Diesel (The Mavericks Book 13) by Dale Mayer (motivational books for men .txt) 📗

“Did you do the research alone?”

“No, I had a research partner.”

“And who is this other person?”

“Her name was Allie,” she said, “but she died in a car accident a few days before I was kidnapped.”

At that, Diesel turned to look at her. “A car accident?”

She nodded. “It was terrible.”

“Did you actually see her body?”

“No,” she said. “Why?”

“Just wondering if she actually died.”

As they walked alongside and headed toward another set of stairs, he let her go up ahead. She quickly ran up the stairs, happy to feel her muscles moving as well as they were. She glanced back at him and said, “I know it doesn’t seem like all that long since we had any food …”

“After your checkup,” he promised.

She nodded and saw the medical center up ahead. As she walked inside, a woman stood and smiled at her, and Diesel quickly introduced them.

“Good,” the woman said. “I’m Dr. Cavanaugh. Come on inside. We’ll give you a quick check over.”

At that, Eva followed the doctor into a small room, but the first thing out of her mouth was, “How is Marge?”

“We’ve done a bunch of lab work and are running some tests,” she said. “We don’t have confirmation of what’s going on yet.”

With that, Eva had to be happy. “I hope she’s okay,” she fretted.

The doctor had Diesel wait outside, while Eva took off her shirt and pants, where Dr. Cavanaugh did a full exam. “And how’s your strength? How are you feeling?”

Eva answered all the questions as best she could. “I’m not bad,” she said, “but Marge’s pretty rough. She’s been there a lot longer, and she’s in shock after what they did to the other scientist.”

“And how are you feeling?”

“Well, I’d like to get the guy who kidnapped us all, but, other than that, I just want to go home,” she said quietly.

The doctor smiled and said, “We’ll take your blood work and run some tests, just to make sure everything’s okay. You can get dressed now.” And the doc walked out.

Quickly donning her clothes again, Eva stepped out of the exam room to find Diesel still waiting there. She walked over immediately. He wrapped an arm around her, tucked her up close, and said, “You okay?”

She nodded slowly. “Just feels odd.”

“Lots of oddness right now,” he said. “Just push through until it feels more normal.”

She smiled up at him.

The doctor came back into the waiting room and smiled and said, “You’re good to go.”

“Thank you,” she said, “and please let me know when you hear anything about Marge.”

“She’s asleep right now,” the doctor said. “I’ll tell her that you’re here, when she wakes up.”

“Thank you.” She looked at Diesel, looked at the doctor, and asked, “Do you know how to contact us?”

“I do,” she said.

As Eva walked out, she said, “Nobody seems to be terribly forthcoming.”

“It’s the military. You’re a guest. You’re not one of them,” he murmured.

She nodded. “Coffee?”

“I can get a coffee,” he said. “I don’t know how long the next stage will take.”

“And what is that next stage?”

Following Diesel, she was led to what seemed like the far end of the ship and back again. But it took another solid twenty minutes plus to get to where they were going. And finally he walked into a room, where she was asked to be seated at one of several tables in front of her, with all kinds of electronic equipment. Diesel sat calmly at her side. She stiffened and looked over at him. “Is this the electronic tracking device stuff?”

“Among others, yes.” He reached over, laced his fingers with hers, and said, “Stand strong.”

She nodded, swallowed. “I’ll be fine.” Just then her name was called. She turned to look at somebody standing in a doorway and hopped to her feet. “Yes, that’s me.”

He nodded and smiled and said, “Come this way, please.”

She looked back at Diesel and asked, “Are you coming?”

He looked at her gently and said, “Not this time.”

Diesel watched as Eva walked hesitantly forward. The bond between them was growing. He wanted it to be strong so that she would listen, in case he needed her to move very quickly. Yet, at the same time, he didn’t want her to become too dependent on him. And that felt wrong too because she was a hell of a lot of independent woman. … Besides, he liked her almost a little bit too much. He’d been on a lot of rescue missions but rarely with this kind of connection. It was usually a group of them, and the mission was fast in, hard out. This was a very different thing. There was a connection between him and her that he had been denying this entire time. When the seat beside him was suddenly taken, he turned to find Jerricho here. He smiled and said, “Hey. Did they find anything on Marge?”

“On Marge, no. Although there’s some suspicious things in her blood that maybe the Chinese lab might have been experimenting on her with.”

“The doctor just said that she was getting a bunch of lab tests done.”

“Exactly.”

“But nothing electronic?”

Jerricho shook his head.

“Good,” Diesel said. “In that case, Eva should be fine too.”

“And, of course, that matters, doesn’t it?” Jerricho said in a teasing voice.

He just smiled and nodded. “To a certain extent, yes,” he said.

“Getting hooked?”

“Nope. Obviously she’s an interesting person, and I’m happy that we got her out safely.”

“Yeah, that’s part of it,” Jerricho said, his grin wide.

“I’m not going anywhere else,” he said.

“Good.”

He nodded toward the doorway. “How long was Marge in for?”

Jerricho paused, frowned, and said, “I’m not exactly sure. I left her here and then came back and got her.”

“Hmm. An hour?”

“No, not that long. Maybe twenty-five minutes.”

“Good.” And he settled in to wait. “Have you done a debrief yet?”

“I did. And you’ll probably still have to go through one too.”

“Of course. I was hoping that you could do it.”

At that, he laughed. “And I may have. Still not exactly sure how this system works.”

“No, and nobody knows. And