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  “I bet you don’t usually swim that far with a concussion or into a sea of evil lizards looking for a meal.”

  His mouth crooked again. “Don’t bet on it. Besides, the gators prefer the bayou to the lake. I’ll be back before you know it.”

  “Promise?” She couldn’t keep the worry from cracking her voice.

  He hugged her close to his big warm body. She took the opportunity to run her palms over his muscular back. God, what she wouldn’t give for this to never have happened: for Sarah to be safe and happy at home, even if she was still being a brat. If Sarah was safe, Evie could spend the next forty-eight hours or so entwined with Matt. And that was a far more pleasing prospect than watching him lower himself into the water and leave her behind as he risked his life for Sarah.

  “See what you do to me.” His voice was a soft growl as his cock stirred against her belly. “I’m coming back, Evie. I haven’t finished with you yet.”

  Yet. Still, so long as he came back, she didn’t care. She’d take what she could get.

  He turned away from her and took a leaping dive off the side of the boat so quickly her heart pounded with fear and excitement. She hurried to the edge, trying to find him in the black water below. She couldn’t see him, but the smooth sound of his strokes cutting through water drifted back to her. She strained her ears listening for him until long after he’d disappeared.

  The night had turned oppressively sticky. Frogs rumbled in the waters and bugs the size of bombers buzzed by her ears. She went below and found a can of bug repellent, then doused herself in it. She couldn’t wait down here for Matt to return. She needed to be topside, listening for any sounds of him. She went back and sat on the bench seat at the rear of the yacht. The bugs strafed her, whining loudly as they passed, but they didn’t stick around to bite.

  She couldn’t imagine what Matt was going through. She refused to even think about gators. She could only pray he was right about them liking the bayou better.

  Who’d have ever thought the richest kid in town would turn into a hero who’d stop at nothing to get the bad guys? Matt had been the golden boy, the one whose future was so bright it seemed to laser through any difficulty or pain. She’d wanted what he had, even when she’d known it wasn’t perfect. She’d been too young and naïve to realize that his fights with his father were indicative of something more, or that he hadn’t bounced back from his mother’s death the way she’d thought.

  Of course he’d been a lonely, angry kid. Even with money.

  Evie’s hands curled around the railing. How would she manage living in Rochambeau without him when he left again? He’d said he’d missed her—and she’d missed him too. He was a part of her childhood, a part of her adolescence. And yes, a part of all the trauma and pain of being a teenager.

  Regardless of anything else between them, he’d been important to her from the moment he’d first walked into her life when she’d been six. The knowledge that, once he left again, he’d be somewhere foreign, fighting and maybe dying for his country, made her frantic and angry all at once. She wanted him to stop doing that. She wanted him to have a reason to want to stay right here.

  She wanted him to want her.

  Evie closed her eyes tight. That wasn’t going to work and she knew it. Matt had his own life and she had hers. They had chemistry, but that wasn’t enough to make life-altering decisions.

  And she knew that Matt wasn’t going to give up his job as a military badass. He loved it too much.

  When he’d been gone for half an hour, she seriously started to consider firing this big puppy up and driving it to shore, no matter if she plowed into a tree or ran aground or sank it in the channel. Anything was better than sitting, waiting and wondering and getting more and more scared for Matt as the night dragged endlessly on.

  “Screw it,” she finally said, heading for the command bridge. She had one step to go when the sputter of a small outboard engine cut the night.

  Evie squeezed the warm metal railing beneath her sweaty hand, listening for any indication it was Matt. The engine drew closer, until she could hear the water softly soughing away beneath the hull of a craft.

  Finally, the motor cut back. Water sloshed against the Candyland. It had to be Matt. He was going to tie up and come aboard.

  But what if it wasn’t? What if they’d caught him? What if they were coming for her?

  She slipped down the stairs, wishing like hell she’d thought to carry the gun Matt had left below. Did she have time to get it?

  “Evie?” The sound of her name reached her and she sagged in relief.

