Hot Zone (6 page)

Franco—who’d already showered—sat on his bedroll, back against the cracked wall… with a guitar?

Liam tossed his shaving kit on a cot. “Where’d you pick up a guitar in this place?”

“Local school,” he said without missing a beat in a vintage Clapton tune. Good stuff, with the deft touch that had earned Hugh the nickname Slow Hand. The guy was so into his music, he even had some kind of musical staff tattooed on his chest.

“And you were there for a concert gig or what?”

“Checking on patients. Folks there loaned me the guitar.” His head went back against the wall, eyes closed as he played—and sent an unmistakable message of
conversation
over
.

Not surprising. Missions like this sucked the stuffing out of anyone. At least Franco was finding an outlet with the music.

Liam scanned the rest of the room, monitoring the mood of his team. Dupre worked a Sudoku puzzle book, his foot tapping in time to the beat. Bubbles cleaned his weapon—dropped the magazine, peered inside, switched on the safety, and so forth as he went on autopilot, going through the motions. Routine was a great calmer.

Securing the knot on his towel with one hand, Liam jerked a thumb over his shoulder with the other. “Bathroom’s clear. Next.”

The newbie guy—Fang—shot off the rocking chair and bolted toward the bathroom without a word. The rocker slammed back against the wall, showering plaster on the slate floor. The call sign
Fang
was actually an acronym for
Fuck, Another New Guy
. Once some other newbie came into the squadron, the current Fang would get a permanent nickname. The old Fang—Marcus Dupre—had become Data due to his computer/math-geek ways.

Frowning, Liam turned to Data, Fang’s teammate this mission. “Is he doing okay?”

Sprawled on the rattan sofa in military-tan boxer shorts, Marcus Dupre set aside his
Sudoku
Supreme
book. “Have to confess today was a tough one, even for someone like me, who’s been around for a while.”

Marcus had been around for all of eight months.

Not that Liam saw the need to point that out. Normally he wouldn’t pair up a new Fang with a recent Fang, but Dupre was rock solid. And while Liam had tried to direct the two of them toward what appeared to be the lighter rescue, sometimes seriously bad shit just happened in this job.

Liam dropped into the rocker, tossing his toiletries case on the floor beside him. “Wanna talk?”

The Clapton tune from Franco’s guitar segued into a mellow Jimmy Buffett riff.

Marcus shrugged. “Not exactly the mission for a fresh-faced Ohio farm boy like Fang to get his feet wet. While we were down there…” Pausing, he scratched his neck, his collar bone, the back of his neck, as if he couldn’t scrub off the itch of memories even after a shower. “We had to cut through a dead woman right down the middle to save her teenage daughter.”

The guitar music faltered, then slowly restarted, the only sign that anyone else was listening in. The images, the smells… Liam didn’t have to work hard to know exactly what that must have been like.

“Shit.” Liam glanced at the bathroom door, running water echoing from beyond the thin panel.

The kid hadn’t looked right all evening, but surgically sawing through a dead body to reach a live one? That would leave crazy horrors clogging the brain, impossible to block or forget. And the stench. God, the smells that clung to the air even now like rancid meat in a septic tank.

This kind of day packed a punch for even the most seasoned warrior.

His gaze shifted to Franco, pouring his attention into classical music now. Bach, maybe? Regardless, his “stand back” vibe came through loud and clear as he picked away faster and faster on the well-worn acoustic.

Liam had spent so much time in marital counseling he should have received some kind of honorary certificate for having processed the gamut of psychobabble. Although it didn’t take a PhD to see the emotional carnage rattling around inside Hugh Franco.

The floor creaked a second before Cuervo stepped out of the bedroom. He stopped at the counter in front of a box of MREs—meals ready to eat. “I see the catering staff is as high-end as ever.”

Bubbles grunted without looking up, moving on from cleaning his gun to sharpening his survival knife.

Cuervo tossed back a handful what looked like generic M&Ms. “Somebody’s a Debbie Downer.”

Gavin “Bubbles” Novak never laughed and rarely talked. Whoever had given him that call sign had a serious sense of the ironic.

