Air Force Captain Ann O’Donnell eased off the throttle and pulled back on the collective. She brought her helicopter smoothly to a hover over a featureless spot in the black ocean of jungle below them. The rendezvous point. Somewhere beneath her, the Blackjacks—an elite American Spec Ops team—were in trouble. They’d called for an emergency egress, which explained why she was out here in the thick of cocaine country with her booty hanging in the wind.

“Are you sure we’re at the right clearing?” she asked Rusty, her copilot.

“The coordinates Blackjack Ops gave us were precise. This is the spot. I’ve got infrared imagery of a clearing under the jungle canopy, maybe fifty feet across. No heat signatures, yet.”

Five endless minutes ticked by with no blobs of human heat lighting up Rusty’s scope. A lifetime in the world of Spec Ops. Her passengers were late. Hopefully, they weren’t dead.

“Anything?” she asked.

“Nope. You know, we can’t sit here all night, Annie. Somebody’s bound to hear us and get the bright idea to shoot us down.”

“Let’s give it one more minute. The Blackjack brass is gonna be pissed if we miss their guys.”

She was a sitting duck, hovering like this. It didn’t take fancy detection equipment to hear the thwocking of a helicopter. Even with the sound suppressing blades and noise cancelling, wave broadcasting on her blacked-out bird. The back of her neck itched ominously. Dammit. Her neck was never wrong.

Time to go.

She addressed the two crewmen manning the winch in the back. “P.J.’s, when we bug out, I’m going to bank hard right and accelerate fast. Don’t get dumped out the door.”

“Roger that,” one of them replied.

“Retract the forest penetrator seat and prepare for departure,” she ordered.

“Winch is winding.”

Her palms went slick with sweat. It was a good bet that missing this pickup would complicate the Blackjack’s lives big time.

“Seat retracted and stowed, Captain.”

She counted down, “And we’re out of here in five, four, three…”

“Wait!” Rusty called. “Got ’em. Two targets on screen, more moving in. Transmitting the right I.D. codes.”

The winch motor whined behind her, dropping the cable and its heavy, steel seat back into the clearing. The para-jumpers traded terse commands, one manning the winch, the other hanging out the door, guiding the cable and reporting on the progress of the evacuation.

“Man in.”

She heard the grunt of the first soldier as he landed unceremoniously on his belly on the Huey’s floor. He was left to crawl out of the way and right himself while her crew dropped the seat again. Metal hissed as the steel cable hurtled down into the belly of the beast.

“Two’s on the seat.”

“Hoisting. Ten feet per second.”

That was pretty fast. Whoever was hanging on that cable was getting the hell scratched out of him as he tore up through the trees.

Two more soldiers landed in the helicopter.

“Winch away.”

“Cap’n, I’ve got movement on the scope,” her copilot announced. “Hostiles inbound.”

“Talk to me, Rusty,” she bit out.

“I’ve got our last two guys center screen. I paint four, no, make that six hostiles moving in.”

She frowned. “You copy that, PJ’s?”

“Yes ma’am. We’re hauling ’em up like bats outta hell.”

“Range, Rusty?”

“Five hundred feet. Ten hostiles now.”

“How are we doing back there, gentlemen?”

“Number five on the cable, ma’am.”

“Max out the winch. We need to go. Now.”

“Already doin’ it.”

“Cable’s at forty feet. Thirty. Twenty! Brake the winch!” the door guy shouted.

“Relax. I got it,” the winch operator groused.

A thump as the fifth man hit the floor.

“Clear.”

“Winch away.”

“One more to go, ma’am. Damn, dude. You ’bout slammed the last one’s head into the skid!”

She interrupted. “Cut the chatter. Rusty, report.”

“Hostiles at two hundred feet. Closing fast.”

Shit. She glanced over at the radar screen, then back at her own controls. A sudden beeping tone made her jump.

Rusty called, “I see a big gun. Looks like a shoulder-mounted grenade launcher.”

“Have they got lock on?” she demanded.

“Not yet, Cap’n.”