  “Here.” She went to peer over the side of the yacht. Matt sat in a tiny aluminum boat at the rear of the Candyland. Thankfully, he was alone.

  “Catch.” She caught the rope he threw and held the small boat against the bigger one while he pulled himself onto the rear platform. He took the rope and made a quick knot around one of the cleats, mooring the little boat securely.

  “I was beginning to think you decided to go without me,” Evie said as he stood on the deck beside her and reached for the towel she’d brought up for him. He wasn’t very wet after riding back, but he rubbed the terrycloth over himself anyway.

  “I did. But it took longer to find this boat than I thought it would.” He finished toweling off and yanked his dark T-shirt over his head. “I figured if I didn’t come back, you’d try to come after me in this monster.”

  “Damn straight. And I’m angry you were planning to go without me, by the way. Just so you know.”

  He finished buttoning his jeans and clipped his phone to the waistband. Then he grinned. “I know it. But I thought of a better idea anyway and this one involves you.”

  She crossed her arms. “I’m not sure that makes it better, but I’m listening.”

  “I’ll take us as far into the bayou as this’ll go. You can wait while I go downriver in the other boat.”

  Evie wanted to stay on the bigger boat, no doubt about it. But she couldn’t endure this kind of uncertainty again. She couldn’t drive herself nuts with regrets and what ifs. She’d just have to face her fear, suck it up, and get on board that wafer of a fishing boat. It was the only way to know he was safe. And to help him if he needed it. “I’m going.”

  He scrutinized her. Just when she thought he was about to order her to stay behind, he shrugged. “Suit yourself, Evie. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  *

  Sarah woke up when someone banged open the door and flipped on a light. She tried to stretch her cramped limbs and bit back a wince. Her stomach growled loudly and her head throbbed—less painfully than before, but still badly enough that she knew the migraine could come back full force if she wasn’t careful. She needed food, caffeine, and ibuprofen. None of which she was likely to get.

  “Get up, kid.” Brianna tossed a warmly scented bag down beside her. Sarah sat up and ripped into the food with her free hand. Brianna popped open a soda and set it down. Sarah gulped half of it at once.

  “Slow down or you’ll make yourself sick.”

  Sarah slowed only marginally, figuring the bitch was probably right.

  “You should have fed her hours ago.” It was a man’s voice. The man from earlier tonight. She squinted at him. He was good-looking, sort of familiar in a way.

  Sarah swallowed a mouthful of burger. “You look like that other guy, the one who smelled like smoke all the time.” She winced when she realized she’d spoken aloud. What if he was mean? Would he come hit her?

  “First cousins. You’re observant.”

  “Too observant,” Brianna grumbled.

  Sarah’s heart dropped to her toes. She didn’t like the way Brianna said that, the way the woman chewed on the inside of her cheek like she was thinking about something.

  “Doesn’t matter, Bree. In a couple of hours, we’ll be out of here.”

  Brianna whirled away and gathered some things into a bag. “You better be right. It won’t take Rivera long to send in reinfo
rcements. We need to be long gone from this place.”

  “Let the kid finish her food. We have enough time for that.”

  Brianna stopped what she was doing and glared at the man. “We had an agreement.”

  “Still do.”

  “So what are we after? Evie either doesn’t have a clue, or she tried to pull one over on me with that media card. If I have to call her back, I need to know what it is. I’m tired of these games.”

  The man simply looked at her. “Relax.”

  Brianna exploded. “How can you tell me to relax? Our lives are at stake here, and you promised me we’d be safe. If you’d just tell me what we want instead of casing those houses and chasing after Evie and her boyfriend like some kind of stunt driver, I could get her to bring it to me. You nearly got us killed back there.”

  The man’s expression grew black. “We’re doing it my way. If you don’t like it, you can leave.”

  “Yeah, so you can put a bullet in my back or stab me? No, thanks.”

  Oddly enough, his glare turned into a grin. “I could have already done that, so stop bitching. We’ll be out of this town before dawn. You’ll be sipping a margarita on the beach by this time tomorrow.”

