Page 1 of Rescue Me (Tempting SEALs 6.10)

ONE

Huren

Congo Basin

Central Africa

THE BRILLIANT LIGHTS OF the operating room glinted off the scalpel being held to Dr. Elizabeth Goodall’s slender throat.

Flat on his belly in the main air-conditioning duct directly above them, Sam Pelton aimed his Sig Sauer between the soldier’s expressionless eyes. The state-of-the-art, multi-million-dollar operating room wouldn’t have been unusual if it had been in a large hospital in a major city anywhere in the world. But this OR was smack in the middle of the jungles of Central Africa.

“Obviously I was brought all this way for a reason,” Beth was saying a little desperately. “Just tell me why. There’s no need to threaten me with the scalpel.” When she got nothing more than a blank stare, she dragged in a deep breath, held it, then let it out slowly. “Who’s in charge? You?” she asked the guy with the blade.

Yeah. I’d like to see the asshole in charge, too, Sam thought, watching them through the small holes he’d pierced in the metal duct. This top-secret compound, deep in the Huren jungle, belonged to President Sipho Nkemidilm. What was so damn urgent that he’d had a prominent physician kidnapped from a bustling metropolitan hotel and flown thousands of miles to his hidden compound?

Something big. The compound was crawling with heavily armed, camo-clad soldiers. More of them than had been reported here a week ago. It didn’t bother Sam that there were twenty trained soldiers in residence. Twenty to one weren’t insurmountable odds. He had an arsenal of weapons on him, and a heavier pack, fully equipped, concealed several clicks away in the jungle. Another smaller pack was hidden just outside the compound. He was loaded for bear, with the skills and determination to use either his weapons, or whatever else was at hand. Whatever it took to expedite this rescue mission.

One of the men shoved a handful of blue fabric at Beth’s midsection. It drifted to the floor as she made no move to accept it, and instead, glanced around the brightly lit room without moving her head. “Does anyone here speak English?” she asked with admirable calm.

They didn’t. Or pretended they didn’t.

Her red-gold hair, pulled up in its customary simple ponytail, was disheveled, and her amber freckles stood out in sharp relief on her pale skin. Her eyes flickered between the man holding her at blade-point and the three stony-faced, AK-47-wielding soldiers flanking her.

Two more uniforms were stationed at the door. A seventh man, presumably the anesthesiologist, stood hunch-shouldered and mute at the head of the operating table, clearly trying to make himself as unobtrusive as possible.

Wasn’t going to save his sorry ass. Sam was ready, willing, and freaking able to blow the place to smithereens at the first opportunity. Once he had Beth. Once she was safe. Dropping down now, guns blazing, while personally satisfying, might get her killed. That was a risk he wasn’t willing to take.

The son of a bitch with the scalpel at her throat would be the first to die.

They’d snatched the wrong doctor. His doctor, goddamn it. At least that’s what Sam believed. Beth was a general practitioner, and while he, and the entire town of Brandon, Montana, thought she was extra special, as far as he knew she didn’t have any more skills than the several hundred other GPs in attendance at the symposium she’d been attending in Cape Town. He suspected the tangos thought they’d snatched plastic surgeon Lynne Randall. And the second they realized their mistake, Beth would be dead.

And before they killed her she’d be begging to be dead faster.

He had to get her the hell out of here sooner than ASAP. People said Sam Pelton didn’t have a nerve in his body, that ice water ran in his veins. But right now he was as scared as he’d ever been. Everything was different about this op because Beth was in the center of it.

Scalpel-dick jerked his head, indicating that one of the men pick up what Sam presumed were scrubs. The pulse at the base of Beth’s throat pounded her stress level, yet she still refused to accept the clothing. Her sangfroid was remarkable. But that was Beth. Always cool, calm and collected.

That’s it. Keep your head, sweetheart. I’m right here.

Ignore the scalpel indenting her skin, Sam told himself savagely. Ignore the way her fear, and the stark white lights, leeched all the color from her face. Ignore the smudges under her eyes. Ignore the rapid pulse hammering in the hollow of her damp throat.

Ignore, God damn it, the fucking scalpel pressed to her carotid.

To do his job, he had to block Beth from his mind. Since he hadn’t been able to do that for the past two years, it wasn’t easy. He managed to do it anyway.

She swallowed hard, and the scalpel left a razor-thin line of blood on her neck. Right where Sam had been craving to kiss her for months. And that was the last fucking time he’d resist the impulse to kiss her. As soon as he had her out of here, and it was safe enough to do so, he was going to kiss Beth like she’d never been kissed before. To hell with restraint. To hell with waiting.

Instead of freaking out, she reached up and gently tried to push the man’s hand away from her throat. With the slight shift in angle, the thin blade cut a red line between her thumb and forefinger. She cried out, making a big production so all the soldiers could see the blood.

Christ. Had she done that on purpose?

There was much frantic debate in Hureni as they tried to figure out what to do. Her injury clearly scared the crap out of them. They’d wanted to scare her, they had no problem cutting her in small increments, but the injury to her hand had them in a panic. Beth had called their bluff.

She curled her fingers tightly into her palm, then cradled her bleeding hand against her chest. Blood stained her skin, shocking and redder than any blood Sam could remember. Maybe because Beth’s skin was so pale. Hell. Maybe because this was Beth. His Beth.

Using every bit of control and all of his training, he clenched his teeth until his jaw ached. He might not be killing any of them, but he was counting the minutes and choreographing every move.

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