Chapter 9
Emma
Ijumped a little at the sound of a bird outside the tiny window in our prison.
I’d been doing that since it had gotten dark.
Every little noise made me uptight.
Colin and I were laying together on the blanket, but I certainly wasn’t sleeping.
I was nervous, even though I was trying hard not to be.
“Relax, Emma,” Colin said soothingly next to my ear. “They’ll be here as soon as the kidnappers are asleep.”
I swallowed hard. My heart had been like a lump in my throat for the last hour.
I was afraid for my friends.
I was worried about Colin.
And I really needed to get home safe.
“I think I just want this to be over,” I replied as I tried to force myself to relax.
Giving in to fear wasn’t going to help our situation right now.
“Are you getting tired of eating those horrible MREs?” he asked jokingly, trying to make me relax.
I took a deep breath and let it out. “I’m more tired of using a bucket for a toilet,” I said, trying to keep things light, too. “And I’ll never take a hot shower for granted ever again.”
I knew I was smelling pretty rank right now. I was dirty. I was sweaty during the day when it was hot in this filthy prison.
But Colin held me tightly anyway like he didn’t notice any of those things.
“You’ll get that shower,” he promised. “Do you remember everything I told you?”
Remember?
Yeah, I recalled everything and those details had been running through my mind all evening.
Brock and Nate would come in and out without speaking.
Not a word would be said until we were out of hearing range of the kidnappers.
My first instinct would be to throw myself into the arms of my friends, but that reunion was going to have to wait until we were safely out of here.
You can do this, Emma. You can keep a cool head until everyone is safe.
Honestly, sometimes this whole thing felt surreal to me.
It was still hard for me to believe that two of my best friends were part of a very covert operation that rescued hostages.
I’d never even imagined that the two men who had been like brothers to me had this side of their life that I didn’t know about.
To me, Brock was a friendly, best-selling novelist.
Nate was a creative, surreal landscape artist.
Gage owned the most popular beachfront restaurant in town.
And Seth…
Seth was different. He wasn’t the friendly, outgoing guy his friends were because he was self-conscious about the scars he’d gotten on a mission gone wrong while he was in Delta.
He was quiet and a little more reclusive than the rest of the guys, but he had an amazing heart that not many people could see.
Still, it was hard for me to come to terms with the fact that they’d all been part of this secret life.
I wasn’t upset that none of them had told me about Last Hope.
I understood their need for secrecy.
But it still seemed…unreal.
Gage was a Michigander, born and raised in Cherry Cove. He’d come back home after he left Delta, and his friends had followed soon after to settle down with Gage in Michigan.
The guys were like brothers, so it wasn’t surprising that they didn’t want to end that bond simply because they were out of the military.
I heard a bird call softly again, and I forced myself not to react.
“They’re coming in,” Colin said in a quiet, harsh voice.
“How do you know that?” I whispered.
“That wasn’t a bird. That’s Nate,” he answered as he stood and pulled me gently to my feet.
My heart started to pound so hard that I was afraid the kidnappers could hear that rapid beat.
Colin put the pack he’d brought on his back and took my hand. “Everything will be fine, Emma. Don’t let go of my hand.”
I nodded and swallowed hard even though I knew that Colin probably couldn’t see that nod.
The guys would all be using night vision glasses, so I was going to have to keep close to Colin so he could lead me out of here.
Not that I planned on leaving his side anyway.
Right now, he was my lifeline, and I trusted him completely.
I heard the very faint sound at the door which was probably the guys picking the lock.
The moments seemed to stretch on forever until that door, which usually opened with a ton of noise, was almost silently pushed open enough for two men to enter the room.
Once the door was open, there was enough light from the moon and stars to see that both of them were dressed completely in black.
My heart squeezed, but I was silent as Brock and Nate approached us so stealthily that they didn’t make a sound.
They made short work of our cuffs with some kind of tool that they must have brought with them.
Everything happened so fast.
One moment we were still shackled in our prison.
The next moment we were all outside and free.
I could see Brock making some hand signals after he’d handed Colin his night vision glasses, but nobody made a sound.
My hands were shaking as Colin affixed both of them to the waistband of his jeans so I could follow right behind him and not run into anything I couldn’t see.
Brock and Nate took the lead, and we followed behind.
The moon wasn’t full, but I had enough light to be able to see Colin’s large form in front of me, and that was all I really needed to see.
Colin’s gait was uneven because of his previous injury, but he was strong and steady as we made our way through the woods.
I willed myself to think only about my next step and getting to our destination.
We traveled that way for what seemed like a long time before Colin abruptly stopped.
Before I knew what was happening, I was pulled into Brock’s arms and he hugged me so tightly I could barely breathe.
“Fuck, Emma!” he said quietly next to my ear. “You had us all pretty worried. Gage and Seth are on their way back home, but they’re pretty frantic right now, too. You okay?”
“I’m okay,” I assured him as my eyes filled with tears.