  *

  It was too dark to see much of anything, but Matt knew Evie was white-knuckled right about now. They’d left the Candyland behind an hour ago and begun their journey downriver to Reynier’s Retreat. It wasn’t that it was a long distance, but the boat he’d borrowed was small and only had a twenty-five-horsepower motor. He’d wanted something bigger, but the opportunity for this one presented itself and he had to take it. There’d been too many people at the marina tonight, partying on that houseboat or grilling at the pavilion, and he’d been a man in underwear lurking around the boats.

  Yeah, like that wasn’t going to get him noticed.

  So he’d taken the small fishing boat, knowing Evie would hate the very idea of getting on the thing—though she’d tried to hide it from him—and crawled his way back to where he’d left her. He hadn’t really expected she would come with him. He hadn’t argued with her, figuring by the time they anchored at the mouth of the bayou and he prepared to climb down into the small craft, she’d chicken out.

  If that didn’t do it, then she had to chicken out when she made the descent and stepped foot onto the rocking aluminum. He didn’t know why she was afraid of boats, but he knew that she was. She’d nearly wet herself trying to climb into the pirogue earlier.

  But she hadn’t chickened out when push came to shove. She shook, that much he knew because he’d steadied her as she transferred from one to the other boat, but she’d steadfastly refused to wait on the yacht for him to return. One of these days, he was gonna have to ask her what about boats terrified her so much. He knew he’d taken her out in a pirogue when they were kids, but that had been a long time ago.

  She turned around to look at him, her fingers clutching the edge of the johnboat.

  “Almost there,” he said. He’d told her not to speak unnecessarily since their voices would carry on the still air. She’d taken him so seriously that she hadn’t spoken at all. “Are you all right?”

  She’d faced straight ahead again. She glanced over her shoulder and nodded once.

  He hoped like hell that Brianna Sweeney hadn’t gotten to the CDs yet. Maybe the guy who knew what to look for had finally caved. And maybe they’d taken the opportunity while Matt and Evie disappeared from the radar to go back to the guesthouse and try the search again. Obviously, whoever’d been there before got interrupted before he could finish.

  Matt wanted to know what was in the files. They had to point to accounts where West stashed money, he was certain, and yet his gut told him there had to be something else to it. Something Rivera wanted even more than he wanted money.

  Until Matt found the files and decoded them, he couldn’t verify what that was. He slewed the tiller to the right as they entered the final turn.

  The bayou at night was a fascinating place. He knew this water like he knew his own skin. When he was younger, before his mother died, he’d spent time on the bayou with his great-uncle Remy. It was Remy who taught him where to look for gator nests so he could spy on the creatures, how to tell the weather by the way the leaves on the trees looked, and how to fish for bass the size of his arm. Remy’d also given him a deep appreciation for the uniqueness of the Louisiana wetlands, their fragility and beauty, and the necessity for preserving them.

  Something twisted inside him. Regret? He loved this place, and yet he’d blown out of here at the first opportunity and left the conservation and preservation to others. Matt didn’t think he’d actually been on the bayou since he’d left home ten years ago. That he could still navigate it in the dark ought to come as a surprise, and yet he’d have expected nothing less.

  Rochambeau—the lake, the bayou, the town—and Reynier’s Retreat were in his blood. Would always be in his blood, no matter how far he went or how long he stayed away. He understood why Evie disliked it, why she wanted to get away. Hell, he’d done the same thing.

  But he’d always, on some level, pictured himself returning. It might be in a coffin, though he definitely hoped not.

  At that moment, exactly when he’d expected it, the ghostly white form of Reynier’s Retreat appeared in the darkness. What must his ancestors have thought when they returned from the fighting and saw their beautiful mansion intact, unharmed by the destructive force of a war that had ruined so much in its path? Did their bodies sizzle with a primal recognition the way his did?

  Light spilled from her leaded glass windows onto the lawn, illuminating the colonnade fanning from the back of the house. A faint burst of laughter drifted to his ears and he realized someone was still in the garden.