Cuervo held out his hand with the rest of his candy. “Want some? They’re yummy.”

Bubbles eyed him for three slow blinks before saying, “You’re a sick puppy.”

“Laugh or lose my cookies?” Cuervo chewed thoughtfully, then nodded. “I’ll go for laughter. Gets a person through the day, right Major?”

Liam just smiled. Usually he did agree with that mantra, but today was harder than most. The responsibility of leading his team, keeping their heads on straight, weighed heavy on his shoulders. There weren’t many opportunities for him to blow off steam these days. But this was the only life he knew, the path he’d chosen at the expense of everything else.

He eyed his team, his family, his kids to keep safe.

Cuervo snapped Hugh Franco’s leg with a towel. “Practicing up your tunes for a hot date, Franco?”

Cocking one eyebrow, Hugh caressed his way through the notes. “This just happens to be Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. It’s called culture. Give it a try sometime, bro.”

“Has everyone lost their sense of humor?” Cuervo pitched back the rest of the candy, his wiry frame not showing the least sign of his junk food habit.

“I must have left it in the pile of mangled corpses.” Franco’s fingers picked up speed on the neck of the guitar, emotion damn near pouring from the strings.

Cuervo took the hint and dug around in the MRE box without commentary. His sugar high would send him pacing around the room, but eventually he would crash.

Quiet settled over the room long enough that Liam considered snagging a bedroll of his own and heading to the other room. The next shift would come around soon enough, with a new level of horrors as the chance of finding survivors decreased.

With a final check-in look at Marcus Dupre and Hugh Franco, Liam shoved to his feet. The floor predictably squeaked under his feet. The room seemed to tip sideways, but God, he was so tired he’d probably gone a little loopy. His shower sandals slapped the scarred wood floor. He leaned to grab his gear and bedding—

The ground rumbled. Unmistakably.

Another earthquake, or at the very least a kick-ass aftershock.

Curses bounced around as fast as feet hit the floor. Fang shot out of the bathroom, wrapping a towel around his waist without missing a step. The front door clogged as they all angled out sideways until they burst through. Liam scanned the cottage fast, finding all out, and followed them to the cobbled road.

The ground stilled as quickly as it had stirred.

Just another aftershock.

But apparently the whole damn town had been just as afraid. The side street was chock-full of locals and relief workers. Except they were all dressed and staring gape-eyed at him and his team.

Hugh Franco held his guitar in one hand, securing his towel with the other. Fang’s knot on his hip slipped and he grabbed for the edges frantically. Marcus covertly checked the fly of his boxers.

Cuervo’s mouth twitched with a laugh that Liam could feel welling inside himself as well.

Ah, to hell with it.

He let the laughter rumble up and free, hopefully carrying some tension out along the way. He flattened a hand to a half-uprooted palm tree and shook his head as Fang jogged inside again, his flapping towel flashing half a butt cheek.

No doubt, Fang was going to have a stripper-style call sign by morning.

Some of the tension unkinked in Liam’s gut and he straightened. “Okay, everybody, let’s close down this peep show and catch some Z’s.”

He pivoted on his heel, a deep dog bark giving him only a second’s warning that he was about to bump into—

Rachel Flores.

“Lose your clothes, Major?” She stood beside her black Lab, leash in hand. Her grimy cargo pants and body-hugging T-shirt declared she was still working.

Her dog started sniffing the edge of his towel suspiciously, all seventy pounds of pooch tensed, hackles rising along the canine’s spine.

“It’s not my clothes I’m worried about right now, ma’am. Think you can get your dog to let go of my towel?”

“Disco?” She thumbed some kind of clicker in her hand and the dog dropped to his haunches. “Good boy.”

“Thanks.”

“And Major?”

“Yeah?”

“You may want to invest in a larger towel.” She clapped him on his bare shoulder matter-of-factly before striding past, toward the cabana next door.

Her touch lingered on his bare skin. He stood rooted to the spot for a solid five seconds, watching her walk away, her thick ponytail gathered high and haphazardly on top of her head. Wavy brown hair swished with each step.

