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Minutes—or maybe hours later—Molly heard the unmistakable sound of a helicopter. It circled the compound, but she couldn’t read any markings on it, so she wasn’t sure if it was friend or foe.
The chopper hovered, then slowly descended. Thenoise was deafening, and the wind strong enough to stir up a layer of dust that cut visibility to practically zero.
From the snatches of color she did manage to glimpse, she saw soldiers leap from the helicopter, dressed in full battle gear.
Molly stayed in the pediatric ward, empty now. The door burst open and she faced a soldier with a machine gun. The man stopped when he saw her, then shouted something over his shoulder. Molly straightened. She waited, not knowing for what.
A few seconds later another man burst into the room. Bracing herself against the rails of a crib, she met the angry eyes and realized they were hazel. And shockingly familiar.
“Jordan?” she whispered, looking up into her husband’s face. “What are you doing here?”
CHAPTER TWO
“We’re getting out of here,” Jordan said. His heart rate felt as though it was in excess of ninety miles an hour. From the aerial view he’d gotten from the helicopter, the rebels seemed to be less than three miles outside the medical compound and were quickly gaining territory. They’d likely move in on them at any minute.
“What about Richard?” Molly cried. “I can’t leave without him.”
“Who?” Jordan gripped her by the upper arm and half lifted, half dragged her toward the door. His friend Zane, a mercenary now, and the men Zane had hired, surrounded the helicopter, their machine guns poised.
“Dr. Morton!” Molly shouted to be heard above the roar of the whirling blades of the helicopter. “I can’t leave without Richard.”
“We don’t have time,” Jordan argued.
With surprising strength, Molly tore herself away, her eyes bright as she glared at him. “I refuse to go without him.”
“This isn’t the time to be worrying about your boyfriend,”Jordan snapped, furious that she’d be worried about another man when he was risking his neck to save hers.
“I’ll get him,” Molly said, surging past. Before Jordan could stop her she was gone. The helicopter blades stirred up a thick fog of dust and smoke, and an ominous crackling noise could be heard in the distance. Bedlam surrounded them. More than once Jordan had asked himself what craziness had possessed his wife to put herself in this situation. Molly wasn’t the only one—he was stuck in the East African Republic, too, and wishing he was just about anyplace else.
Jordan’s area of expertise lay in constructing high-rise apartments and office buildings. Guerrilla warfare was definitely out of his league and the very reason he’d contacted Zane Halquist.
“Molly!” he shouted urgently. “There isn’t time.”
Either she didn’t hear him, or she chose to ignore his frantic call. It occurred to him that he should leave without her. He would have if he’d known he could live with himself afterward. Jordan had never thought of himself as a coward, but he sure felt like one now.
An explosion rang in his ears, the blast strong enough to knock him off-balance and jar his senses. He staggered a few steps before he caught himself.
Zane shouted something at him, but with his ears ringing, Jordan didn’t have a prayer of understanding him. He shook his head to indicate as much, but by that time it wasn’t necessary. The man he’d trusted, the man he’d given ten thousand American dollars, raced toward the waiting copter with two or three of the other soldiers.
Jordan’s heart slammed against his chest when he realized what was happening. They were leaving him, Molly and a handful of mercenaries behind.
Jordan hadn’t finished cursing when he saw Molly with an elderly man on the far side of the compound. She held her hand to her face to protect her eyes from the swirling dust. She stood frozen with shock as she watched the helicopter rise and speed away.
The man who’d found Molly in the nursery grabbed Jordan by the elbow, jerking him out of his momentary paralysis. “Take the woman and hide,” he said roughly.
Jordan’s instinct was to stay and fight. He wasn’t the type to sit on the sidelines and do nothing. “I’ll help,” Jordan insisted.
“Hide the woman first.”
Jordan nodded and ran as if a machine gun were firing at his heels. He raced toward Molly, and she dashed toward him. He caught her just as she stumbled and fell into his arms.
They clung together. Jordan wove his fingers into her hair, pressing her against him. His heart pounded with fear and adrenaline.
Jordan had never been angrier with anyone in his life, and at the same moment he was so grateful she was alive he felt like breaking into tears. It’d been more than three years since he’d last held her and yet she fit perfectly in his embrace.
“Where can I hide you?”
She looked up at him blankly. “I … I don’t know. The supply hut, but wouldn’t that be the first place anyone would look?”
