbara used to send him batches of pictures when he was on deployment. His chest had ached each time he looked at them. He had missed his son as much as he’d missed his wife.
Then it hit him,of courseit was Maddie. Marley had raised her child as a young widow on her own. They probably didn’t spend too much time apart. And Mack was standing here letting his own insecurities cloud his judgment.
He draped the animal carcass over the root opposite the one Marley had just vacated and went to her, wrapping his arms around her and holding on when she tried to protest and push him away. He cradled her head against his chest and smoothed down her soft hair. “I know how much you miss Maddie. I swear to God I’ll get you back to her safe and sound, even if it means my life.”
Marley jerked in his arms, her chest expanding with a soft sob. She tensed as if to pull away again, but he anchored her to him. He would be strong enough for them both right now. “You probably guessed as much from what I told you last night, but I had to be away from Cooper all the time, too. It never got any easier, but I learned to deal with it. All you can do is look forward to the moment you walk in through that front door and she runs to you and throws her little arms around your neck. That little girl loves you more than anything else in the world. I don’t have to meet her to know it. Focus on that, and you’ll be able to make it through anything to get back to her.”
Marley’s entire body shuddered with emotion. She mumbled against his chest, “I miss her so much.”
Mack rested his chin on top of her head and gazed out across the river, seeing Cooper’s face instead of the trees. “At least she still looks forward to your return. Everything will be okay between you and Maddie. She probably doesn’t even realize you’re in this mess.”
Marley pushed away from him, and he wasn’t surprised to see her tear-stained face. “I wish I could talk to your son, tell him what a fine man you are.”
There was a fierce glow in her gaze and Mack caught his breath. “My little tigress.”
