“I’ll also call Jenner,” she said.
“Why would you do that?” he asked, making his way out of the house and into his car.
“He’s on Kauai and if she’s hurt, you’ll need him.”
Jenner Carson was a former Army Medic who worked from time to time for Dillon. He didn’t know the man that well, but at the moment, he would take all the help he could get.
“Thanks.”
“Keep me updated.”
“Will do.”
Then he clicked off and looked at the coordinates. He tapped his personal phone speaker so that he could listen as he started on his way. He knew the area she was in. There were a lot of a great hiking trails that snaked through the forest. Hell, he’d gone on a hike his last trip to the island. With each passing minute, he felt his anxiety rise. He wasn’t a man who usually freaked out. Raised in an MI-6 home, he had learned the need for reasoned thinking and calm actions. He felt as if every moment that burned away, he was closer to losing Sam.
As he turned down the short, dead-end street, he noted a tiny house off to the right. This wasn’t the normal place to come for a hike. There was a parking lot on the other side of the wooded area where people parked, and there were signs posted about not parking there if you weren’t a resident.
Too fucking bad for them that he didn’t care that he wasn’t supposed to park there. He pulled off to the opposite side of the street from the house so maybe they wouldn’t call the cops right away. He slipped out of the car just as Jenner approached him.
“That was fast, mate,” he said, as Jenner made his way over to him.
Jenner was huge, close to six-five. He still wore his blond hair cut military short. His light green eyes took in the area. “I was actually heading close by for a hike.”
“Let’s go.”
They made their way to behind the house where he knew a trail existed. Thankfully, he had spent a lot of time exploring Kauai. He saw her footprints immediately. It wasn’t like her to leave a trail. Not that he had tried to follow her. He knew Sam, to an extent, and there was no way she could have survived after being burned by the CIA if she did something like this. She was never sloppy. Something was very, very wrong.
There were no fresh tracks following her, so that was a good thing. The two men followed her footprints as they veered off the trail, but he noticed that they returned so they continued on.
“This woman, she’s the one who’s helped you the last few months?”
He bit back annoyance. “To some extent.”
“According to Em, she has.”
He glanced over at the other man. “You hang out with Em?”
He shook his head. “I hang out with Aaron, but since they live together, I get to hear all the scuttlebutt.”
Scuttlebutt, the military term for gossip. Proving once again, you could take the soldier out of the military, but it was hard to get the soldier out of the man. When Luc and Jenner got to talking about military shite, it was sometimes hard to follow because of the acronyms and slang.
Sam’s footprints disappeared off the trail, and terror slipped through his blood. The woman annoyed the living hell out of him, but he definitely didn’t want her to be hurt or taken or whatever was happening. All he knew was that it wasn’t good. He just hoped they hadn’t left her phone to distract them as they spirted her away. He knew that she had a lot of knowledge in her head that most countries would kill to get hold of. Or rather, torture to get.
“Let’s see if she went off trail again.”
Jenner nodded as he moved off the trail to the left. Ian went to the right. He saw some blood on a leaf, but he couldn’t see her. She should be close by. He knew the coordinates could be off due to the location. GPS was only so good, especially on Kauai. But she should be right there, easy to find. Instead, she was nowhere.
Then, he walked around a massive tree to find her sitting on the ground, her back against the tree. He whistled, letting Jenner know he’d found her. She had a bandage on her neck, and her shirt had blood on it. His heart almost stopped until he noticed that her chest was rising and falling. He couldn’t even take time to figure out why she looked so familiar to him. Jenner stepped up behind him. Most people wouldn’t have heard the man, but Ian had.
“Sam?” Ian said.
“Mix,” she mumbled. Her eyes fluttered open as she offered him a smile. The bicolored eyes were the first thing he noticed. They were barely focused. “You came.”
She sounded so weak.
He took her hand. “I did.”
“Thank you,” she said right as she passed out. Jenner crowded in and it took every bit of Ian’s control not to order his workmate to get his damned hands off her. The guy had the training to help her, but for some reason, Ian was feeling territorial.
