Page 7 of Rescue Me (Tempting SEALs 6.10)

“It didn’t stop his boss from demanding I do the surgery anyway. Besides, I’m left-handed.”

“Yeah. I know. That wasn’t the point; it must hurt like hell.”

“Less painful than that guy cutting my throat. I shocked him just enough to make him nervous about trying to cut me again. What are you doing in Africa?”

It was the last place she would’ve imagined running into anyone she knew. Especially Sam Pelton.

A teacher in a war-torn, third-world country in the middle of a jungle. Sam appeared to be an intelligent man, but she couldn’t imagine what the hell he was going to do to protect the two of them from gun-toting soldiers or a rain forest alive with four-legged predators.

Apparently God had a sense of humor.

“Sam, what kind of teacher ar—”

“Later,” he told her, still speaking so softly she could barely hear him. “Hurry.”

She was all for hurrying. “They brought me in by Jeep. I think I can find my way back to where it’s parked—”

“We’re walking out. Through the jungle, then down-river. I have a chopper waiting to fly us out of Huren.”

The chopper sounded good. “That’s crazy. Why walk when there are perfectly good vehicles—”

“I pushed one of their Jeeps a mile down the road, then hid it. The rest are disabled. When they discover you’ve left, they’ll assume you drove out. They’ll spend time fixing their vehicles so they can give chase. By the time they get around to doing that, you’ll be well on your way home.”

He sounded like he knew what he was talking about. From what she’d seen when they’d brought her here, Thadiwe’s compound was surrounded by impenetrable jungle. The narrow dirt road had been heavily guarded when she’d been brought in. Elizabeth had no reason to presume that it was any different now. “How did you even manage to ge—” Get past the guards? Get into my room? Those were just the more immediate questions. She’d leave the biggies—like how he’d known where to find her—for later.

He silenced her with two fingers pressed against her lips. She nodded. His fingers lingered a second or two, then withdrew.

“Really, Sam, I think we should—”

He took her hand unerringly in the dark. “I can’t wait to hear what you think. Later.” He led her across the small room to the window. She tugged at his hand, trying to turn him toward the door instead of the practically hermetically sealed window. “Bars.”

She’d been examining them when the lights had gone out.

“Not anymore.” A trace of amusement laced his quiet voice.

She wasn’t sure which shocked her more, the satisfied laughter she heard in his voice, or the fact that he’d removed the entire window. She’d never seen Sam smile in all the months she’d known him. Not once. And he was the least likely handyman she’d ever met. But there’d been three strong, one-inch thick vertical metal bars on the small window, and also an insect screen bolted to the outside of the frame. She knew. She’d inspected every inch.

She tried to imagine Sam yanking out the window … It didn’t compute. Yet somehow he’d done it, because as they approached the opening she could smell the fetid greenness of the jungle and feel the thick, hot, syrupy air against her skin. She shivered.

“Insect repellent. Close your eyes,” he said before applying a liberal dose to her face, neck, and hands.

She could’ve put the stuff on herself, but she enjoyed the sensation of Sam’s big hands running gently over her face and neck. “Thanks.” Mosquitoes could give one anything from an annoying bite to parasitic sleeping sickness. She was in enough trouble as it was.

Taking her hand, Sam’s fingers tightened around hers, his hand cool and dry against her damp palm. “I’ll go first then help you down.”

Bracing one hand against the wall to orientate herself, Elizabeth listened to the rustle of animals in the undergrowth and the susurrus of leaves moving in their passage. To say that she didn’t want to venture into the jungle, in the dark, was an understatement.

But it was the lesser of two evils. Still, she had the terrifying feeling that she was jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

“Climb out,” Sam’s voice was pitched so low she felt rather than heard it. “I’ll catch you.”

She didn’t need help climbing out of a window three feet off the ground. What she needed was—daylight. A tank that could cut a swath through jungle. A bazooka, or some other weapon that would—

What she had was a teacher. Had Sam brought a gun with him? Did he even know how to use the damn thing if he had? But even if he did have a weapon, it wouldn’t be much help out here where the least dangerous animals were panthers, lions, and other carnivores. Thadiwe’s men were heavily armed, and more dangerous and determined than any of the denizens of the jungle.

Thadiwe hadn’t gone to all that trouble to kidnap and transport her to give her up without a fight. He’d send his men after her the second he realized she was gone. Beth considered and reconsidered the rock and the hard place. Either or. If she went with Sam, she had no doubt whatsoever that they’d be caught. And Thadiwe’s retaliation would be swift and violent.

The dangers of being recaptured would mean sure death. Not only for herself, but for Sam as well. And she was damned sure that Thadiwe would make their deaths slow and excruciatingly painful. If she stayed, there was a chance that Sam would return in time to prevent her death. Yet staying meant she’d be forced at gunpoint to perform a surgical procedure she wasn’t qualified to do. After which, she was pretty damn sure, they’d kill her anyway.

---