Top Gun Tiger (Protection, Inc 7)

“I do know. Justin and I cleared our heads sightseeing in Venice once. I’ll tell the team you were stressed out and went on a trip to India. It won’t be a lie. On one condition.”

“What?” Destiny asked warily.

Fiona crossed the room, took a tiny piece of electronic equipment from a shelf, and handed it to Destiny. “Keep this on you at all times. It’s a GPS transmitter.” As Destiny opened her mouth to object, Fiona said, “I won’t use it to follow your movements. I know this is private business, and I respect that. But if you’re not back in a week and you haven’t called in to confirm that you’re all right, I’m coming to get you.”

“Got it.” Destiny clipped the transmitter into her bra, beside her emergency pills.

She borrowed Fiona’s computer, found the airport closest to Ethan’s coordinates, and booked a flight. Fiona dropped her at the airport. Destiny didn’t even have time to go home and pack. But her purse had a month’s supply of pills and everything else a girl might need if she had to go somewhere suddenly, and she could buy whatever else she needed at the airport.

All the way to the airport, her mind kept fluttering around like a bird that had accidentally flown into someone’s house, jittering from the conviction that she’d arrive and find that he was fine and she was insane and then she’d get arrested for trespassing in a war zone, the terror that he wasn’t fine at all and she’d arrive too late to save him, and memories of kissing Ethan, eating barbecue with Ethan, standing back to back with Ethan with their guns drawn.

The hurt in Ethan’s sea-colored eyes when she’d told him to stop asking.

Destiny knew she should stop asking. If she kept picking at the scab, the wound would never heal. But she couldn’t help herself.

Is Ethan my mate? Destiny asked her tiger.

Stop asking me that, hissed her tiger. If I ever spot your mate, believe me, you’ll be the first to know.

Destiny had heard so many variations on that reply over the last two years that it should have stopped making her feel like her heart had been ripped in two. But the pain was as sharp and fresh as it had ever been.

She boarded the plane bound for India. Maybe after this little vacation of insanity proved exactly how crazy her obsession with Ethan had driven her, she could finally let him go.

Chapter 6

Ethan

Ethan lay curled up in a wooden crate beneath a whole lot of MREs (country captain chicken flavor, his least favorite) and tried to strike a balance between staying absolutely still, so he wouldn’t knock them all over and alert the enemy that he’d smuggled himself into their plane, and moving just enough so he wouldn’t get cramps, which would definitely alert the enemy that he’d smuggled himself into their plane when he tried to get out of the crate and promptly fell on his face. The hardest part was not coughing. Probably he wouldn’t be heard over the noise of the engine, but he couldn’t risk it.

Rather than risk being spotted trying to follow a minimum of four enemy agents, he’d tried to circle around in the opposite direction and get back to his men before they did. He’d succeeded in not being spotted, but failed to beat them there. Ethan had watched from a distance while the four enemies who’d gone searching for him had met up with the four who’d stayed to guard Merlin, Pete, and Ransom.

Any hope he’d had of ambushing them and rescuing his teammates died then and there: eight against one was bad odds to begin with, and hopeless when the eight were armed and he was

n’t. Especially since his teammates were still unconscious and could easily be used as hostages to force his cooperation.

On the other hand, only two enemies were with the small, unmarked plane that waited nearby, and they were both hanging out in the cockpit. Ethan considered his options, then decided that his best chance at rescuing his men—and his only chance at getting to the bottom of it all—was to find their base. He’d ducked inside the cargo bay, made a quick weapons check and found none, and buried himself in the only real hiding space, which was a half-full crate of MREs. He hoped no one would get hungry enough to come grab one.

He’d also hoped that his teammates would be stashed in the cargo bay, but no such luck. Ethan hadn’t dared to peek out, but while he’d felt the thump of feet and heard muffled voices, no one seemed to have entered the cargo bay at all.

It felt like they’d been flying forever before his ears popped, signaling the descent. He waited, barely breathing, as he heard the enemies disembark. Once again, to his frustration, he could hear voices but couldn’t make out the words. And then both voices and footsteps faded, and silence fell.

Ethan forced himself to count to a thousand before he so much as moved. Then he extricated himself from the crate, taking care not to send MREs cascading to the floor. The cargo bay was dark and still. He tiptoed to the door and listened with his ear to it. Nothing. He opened it.

Darkness met his eyes, and he drew in a breath of warm, humid air. He blinked, trying to see by the light of the moon. He was on a small airfield outside a base designed to blend in with the surrounding jungle. The plane he was in had been painted dark green, with no identification markings. Ethan bet the entire place would be perfectly camouflaged from above, invisible unless you knew what to look for.

He dropped down and pushed the door closed behind him. Urgency warred with caution in his mind as he approached the hidden base, keeping to the shadows. As he grew closer, he saw that it was patrolled by guards. If he walked up, he’d be captured immediately. He needed to come up with a plan.

A wave of dizziness swept over him, making him stagger. He’d hoped that “resting” in the MRE crate would help him recover, but he felt worse instead of better. His lungs felt heavy and sodden, his hands were shaking, his head and side throbbed, and his legs threatened to give out from under him. He was in no condition to launch a one-man raid on this place.

Ethan returned to the plane, grabbed a few MREs, and headed out into the jungle. The moss-covered earth was springy, and his feet left no tracks. He wasn’t sure what country he was in, but he was familiar with this sort of terrain. A brief search uncovered a reasonable hiding place, a shallow cave in a hillside with its entrance hidden behind a curtain of vines.

He crawled in, cooked the MRE with its heating element, and ate it, trying not to think about joking with Destiny about the Five Fingers of Death. That thought led to him having to try not to think about their visit to Aunt Lizzie’s Back Porch, and then to trying not to think about their one-and-only, peach cobbler-flavored, across-the-table kiss.

No matter what happens to me, at least Destiny’s safe at home.

Comforted by that thought, he fell asleep.

Ethan woke to a shaft of dappled, greenish sunlight. He lay still, listening, but heard nothing but the chattering of monkeys and screeches of tropical birds. He stretched out, wincing, and again evaluated his condition. He felt less on the verge of collapse than he had the day before, and he was certainly capable of operating with a headache and broken ribs. But he could feel a slight rasp in his breathing, and though he couldn’t be entirely sure, he thought he felt warmer than could be accounted for by the tropical heat.