The Captive's Return (Wingmen Warriors 10)

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.

For now, he had a wall to tear down.

Sara shook off the past, difficult to do with her head nearly exploding and her stomach screaming from the jarring torture of being slung over Ramon's shoulder. Only the miner's light on his forehead pierced the opaque passageway.