“Are you all right, Hendrik?”
He nodded and took her hand. “Yes, I’m fine. Thanks to you. We owe our lives to you.” His eyes misted.
Edda’s sobs were muffled against his unhurt shoulder, but she nodded vigorously. “Ja, you saved us.”
“No. We looked after each other, and we stuck together. We’ve made it through, and now we get to go home. Okay?”
Tears spilled down Edda’s face. “Okay.”
The firm hand at her back moved to her shoulder. “We need to leave now. Are you all right to walk?” Nick asked. She turned and her eyes connected with his unwavering gaze. Steadfast strength emanated from him, and she selfishly tapped into it.
Her feet hurt like hell, and her head throbbed with the beat of a thousand African drums, but there was no way she was going to slow them down by admitting it. “Yes, I’m good.” She stood up as Nick shrugged off his Kevlar jacket.
“What are you doing?” she asked in surprise when he repositioned it on her shoulders.
“I thought it was obvious.”
“But…” Her protest for him to keep the jacket for his own protection died on her lips when she saw the hard implacable look on his face. Their eyes met. Battled. In silence, she let him zip up the vest.
He pulled her to his side as a small explosion sounded behind them. The blaze in the abandoned diamond cave had become an inferno in the dark African night sky.
It was time to go.
Alex and John Allen rounded up the men, who took charge of Father Tom and Hendrik.
With a last look over her shoulder, she gripped the hand that held hers and followed Nick into the black night.
…
Nick looked down at his wife as she slept, her head pillowed on his shoulder. Belle Andreakos, or to give her full title, Lady Tinkerbelle Poppy Winkworth-Jones Andreakos, daughter of Lord Jonathan Andrew Winkworth-Jones, sixth Earl of Edenhall, was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, even with dirt-coated hair, long scratches crisscrossing her normally smooth skin, and exhaustion etched deep in her face. The shirt and trousers he’d supplied for her might dwarf her willowy five-foot-seven-inch figure, but they did nothing to diminish her ethereal beauty.
He recalled the first time he’d heard her full name. The venom with which she’d spat it out after he dared her to, and the furious glare she’d directed at him when his initial shock had turned to foot-stomping laughter still amused him every time he recollected the memory.
But the laughter hadn’t lasted even a year. He wasn’t naïve enough to wish for the happily-ever-after expounded by fairytales, but he hadn’t expected the relative contentment and incredible chemistry they’d shared to disappear so quickly either.
The cargo plane bounced through turbulence. His arms tightened around his wife’s slender form and pulled her closer. She was here now, safe where she belonged. And this time he’d keep her there. No matter what.
The vows they’d taken had to matter for something. He would not accept that his marriage had failed before it had barely begun. Neither would he permit the unique compatibility they’d found—in and out of bed—to be so easily dismissed. He’d been around long enough to know that was very rare.
His time as a Marine had also taught him that a hostage rescue such as the one they’d pulled off rarely came without casualties on both sides. Mwana’s side had suffered in this skirmish, and he was more than all right with that.
He shifted as his gut churned with residual adrenaline. What he wasn’t all right with was the fact that Belle has been so stunned to see him. Had she really dismissed him so completely from her mind? Had she so condemned her husband and her marriage to some distant metaphorical trash heap that she’d never dreamed he’d come and find her? Well, too damned bad.
If nothing else, she owed him a long, detailed explanation, preferably one riddled with apology.
She’d deserted their marriage without so much as a Dear John letter, but he had her back now, and he intended for her to deal with him being around lo
nger than a mere six months or give him a damned good reason why not.
She gave a sharp cry in her fitful sleep. He drew her even closer, unable to resist the familiar feel of her in his arms despite the anger tightening his chest, and brushed his lips over her temple until she calmed. His gut churned harder until he feared for his insides. Long-unused breathing exercises finally forced relaxation into his muscles.
The discomfort of the plane forgotten, his mind slid to more pleasant memories, to the first time he’d met Belle.
All through the sixth and final round of the charity polo match at Edenhall, he’d felt a gaze, a watchful presence following him—so intense, his lack of concentration had nearly lost them the match. Nearly.
He wasn’t a man who took failure lightly, so even with the powerful awareness raising the hairs at the back of his neck, he’d ridden his horse hard, struck his mallet with relentless force against the ball, until the game was won.
Dismounting, he’d zeroed in on the shaded terrace where the guests sat. His eyes had probed, hunted, ignoring the shouts of congratulations and the avid looks of skimpily clad socialites vying for his attention as he’d searched, his gaze slashing back and forth.