Movement from the cottage door tugged at the edges of his attention, even as he kept his eyes glued to the no-nonsense twitch of Rachel’s hips. Franco charged back out again, no guitar this time, but fully clothed. He ran past in camo pants and a fresh brown T-shirt, yanking on his survival vest.

“Going somewhere, Franco?” he asked distractedly.

“I’ll be back in an hour, sir.” Without giving Liam a chance to protest, Franco jogged away, weaving through the milling crowd.

And it didn’t escape Liam’s notice the brooding sergeant was heading toward the half-demolished school that had been converted into a temporary hospital. The same place he’d said he picked up a guitar earlier…

He should have known Franco would track down Amelia Bailey again.

Women. It was always about the women. His focus went right back on Rachel Flores, slipping inside the next-door cottage.

He’d been searching for a way to wade through the tension of the day. Then just a few words from that woman and the load on his shoulders felt a little lighter. Damn. He studied the tracks left by Rachel in a layer of dust on the street, dog prints in perfect sync alongside.

If he closed his eyes, he could still see the twitch of her hips, the tangled mass of hair whipping around in the breeze. Only a day and he already had every inch of her hot body planted in his memory as firmly as he could hear her voice, see her smile. All that relationship counseling about taking his time and thinking things through when it came to women hadn’t made a bit of difference.

He was already halfway head over ass in love with Rachel Flores.

Hugh stood in the doorway to the temporary pediatric ward, staring at Amelia like a junkie jonesing for crack.

His need—a gnawing hunger—to see her again wasn’t healthy. Coming back here definitely wasn’t smart. But the second that aftershock had hit at the half-wrecked cottage, he hadn’t wasted a second. He’d only thought of getting dressed and hauling ass to the hospital to check on Amelia.

And now he’d found her. Alive. Safe. Mission accomplished.

He should leave. Should. But didn’t.

Instead he kept his boots planted, taking advantage of the fact that the medical techs on duty with their shortwave radios and walkie-talkies wouldn’t question him being around so late at night, since military presence was a given in these circumstances. So the nurses went about their business while he soaked up the sight of Amelia bathed in the glow of a low lamp.

She slept in a teakwood rocking chair, the kid snoozing against her chest the same way he’d found her the day before. He averted his eyes from the child and back to Amelia. She wore standard-issue green surgical scrubs and a pair of plain white gym shoes that had undoubtedly come from one of those hundreds of empty pallets. And still nowhere near enough gear had been shipped in yet, even four days after the earthquake hit.

Just like when he’d seen her at the hospital before, her hair streamed over one shoulder, sleek and damp. She was a blonde. He hadn’t known that when they were underground and covered in dirt. He hadn’t really thought about how she looked then, just seeing—admiring—her determination. Such calm in a crisis didn’t come around often. He couldn’t even count the number of times the person he’d been sent to save had freaked out. In the water. On a sheer cliff. In the desert. On a helicopter rescue cable. He usually came out with more bruises from being thrashed by the victim than from the actual rescue work.

Not with Amelia though.

Her spirit drew him, and he couldn’t deny the surge of attraction he felt from just looking at her. She was… beautiful. Stunning, even, in a delicate way so contradictory to her tenacious spirit that it made her even more appealing.

A fresh surge of protectiveness hummed through him, tinged with something else. Something he recognized well. He wanted her. So much, the force of his ache to be inside her threatened to drive him to his knees.

He slumped against the door frame. Seeing her again hadn’t reassured him in the least, only stirred up a whole new tangled mess of thoughts—along with the undeniable urge to touch her hair and see if it was as soft as it looked. Find out how it would feel splayed over his shoulder while she sprawled naked on top of him.

The way she’d left the cafeteria without saying good-bye should have kept him away. Their time together was over. Mission complete. And yet he’d still been unable to scrub thoughts of her from his mind. Normally music offered him an escape, and now she’d invaded even that corner of his life.

