Playing for Keeps by Cherry Adair Page A

“Trust me,” he whispered on a quiet breath. “Give it a count of five and start bawling. Make it dramatic, and make it loud.”
    He lifted his head to brush his lips over hers. Danica felt a small spark of life as she parted her lips to greet his, but the spark was short-lived as he mouthed, “Four,” brushed his mouth over hers again, lingering a little, then “five—”
    Danica burst into noisy faux tears and shrieks of terror. Her own screams grated on her ears, but she kept it up, getting louder and louder and storming about the room, distracting the men while Jon did-whatever he was doing. She was too busy play-acting to look.
    It wasn’t hard to fake cry. The tears had been a hard knot in her throat for hours. Her terror and bone-deep fear manifested in raw, agonized sobs that ripped up through her throat and blurred her vision.
    All eyes turned to her, then a second later, toward the door as it burst open, slamming noisily against the wall. Four guns clicked as the soldiers spilled through, some standing, and some kneeling in the open doorway, weapons drawn.
    “Oh, for—” Donovan snarled, striding toward them. “She’s just hysterical, not being murdered. This room is sterile. Get out and close the damn door,” he ordered the soldiers. Their weapons clicked as they backed out of the room and shut the door behind them. Donovan turned.
    “Keep her quiet, for God’s sake, or we’ll have—” He turned to find Jon standing directly behind him, the portable anesthesia machine raised at shoulder level. Jon’s shoulder—his face. He reached for his gun, but Jon was faster, slamming the heavy equipment into Donovan’s nose. The accompanying sound was like the snap of a stalk of celery. Then a thud as Donovan hit the floor.
    Danica didn’t even wince, but she did hastily swipe the tears from her eyes as she ran to the door, slamming home the lock, then spun around to see Jon, a gun in each hand. Face expressionless, he motioned for the medical personnel to move together, which they did with stunned, robotic precision. Danica bent to pick up the a heavy tank near the unconscious and profusely bleeding Donovan. Feeling no sympathy for him, she hefted the tank, staggering for a moment under the weight. It probably only weighed about twenty-five pounds, but she wasn’t really in any physical condition to be weight lifting.
    As a weapon, it was unwieldy, but no one was going to shoot at her when she was holding it. She hoped. “That looks like a closet over there.” She nodded in the general direction of a door across the room. Sweat rolled down her cheek. She itched everywhere. Especially behind her ear. God. . .
    “Move it.” Jon motioned the four men with a wave of the barrel of one of his guns. They trooped inside and he shut the door then wedged an IV stand into the handles, sealing them in.
    Danica blinked, glancing around the room, wondering what the next step should be. Then her eyes caught Jon’s and her calm returned. She wasn’t trained, but he was. “How do we get past the soldiers?” she asked, adjusting the tank to rest some of the weight against her thigh.
    “Guns blazing,” he told her as he checked the magazines on the guns then chambered a bullet in each weapon.
    “Isn’t that a little dangerous?” Hysteria was mixing with the riot of emotions already swarming through her body, and she felt a crazy urge to laugh. “More dangerous than this bio-bomb ticking away in my head?”
    He ran the tips of his fingers along the line of her jaw. “Soldiers first, bomb second. Assuming Donovan was telling the truth, you’re loaded with adrenaline at the moment. That should keep the bomb from detonating for now.”
    “And later?” They both knew how she handled stress. With unnatural calm. A bad thing, given the ticking bomb in her head.
    “One step at a time, honey.” He positioned the tank in her arms so that it partially obstructed her vision but covered all the vital points any