Stranded With The Navy Seal

He was Logan Nathaniel Starke. He didn’t quit. He didn’t sink. He didn’t die. He protected his assets, and he was going to make those bastards sorry they hadn’t finished him off before throwing him overboard.

His perseverance was rewarded by a dim light ahead. He’d found the mother ship, and by some miracle of fate, it wasn’t even moving. He closed the distance as quickly as possible, his muscles burning from exertion. They were pulling up the anchor. The raft had been stowed. He switched to a modified breaststroke on the last stretch, which kept everything from his nose down under the surface. He didn’t want to be spotted.

The ship was a forty-foot deep-sea cruiser with a protected wheelhouse in front. The galley and cabins were in the back. There was a transom door and a convenient swim step. It was an ideal setup for an ambush. He assumed Cadence would be inside a cabin. She’d be guarded by at least one man, although there was nowhere for her to go. The ocean was a death sentence, not an escape route.

As he reached the swim step, the engine turned on. He scrambled aboard and crouched by the transom door, water streaming down his body. His weak knee throbbed in protest, and his stomach roiled with nausea. He struggled to catch his breath. He’d made it here, against all odds, and now the real danger would begin. This was no time to surrender to exhaustion.

He waited for the cruiser to gain momentum. His scalp had stopped bleeding, and his vision was clearer. He counted two men in the wheelhouse. That was good. He didn’t see any blunt objects lying around. That was bad. He needed something to strike with, or this rescue operation would be short-lived.

The transom door was unlocked, so he slipped inside. The galley was empty. He grabbed the only weapon he could find—a mop handle. Unscrewing the top, he set it aside and crept down the steps to the cabin.

Again, he found an open doorway. These pirates were completely unprepared for a hostile takeover, which was kind of ironic, like thieves who left their loot in full view. Logan listened at the entrance for a few seconds. He heard two men arguing in French. Logan didn’t speak French, so he had no idea what they were saying.

One of the men walked out of the cabin, still muttering under his breath. Logan said hello with a sharp blow to the head. The man crumpled to the ground quietly. He was of European descent, midthirties, dressed in black. Logan stepped over him and entered the cabin. Cadence was sitting on the floor. Her wrists and ankles were tied. There was a gag in her mouth and mascara tracks on her face.

Logan didn’t dwell on these details. He had to focus on the guard, who appeared to be the muscle of the operation. Logan guessed he was Polynesian, from one of the local islands. When Logan swung the mop handle, the man blocked it easily. Then he brandished a wicked-looking knife and went on the offense. Logan leaped backward, avoiding a series of wide arcs. His back hit the wall, and he ducked down to avoid the blade. After it missed him, Logan jabbed the end of his stick against the man’s rib cage. The knife tumbled out of his hand. The man staggered sideways and bent to retrieve his weapon.

Logan couldn’t wait for a better opening. He leaped on his opponent’s back and held the mop handle across his throat, cutting off his airway. The man slammed Logan into the wall in an attempt to dislodge him, but Logan didn’t budge. They both went down to the floor. It took every ounce of Logan’s strength to maintain his grip on the stick.

The man struggled to break free. He reached for his knife, which was sitting right there on the ground. Cadence kicked it away.

That little bit of help made all the difference. The man finally passed out. Logan almost did the same. He let go of the mop handle and shoved his limp body aside. Black spots danced across his vision. His head felt like it might explode. Sweat trickled down his temple. Or maybe it was blood.

He couldn’t afford to rest, so he took a few deep breaths and pulled himself together. He rolled over, picked up the knife and cut the ropes that bound her. She untied the gag with trembling hands. Her mouth was raw, her eyes wary. She didn’t seem relieved by his rescue. She looked terrified.

Of him.

This wasn’t an unusual reaction to trauma, but it still unsettled him. He expected her to trust him, not shrink away in horror.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t say anything to put her mind at ease. He touched a finger to his lips in warning. Then he lifted her to her feet, giving her a cursory inspection. She appeared unharmed. Even if she wasn’t, they had to get off this boat immediately. He didn’t have the strength to overpower the rest of the crew. His energy was spent. He pulled her through the door, stepping over the bodies that were piling up. The guy outside was regaining consciousness. Logan hoped he’d lie there for a few more minutes.

They crept up the stairs, through the galley and out the transom door. The raft was hanging from a pulley system on the starboard side. He used the knife to cut it loose, praying they wouldn’t be seen by the men in the wheelhouse. As the raft fell against the railing, his European friend staggered into the galley.

Damn it.

Logan couldn’t let the man reach the wheelhouse and alert the others. He passed Cadence the rope that was still attached to the raft. “Hold this,” he said, because he wanted her to stay put. Then he barged through the galley to take his opponent down. His knee buckled on the first step, which threw off his attack. The European noted this weakness and seized the opportunity to launch his own assault. He tackled Logan around the waist and pushed him backward. They burst through the transom doors and fell right off the stern, into the dark sea.

