Page 165 of Rescuing You

“Sweetheart?”

Her eyes popped open.

Michael?

He crouched in front of her. “Are you all right?”

Her hand covered her mouth. Tears stung her eyes. It couldn’t be. And yet, here he was.

“How?” But her voice was barely audible.

Men had filed into the space. Alive, talking, some laughing. Recalling what’d happened.

Michael heard her—or read her lips. “I saw the trigger. We had just enough time. Thank God, nobody was belowdecks.”

Nobody? Meaning all the men survived?

Jasmine voiced the question.

Michael smiled past Leila at her sister. “The team survived. Are you okay?”

Jasmine’s hand slid down Leila’s arm. “We are glad to see you.”

Leila could only nod, overcome. There were no words.

Michael pulled her into his arms. “It’s over, sweetheart. You’re safe now.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

It was a long ride back to Mytilene, and Michael savored every moment. Leila was tucked up beside him, her head on his chest, her arms around his torso like she might never let go. They were covered with a blanket, as were the rest of his friends scattered around the small cabin. Some were talking. Some were resting.

Some were probably replaying those last few terrifying moments. The bomb. The flames. The heat.

Shehab’s final act had been an attempt to murder Michael and his entire team. But God was bigger than a small-minded terrorist. Michael still couldn’t believe they’d all survived, propelled by the blast off the boat and into the blessed water.

Except the man himself, who’d been trapped inside the cockpit.

If the explosion hadn’t killed him, the water that filled and sank the boat certainly had.

Michael could go over the events in his head a thousand times. Maybe what had happened could be explained logistically. But Michael knew the truth.

God had saved them. Simple as that.

Leila shifted away to smile at him. Maybe to confirm, again, that he was really there.

He kissed her forehead. “How’s your throat?”

She shrugged and laid her head down again.

Eventually, he’d find out exactly what the monster had done to her.

Right now, he’d just savor her warmth.

Jasmine was lying on a sofa on the other side of the room, an IV trailing from her arm. Michael had told the team medic that she needed fluids, explaining the nausea that had dogged her since Iraq.

He wasn’t positive, but he had a guess about what was causing it. He understood her reluctance to tell her sister, but he knew something else.

The cause was definitely not nothing.