“Where’s the last man, PJ?” she asked tersely.

“Climbing on the seat now.”

“Get him out of there. He’s about to have company.”

“Cable’s winding, ma’am.”

“How far to lift him, Frank?”

“Eighty feet.”

Rusty’s voice was clipped, desperate. “Weapon activation.”

The beeping became a steady warning tone. They’d been locked onto by a laser guidance system.

“How far, Frank?” she called.

“Fifty feet!”

Ping. Ping, ping, ping. She flinched instinctively. There was no other sound quite like bullets tearing through metal.

“Winch is hit! Motor’s jammed!” a PJ yelled.

“We gotta go!” Rusty shouted.

A PJ yelled from the back. “I got a man hangin’ on my cable. ’Bout forty feet down. He’s gonna die if we drag him through the trees.”

They were all going to die if a grenade hit them.

“Hang on!” she shouted as she slammed the throttles forward.

She felt the thud when the man beneath her crashed into a tree. The scream of the engines wasn’t loud enough to drown out the collective groan that issued from the five passengers in the back. She sent out a silent prayer. Please don’t let that man suffer. Please make his death swift and painless.

She climbed as high as she dared, about thirty feet above the treetops, just below where radar could paint her. The man on the cable was still in the trees, but hopefully the smaller growth at the top of the jungle would be less destructive than the heavier trunks and branches lower down.

The guy didn’t have a chance in the world of surviving, but on the off possibility that some higher power owed him a miracle, she planned to give him all the help she could.

Every few seconds a shudder passed into her hands from the helicopter’s control column as the body of the soldier beneath her hit another tree. Grisly images of his mangled corpse swam in her mind’s eye. It took all her self-discipline to force her mind to the business getting the hell out of here and saving everyone else.

“Status report, Rusty,” she ordered grimly. “What did that ground fire hit?”

“Your VHF radio’s out, the oil system’s leaking bad.”

“How bad?”

“I’ll give it thirty minutes till she’s dry.”

They could be back in St. George in forty minutes. Forty endless minutes for the man hanging on that cable to bleed and suffer.

“Door window got knocked out, and the winch got hit,” Rusty continued. “Beyond that, we’ve got bullet holes here and there. Nothing major.”

Nothing major except a man dangling, dying, below her. A man who’d been counting on her to get him out alive.

The interior of the helicopter went silent. The steady scream of the engines droned and the deep pounding of the rotor blades beat the air.

Nine to one.

Nine lives for one life.

Nine devastated families or just one.

She talked to distract herself. “PJ’s, any suggestions on how I set this guy down?”

“Yeah. Gently.”

The second PJ growled, “Shut up, smartass. You might want to radio the embassy, ma’am, and have one of the duty Marines guide you down visually. We don’t want to drop this guy hard.” He added, “While you’re at it, have them bring a cable cutter out to the pad.”

“Why?” she asked

“That guy’s body is gonna be all tangled up in the cable. They’re gonna have to cut him out.”

Christ. She squeezed her eyes shut against the image his words summoned. “Right. Cable cutters. I’ll take care of it,” she choked out.

She took a quick glance over her shoulder at her passengers. They wore black close-fitting clothing devoid of any military markings. Black face paint. Night vision goggles. Utility vests bristling with weapons and ammunition.

“PJ, put one of our passengers up on headset, will you?”

“Okay, just a sec.” There was a brief pause. “He’s up.”

“What do you need, Captain?” The voice was tired, gruff.

“Your buddy’s hanging under my helicopter and is no doubt, uhh, injured. I can proceed now to your planned drop-off point and leave him hanging. Or I can divert into St. George, which is about thirty minutes closer, and get medical treatment for him there. It’s your call.”

“Stand by.” After a brief silence, the voice came back up on the headset. “St. George.”

Man, he sure was talkative. She replied, “I’ll have the embassy doctor meet us when we land. If anything can be done to help your buddy, I’ll personally make it happen.”

“He’s got a fucking name.”

