Page 188 of Her Reluctant Hero
He clenched his jaw and sat back on his feet as he considered.
“We need a distraction so Toney and I can get on the boat, get to Mal,” Adrian said.
“We don’t have weapons,” Toney muttered.
“We didn’t have tanks and we managed to escape,” Adrian reminded him.
“We had more time then.”
Adrian pushed to his feet. “Then we have to think fast. Jacob, you’re the distraction.”
The kid opened his mouth, but Adrian cut him off with a slice of his hand. “I want to keep you out of danger if I can help it.” He’d already risked too much for these boxes. “Go on now. Make some noise.”
Adrian drew in a deep breath as Jacob ran toward the boat.God, keep the boy safe.As he watched, Jacob slipped into the water, and moments later pounded on the fiberglass hull. Adrian, who’d crept across the beach toward the stern, heard the alarm in Linda’s voice—Linda, who he’d mourned, goddammit—and took advantage of the noise to haul himself onto the boat. His weak arm made the task tougher than he expected, and he landed with athunk. He rolled to his feet, searching the deck for a tank, something heavy to swing. Toney landed beside him more quietly, his pony tank in his hand. He rose up and used it to strike the first man through the door in the stomach first, then the chin, dropping him to the deck, unconscious.
It was indeed Brutus, Adrian saw as he closed his hand around a weight belt stored under the bench along the rail.Please, God, let him be the only one on the boat. As Toney dragged Brutus to the edge of the boat, Adrian scrambled to the other side of the door. Footsteps approached from the cabin, but Adrian held a warning hand to his brother. They didn’t know Mallory’s whereabouts.
The first thing out the door was a gun, and Adrian brought the weight belt down with all his strength on the wrist. The gun skittered across the wet deck, the sound almost masked by the cry of surprise and pain.
Linda.
Adrian gripped her injured wrist and dragged her against his chest.
“Hello, Linda,” he growled into her ear. “Good to see you healthy. How many on the boat?”
“More than you can handle.” She gripped his forearm where Mallory had taped his suit closed and squeezed. He swore as the pain blinded him, and released her, only regaining his breath as Smoller came through the door with Mallory in front of him, her arm twisted behind her so she stood on the balls of her feet, angled across Smoller’s chest. Fear and exhaustion darkened her eyes, almost blotting out the pleading.
Christ. Every ounce of willpower kept him from looking in Toney’s direction. So far Linda and her father hadn’t seen him.
“Hiding behind a woman, Smoller?” Adrian taunted, bracing his feet on the deck as the boat rolled, the waves increasing in intensity as the storm built. “First you send your daughter as a spy to my camp, then you try to protect yourself behind my wife? What kind of man are you?”
“Adrian, no!” Mallory protested, as Smoller swung the gun in his direction.
With reflexes he didn’t know he had, Adrian crouched as the shot went off and barreled toward the man, low, knocking both him and Mallory to the deck. Adrian shoved Mallory aside, toward Toney, as Smoller brought the gun up.
Terror clenched Adrian’s gut for a terrible moment as he looked into that barrel. It was over. He would die now that he’d found Mallory again.
With a cry of rage and pain, he swung the weight belt, knocking Smoller’s gun hand to the side just as a crack of thunder reverberated overhead. He punched the man in the face three times, as hard as he could with his good hand, before Smoller finally went limp and dropped the gun to the deck. Adrian snatched it up and staggered to his feet. He turned to look for Mallory, needing to feel her in his arms, only to see her crouched beside a fallen form, pressing frantically against it in a rhythm he recognized as CPR.
Linda.
Mallory lifted her gaze to his as the rain washed over the boat and she shook her head in despair. The girl was dead.
