Page 21 of Rescue Me (Tempting SEALs 6.10)

“Favorite ice cream?”

“Vanilla. Yours is Rocky Road. Keep to the middle of the river, Desi. Better chance of being seen, but less chance of encountering most of the wildlife. Watch out for hippos.” Elizabeth presumed he was talking to her and not their guide. “They’re vicious and fast. And don’t put your hands anywhere near the water. Snakes and crocs.”

“I didn’t even want to put my hands in the Thames when Kess and I went on that river cruise last year. Believe me, I’ll keep my hands to myself. This water looks alive with every known parasite and creepy-crawly known to man.” She wasn’t sure which was scarier, the critters she could see or those she couldn’t.

“Can you swim?”

“I’m not getting in the water.”

“Brace your feet on the sides and bring your paddles in and lock them. There’s white water ahead.”

“White water?”

“Rapids.”

“That was rhetori—” Her words cut off with a scream as the small, narrow pirogue slewed sideways in a froth of white water. She grabbed the gunwale with both hands and braced her feet as best she could. Hadn’t she been the one craving adventure? The adrenaline spike was pure fear.

“Dig deep and hold on!” Sam yelled over the scaling thunder of the water. The boat pitched sideways, going down at a steep angle. “Forward paddle—hard!”

The men’s oars weren’t in the water because they were riding on air. It was electrifying. Terrifying, but heart-thumping exhilarating. Elizabeth hung on for dear life, and lifted her face to the diamonds of spray jettisoning around her. If she was going to die, she was going down with a fight.

The boat came down with a bone-jarring thump. Trees and bushes went by in a blur of greens and browns as they shot downstream, slewing sideways, bumping and jostling as the unruly water tossed them from level to level in untidy increments. Down the rapids almost on their nose, then jolting them backwards until she was practically in Sam’s lap.

“Hang on. There’s more,” he shouted.

Elizabeth noticed. There was more white water, all right. Lots more. The water frothed high over the sides of the pirogue, drenching them all. Maybe instead of being exhilarated she should be praying. She tried it, but her breath caught as they glanced off a submerged rock and literally went flying. Down, down, down, over the rocks and debris that swirled and tumbled down a series of cataracts.

“Hold on! Hold on!”

Thump, slam. Into a flume where the water raced around a sharp bend, then dropped seven or eight feet over a ledge. Elizabeth’s breath caught, and her heart stayed in her throat as the boat tipped and swayed with the force of the thrashing, churning water tossing them around like a child’s toy.

She was too scared to close her eyes, and too terrified not to. This made the roller-coaster rides she’d taken as a kid pale into insignificance.

They landed with a bone-jarring skid, then slid backwards over a short drop.

“Catch your breath,” Sam told her when they seemed to have dropped into a pool of calm below the rapids. The little boat bobbed a bit, then glided through the water. “You’ve got about ten minutes before we hit the next set.” He placed his hand on her shoulder. “Enough adventure for you, sweetheart?”

Elizabeth turned her head to smile at him through the water dripping from her hat brim and off her lashes. “It’s freaking terrifying. But I’ll remember this for the rest of my life. How did you make it upstream?”

“Pottage—Ah, shit. Desi, haul ass. Now! Go. Go. Go!”

Elisabeth’s heart leapt into her throat again. Now what? She spun around to face front. “What—Oh, my God.”

Thadiwe’s soldiers, guns pointing right at them, lined the banks. The three of them in the boat were sitting ducks.

NINE

KNEELING, SAM PADDLED AS fast as he could. In the front of the pirogue, Desi’s hands and arms glistened, a chocolate-colored blur as he dug his oars into the water, pulling the boat with him. Thadiwe’s men were firing round after round. Thousands of birds, in hundreds of species, were catapulted out of the trees by the noise. Squawking and crying out, they flew in a tidal wave of multicolored beating wings up into the sun-baked air.

Sam felt a burn zing across his upper arm. It didn’t slice through the LockOut, but he felt the sting. Ignore it. Pull. Pull. Pull. “Beth. Get down. Lower, damn it.” Bullets crisscrossed overhead, cutting through the water, or ricocheting off nearby rocks. Beth’s cap went spinning over the side, and Sam’s heart fucking stopped in his chest. “Beth?”

She was bent over, her head on her knees. “I’m okay. I’m okay,” she shouted, her voice muffled.

Thadiwe’s men had chosen well. The river not only curved blindly right after the rapids, it also narrowed to just a few hundred feet wide. It would then be impossible to miss the boat or its occupants. To return fire, Sam would have to stop rowing. Right now he wasn’t stopping for anything, or anyone. Speed was going to save their asses. Speed. And luck.

The soldiers were running downstream, trying to keep parallel. Fortunately the bank was littered with thick vegetation and it wasn’t a smooth run. But it was damn well impossible to dodge that many bullets.

The pirogue swept under a low-hanging branch where a leopard was sunning itself, its amber-spotted body sleek and lethally beautiful. The cat raised its magnificent head, and its muscles flexed beneath its glossy fur as the boat flew beneath the branch. “Stay where you are, Spot,” Sam warned. That’s all they needed: a pissed-off cat in the boat with them.

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