Page 60 of Her Tempting Protector

“Ahhh, Baby. I know. But the good news is that we have the two best men I know, coming to cover our ass.”

“Friends of mine have died, and Shada’s two little girls are in the middle of the poop-storm, I’m not seeing an upside.” Carys’ voice wobbled.

He snorted out a laugh. “You said poop-storm. For someone who’s scared, you have quite the sense of humor.”

“I guess that’s a good thing, right?” she asked.

“Absolutely, Carys, it is. You amaze me.” Reluctantly, he untangled their fingers, but he brought her hand over to his leg and placed it on top of his thigh. “I need to use both hands to drive.”

“I understand,” she whispered. They continued on in silence. She was even quiet when they passed a bus pulled over with all its passengers kneeling at the side of the road, their hands clasped behind their heads as four armed men stood behind them.

As the minutes passed by, Cullen started to slow down. He knew the petrol station was coming up. He’d been counting on it. Even from the highway, he could see at least four RSF Jeeps parked alongside the pumps. Armed RSF troops patrolled around the perimeter.

This had now escalated past a goatfuck. Maybe an albino-yak-fuck? What in the hell had happened in just three days?

“Carys, give me the phone.”

She handed it to him.

“What’s going on?” Kane asked.

“The petrol station I was planning to stop at is overrun by rebels. I’m going to run out of fuel in thirty kilometers or less. I need a contingency plan. Any ideas?”

Cullen could almost hear Kane’s mind grinding through options. Apparently, he wasn’t coming up with any, because he wasn’t talking.

“I’ll call you back,” Kane finally said. “Don’t worry.”

The line went dead.

Up on the left side of the highway a huge pillar of smoke was coming up. Carys’ nails dug into his thigh as she saw it too.

“Was that Kane again?” she asked.

He nodded.

“He sure tells you not to worry a lot, is that normal?”

Cullen’s lip twitched upwards. The phone rang again. Before Cullen had a chance to answer it, all hell broke loose.

Another armored combat vehicle came down the middle of the highway, causing vehicles on both sides to swerve to the shoulder—what there was of one. Carys answered the phone. Cullen had no idea what she was saying, all his concentration was on the road.

Cullen watched as a car going south was hit and careened into northbound traffic up ahead. There were no guardrails, no nothing on their side of the road only gravel that fell off into a gulley. One, then two cars plowed into one another, the third skidded sideways and the fourth ended up going into the southbound traffic as the armored vehicle bared down toward Cullen’s Unimog.

He knew that he didn’t have anyone crawling up his ass because no one was anxious to go into Khartoum, so he hit the brakes. But it still wasn’t good enough as one of the cars in front of him spun around and skidded toward him.

He wrenched the steering wheel and headed to the shoulder, bouncing over the gravel, and he drove the Unimog damn near at a ninety-degree angle along the side of the gulley, maneuvering around one car that was beginning to smolder. At last he was past the wreckage, but the truck’s wheels skidded in the gulley gravel. For a moment, Cullen didn’t think they would gain enough traction to make it back up the hill, but they caught, and they were back up onto the highway.

Adam was wailing.

Shada was screaming.

He turned to look at Carys, worried that she and the baby might have been injured. She was bent over in the seat, her arms tightly wrapped around the baby. In one trembling hand she still held onto the phone.

He pulled over to the side of the road. He took a deep breath.

“Honey, are you okay?”

She looked up and swallowed, her green eyes huge in her pale face. “I’m fine.” She pressed the phone at him, then tugged free of her seatbelt as she quickly scanned the screaming baby.