The man’s abrupt flash of anger startled her. But then why wouldn’t he be mad? She’d killed his friend, after all. She asked quietly, “What’s his name?”

“Major Thomas P. Foley.”

* * *

Pain. Tom’s whole existence could be summed up in that one word.

Grinding, unbearable agony ripping through his body. As each bone broke, another layer of suffering stacked on top of the one before. No mere torture could compare to this. He slammed into tree trunks over and over, with the force of a car crashing into a wall. Branches slashed him like whips and knives, slicing the flesh from his body.

White starbursts of agony exploded in his brain. He’d scream if his throat muscles would cooperate, but they were beyond sound. He fought for air, fought to open his eyes against the encroaching blackness, fought not to die.

He did his best to hold it off, but inch by anguishing inch, he gave way. He was almost grateful when the darkness closed over his head, blanking out the light, blanking out thought, blanking out all feeling.

He welcomed oblivion.

* * *

Light. Shining brightly in his eyes. Someone tugged at his eyelids and shone that damn light at him again.

Voices. Quiet, murmuring as if they stood beside a dead man.

“…patient’s progressing better than expected, given the extent of his injuries…will maintain regimen of painkillers and sedation for a few more days…”

Days?

That was bad. But why?

Think, you idiot.

His men. That was it. They needed him. He was their leader. He was responsible for them. He had to get up, get moving, take care of them. They had to go.

Go where?

The answer refused to come.

* * *

More pain. Everywhere he could feel hurt. His whole body. Places he didn’t even know he could register pain in were screaming at him. He swam in a ocean of pain, endless in every direction he looked, drowning him. Pulling him down.

A hand smoothed his brow with the infinite care of a mother’s touch. It soothed him deep down, in his soul. So long since he’d been touched like that. He fed on the gentle, unfamiliar caress, a starving man feasting.

Wait. Soft was not normal. His world was hard.

Who…

He lost the thought.

Fingers slid into his hair. The touch was still light, but different somehow. It had evolved into something more…sensual. Female. His dick began to fill.

Praise the Lord and pass the potatoes. If he had a hard-on, surely he must still be alive. For a minute there, he’d worried he’d gotten horny for an angel.

God, he would love to have those hands roam all over him. Grip his erection and cup his balls--

He opened his eyes to beg for more, and a fuzzy vision of a golden-haired woman swam before him. He couldn’t make out her face. Had he died after all? Was she an angel?

Him in Heaven? No way. Not unless some celestial paper pusher up above had screwed up.

“Hey, handsome. Welcome back.”

His angel’s voice was throaty. Sexy. It flowed over him, hot and sweet. His heart pounded blood through his body, creating a pulsing, throbbing need that made him rock hard. Surely people in Heaven weren’t allowed to lust after angels.

Did that mean he wasn’t dead, after all?

Hallelujah. He’d never been so grateful for the discomfort of a woodie in his life.

Who was she?

“They’ve given you another dose of morphine,” the woman said. “The pain will go away soon. Don’t fight it.”

They who? Where the hell was he? It looked like a hospital room. But where? Fear ripped through him. But he felt as if his entire body was tied down, immobilized. His panic sent the medical beeping sounds coming from somewhere behind his head into a frenzy, but there wasn’t a damned thing he could do to calm his pulse—or to get out of here. Not yet.

For an angel, she had a sinful voice. He turned his head to get a better look at her, but his head wobbled like a newborn baby’s. Damn, he was weak. He tried to lift his hand, to get the tube out of his throat so he could tell her about his men, about his need to leave. About his need to have her touch him. But his arm was so damned heavy he couldn’t lift his hand to yank out the tube.

Renewed panic ripped through him as he realized his entire body was refusing to cooperate with him. He tried to sit up, hell, just to roll out of bed. But he couldn’t do it. His stare darted left and right. Adrenaline screamed through his blood, demanding a target to attack or a path to escape. His breath rasped hoarsely and his heart pounded like a jackhammer. But he couldn’t do anything!

What was wrong with him?

What had she done to him?

Must. Get. Free.

