GhostWalkers 10 - Samurai Game

worse wounds. “Had you been drinking?” she asked, her eyes wide with innocence. Those long lashes fanned her cheeks as she gazed at him until his heart tripped all over itself.
    Sam groaned. “Don’t listen to him. I wasn’t drinking, but once we were pretty much in the middle of a hurricane in the South Pacific on a rescue mission and Ian here decides he
has
to go into this bar . . .”
    “Oh, no.” Ian burst out laughing. “You’re
not
telling her that story.”
    “You did, man. He made us all go in there, with the dirtbag we’d rescued, by the way,” Sam told Azami. “We had to climb out the windows and get on the roof at one point when the place flooded. I swear there was a crocodile as big as a house coming right at us. We were running for our lives, laughing and trying to keep that idiot Frenchman alive.”
    “You said to throw him to the crocs,” Ian reminded.
    “What was in the bar that you had to go in?” Azami asked, clearly puzzled.
    “Crocodiles,” Sam and Ian said simultaneously. They both burst out laughing.
    Azami shook her head. “You two could be crazy. Are you making these stories up?”
    “Ryland wishes we made them up,” Sam said. “Seriously, we’re sneaking past this bar right in the middle of an enemy-occupied village and there’s this sign on the bar that says swim with the crocs and if you survive, free drinks forever. The wind is howling and trees are bent almost double and we’re carrying the sack of shit … er … our prize because the dirtbag refuses to run even to save his own life—”
    “The man is seriously heavy,” Ian interrupted. “He waskidnapped and held for ransom for two years. I guess he decided to cook for his captors so they wouldn’t treat him bad. He tried to hide in the closet when we came for him. He didn’t want to go out in the rain.”
    “He was the biggest pain in the ass you could imagine,” Sam continued, laughing at the memory. “He squealed every time we slipped in the mud and went down.”
    “The river had flooded the village,” Sam added. “We were walking through a couple of feet of water. We’re all muddy and he’s wiggling and squeaking in a high-pitched voice and Ian spots this sign hanging on the bar.”
    Both men turned toward the door and Azami moved back into the shadows as another man entered. Tucker Addison regarded them all gravely from just inside the doorway.
    “What’s going on in here?” he demanded. “You sound like a pack of hyenas and there’re only two of you.”
    Sam’s belly knotted and the laughter faded. The others couldn’t detect Azami’s energy any more than Whitney had been able to, although she clearly was a GhostWalker.
    “Sam got the big idea to tell Ms. Yoshiie all about the time we ‘rescued’ the Frenchman and swam with the crocodiles,” Ian explained. “Of course he’s blaming the entire thing on me and he was just as curious.”
    Tucker’s gaze jumped to the shadows, scanning the room. Sam resisted the urge to reach out to Azami protectively. Tucker, like every GhostWalker, was a predator, highly skilled and dangerous. Azami didn’t need his protection any more than Tucker did, but still, the need was there.
    She shifted, a deliberate movement to draw Tucker’s eye to her, her long lashes at half-mast, giving her a deceptive, innocent, and very demure look. “These men are telling me a tale that is very difficult to believe.”
    Her voice was soft and musical, pleasant to listen to, a tribute to her heritage. Long strands of hair were artfully loose from her carefully pinned hair. It suddenly occurred to Sam that those beautiful, long, decorative pins holding her hair in place were really lethal weapons. Her thick bangsbrought attention to her incredible eyes and delicate features. She looked so fragile, not at all the samurai warrior he knew her to be—and there lay her greatest strength.
    Tucker visibly relaxed, his mouth curving into a smile as he took up the conversation. “Actually, the story is very true. Sam and Ian really are that crazy. Well, they weren’t the only ones. Gator wanted to go in as well, but everyone knows he’s completely insane. He spent too much time in the swamp where he grew up.”
    “You went in too,” Sam pointed out. “And I didn’t want to go; I had no choice. I couldn’t let Ian go alone.”
    Tucker shook his head. “You were damned sick of the Frenchman and you wanted to throw his ass in the croc pit. He was really