Heaven help them.
He would need a map, not a pathetic few dead petals that blended with the murky mud of the damp floor. But she didn't even have a knife for protection this time. Only her mind and the flowers she'd scooped into her pockets.
Ramon steered her forward, the light strapped to his head streaking ahead. "Hostages make powerful bargaining tools when dealing with the United States. They cared enough to come after you once, and that caring makes them vulnerable. That, I understand very well."
"They won't bargain with a criminal."
"One country's criminal is another country's freedom fighter. Regardless, they'll tread warily when they know there's a gun to your traitorous head."
Dios mio, he didn't care if she lived or died. Any tender feelings he may have once harbored in his twisted mind were gone now. She was nothing more than a traitor, a pawn to him and she knew full well what happened to traitors in his world.
She blinked through her shock—and saw him circle to face her, gun leveled at her chest.
No! Not yet. She wasn't ready. She needed to tell Lucas how much she loved him.
Shock stunned her still. Wasn't Ramon going to wait? This didn't make sense.
The scars on her body throbbed a reminder of bullets tearing through her flesh. The blinding pain that would come afterward. The sensation of her blood pumping free until the world went blurry except for Lucas's face over her, his voice all around her.
Ramon's gun rose higher, his actions silhouetted in shadow as she started toward him, the miner light glaring back at her. Higher? Over her head.
The butt rammed forward against her head.
Her world went fuzzy, except this time she saw only Ramon's face, heard his voice. "You thought you were so smart. But I will not trust that any woman is weak again."
She braced a hand on the moist muddy wall. Slippery. With her blood? No. Wet with humidity.
As she slid to the ground she saw two men, the second dressed in camouflage like Ramon. Or was that only Ramon? And if so, which one? If she chose wrong, her arm would slice through the image as easily as through a bubble.
But she had to try.
She struggled to lurch to her feet, but her body wouldn't obey and she collapsed to her knees.
Ramon knelt in front of her, his gun in her face. "Do not make me use this again to subdue you."
He tucked his shoulder in her stomach and hefted her up. Blood rushed to her head, the ground swaying.
Then he walked.
Sara stifled a groan at each jarring step, battling waves of nausea. Now wasn't the time to fight, not while Ramon had his weapon so close and her head was swimming with vertigo. With Lucas and Lucia counting on her, she couldn't afford to be impetuous and waste a precious opportunity.
Because she wouldn't leave Lucas, her husband, her love, alone ever again. Even as consciousness faded, she vowed that unlike five years ago on the embassy lawn, this time she would get it right....
"Why the hell won't you marry me?" Lucas demanded.
She blew a stream of bubbles to give herself a chance to think, exhaling slowly to keep from hyperventilating. Keep from flinging her arms around his neck and shouting that of course she would marry him, even though he offered for the least romantic of reasons...
Today's reason? To make her a citizen of the United States so they could take her orphaned brother out of the country before Tio Ramon assumed custody. No one married for those sorts of reasons anymore, did they? This wasn't a century ago when arranged marriages were the norm. Her own emotions were in such a turmoil, grief from losing her father still so fresh. Mixed with that grief was guilt over all her resentment of her papa's overprotective ways. She was definitely in no condition to make permanent decisions.
Besides, she wanted Lucas to love her as much as she loved him. She wanted him to live and breathe to be with her—as she felt for him. Only while making love did he shake off restraints and she thought maybe, just maybe... But then perhaps all men behaved that way during sex. What did she know?
She did know, however, that time was running out. Her period was late. Only a couple of days, but enough for a regular-cycle person to sweat. These next few weeks would set the course for their relationship for the rest of their lives.
"I didn't say I wouldn't marry you. Only that I wouldn't marry you because you were my first lover. And not because you were having an amazing finish during sex which led you to say something in the heat of the moment. And not because my brother needs to go to the United States."
"So what would make you marry me?" He gripped the stone bench until his knuckles went white.
"If you don't know or feel it, then what's the use in my telling you?" She set aside her bubble wand so he wouldn't see her hands shake.
"You want me to say I love you? Well fine, Sarafina. I love you."
He barked the admission with so much frustration she resisted the urge to dump the whole container of bubbles on his head. But she also couldn't resist the urge to stay and listen.
His chest pumped. "I can't think of anyone else but you. It's a struggle to concentrate on work. You've turned my world upside down. It's not a feeling I particularly enjoy and I can't imagine living my entire life this way." He let go of the stone bench long enough to bury his hand in her hair and cup her neck. "I can't imagine living my life without you, either."
"Oh." Her anger melted along with almost all of her reservations. Perhaps she could forget about the rest.
"That was good?"
"Very good."
His fingers tunneled into her hair, his thumb on her cheek as he leaned nearer. "So does this mean you'II marry me? Come to the States with your brother and let me take care of you both?"So close to a romantic declaration—and then he'd gone back to the duty card again.
Was she being greedy? He'd said he loved her, even coughed up those beautifully intense words about how she moved him. Except she wanted more than to be "taken care of." Her father had almost smothered her with his sheltering, although thinking such negative thoughts about him felt disloyal to his memory.
