Chapter 3
Three
“Sam!” Ian shouted into the phone. “Answer me.”
Nothing. Just dead silence from her. The line was still open, but Sam was not responding. Fuck. He tried to listen as he rushed through his house. The only sound he heard was wind and a few birds.
What had she said? Right, that she would leave it on so that he could find her.
What did she mean she was on his island?
If she was on Oahu, then he would have to get someone to go save her.
Knowing he needed help, he picked up his work cell and called in.
If anyone walked in, they would question his sanity because he had two phones up to his ears.
He kept trying to listen to Sam, see if he heard anything.
“Aren’t you on vacation?” Emily Daniels asked.
“I need help. Well, I need help finding Sam.”
She sighed. “I told you that woman is too good.”
“No. She called me, said she had been attacked, and that she would leave her phone open. You can trace her, right?”
“Yeah, I should. You’re still connected?’ she asked, all humor gone from her voice.
“Yes, on my personal phone.”
He listened to the clicking of keys. For the first time in a long time, panic hit him.
It wasn’t like her to call and ask for help.
That never happened, so she must be pretty bad off.
And bad with Sam could be catastrophic. Not that he knew her, but in a weird way, he could sense what that would mean.
Visions of her bleeding out somewhere all alone had his entire body buzzing with adrenaline.
“Hmm she isn’t on Oahu.”
Fear lanced through him. If she were somewhere far away, it might take them forever to get the authorities to go look of her. “She said she was on my island. I don’t know what the bloody hell that meant.”
“That’s because she is on your island. She’s there on Kauai,” Emily said. “I’m sending you the coordinates. It doesn’t look like it’s that far from you.”
“Thanks, Em.”
“I’ll also call Jenner,” she said.
“Why would you do that?” he asked, making his way out of the house and into his car.
“He’s on Kauai and if she’s hurt, you’ll need him.”
Jenner Carson was a former Army Medic who worked from time to time for Dillon. He didn’t know the man that well, but at the moment, he would take all the help he could get.
“Thanks.”
“Keep me updated.”
“Will do.”
Then he clicked off and looked at the coordinates.
He tapped his personal phone speaker so that he could listen as he started on his way.
He knew the area she was in. There were a lot of a great hiking trails that snaked through the forest. Hell, he’d gone on a hike his last trip to the island.
With each passing minute, he felt his anxiety rise.
He wasn’t a man who usually freaked out.
Raised in an MI-6 home, he had learned the need for reasoned thinking and calm actions.
He felt as if every moment that burned away, he was closer to losing Sam.
As he turned down the short, dead-end street, he noted a tiny house off to the right. This wasn’t the normal place to come for a hike. There was a parking lot on the other side of the wooded area where people parked, and there were signs posted about not parking there if you weren’t a resident.
Too fucking bad for them that he didn’t care that he wasn’t supposed to park there. He pulled off to the opposite side of the street from the house so maybe they wouldn’t call the cops right away. He slipped out of the car just as Jenner approached him.
“That was fast, mate,” he said, as Jenner made his way over to him.
Jenner was huge, close to six-five. He still wore his blond hair cut military short. His light green eyes took in the area. “I was actually heading close by for a hike.”
“Let’s go.”
They made their way to behind the house where he knew a trail existed.
Thankfully, he had spent a lot of time exploring Kauai.
He saw her footprints immediately. It wasn’t like her to leave a trail.
Not that he had tried to follow her. He knew Sam, to an extent, and there was no way she could have survived after being burned by the CIA if she did something like this.
She was never sloppy. Something was very, very wrong.
There were no fresh tracks following her, so that was a good thing. The two men followed her footprints as they veered off the trail, but he noticed that they returned so they continued on.
“This woman, she’s the one who’s helped you the last few months?”
He bit back annoyance. “To some extent.”
“According to Em, she has.”
He glanced over at the other man. “You hang out with Em?”
He shook his head. “I hang out with Aaron, but since they live together, I get to hear all the scuttlebutt.”
Scuttlebutt, the military term for gossip. Proving once again, you could take the soldier out of the military, but it was hard to get the soldier out of the man. When Luc and Jenner got to talking about military shite, it was sometimes hard to follow because of the acronyms and slang.
