The rain put Bastian’s resolve to the test. Day three in the abandoned village, and the deluge didn’t let up, giving him no opportunity to create a message in grass already flattened by the storm. If the rain kept up like this, they could be here for weeks. And there was no way he’d last that long without screwing her.

On one level, he could trace the logic to conclude they were utterly safe, and passing the time with wild, intense sex was just plain common sense.

But he had a brain above his shoulders too, and that one reminded him anyone who might’ve survived the market could also know this abandoned village was the smartest hiding place and find them. And the rain wouldn’t put off anyone desperate to find Brie.

Sex would have to wait until after they were rescued. Which meant it would never happen, because once she was safe, he’d never see her again.

But damn, this rain was a problem. The satellites wouldn’t see his message. Hell, he couldn’t write the message as long as the rain was beating down the grass. He really needed those orange signal panels that had been lost with the SUV.

But the rain couldn’t stop him from his preparations, and he spent the day taking apart a collapsing hut. He’d use the posts and poles to press down the grass and form the dots and dashes. They’d be darker lines on the green grass and might be visible even if the grass was flat from the rain.

The unrelenting rain soaked him, which was good for his libido. It wasn’t cold rain, but being soaked to the bone was never fun.

Brie was stretched out in their dry hut, napping or playing with his phone, he didn’t know, because he was determined to avoid her today. Not easy when they were the only two people in the world, and he was guarding her.

He had the hut dismantled and the poles he needed stacked and ready. There was nothing left for him to do but return to their hut and dry off.

He pushed aside the tarp door and stepped inside, coming to a halt when he heard the song. “Kissing a Fool.”

Shit. Dancing with her had been a major mistake.

She jolted and scrambled to turn off the music. “Sorry,” she said. “It just came up on the playlist. I wasn’t—”

He shook his head. “It’s okay.” But damn, it wasn’t. He was hard again. It was rainy and miserable outside, and cozy in here.

This was a recipe for disaster.

“We can’t, Brie. It’s just not safe.”

“I know.”

He sighed and set his M4 down and grabbed a water bottle. He took a long slow drink, then sat as far from her as he could get and still be inside the hut. “We need to take a few steps back. We could be here several more days. Probably will be here several more days. No more playing quarters. No dancing. No flirting. We just need to work together.”

She nodded. “Agreed.”

“If there’s a break in the rain tomorrow, I’ll set up the message. I’ll also hunt again, because the snares are empty thanks to the rain. In the meantime, we need to find a way to pass the time that doesn’t invite…problems.”

“There are some books on your phone. We can read to each other. But the batteries might die.”

He shrugged. “I’ve got chargers that run off batteries. We carry so much electronics, we need to carry universal battery-powered chargers.”

He divvied up their meal of leftover stork breast, and she began to read Sherman Alexie’s Reservation Blues.

It was interesting hearing a Northwest Native American’s words delivered in her white cadence, but she didn’t do a bad job, reminding him that she’d studied cultural anthropology in Portland. Something that both irritated and impressed him.

Some anthropologists were condescending bastards. But he had to admit, Brie seemed to be one of the good ones. And she’d shown no sign of being a wannabe.

Wannabes were the worst.

After he finished eating, she handed him the phone and he read to her while she dined. Darkness fell, ending yet another day as castaways.

They took turns reading late into the night, finishing the short book and starting in on a suspense by Karen Rose. Finally, Brie’s yawns grew pronounced, and he insisted she take the first sleep shift. After she drifted off, he set himself up outside the hut. He sat under a plastic sheet and watched the rain, one hand on his rifle as he kept guard.

Stranded, day four. How was it that the days had already begun to merge together? The drone of an aircraft engine had Bastian diving for cover in the middle of the muddy grasslands and calling out to Brie to do the same. The airdrop must’ve been delayed due to the rain. All he could do was hope the first row of dots he’d created in the swampy grass would go unnoticed by the pilots.

The plane buzzed past to the east, not straight overhead, but the pilots would have an oblique line of sight on the field. Would it pass this way after the cargo was dropped?

Could he afford to wait for another break in the rain?

The satellites could get a good image now. Today. Who knew how long until they had another window like this?

He had no choice and resumed laying out poles in the grass to form the dashes to make the O in S-O-S.

Brie stayed off her foot at the edge of the field, overseeing his work, making sure the dots and dashes were evenly placed. Watching his back.

He glanced up at the sky. It looked like another storm was coming. SOCOM might not see this today.

When they did see it, he wondered who would swoop in to the rescue. He hoped it would be his team, because the SEALs would have a grand time flipping him shit over the need to rescue a Special Forces operator.