Her world was in such turmoil. She could wait to be sure she was pregnant—and to give Lucas more time to see her as an independent woman, able to stand by his side as a partner.
She turned to kiss his palm. "I'm not saying no. I'm just not ready to say yes yet."
He looked skyward, his curse riding a long exhale, before he met her eyes again. "You don't know what the hell you want, but I'll be damned if I'll jump through hoops like some trained poodle."
"That's not fair." Was it?
"Welcome to the big leagues, lady, because life is rarely fair." He shoved to his feet, snatched up his bag of birdseed and stalked toward the embassy.
Regret stung like soap in her eyes. Tears fuzzed the edges of her vision. The rest of the world faded until she could only see his broad shoulders, the lean strength of him as he left her with long-legged strides.
He seemed so invincible. Could he be as vulnerable as she felt? Just thinking of losing him for good burned her chest with a pain so intense she stumbled and could have sworn it was a real physical wound.
Then Lucas was pivoting back to her. But the fiery pain didn't ease. He was trying to tell her something, except she couldn't hear him over the dull roar in her ears and the mad flapping of all his birds as they flew away simultaneously.
He was sprinting back to her. Surely the ache would ease if he put his arms around her. She tried to reach for him, but the simple movement threw her off balance. She lurched forward, stumbling.
Something was wrong.
Lucas caught her, cushioning her fall with his body then rolling her beneath him. His heart stuttered in her ears.... But no. Wait. That wasn't right. His heart sounded like gunfire.
Gunfire.
The embassy was under attack. She forced her eyes open, battling the lethargy sweeping through her veins.
Blood stained the grass. Lucas's? No. Please not his. "Lucas?"
"Yeah, Sara. I'm fine, but this isn't going to let up. I have to get you out of here."
"You go."
His curse wasn't pretty. "Put your arms around my neck and do it now, because I'm not leaving without you."
She must have put her arms around him since suddenly they were running and she was cradled against his chest. But she couldn't think of anything but the agony coursing through her veins. Was she dying? She groaned at the thought of losing Lucas.
He sprinted faster toward the embassy. She bit back a scream. The jolting of his steps, the torturous pressure against her side turned her vision spotty as she fought unconsciousness. She couldn't pass out. She had to think logically about...
Her baby. Her brother. Her deep-seated yearning to be Lucas's wife.
She moistened her cottony-dry mouth. "Marry me...please...."
Chapter 16
Where the hell was his wife?
Lucas paced from wall to wall of the dank cellar beneath the Cartina National Air Base. An empty cell— other than the security personnel who were currently as bemused as he was.
No more than an hour had passed since he'd stalked off from Sara. He'd spent a half hour with Hunt, then twenty-seven and a half more minutes since he'd found her bed empty.
He'd alerted the guards, shoved Lucia into the protective custody of all of his crew members, ordering each of them not to leave her alone for even a second. If the base came under attack, take her and get the hell out. Worst-case scenario, if he and Sara didn't make it back, take Lucia to her Uncle Tomas. The boy was young, but levelheaded and capable of caring for her.
Lucas studied the opening overhead that led to a crawl space under base billeting. He'd damn near torn the planks free with his hands, shouting for the security police.
Finally they discovered loosened boards that opened into the crawl space. The crawl space eventually fed into a holding chamber, a bomb shelter.
Where the hell was Sara?
Rescue teams were combing the jungle perimeter around the base. Helicopters were circling overhead with infrared cameras. Time was ticking away and he couldn't think of a thing more to do. He resisted the temptation to slam his fist into the dirt wall.
Damn it all, he needed to keep his head together, but he couldn't tamp down hellish images of Sara dead.
The scent of roses taunted him, reminding him of his plans to romance her. Instead, he'd been an idiot and walked out. Fate could not, absolutely could not be this cruel.
Fate? He'd always believed a man controlled his own destiny. That belief had pulled him out of his old neighborhood. That same belief had led him to blame himself when Sara was shot by rebels. He'd made a mistake. Hell, he knew that better than anyone. He'd never been able to accept that some things were beyond his control through fate, or the cosmos, or other people's free will at work.
Standing in a dank dungeon of a room, he realized there was absolutely nothing he could have done differently. Even if he'd stayed with Sara, who's to say he wouldn't have been asleep and knocked out? Or killed. They were on a base with guards posted, for God's sake.
No one could have foreseen this. Being totally helpless scared the crap out of him. And Sara had felt this way for five years.
Head falling forward against the chilly wall, he closed his eyes to focus his thoughts, search for an answer, any option other than just waiting. In and out he forced his breathing to regulate with his heart but the damned smell of roses kept teasing his senses. He opened his eyes, ready to haul out of the enclosed space so the scent could dissipate.
A small shadow—or dead bugs?—on the ground stopped him. He frowned, kneeling. Not a shadow or bugs at all. A cluster of rose petals lay at his feet.
If there had only been one, he may have written it off as having clung to his flight suit and dropped later. But a pile of petals? Sara had been here and left them as a message to him. A message he'd only been able to see once he stood still long enough to look. He would think more on that revelation later.