The woman subdued him easily, pushing his back down to the mattress. Her hands kneaded the atrophied muscles of his shoulder, but he didn’t buy the fake comforting thing for a second. He was a prisoner!

Christ. He knew what he was supposed to do. He just had to remember it…

Name. Rank. Serial Number.

Buy time. Don’t break. Don’t give in to the pain. Get angry. Focus on something unimportant so you don’t reveal the real intel.

Something niggled at the back of his consciousness. He pushed it aside, but it kept intruding on the bliss of his massage. Finally, reluctantly, he let the thought surface in his consciousness. Something he was supposed to do…somewhere he had to go…

It came back vaguely. He was supposed to lead his men out of a jungle. To safety.

That was the secret he had to protect. The fact that the other five members of his team might still be in country.

A distraction. He needed something else to think about. The woman. Her blond hair and pretty face. Yes. He would think about that. Pretend she was here to help him.

The woman fiddled with the IV bottle hooked to his right arm, and oblivion claimed him as he concentrated fiercely on memorizing every detail of her face.

* * *

He awoke with a start. The pain was still there, but more of a background noise than the main event. Something else was different. He took inventory of his body. His throat. No tube was jammed down it. He swallowed. His throat grated like sandpaper.

“Thirsty,” he tried. It came out a croak, but it was sound.

The blond woman, who sounded American now that he was a bit more conscious, appeared like magic at his side. “Hi, there, sleepyhead. How are you feeling today?”

“Thirsty,” he repeated. A test. See if she would offer him a drink or not. How hostile a jailor was she?

She disappeared from his field of vision and came back carrying a glass with a plastic, flexible straw sticking out of it. She put its end between his teeth. He sucked and cool water flooded his mouth. Slid down his throat. Cool. Wet. Soothing. Huh. So she wasn’t playing hardball with him yet. Thank God. He didn’t feel strong enough to resist a full-blown interrogation.

“Where am I?” he mumbled.

“In a hospital in St. George, Gavarone.”

Gavarone.

A jumble of images flooded his head almost too fast to process. Rebels. Revolution. Reconnaissance. The jungle. His guys. A helicopter. “Where are my--?”

She pressed her fingers against his lips hastily and whispered, “Hush. No one here but me knows your…occupation.”

Alarm roared through him. How did she know who the hell he was?

She continued, “Your…friends…are safe. They visit when they can.”

His men came here? To see him? What the hell? “Why didn’t everyone leave?” He frowned, trying to fill in the blanks. “I remember a helicopter…”

A shadow crossed the woman’s face.

“…It was supposed to take us out. Fly us to—” He broke off. Jesus. They must really have him drugged up. He’d almost divulged classified information.

He lurched, or at least tried to lurch, upright. If this woman actually worked for the Gavronese government, was she some sort of seductive interrogator taking advantage of his confused mental state? Had he just compromised himself? Or worse: his team? Holy shit.

“How did I get here?” he ground out.

“I drove you here in my car.”

Her car? So. She was a local. God damn it. “What happened to me?”

“What do you remember?”

Dangerous question. Probing for information. “Not much,” he answered cautiously.

He did remember crawling through some of the thickest jungle he’d ever had the misfortune of working in. A tiny clearing. His guys riding up a steel cable into a helicopter. Somebody chasing them. No, a lot of people chasing them. The memory stopped.

The woman was giving him a funny look. Oops. Better distract her. He asked, “What’s wrong with me? Why am I here?”

“You have a number of broken bones. Three cracked ribs, both your legs fractured, your left arm broken. That was your most serious break. They had to do surgery to set it. Both bones in your forearm had to be pinned. But you’ve been unconscious for a while. The pins can come out in a couple of weeks.”

Just how long had he been out for the count?

She continued her grisly inventory. “Your jaw was fractured, right collarbone broken. You had terrible cuts all over the place, but they’re healing. I have no idea how many stitches it took to sew your hide back together. Thousands, if I had to guess.”

