Sara's hand drifted back down to rest on her chest. While the harried doctor rolled her to her side to evaluate another wound in her shoulder, the priest leaned down to Sara. She whispered, quickly, something that obviously convinced him, as if her condition wasn't cause enough.
The priest straightened. "I hear we need a wedding performed."
The surgeon didn't so much as glance up from his patient, his jaw going tight at a newfound slice on her shoulder. "Short version, Padre, this lady has a date with me in surgery."
Searching the doc's world-weary eyes, Lucas found determination—and not much hope. Dread sucker punched him.
Words and vows passed in a blur as he spoke and ran alongside the litter being raced to the next room—a piss-poor tiny facility when she needed the technology of a major hospital. He wanted to growl orders at everyone around him, command them to wipe the fatalistic looks off their faces. She would not die.
The priest raised his hand for a final blessing of brief vows Lucas couldn't remember repeating. So little time. Her eyes slid closed and he could only seal their marriage with a brief kiss to her blood-covered hand before they rushed her away. He watched the door slam closed, blocking her from sight, but not from his mind's eye.
He refused to accept he would never see Sara again.
Chapter 1
Cartina, South America: Present Day
Lieutenant Colonel Lucas Quade refused to allow himself to hope he would see his dead wife again.
The woman he'd been sent to rescue would turn out to be some other poor sap's wife. Still, in spite of his fervent belief that he was wasting his time, Lucas found himself at a computer station mounted to a pallet in the belly of a cargo plane. Just yesterday, he'd piloted the C-17 from his home base in South Carolina to a tiny-ass airfield in the Cartinian jungle.
The parked craft would serve as a mobile command post for the joint rescue op with the CIA, Army and Air Force scheduled to launch at midnight. Less than six hours from now, the mobile command post would support communications while Delta Forces slipped into Chavez's compound, snatched the woman and brought her to the other waiting C-17 that had flown in the Delta Boys.
Six hours. A damned eternity.
Old satellite feed provided by the CIA scrolled across the computer screen in front of him, while five operatives clicked on keyboards a few feet down the steely cavern. The CIA had approached him a week ago to ID the woman they suspected might be Sarafina Tesoro Quade—a possibility he still couldn't wrap his brain around. He'd been through five years of hell since saying goodbye to her lifeless body after the failed surgery. Now the CIA wanted him to believe she'd somehow survived in spite of what his eyes witnessed?
gue
Cartina, South America: Five Years Ago
"Marry me... please."
Major Lucas Quade almost missed Sarafina's gasped appeal as he sprinted toward the embassy with her bullet-riddled body in his arms. Explosions and gunfire from behind the dense trees all but drowned out the shouts of military security around them.
He focused on reaching the side entrance rather than risking even a glance at the pale face of his friend of six months, his lover of thirty days and the only woman who'd ever come close to stealing his heart. "Helluva time to change your mind, Sara."
Her limp arms around his neck tightened a hint. "A woman's prerogative and such."
Bullets from local crime lords hungry to take over the tiny coastal country tore the ground by his feet. The surprise attack had interrupted an argument with Sara nearly as explosive as the munitions lobbing over the fence. Five yards away, a grenade landed, blasting a shower of leaves, branches and orchids. A tree crashed to the ground in front of him, so close to having flattened them both.
Damn it. Quade darted left around the uprooted oak, hunching forward to shield her as best he could. Debris pounded his back, but he kept Sara clear, easier to accomplish than blocking her surprise proposal from his mind. She must be freaking delirious.
Zigzagging across the lushly landscaped lawn, he raced toward the side entrance of the stucco building. He stayed close to sprawling trees, off the stone path, his eyes on the portico. The mini-jungle landscaping in the middle of the city offered plenty of vine-covered trunks to duck behind—for him and the enemy.
Sara's chin-length hair tickled his face, hints of her floral shampoo blending with the acrid scent of gunfire. Her curves fit against him with familiarity, her hot blood soaking through his flight suit.
He refused to accept that this would be the last time he held her. Even the thought threatened to send him to his knees. Not the first time he'd been leveled by this woman.
She'd first knocked him on his ass six months ago in a press brief. The stunned feeling hadn't come close to fading while he'd worked with the embassy interpreter during his stint as an assistant air attache, or even when he and Sara had started sleeping together.
He wanted to remember Sarafina Tesoro that way, not torn apart from rebel gunfire on the front lawn of the U.S. Embassy in Cartina. His Sara dying when only minutes ago they'd been feeding the birds while sharing a couple of beefy churrascos, for God's sake. Why the hell hadn't he just appreciated that moment rather than arguing with her over her latest refusal to marry him unless he turned himself into some flipping sensitivity guru?
Instead he'd walked away, pissed off. If only he'd been a second faster in throwing himself over her. He'd seen the suspicious "tourists" gathered outside the iron gates, had been turning toward Sara, opening his mouth to call for the guards when...
Mayhem.
His combat boots landed on the first stone step up to the looming door. For the next ten strides he would be out in the open. Exposed. His back a target. But he had to get her inside. The level of fighting didn't show signs of easing anytime soon, and he knew without question that seconds would count in saving her.