Her Last Line of Defense by Marie Donovan Read Free Book Online Page A

and focusing on the opposite shore, facing away from him. “It was nice of your friend to loan us his boat,” she called.
    “Oui.”
    “Sorry he wasn’t home so I could thank him. Is he on a hunting trip?”
    Luc laughed. “No, he’s in D.C. briefing the president today.”
    She turned to look at him and hastily swiveled away as her stomach jumped. “Aren’t you the funny one. If you can’t tell me things, say so. I’m used to security clearances, you know.” His friend was probably at the local Piggly Wiggly stocking up on barbecue sauce and beer.
    “No, Claire. He actually is in D.C. to brief the president. My friend is an expert on several Middle Eastern hotspots.”
    “Oh.” Claire decided Luc was serious. “Maybe my father knows him.”
    “Maybe.”
    And that was the end of their conversation for several minutes. Claire slapped at several mosquitoes, glad she had put on plenty of organic citronella-based repellant. She probably smelled like the fuel in a tiki torch, but better than being bitten up. She also wore a packable sun hat with a floppy brim.
    Behind her, Luc sat in silence, no humming under his breath, no whistling, not even a sigh now and again. If it wasn’t for the fact the boat was still running smoothly and she hadn’t heard a big splash, she might have thought he’d fallen overboard. Probably all his training. After all, it was a bad idea to go around whistling and sighing when you were trying to sneak up on people to kill them.
    She shivered slightly. She’d thought about the proverbial “law of the jungle”—kill, or be killed. How many times had he been in that situation? She really hoped she never was. It was going to be bad enough that they would eat “off the land,” as Luc had put it when he ripped the box of granola bars from her death grip and had tossed it into his truck.
    Eating off the land conjured up all sorts of yucky images of her food sitting on the ground in the dirt. Kind of like when you dropped a really expensive piece of chocolate on the pool deck, but picked it up and ate it anyway…only much, much worse.
    He slowed and turned the boat into a smaller creek off the main lake. The bugs were much thicker here, little gnats that buzzed around her eyes and mouth. The towering trees covered the waterway, big clumps of Spanish moss dangling from the long branches. “Hey, maybe we can use some Spanish moss for bedding.”
    “Not unless you like mites and bugs. Stuff’s crawling with them.”
    “Never mind.” Her thoughts churned as she and Luc cruised through the water, weaving their way up smaller and smaller rivers, farther and farther from the lake’s relative civilization. Oh, dear, what was she in for? The VIP quarters at Parris Island were looking mighty nice about now. “What’s our first step?”
    “You’re not going to have nearly enough time to prepare, so I need to get you up to speed on the basics. Swamp is different than jungle, but the closest we can get for now. All sorts of tricks you can learn except one.”
    That didn’t sound good. “What?”
    “Toughness.” He overrode her protests about how she had been getting in shape for this for months. “None of that matters like mental toughness. How tough are you?”
    “Probably not very,” she admitted.
    He cut the engine and they drifted through the greeny-brown water. “Turn around, Claire. We’re going slow enough that you won’t get motion sick.”
    She thought she’d hid that pretty good. She frowned quickly before smoothing her face and turning around. “Yes?”
    The early morning sun threw some dappled rays onto his face. Claire stifled a gasp. With a short coating of stubble, he was even more handsome than last night.
    “You have to pay attention to me, Claire, or you won’t learn.” He gave her a narrow stare before continuing. “Your mind is your biggest asset. I’ve seen big, muscular men reduced to tears ’cause they weren’t strong-minded. You know who survives