Unlike Alex, she had held a gun before. But never one like this. One that felt like pure, raw, unrepentant death.
She tried her best to hide her revulsion and her shaking hands as she went through the instructions Bran quickly listed. How to change it from safety mode to firing mode? Check. How to slam in a new magazine when the old one ran dry? Check, check. How to aim and spray, as he called it? Triple check.
And triple gulp too.
She shivered and thought she heard Alex’s teeth chatter behind her as the four of them quickly made their way down the narrow hall, stopping in front of the door to the crew’s quarters where the teenagers slept soundly.
They’ve been through enough tonight, don’t you think, Lord? Maddy sent up a silent prayer. How about givin’ them a break, okay?
“Hopefully this is nothing,” Bran said, his dark eyes fierce. Death and destruction. That look was back.
She shook her head. “You don’t really believe that.”
He leaned down to press a kiss to her lips. Then he grabbed her chin between his thumb and forefinger and stared hard into her eyes. “If things go bad, you do whatever it takes to protect yourself, you get me? No hesitation. Hesitation will get you killed.”
“O-okay.” She nodded, her breaths coming hard and fast. Fear was alive inside her, crawling through her chest like a poisonous spider on a sticky web.
“What? No kiss for me, Mason?” Alex asked the big man, batting her lashes.
Maddy turned to see Mason chuck Alex on the chin.
“I guess that’ll have to do,” Alex said with a wry twist of her lips.
And then she and Alex were left to watch the bravest men on the planet run off to do their parts to save the day. Again.
“So lust that led to love, or love that led to lust?” Alex whispered after Bran and Mason disappeared up the stairwell.
Maddy gave her the stink eye. “You’re like a dog with a damned bone.”
“So I’ve been told,” Alex said when Maddy grabbed the door handle. “But humor me, okay? I need to take my mind off the fact that I’m holding a fully automatic rifle in my hands.”
Maddy paused before opening the door. And maybe it was the adrenaline. Maybe it was the nerves and the worry and the fear. But before she made the conscious decision to confess a truth, the truth, the one she’d known for quite a while now but had been afraid to admit even to herself, she blurted, “I don’t know which came first. It’s all lust and love, and love and lust. Has been since the beginnin’. At least for me.”
“I knew it!” Alex shot a fist in the air.
Chapter 24
1:12 a.m.…
“So far, so good,” Mason muttered.
“Here’s hoping,” Bran replied.
He and Mason were hiding behind the bridge house, bellied on the deck and peeking around the corner to watch the activity on both boats. The eighty-seven-foot Marine Protector Class patrol ship was one of the smaller cutters in the Coast Guard’s fleet. Still, it was larger than the yacht. Larger and lower in the water since it was built for speed. Which meant the yacht’s deck was approximately two feet above the cutter’s, giving those onboard the cruising boat the high ground.
Which I don’t like a damned bit.
Bran watched as the Coast Guard’s medic climbed onto the yacht, medical kit in hand, two members of the cutter’s crew following him. The sound of the men chatting carried over the water. The air smelled of marine fuel and antifouling paint. The running lights on both vessels lit the decks in a friendly, half-light glow. Everything appeared A-okay, nothing but apple pie.
Bran’s finger tightened on his trigger. There’s just something…
He narrowed his eyes and looked through his scope, zeroing in on the faces of the two men on the deck of the motor yacht. “What do they look like to you?” he whispered to Mason.
“Like more than your average overfed, over-coiffed millionaires,” Mason mumbled. “Check out the tattoo on the forearm of the one on the left. Looks like Airborne Ranger ink to me.”
Sure as shit. There was no mistaking the grinning skull tattoo. “And if I’m not mistaken,” he said, “the other one has Semper Fi inked on his bicep. I can only make out the bottom of the words below his sleeve, but…”
“The few. The proud,” Mason grumbled the U.S. Marine motto. “Who the hell are these guys?”
“Mercs.” Bran spat out the shortened form of the word