  Of course they were. The rehearsal dinner had been tonight. The dinner was over hours ago, but some of the guests had lingered to enjoy the setting. It might be hot, but Misty Lee had no doubt had fans brought out and set up on the perimeter so people could enjoy an al fresco meal. Not only that, but no mosquito would dare to crash Misty Lee’s party. Whoever was out there was having a great time and probably had no plans to leave anytime soon. He just hoped no one decided to go wandering down toward the guesthouse because he didn’t want to end up immobilizing the wrong person.

  Worse, he didn’t want to incur Chris’s wrath if he accidentally punched, say, Ben’s brother instead of one of the bad guys. Dieu, no.

  As the estate loomed closer, Matt seriously considered anchoring the little boat in the channel and swimming to shore, just in case anyone was waiting in the guesthouse for them to return. He hadn’t seen any signs of recent boat traffic, so he didn’t think anyone had come by water. And though it was more difficult for unauthorized people to enter the estate by road, it wasn’t impossible. Not with the wedding in two days. Caterers, florists, guests, wedding participants—a whole host of people had passed through those gates today.

  Their opponents could be hiding their boat against the shore somewhere, concealed by vegetation, waiting for Matt and Evie to return. It was a gamble to wait, though, and unless there was a whole platoon of men out there, it was a poor use of resources. The bad guys had no idea how Matt and Evie would return, or even if they would do so.

  No, Matt was driving straight to the dock and tying up. If someone was waiting on the water, he couldn’t leave Evie behind and put her in danger. If someone were already here, at the house, then he’d deal with that complication when he came to it.

  He stood up as they approached the low wooden dock. The pirogue sat where they’d left it, dead in the water. He shifted the tiller slightly, brought the aluminum boat alongside the dock, and tossed a rope around one of the thick pylons. He made quick work of tying up, then hopped onto the dock and turned to help Evie.

  She stumbled when her feet hit the solid structure, knocking heavily against him.

  “Careful.” He brushed a kiss across her forehead. It was disconcerting, he knew, to go from the ro
cking motion of being on the water to suddenly standing on land. He’d done it a thousand times, though, both as a kid growing up on the bayou and as a Special Forces soldier inserting into hostile territory by whatever body of water happened to be convenient to the target. It was as easy for him as breathing.

  She leaned against him for a moment, her hands pressing into his chest, her fingertips burning through his T-shirt and into his skin. What he wouldn’t give to take her into the house and straight to the bedroom, to make love to her until he had to go board that plane for North Carolina.

  Why’d all hell have to break loose the minute he found her again?

  “Stay on my six,” he said, nuzzling the hair at her ear and breathing deeply the sweet scent of her. “You remember what that is, right?”

  “It’s your ass.”

  He bit back a chuckle.

  “Yeah, that’s right. You watch my ass and I’ll watch yours. That’s how a team operates, got it?”

  “So we’re a team, huh?”

  “We’re a team.”

  “Then let’s go get ’em.”

  “Easy, tiger. We’re going through the back door, but only after we’ve set up a perimeter.”

  “Lead on, Superman.”

  Matt bit back another laugh. “It’s Richie Rich, actually.”

  “What?”

  “My team name. Richie Rich.”

  He saw the flash of her teeth in the darkness. “Of course it is.”

  Matt couldn’t resist the impulse to touch his mouth to hers. A jolt of need shot to his groin, but he ignored it, concentrating instead on the amazing sensation of feeling her hot tongue against his. He broke the kiss sooner than he wanted.

  She got behind him, shadowed him up to the side of the house. He stationed her behind the AC unit, told her to stay put and watch for anyone coming up from the bayou or through the backyard.

  “Can you whistle?”

  “Yes.”

  “Loud?”

  “Loud enough.”

  “Then if you see anyone before I get back, whistle. But only if they aren’t close enough to make your position right away. Soon as you whistle, head toward the front of the house. When the coast is clear, run for the main house but stick to the woods. Here.”