His stomach sank. He’d never been a particularly vain man, but he didn’t relish looking like Quasimodo.

She was talking on, oblivious to his distress. “…but I insisted on a good plastic surgeon to stitch you up. You shouldn’t get too many new scars out of it.”

Fuck. She said that like she’d seen his old scars.

“Anything else busted?” he asked cautiously.

“One of your kidneys ruptured, but it’s stopped hemorrhaging. The doctors say it’s all right, now. I think you broke a couple fingers, too, but I lost track.”

Maybe she should just list the things that weren’t broken. “How long have I been here?”

“Forty-five days.”

“What?” Disorientation swirled around him. Six-and-a-half weeks? All he remembered were a few snatches of consciousness. Mostly of this woman standing watch over him and promising to make the pain go away.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Going on where?” she asked cautiously. Too cautiously. If his hackles weren’t already standing on end, that tone in her voice would have put them there.

He infused his voice with as much casual unconcern as he could muster. “You know, in Gavarone.”

She smiled. “Why don’t you get a little more of your strength back before you dive into Gavronese politics?”

“Is there war?”

Her features tightened, grew serious. “Not yet.”

“But it’s close.”

She nodded. “Very.”

He nodded. “Then you’re right. I will need my strength to get out of the country. By the way. Is there something to eat around here? I’m starving.”

She laughed. “I’ll go see what you’re allowed to have.”

“Just bring me some real food.” And he would pray it wasn’t drugged. But his stomach was gnawing a hole in his damned spine.

He tried to stay awake until she returned. He really did. But the medications still coursing through his system called to him. He drifted off, cursing himself for his weakness as he passed out, wondering if she would be there when he woke up.

* * *

She was. Sleeping in the chair beside his bed. The room was mostly dark. A small lamp burned on the table beside his head. He smiled at the picture she made, her feet tucked up on the seat, her head resting on her arm. She was pretty, her features soft over sculpted bones. No wonder he mistook her for an angel when he first swam toward consciousness.

Who was she? A jailor? His interrogator? A babysitter? He had to assume she was a threat until she proved otherwise. He’d infiltrated Gavarone illegally and was still here illegally under a false identity. How his papers had held up long enough to get him into a hospital, he had no idea. Maybe the chaos of impending revolution.

He caught sight of a water glass and tried to reach for it. Da hell? His left arm weighed a ton. He noticed that it was encased in a plaster cast. Huh. That was new. He hoped it signaled progress in his healing.

The woman awoke with a jerk. She looked around for a second, as if trying to place where she was. He knew the feeling. A guy with a job like his woke up that way a lot.

She smiled at him sleepily. Her golden hair stuck out messily, like she’d just had great sex. If only. “Hi, Tom.”

Warning lights flashed wildly and alarm bells clanged in his head. How in the hell did she know his real name? Like all the Blackjacks, he carried a fake I.D. when he was in the field.

“Who are you?”

She came over to his bed and bent down over him, a silky strand of her hair hanging down over her shoulder and threatening to tickle his nose. She murmured quickly under her breath, “My name is Ann O’Donnell. Most people call me Annie. I’m from the American embassy and I’m here to take care of you. To make sure the hospital doesn’t turn you in to the Gavronese governement, to translate if a non-English-speaking doctor needs information, that kind of stuff…”

She was babbling. Why was she so nervous? Was she lying? And why was she whispering? He stared at her speculatively. “How did you know my name?”

She did an odd thing. She laughed. “What a ridiculous…oh, I get it. Stop teasing me, darling.”

His brows slammed together, and he opened his mouth, but she frantically gestured him to silence before he could speak. He watched, frowning, as she went to the door and opened it a crack, peeking out into the hallway. Then she went into the bathroom and did something to the toilet. It flushed, and continued to run.

Background noise. She was creating interference in case the room was bugged. What the hell? If only he wasn’t a broken mess. He would get out of here and disappear into the night. But he didn’t even know if he could walk, yet.