The man didn’t let go underwater. He clung to Logan like a goddamned octopus. He was trying to drown Logan, and it was working. As soon as Logan broke through the surface, the European dunked him again. Logan’s movements were clumsy from fatigue, but his instincts were still sharp. So was the knife in his right hand. Making a strangled sound, he buried the blade in the man’s belly. Then he twisted it.

The arms around him loosened, and the weight fell away. Logan treaded water, gasping for breath. Cadence was there, in the raft. She’d managed to push it overboard and get inside. He swam toward her and handed her the knife before hauling himself out of the water. Once he was safely inside, he rested on his back for a moment, one hand over his thundering heart. He was nauseous and light-headed. As soon as his stomach settled, he straightened and searched the water for a body.

He didn’t see one.

The cabin cruiser continued on its journey, oblivious. Their escape would be noticed at some point, but now they had a chance. They had to put as much distance between the raft and the cruiser as possible.

The paddles weren’t inside the raft. They must have been left on the deck. He explored the motor with wet hands, looking for a pull cord. What he discovered made his blood run cold. There was a key ignition.

Without a motor or paddles, they were sitting ducks. The kidnappers would circle back and recapture them.

Or recapture her, rather. He had no value to them. If they knew she wasn’t Maya O’Brien, she was equally worthless. Logan didn’t doubt that these men had firearms at their disposal. They hadn’t used them on the cruise ship in the interest of stealth. There was no reason to be quiet now.

“Can you start it?” she asked.

“Not without a key.”

She stared at him in dismay.

“I might be able to hot-wire it at first light.”

“What do we do until then?”

“We wait,” he said grimly. “And hope they don’t come back for us.”

Chapter 4 (#u17e4ed98-8933-5939-b552-19f14a05f69c)

One of the best nights of her life turned into the worst.

The absolute worst.

She survived it, somehow. So did Logan. They waited in silence for the boat to double back for them, but it never did. Logan said the kidnappers must not have realized they were gone right away. He also said the raft would be difficult to spot in the dark, like a needle in a haystack. The ocean was immense, and frightening. The raft rose and fell with every swell, traveling on a swift current.

What followed them wasn’t a boat. It was the body of the man Logan had killed. He floated on the surface, facedown, his white T-shirt bobbing. It was almost as if the corpse was swimming after them. She watched in horror as his body jerked suddenly. He flailed back and forth, reanimated. Tail fins thrashed on the surface as sharks tore him apart. First one, then two, then a half dozen.

Cady threw up over the side of the raft.

When she leaned too far out, Logan grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back. She wiped her mouth, shuddering.

The night dragged on, never ending. She was cold and miserable. Logan stripped off his wet clothes and wrapped his arms around her, but she didn’t stop shivering. Her mind replayed violent images. Black masks. Glinting knives. Sharks circling.

She couldn’t believe they were in this situation. She couldn’t believe they’d escaped. When Logan had entered the doorway, his face pale and his clothes wet, she’d screamed into her gag. She’d thought he was a ghost, for good reason. She’d seen him get knocked unconscious and thrown overboard. No normal person could survive that. He’d appeared out of nowhere and fought like a man possessed.

One minute, she’d been weeping silently, frozen with fear. The next, she was watching Jason Bourne attack his enemies.

She didn’t understand why she’d been targeted, or how Logan had arrived on the scene. The whole thing was surreal. And sinister. He’d incapacitated one of her captors and gutted another like a fish. She knew he was a Navy SEAL, trained to kill. She also knew he’d acted in self-defense, and he wasn’t a danger to her. Even so, her first reaction to his daring rescue wasn’t relief. It was terror.

The brutality of his actions, and the ease with which he’d executed them, still disturbed her. She hadn’t signed on for this. She wasn’t equipped for it. She was a chef on a cruise ship, sailing toward an uncertain future. She’d been in a slump, personally and professionally. Her idea of adventure was using new spices in a recipe. Leaving the bar with Logan was the wildest thing she’d ever done.

Now she was stranded on a raft in the middle of the ocean.

She shouldn’t have gone back to his cabin. She should have listened to her instincts, instead of her hormones. She couldn’t have predicted this outcome, of course, but she’d known what kind of man he was. He was an elite soldier. He had hero written all over him, along with heartbreaker and risk taker.

She’d only wanted a single night of excitement with a man whose gaze had warmed her from the inside out. Instead she got this stone-cold warrior who watched sharks feed on a corpse without flinching.

Her stomach lurched at the memory. She rolled over and dry-heaved quietly.

Logan kept his hand on her back like an anchor. His touch felt reassuring, despite the fraught circumstances. She didn’t want to be here, but she was glad she wasn’t alone. She was glad they were alive, and relatively unharmed. When her stomach settled, he pulled her into his arms and held her close. Little by little, her tremors subsided.

At dawn, he put on his damp clothes. She sat up and stared at the rising sun. Its reflection glinted across the ocean, illuminating their plight. There was no pirate boat on the horizon. There was nothing. No cruise ship, no commercial barges, no airplanes, no islands. No drinking water. It might as well have been the Sahara Desert.