Captain On Deck

By Dahlia Rose

Azaria Wyatt was raised a military brat so traveling and being in a different country was not new to her. She went places that few dared to go to get the pictures that magazines vied for. On one of those trips, however, it seemed her luck ran out because she found herself stuck in the middle of the Amazon with her travel guide having left her to be kidnapped for ransom. Using her SAT phone, she reached out and was given a way out in the form of a Navy ship, but they couldn’t break protocol to get to her; she had to make her way to them. Azaria knew she couldn’t swim it, so under the cover of darkness she stole a small boat. 

To hell with being a hostage or worse, she was saving herself. Finally, safe and aboard the USS Goliath she was taken to the Commander Dane Pratt. His sexy dark eyes and handsome looks captured her interest instantly. But the straight-laced naval officer had one thing to say—no fraternizing with the crew. That was all good and fine because it wasn’t the crew that captured her interest but the commander. Being out to sea for three months before they returned to U.S. soil, Azaria wondered if she could get the sexy ship captain to break a few rules with her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dahlia Rose Unscripted
• Release date: Mar 25, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524266448

Dahlia Rose

Dahlia Rose is the best-selling author of contemporary, military and paranormal romance with a hint of Caribbean spice. She was born and raised on a Caribbean island and now currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her five kids, who she affectionately nicknamed “The Children of the Corn,” and her biggest supporter and longtime love. She has a love of erotica, dark fantasy, sci-fi, and the things that go bump in the night. With over six dozen books published Dahlia has become a reader favorite. Not only because of her writing but her vivacious attitude in talking to her fans online and at various events. Books and writing are her biggest passions, and she hopes to open your imagination to the unknown between the pages of her books. http://hearttoheartwithdahliarose.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/author.dahliarose www.twitter.com/dahliarose1029

Book preview

CaptainonDeckBIGer.jpg

Captain on Deck

By

Dahlia Rose

Captain on Deck

Copyright © October 2014 Dahlia Rose

All rights are reserved.

Smashwords Edition

Cover Art by For The Muse Design

Formatting by Bob Houston eBook Formatting

ISBN 978-1-939151-85-8

No part of this e-book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Chapter One

Azaria opened the flap to her tent and looked around. She guessed it to be around six in the morning. The internal clock that she gained over the years was usually never wrong. She looked at the dial of her watch and saw that it was five after six and smiled. Only a few minutes off. The fog hung low around the trees and the humidity was already thick, so thick that it was like breathing through a wet blanket, but she was accustomed to it and inhaled deeply. Her job had taken her around the world—she’d slept in the desert sand with the Bedouin tribes that lived like nomads in the Middle East and had even lived in the small houseboats in Thailand with those who managed to maneuver and live in the congested waterways.

This was her job, and she loved the adventure of each new assignment. But after dealing with this heat, she was looking forward to being home for a while and then on to her next adventure. She would be heading to Iceland and staying four weeks with the Nordic people who lived in igloos on the snow, then she would spend one week in a glass-domed igloo that offered a clear view of the Northern lights. That little side trip would offer her a week of rest, the opportunity to take amazing photographs for the magazine, and the chance to soak in hot springs surrounded by snow, not to mention really tall, sexy blond men. Oh, yeah, who could say no to that?

She frowned, noticing that something was very wrong. The neighboring tents were gone. In all, there should be four, but hers was the only one left. That night’s fire still had a small trail of smoke coming from the ashes, yet the others in her group, her guide and two natives they had hired to help navigate the trails were gone. There was no way any of this could be good. She’d worked with Ruiz before. He was one of the best contacts she had when she was working below the equator. First, she was worried about her guide, Ruiz, and thought maybe something had happened to him, but then the radio she kept in her tent crackled to life. Azaria fiddled with the dial of the small radio until the voices became clear.

Javier, mi amigo, ella esta lista para tomar. La gente van a pagar mucho para recuperarla. Recuerdes, mi parte es treinta y cinco porciento.

Well, shit. Loosely translated, Ruiz had sold her out to someone named Javier and they wanted her for ransom. I should have known, she muttered as she threw a few things in her backpack, including her camera, laptop and tablet. Her computer was long dead since they’d been in the jungle for two weeks, but, hells bells, as soon as she was able to charge, she’d load her pictures up and send them to the editor of the magazine. Being a photojournalist had its perks, but today she could see none. There was no way she was leaving her shit, definitely not her camera and the digital card, that was for sure. She decided to leave the radio because it was too bulky. She pulled out the small emergency satellite phone she kept in her bag. She always kept it fully charged along with the emergency backup battery for every trip she took. Just for occurrences like this, though this was the first time she actually needed to use it.

Azaria did one more thing. She pulled the radio out of the tent and dropped it into the smoldering embers of the fire. With her booted foot, she stomped on it angrily until it shattered and was covered in dirt, making sure no part of it could be seen. There was no point giving them clues that she knew their plan.

One thing was for sure. She wasn’t sitting around waiting to be raped and beaten, or, more than likely, killed if they didn’t get what they wanted.

I can’t fucking believe this. She wasn’t going to be taken hostage by some douche bag. Ruiz sold her out and she felt betrayed. So Azaria took her backpack and moved through the jungle with her compass in hand and the knowledge that she needed to move swiftly and eat up the space of twenty-five miles back to the river. It took an average of twenty-five to thirty minutes to walk one mile in this terrain. To make it back to the river and keep her so-called captors at bay would take nearly eight hours. Hopefully, she could hire a boat to take her back to the mainland in Ecuador or, shit, she would swim to the Galapagos Islands if necessary.

The hours were long and she wondered many times if she was about to get caught. She could hear a vehicle in the distance and then at one point she was sure she heard a shout in Spanish. But she was a marine’s daughter; she had learned to survive the constant moves, including living in Japan, Germany and a few other places. Even though she was among a new people and culture, she could adapt. So she kept low and stayed away from anything that looked like a trail. People used them for walking from village to village, but since she didn’t know who was connected to Ruiz and his new friend they’d visited, she steered clear. It wasn’t until she was near