She came back to the bed and leaned close. Close enough to know she smelled like flowers. Close enough to see golden flecks in her dark green eyes. Close enough to feel her breath, soft and warm against his cheek. That corn silk blonde hair swung forward again, forming a curtain around their faces. It had been a long time since he’d been this close to a woman. A very long time. His dick stirred with interest. Which was insane. He was clearly in terrible danger.

“Who are you?” he whispered.

“Your cover. You had to have hospital care, but you couldn’t exactly be admitted under your own name.”

No shit, Sherlock.

“The American Embassy worked up papers for me, saying I’m your wife.”

Wife? The word didn’t compute in his brain, fake or otherwise.

She continued, “They backdated a visa placing me in Gavarone before you got hurt. We told the authorities you fell in a rock-climbing accident.”

“They bought the story?”

“So far. But with the rebels getting more aggressive by the day, the government’s getting pretty paranoid. There’ve been some questions asked about you. I’m glad you’re getting better, because we may have to move you soon.”

“You still haven’t answered my question. Who are you?”

She jerked at the sharp tone of command in his voice. “Captain Ann O’Donnell, U.S. Air Force, Assistant Air Attaché, American Embassy in St. George to the principality of Gavarone. Do you want my serial number and date of birth, too?”

“What level of security clearance do you hold?”

“Enough to know your name, rank, serial number and date of birth, mister.”

“Is that a fact?” He grinned. The kitten had claws. “Do you know what I was doing here?”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to guess.”

“Do you know how I got hurt?”

She stood upright abruptly. The door to the hallway swung open, and a white-jacketed man stood there. He spoke in heavily accented English. “Excuse me, ma’am. But the toilet, it stuck. I fix, no?”

Tom blinked as she smiled graciously and answered in Spanish as smooth and flawless as his own, “Gracias, señor. I’d have reported it, but I didn’t think anyone in maintenance would be awake at this hour.”

The man disappeared into the bathroom.

Interesting. That was certainly a prompt response to a running toilet. Two minutes at most. Just about as long as it’d take a guy to get from a listening post to this room. Somebody was suspicious about him, all right.

He and his “wife”, Annie, she’d called herself, waited silently until the man fixed the toilet and left the room. She sagged with relief when the door closed behind the guy.

Not accustomed to clandestine stuff, huh? His adrenaline had hardly budged. “Annie, I need to know. Exactly how bad am I hurt?”

“Many of your less severely broken bones are technically healed already. Not that you should run around playing Rambo, just yet. But you’re recovering. They took the pins out of your left arm yesterday. It’s still got a couple of weeks until that cast can come off. Oh, and your ribs aren’t healed. But then, you probably know that, if you’ve tried to take a deep breath.”

His ribs did hurt. Right side, front. “Can I walk?”

“Not in those casts.”

He looked down at both of his legs, encased in plaster. “I’m a wreck, aren’t I?”

Relief and a hint of…guilt, maybe?…crossed her face. “It could’ve been a lot worse.”

“You mean I could’ve died.”

“Yeah.”

“Nah, not me. I’m too stubborn to die by falling off some stupid mountain.”

She blinked and then nodded in comprehension.

“How ’bout a kiss for your long-suffering husband?”

Her eyes snapped green fire, but her voice dropped into that sexy drawl he remembered from his waking dreams. “Darling, I’m afraid the excitement of it might kill you.”

He smiled widely at her. “Soon, though. When I’m stronger.”

“Of course.” She flashed him a look that promised hell to pay if he ever tried it.

Tom grinned. He never could resist a challenge.

Her response was an expressive eye roll.

“How much longer till I’m out of here?” he asked.

“Hopefully, you’ll only be here a couple more weeks.” She leaned close and placed her luscious mouth practically on his ear, whispering, “I don’t think you’ll have that long before we have to get you out of here.”

The sheet threatened to tent over his groin, and he pulled up a heavy blanket to weigh down his tent pole. He was losing it. Here he was in the middle of a blown mission, lusting over a woman. He had much more important things to concentrate on right now.

Like how to get out of this hospital in one piece and out of Gavarone alive.