Sam’s footprints disappeared off the trail, and terror slipped through his blood.
The woman annoyed the living hell out of him, but he definitely didn’t want her to be hurt or taken or whatever was happening.
All he knew was that it wasn’t good. He just hoped they hadn’t left her phone to distract them as they spirted her away.
He knew that she had a lot of knowledge in her head that most countries would kill to get hold of. Or rather, torture to get.
“Let’s see if she went off trail again.”
Jenner nodded as he moved off the trail to the left.
Ian went to the right. He saw some blood on a leaf, but he couldn’t see her.
She should be close by. He knew the coordinates could be off due to the location.
GPS was only so good, especially on Kauai.
But she should be right there, easy to find. Instead, she was nowhere.
Then, he walked around a massive tree to find her sitting on the ground, her back against the tree.
He whistled, letting Jenner know he’d found her.
She had a bandage on her neck, and her shirt had blood on it.
His heart almost stopped until he noticed that her chest was rising and falling.
He couldn’t even take time to figure out why she looked so familiar to him.
Jenner stepped up behind him. Most people wouldn’t have heard the man, but Ian had.
“Sam?” Ian said.
“Mix,” she mumbled. Her eyes fluttered open as she offered him a smile. The bicolored eyes were the first thing he noticed. They were barely focused. “You came.”
She sounded so weak.
He took her hand. “I did.”
“Thank you,” she said right as she passed out. Jenner crowded in and it took every bit of Ian’s control not to order his workmate to get his damned hands off her. The guy had the training to help her, but for some reason, Ian was feeling territorial.
After carefully lifting a blood-soaked bandage, Jenner inspected her wound. “I’m gonna need to stitch this. Let’s get her out of here. No telling if the perpetrator is close by.”
Ian mentally shook himself. He should have been making sure the bastards weren’t in the area.
Jenner moved to pick her up, but that felt wrong.
Something had him pushing the other man out of the way and slipping his hands beneath her to lift her into his arms. It was easy to do because she barely weighed a thing.
“I’ll follow you to your place,” Jenner murmured. “I’m assuming she doesn’t want to go to a hospital.”
Of course, she wouldn’t want a record of where she was, because she was good at keeping everything out of official records. Jenner was brand new to Dillon, being hired in the last six weeks. If he knew about Sam, that meant people had been gossiping. Dillon was getting as bad as Task Force Hawai’i.
“For now, let’s keep her at my place. If you think she needs more help, she’s going to the hospital whether she likes it or not.”
Jenner nodded, then took the forward position. It would be better if there was another person to keep an eye out behind them, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
It felt as if it took them three hours to make it to their cars, although Ian knew it had only been a few minutes. When they got to his car, he realized that it would be better if she rode in Jenner’s SUV.
“We’ll ride in your vehicle,” Ian said. “Take her.”
Ian hurried to the other side, ignoring the fact that her blood was all over him. He eased into the seat, then helped Jenner settle Sam in the back seat, her head in his lap.
Instead of hurrying to the driver’s seat, Jenner opened the back of his SUV, then pulled out some bandages. He tossed them at Ian.
“Apply pressure to the wound in her stomach. Blood has soaked through her bandage. Her neck is superficial.”
As Jenner climbed in, Ian rattled off his address and opened the bandaging.
He did as Jenner told him and had to fight the bile that rose up.
Fuck, he couldn’t remember the last time he felt this sick.
The idea that someone had attacked her would haunt him.
Ian didn’t understand exactly why, but he needed her to be safe.
“Fucker,” she mumbled under her breath.
“Is that you or me?” Jenner asked.
“I have a feeling it’s for the person who hurt her.”
And that fucker was definitely going to pay. Ian would make sure of it.
Lila floated around, her body somewhat weightless. Why did she feel like this? It was like she was on a cloud, and she couldn’t concentrate on anything. The pain in her stomach seemed to have lessened, and she felt lighter.
“You have a concussion,” a voice said. It was British, deep, and growly. So sexy.
“Well, thank you,” he said.
She blinked her eyes open. The face above her was true male beauty, with a chiseled jaw and those amazing blue eyes. His hair looked like he had been shoving his hands through it.
“Ian.”
“At your service.”
Tears filled her eyes. “Thank you. No one ever came for me.”