Hidden Sanctuary (The Madonna Key)

"Son of a—"

A sharp elbow in my side, courtesy of my right-hand man and lead technician, Pete Calandar, made me bite the whispered expletive in half.

It was two in the morning, and we hid in the shadows of the large maintenance tent that rested at the edge of our small, ten-member camp. I shivered in the night air, wishing I'd taken the time to slip on a pair of shoes. It was winter in the desert, almost December, which meant that while the days were hot but bearable, the nights were as cold as Massachusetts in the middle of a snowstorm.

I had bigger worries than frostbite. Beyond our hiding place and outlined by moonlight, some of the locals were sabotaging my oil rig and ruining my progress.

Technically, the destruction in front of me should not be happening. My company was allowed to drill on Nubian land due to mutual agreement—but not everyone in the local village felt we had the right to be in their desert.

Oddly enough, it was the younger people who were the least receptive to our presence. That, or they were the most bored and we were the easiest people to annoy. The distinctive sound of twisting metal clipped the air. Whatever their reason, I didn't care. A growl of frustration rose from my throat, and I raised my rifle.

"What are you doing, Tru?" Pete whispered, his deep voice carrying no farther than my ear.

"Stopping them." I took a moment to sight them through the night scope. The moon made the view as bright as midday. Not that the time of day mattered when it came to my aim. Pete said I couldn't hit water if I was standing in a lake.

I looked anyway and confirmed my evaluation of the intruders.

I was right. They were boys. Age eighteen, maybe less. Dressed in jeans and T-shirts. They looked harmless with their skinny legs and thin, adolescent shoulders.

But I knew how much harm a wrench or length of pipe could do in the hands of a teenager.

One of them kicked the oil rig's engine.

Every muscle in my body contracted as anger roiled through me, making me shake. Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I shifted my aim before I did something I'd regret, repositioning my sight from them to their Jeep.

With luck, I could take out a tire. Then there'd be no way they could escape unless they tried to run on foot, and in the southern Egyptian desert, that was a death sentence, even for the locals.

Grabbing the barrel, Pete pulled my rifle until the muzzle pointed at the glittering sand beyond us. "You can't shoot them."

I yanked my weapon out of his grasp. "Not them. The Jeep. I was getting a closer look at them, that's all."

"Oh." He had the presence of mind to look foolish as he ran a hand through his thinning red hair—a nervous gesture he'd had since before we met on the Bantha project five years ago in Russia.

Twenty years my senior, Pete had seen it all. Done it all. That experience commanded loyalty. His crews worked like dogs for him. So, when I started Geo Investigations Incorporated three years ago, I knew Pete was the one person I had to have on my team. It hadn't been easy to convince him to join a start-up company, but a generous bonus tied to our first success had convinced him.

Now, we were together out of mutual loyalty, and I enjoyed our quasi father-daughter relationship.

Except at times such as this, when he acted like I was still a pampered heiress who didn't know her head from a hole in the ground, and who was not the boss of a successful oil exploration company.

With a sigh of exasperation, I raised the rifle again and took a last, quick glance at the intruders.

"Just kids," I muttered.

Kids that were tearing my main engine apart. Shifting, I sighted the Jeep. "Be prepared to chase them," I whispered. "Chase them?" Pete's tone was incredulous.

"You've got to be kidding. They may be skinny as rails, but they're wiry and all muscle. Athletes. I'm a middle-aged oil rig manager."

"Just do it," I said, exasperated with arguing.

"We should have brought Griffin," Pete whispered.

"Let him chase them."

"He's a powerhouse, not a runner." My liaison to Dynocorp—the conglomerate that had hired me to run this project—and head of security, Griffin Sinclair was capable and calm, took everything seriously and considered his rock-hard body another weapon in his arsenal.

I considered his physique the one perk of having him around. On more than one occasion, I'd seen him half-naked, and it was well worth the stolen glance.

Unfortunately, it was the only perk. Griffin was a gorgeous specimen of the human male, but he also reported everything I said, did and probably ate back to Dynocorp's board.

I tried to keep him out of the loop as much as possible.

"Yeah, but he's still younger and faster than me," Pete insisted.

"Anyone is."

"Thanks." His voice dripped with sarcasm.

"You're welcome," I said with a grin. Pete wasn't Griffin, but he was more fit than most men, and we both knew it. "Look, I don't want Griffin informing the Dynoguys that we couldn't keep a bunch of kids from shutting us down. Not if I can help it."

A loud clanking refocused my attention on the vandals. Someone yanked God-knew-what out of the engine.

No more talking. I sighted the Jeep's back tire and fired.

The muzzle flashed bright in the shadows, and the ping of the bullet striking metal echoed in the night.

Followed by a shriek as one of the boys cried out and fell to the ground. My gut clenched as I realized what had happened. Ricochet. "Damn it."

The rest of the boys froze like wild animals caught off guard, eyed their friend, hesitated, and then sprinted for the car leaving him behind.

The driver gunned the Jeep to life, and seconds later the intruders roared past us, shouting what I figured were obscenities in a combination of Arabic and possibly Nubian.

Rifle still in hand, I let them get away so I could deal with the more pressing problem.

I'd shot someone.

Pete and I raced over to the wounded boy. "Wait, let me," I said, grabbing Pete's arm and stopping him. "I'm a girl and less scary."

"Only if you don't know women," Pete muttered. I held back a retort and bent down, putting myself at eye level with the fallen boy.

His eyes wide with both pain and fright, he tried to crawl away from us, using his right Levi's-clad leg to push himself across the sand. I realized that I'd hit his left leg. Luckily, the blood wasn't pooling or spurting, which meant I hadn't hit an artery.

I followed his panicked gaze and realized his attention was locked on the rifle I still gripped in my hand. Hell.

Even I'd try to get away from me under these circumstances.

"Pete." I handed him the rifle, took a deep breath and held out my hand, hoping I appeared more sympathetic than I felt. "It's okay," I said in my softest voice. "It's okay. We're going to help you."

Lying on the ground, he looked harmless. Like a youth caught up in something he hadn't planned and wished he could take back. "Come on, kid. It'll be all right," I assured him, as I inched closer. "Let me help you."

He cringed.

I felt like a bitch, but reminded myself that if the little idiot hadn't been trashing my oil rig, none of this would have happened.

Suddenly, his eyes shifted, tracking past me. I followed them.

Griffin. His short, dark hair was a swatch of moonlight-silvered black. Despite the chill desert night, he only wore boxer briefs, his every chiseled muscle highlighted and defined by light and shadow. He glared at me like a reproachful Egyptian god come to earth in contemporary form to discipline a...