I was so damn happy to hear Brock’s voice.
“My turn,” Nate rumbled as he pulled me from Brock to give me a giant bear hug. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“A little scared, but physically I’m good,” I told Nate. “Thank you both for coming for me and for helping Colin. The water he had with him probably saved my life.”
“Who in the hell is Colin?” Brock questioned in a puzzled voice.
“It’s me,” Colin grumbled. “Can you two stop squeezing the life out of Emma? She needs to breathe, and her face is a little bruised. She took a few beatings at the hands of her kidnappers.”
Nate reluctantly released me as he hissed, “That makes me wish we could have killed those bastards.”
I patted him on the arm. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. I really am alright, Nate.”
“She knows you as Colin?” Brock asked. “Your name is Marshall.”
“Colin Marshall,” I informed my friends. “I’ve always known him as Colin.”
“That’s why she never asked about you when Wyatt talked about you,” Brock muttered. “She didn’t know your last name.”
“I prefer to go by Marshall most of the time,” Colin said sternly. “Emma was a rare exception.”
I was glad he’d made that exception. I couldn’t imagine calling a man I was sleeping with by his last name.
Maybe he didn’t like it, but I happened to love his first name.
“How much farther is it to the clearing?” I asked.
“We still have a small trek ahead of us,” Colin informed me. “Do you need to rest for a while?”
I was exhausted emotionally and physically. I’d been sedentary and unable to walk for days now, but I wanted to keep moving.
“I can walk,” I told him. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
“I second that,” Nate said. “I don’t think any of us are fond of this damn country. We’ve all been here too many times, and none of them were for anything pleasant.”
As we all started the final trek, I thought about Nate’s comment.
Lania had been a country engaged in a bitter civil war for a long time.
It made sense that the three men had all been here before.
They were all previous special forces.
Once the rebels had been forced out of Lania, Nick had tried to turn everything around.
I kind of wished that my friends could see the other side of the island nation.
It was beautiful and tropical.
I’d actually been enjoying my visit to Lania before the kidnapping had occurred.
I could see why tourists were flocking to the capital city and the surrounding beaches.
There were almost no signs of the previous civil war there, and it was the closest thing I’d seen to paradise.
“We’re here,” Brock said as we finally stopped in the middle of a clearing in the woods. “I already signaled Nick. I can hear the helicopter in the distance.”
I took a deep breath and released it.
I could hear that helicopter, too, and it was the most beautiful sound I’d ever experienced.
I watched as the lights of the aircraft came into view, and as soon as it landed Colin boosted me into the helicopter.
I landed in the arms of a man I’d called my friend for several years now.
He put on the headset that I was already familiar with from my previous ride in the same helicopter.
“Emma,” Nick said in a relieved voice as he hugged me. “Bloody hell! I was worried about you. I’m so sorry this happened to you. This was all my fault.”
Prince Nick had a pronounced British accent because he’d spent most of his life in England. The king had sent his only son there to protect him from the dangers of the war in Lania.
“It wasn’t your fault, Nick,” I scolded him. “You had no way of knowing that someone was going to try to assassinate you.”
I pulled back and looked at his handsome face.
Nick was younger than I was and incredibly handsome with his dark hair and beautiful brown eyes.
Unfortunately, that male beauty was marred by the stress he’d been through since the kidnapping.
He was dressed in a T-shirt and jeans, and he looked nothing like the crown prince that he actually was.
There was nothing pretentious about Nick.
Most of the time he preferred to act and dress like a normal guy.
“I brought you here,” he said as the men boarded the helicopter. “I promised you it was safe.”
“Lania is safe. This wasn’t your fault, Nick. Stop blaming yourself. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine,” he answered in a disgruntled voice. “Did those assholes hit you? Your face is bruised.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t hurt. It just looks bad. I’m good and I’ll be even better if you get me out of this area. Where are your bodyguards?”
Nick finally grinned. “Back at the palace. I didn’t give them a choice. I told them there was no room for them. They were somewhat satisfied that I’d have three previous special forces guys to protect me.”
I smiled at him and moved to the back seat to make more space for Colin, Brock, and Nate.
Nick motioned to the pilot when the door closed, and I could tell we were getting ready to lift off.
Colin, Brock, and Nate donned their headsets, and Colin dropped into the seat beside me in the back.
The lights were on, and for the very first time, I got a very good look at his face.
As usual, when those steel gray eyes of his pierced me, I felt like he could see all the way to my soul.
Yes, he was a little older, but my heart skipped a beat and my breath caught as he looked at me with concern.
There was a little bit of gray in the stubble on his face and a little sprinkled in his brown hair.
Unfortunately, I found that incredibly sexy.
One thing hadn’t changed.
He was still the handsomest man on the planet.
As the helicopter lifted off, relief like I’d never felt before flooded my entire body.
We were all going to live through this.
No one got hurt.
We were going home.
Tears filled my eyes, and to my mortification, I threw myself in Colin’s arms and started to sob like a child.