Rio and Dave had a three-point-two second conversation—Should they depart in both vehicles?—before Thomas made the command decision to stay together, ordering Dave to disable Ted’s little Honda. No point in giving the hostiles a vehicle in which to follow them.
With Tasha and Thomas in the back with Ted between them, Dave up front with a small arsenal of weaponry, Rio hit the gas and the SUV took off down the narrow mountain road with a lurch. Tasha put her arms tightly around Ted to hold him in place.
Rio might’ve been annoying, but the man was a highly skilled driver. And as Tasha exhaled, she realized that they’d done it. They were safe. They’d survived.
“If any one of us says to get down,” Thomas told her, his face still tight and grim, “you get your head down—in fact you get down on the floor. You understand?”
Okay, so maybe they weren’t completely safe just yet.
“What about Ted?” she asked.
“You can trust me to take care of Ted,” Thomas told her.
She nodded. It had taken incredible physical effort for Thomas to carry the prince to the SUV, but she was well aware of the emotional effort, too. Thomas had never quite believed that Ted wasn’t secretly in love with her. And she knew that Ted’s showing up here, like a Rambo-wannabe, one-man rescue team, hellbent on finding her... That wasn’t helping her convince Thomas he was wrong.
And Ted didn’t help further as he snuggled up against her, blissfully out of it—and still very glad to see her. “Love you so much, babe.”
“I love you too, Teddy,” she told him. “You’re such a good friend.”
But Ted must’ve been aware that they weren’t alone, because he said, “No, really. Really, really love you...”
“Ted,” she started. Remember Thomas? My Thomas...? This is Thomas. But his eyes had closed. The drug had fully taken hold, and he was out cold.
And Thomas was busy, getting info from Rio and Dave about where exactly they were, their destination—a secure medical center in Burlington, Vermont, and how quickly they’d get there.
Tasha sat as far forward as she could, too. “Can I help? I’m pretty good with maps.”
They all stopped talking—Rio looked at her in the rearview—and she realized that he probably found her as annoying as she found him. His entire being was radiating a very loud Why is the package speaking? We’ve been assigned to deliver it safely, so s-squared, package vibe.
Dave was slightly less obvious in his discomfort as he looked down at the well-creased paper map that was on his lap, clearly unhappy at the idea of giving it away.
“You absolutely can help.” Thomas alone spoke as he reached into the front. “Here.” He handed her Rio and Dave’s collection of cell and SAT phones. “Tell me the second we have any kind of service. I’m gonna want a medical team, ready to go, when we arrive—we’ll need to make contact in advance. The prince’s security team will want a heads up—and Uncle Navy, too.”
She nodded. “Got it.”
“But your number one job—”
“Is to duck when you say duck,” Tash finished for him. “Aye, aye, sir—nope, that’s still weird.”
“Even weirder,” he agreed, and if Ted weren’t literally right there, injured and unconscious between them, she would’ve kissed him.
Instead, she just smiled as Thomas gave Rio and Dave a quick report—a sit-rep, he called it. He relayed all of the info he’d gathered about the group of men—mostly amateurs—who’d been hunting them on that mountainside, including the fact that they were almost entirely on foot. She saw Rio and Dave both take a deep breath. Their shoulders relaxed—just a bit—as they exhaled.
Then, when they finally pulled off the dirt path and onto the state road, as Rio hit the gas and the SUV surged forward into the rapidly dwindling daylight, Tasha knew that this was finally over.
It wasn’t too long before, in her lap, one of Rio’s phones lit up.
“We have cell service,” she announced.
“Call the admiral,” Thomas commanded, and the SUV’s bluetooth automatically dialed the phone.
“Francisco.” Uncle Alan’s voice came over the car’s speaker. He must’ve been sitting by his phone.
Thomas was looking at her and nodding, so Tash raised her voice so the SUV’s microphone would pick up her.
“Uncle Alan,” she said. “It’s Tasha. I’m with Thomas—and Rio and Dave. And Tedric. We’re in the car. We’re safe. We’re coming home.”
Chapter Thirty
Wednesday Night
Damn, but Thomas hated hospitals.
Still, as the old SEAL adage went, he didn’t have to like it, he just had to do it.
His shoes squeaked on the antiseptic industrial tile floor as he followed his escort—a member of the Ustanzian security detail—down the corridor to Prince Tedric’s private room, where Tasha was waiting.
Two men, also wearing the Ustanzian uniform, guarded the door. They looked at him hard—he was still wearing his red-plaid-and-pink clown costume, although he had changed out of the battered boots and into a pair of Nike cross-trainers that Rio had grabbed from Thomas’s locker and thrown into the back of the SUV.
Because Rio didn’t play around, he’d also packed Thomas several changes of clothes. But Thomas was waiting to shower before he de-clowned—and he was waiting to make sure Tasha had everything she needed before he found a shower. He’d also helped himself to some of the extra clothes that Rio had brought along for himself—cargo pants, a T-shirt, and a thick fleece jacket—thinking that although they’d be big on Tash, they wouldn’t be as swimmingly huge as Thomas’s would be.
The door to the prince’s room was open, so after he got the grudging nod from the guards, he knocked softly as he went in. Tasha was curled up under several hospital blankets in a big chair by the window, sound asleep. The prince wasn’t in the room—the bed was empty—and Thomas just stood there for a moment, watching Tasha sleep.
Her legs were tucked beneath her, and she was holding tightly to the blanket, pulled up beneath her chin.
God, he loved her so much.
It still seemed unbelievable—all that had happened since they’d left San Diego just a few short days ago. The past twenty-four hours alone felt like a lifetime. But he’d done it. They’d done it. They were here, alive and safe.
Now came the hard part. Figuring out if everything they’d said and done—all those heartfelt conversations, making love on the sofa while locked in together—could survive outside of the forced intimacy of the pod.
Thomas had thought Hell yes—until he’d come face-to-face with Tasha’s prince.
But now...
It was so damn obvious that when Tasha looked at Tedric, she didn’t see what Thomas saw—a man who truly loved her. A man who willingly ran toward danger for her.
True, the same could be said about Thomas, but he was a SEAL. Running toward danger was in his job description. And while Prince Tedric had been gunning, literally, for this month’s Darwin Award with his foolish mishandling of a deadly weapon, it was hard not to respect the man for his courage and conviction—and his stalwart willingness to endure serious pain in order to get Tasha to safety ASAP.