before she searched them for keys. She kicked away the guards’ weapons, then unlocked the door and yanked it open.
“Oh Christ, it is her,” Max said.
Tessa smiled. “Underdog, here to save the day.” She wiggled the keys in the air. “Go on, say it, you’re glad to see me again.” She met Logan’s gaze, every cell in her body gone still as she waited for the reaming she deserved. But he just smiled, a delighted little sparkle in his eyes that went right to her soul.
“You’ve been a very bad girl.”
She winked. “I thought that’s what you liked about me.” Then a man left the van and she frowned as he passed her. “Jeez, you guys look awful.”
Logan snatched the keys. “Gee, thanks Tessa, and you don’t look so bad for a walking corpse, either.” Terrific, in fact, and he was still rocked to see her alive. He focused on springing the cuff. “Where’s the guy who was chasing you?” Free, Logan handed the keys to Sebastian.
“Out cold on the ground. You might want to leave him to them.” She inclined her head to the downed guards.
“Irish accent?” Logan eased out of the van, Sebastian behind him.
She frowned. “Yeah.” Oh hell. Just then, a man hurried between them. “Him.” She pointed.
“We gotta go,” Riley said. “The van is hot.”
“Defuse it.” Logan said.
“You know each other?” she asked, glancing between the two.
“Until Daisy Duke here showed up,” Riley said right over her words. “It would just blow the tire, like an accident. It’s pressure sensitive and the van’s sitting on it. And exploding on a stationary object with a gas tank…”
It would toss the van like a ball. “Good God, Riley, don’t you think that was excessive?” Logan joined Max to collect weapons and communications gear.
“It’s just a little charge,” he defended.
Tessa stuck her head back inside the van. “Some guy’s trying to contact the guards on tact 27.”
Logan tuned the guard’s radio and listened for a moment, then chambered a bullet. “We’re getting company. Where’s the truck?”
Riley gestured up the hill, walking stiffly as Sebastian caught the keys and ran to it. Logan pulled the unconscious guards off the road.
“I’m sorry,” she said, alongside Riley. “I really am.”
“I’m just glad it wasn’t a nunchuck.”
“I wanted to stop you, not kill you.”
“The apology and kiss on the head was a nice touch,” Riley said, introducing himself.
Tessa blushed. She’d never kneed a man in the groin and felt bad. But then, he shouldn’t have scared the hell out of her.
“How do you know Logan?” he asked.
“It’s complicated.”
“Very.” Logan was there, guiding her with him. “And if you two are through?”
She looked at him, dazed for a moment. God, it was so good to see him. Men always looked better with age, and Logan was no exception. After a decade or so, there were a few more lines, a couple of scars, but he hadn’t changed. His dark hair was a bit longer, not the SEAL look she remembered, and like a pop flash in her mind, she had the image of her fingers pushing into that thick mop. A long time ago, she thought, then recognized his locked posture.
“Logan, I know this is a shock—”
“Not now.”
Tessa had a sneaking suspicion bitch was mentally tagged to that.
But Logan didn’t know what to feel, just looking at her blew the one horrible night into oblivion. He glanced, recognized her uncertainty and gave her a quick squeeze. Then he looked behind himself, to the sky. “Oh hell.”
He heard it before he saw it. A glossy black helicopter swept in between the trees. Then Sebastian barreled down the hillside, the black SUV fishtailing across the road. Riley and Max headed for it.
“Split up!” Logan shouted as they climbed in the SUV. “Bug out the CP.” He’d catch up when they didn’t have so many soldiers climbing up their ass.
The chopper engine grew louder as it closed in. Logan pulled her with him toward her VW, threw down the hood and climbed in, then turned over the engine.
She was already beside him. “You can’t outrun that chopper.”
“I don’t have to.” He got out and leaned against the hood as if he had all the time in the world.
“Those guys are armed, you know that, right?”
“They’ll think we’re civilians.”
The chopper lowered over the area, kicking up dirt and leaves in an opaque spin of debris. Then the door slid open.
“Logan. Let’s go.”
A man hopped out before the skids touched down, and two more followed, armed with assault rifles. Prisoner guards didn’t carry more than a pistol. The leading man hurried forward, then froze when Logan aimed.
“You’d better be ready to shoot something—!”
“I’m trying. Hush, please.” Logan realized the man wasn’t looking at the weapon trained on him, but at Tessa. He fired. The van exploded, the charge ripping the tire off the rim and pushing the vehicle on its side.
“I don’t believe you did that!” she said as he got in. “Cool move.”
He threw it in gear and hit the gas. Dirt spit from the tires, and they shot forward, bouncing over the road. A secondary explosion rocked the darkness and she flinched, hunched, then twisted in the seat to see it tear through the side of the van, ripping metal like tissue and kicking the rear up. It landed on its roof.
“Do you always piss off the host before you leave a party?”
“When we don’t have cover, and he knows this land better than we do, hell yes.”
She couldn’t argue that. “See, that’s why you’re the commando and I’m not.”
Logan glanced in the side-view mirrors. “Damn, it didn’t hurt the chopper.”
“Wonderful, a few more deaths averted.”
“I don’t remember you being this whiny.”
“It comes with age.” She smiled to herself, and despite the danger felt only relief that he hadn’t died on some operation in a Third World country in the name of democracy.
Suddenly, he slammed on the brakes, turned the wheel, throwing her against the