Of course, Cal and Pax would probably razz him as well. He was basically screwed no matter who they sent. But damn, he couldn’t wait to see his teammates’ ugly mugs. He needed to know if anyone had been injured in the market fight. In the back of his mind, that fear was there.

It was always there.

He’d planned the extraction. If any of his brothers had been hurt, it would be his fault.

Savvy stared at the screen and cursed. After a short window, clouds once again covered frigging half of South Sudan.

Her cell phone buzzed. It better be Cal. Or even better, Bastian. She got her first wish. “Give me some good news, Cal.”

“Um…the kids have escaped to the Sudd and White Nile?”

“I knew that already. Where is Bastian?”

“We don’t know. There’s no trace of them. The storm wiped away everything.”

“Sonofabitch.”

“No sign of them in the satellite images?”

“It’s too cloudy.”

“Keep looking.”

“I am. Everyone is.” It was what she’d been doing all day. On the computer in front of her, she had a slide show of the last images they’d been able to acquire, from yesterday evening, when the cloud cover had thinned. They weren’t great shots, but they were at least recent.

Up on the big screen were the baseline images, ones that had been taken three days ago, as soon as they realized Chief Ford and Gabriella Prime were MIA.

“You’re sure they went south?” she asked.

“No. But that’s what her coworkers said they believe she’d do. She knows the area, the people. Bastian would listen to her if she said south is their best option.”

“Is the team in Akobo?” she asked Cal.

“Yeah. The roads are too messed up for recon. We’ll use the helo once we get a solid lead.”

Savvy pulled up images of the closest village to the south. No changes in the images taken two days apart. She continued farther south, along the main road. Bastian would be searching for a radio. A truck. Fuel. Those were found along the main corridor.

But what would Brie do?

She’d been traumatized. For all they knew, she could be injured.

Brie would want to hide.

Savvy returned to the village image and caught a faint line that led west through the grasslands. Another village?

She found it and zoomed in. The image was hard to read. She pulled up the baseline from the clear day on the big screen, and could see what looked like circles—eight huts?

She sent yesterday’s image to the big screen. Yes, eight huts. But one circle…looked different. The color had changed. That could be due to the rain.

“There’s a village to the southwest that might be promising.” She gave Cal the name as near as she could tell. “If it clears tomorrow, we’ll focus the cameras there. Find out what you can about the place on your end.”

“Will do. Thanks, Sav.” Cal hung up.

That was one of the most civil conversations she’d ever had with the Green Beret, but then, in this they had the same goal. Of course, they always had the same goal, but sometimes the military guys didn’t believe it. They didn’t trust her because they knew she lied without compunction or remorse. She twisted and manipulated.

They were on the same team, but Savvy was willing to sacrifice eggs to make the omelet. She didn’t have the luxury of being vegan.

She stared at the screen. Her gut told her that the change in color of the circle wasn’t a trick of the light. It meant something. The question was, would it lead to Bastian and Brie?

Bastian had removed his shirt in the heat, and Brie enjoyed the view as he used a compass to lay out his message in straight, even lines.

His waist was as impossibly narrow as his biceps were impossibly wide. He was like a sculpture, but instead of marble, he was flesh-and-blood perfection. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d lusted after a man this much, but then, this was the first time she’d ever been stranded quite like this, and she’d been celibate for a year.

A girl had needs, and Chief Warrant Officer Sebastian Ford could fulfill every one.

As a recovering addict, she knew how to face temptation head-on. But she hadn’t always won those battles.

Kissing Bastian had been the ultimate inebriant. His lips against hers, his tongue delving deep, taking, giving. Hot and sweet and sensual. It had been exactly like that first moment of a new high.

All rush and adrenaline. The sheer ecstasy of knowing in her soul that the next hit would take her even higher.

Except the next hit never delivered. There was no way to hit that high. It was the ultimate letdown, every high being lower than the one before, until eventually, there was nowhere left to go but a negative gain. A high so low, it was buried.

And yet, here she was again, watching Bastian and wanting that hit. Craving a pinnacle that didn’t exist.

She knew better than that. Being with him made her into a junkie again. That it happened in South Sudan was both bitter and ironic. It was easy to deal with her addictions here: there was zero opportunity to use. In this war-torn, battle-weary, fledgling democracy, she hadn’t needed to fight temptation at every moment.

But now she’d fixated on Bastian, and if she knew what was good for her, she’d let this craving go unfulfilled before she found herself in another destructive addiction spiral, this one leading to a devastated heart.