Which brought him right back here. Searching for closure? A wise man would. But then he wasn’t known for his levelheaded thinking.

Already making his way into the library-turned-infirmary, he absorbed the look of her, relaxed in sleep. His eyes fell to the plump curve of her naturally pink lips. The floor seemed to vibrate under his feet and he knew there was no aftershock this time. The humming came from deep inside him.

Shit.
He was screwed.

***

“Hello, Amelia.”

Hugh’s voice whispered through her mind so tangibly, she could have sworn he spoke from inside her dreams again. And if so, she wanted to stay asleep a little longer, even as reason intruded. Images of him in a hammock at her Alabama condo didn’t make sense but felt so right. Just lazing in her backyard, soaking up the clean air, the bright sunshine…

And munching on a huge hamburger.

Okay, now she really knew she was dreaming. Her stomach grumbled.

“Amelia?” Hugh said again, louder this time, from behind her.

Joshua stirred against her chest before settling his cheek into the curve of her neck again with a baby sigh and a bit of drool. Blinking through the layers of foggy sleep, she secured her hold on her nephew and looked over her shoulder.

As if conjured from her dreams, she saw Hugh waiting a few feet away by a shelf of reference books. She blinked fast, and sure enough, he stood a hand stretch away. His face was cast in shadows, the lights dimmed for the dozen sleeping children.

“What are you doing here again and so late?” she whispered as he moved to her side. “Is something wrong? Did you find out something about my brother and his wife?” Her throat closed up.

“No, I just—”

Nurse Gable shushed them both as she patted a sleeping baby girl on the back.

Amelia smiled an apology before turning back to him. “Let’s talk outside in the hall.”

He nodded and sidestepped the vigilant nurse on his way toward the door.

Slowly, Amelia stood, careful not to wake Joshua as she returned him to his playpen. Kissing her fingers, she pressed them to his forehead and swept a hand over his tight curls before turning back toward the open room.

And the man who’d filled her life so completely so quickly.

Hugh had come back. The first visit she could chalk up to curiosity and following through on his mission. The fact that he’d come a second time moved her more than it should. She’d sworn never to let a man’s presence matter so much again. Damn it all, she felt too vulnerable, too exposed and raw after her ordeal. That had to be the reason for her out-of-control reaction to this man.

She stepped into the hall where he waited, the brighter lights bringing into sharp focus his face—his eyes that burned with a wild and untamed look. Her stomach took a tumble.

His gaze held hers for another of those lightning-crackle moments, which felt all the more powerful in the night quiet of the hospital.

She wished she’d brought her water bottle to wet her dry mouth. “Why are you here? Did you find out something about my brother?”

“I’m sorry, but no.”

Disappointment stung, then shifted to confusion. “Then why are you back?”

“How much longer are you stuck in here?” He crossed his arms over his chest, big, unapproachable, and all the more confusing.

“I’m no longer a patient.” She crossed her arms defensively as well. “The doctor said Joshua can leave in the morning. I begged my way into the nursery so I could stay with him.”

“They probably welcome the help.”

Silence stretched, broken only by the occasional whimper from a baby or the subdued shuffle of distant feet. Finally, she blurted, “Why are you here in the middle of the night?”

“Why did you walk out of the cafeteria without saying good-bye?”

She blinked in surprise. “You’re here because I hurt your feelings?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Then what would you say, exactly?” She stepped closer, frustrated by whatever game he was playing but unable to walk away from him again. She clenched her fists by her side to keep from reaching for him. To keep from indulging in the crazy need to find out if his chest was as solid as she remembered from when he’d covered her body during the shooting.

He scooped up one fist, his thumb sketching over the bandage on her cut hand. “I’m here because I owe you an apology.”

Now that wasn’t what she’d expected to hear. “I’m not sure I understand.”

She didn’t pull away. Yeah, it was silly, but she needed the comfort of human contact. Of contact with
him
.

“It’s the real reason I’m here, I guess. Unfinished business with you.”

Unfinished
business.
The two words hung in the air between them, filling the space with possibilities until she could have sworn their bodies shared a link.

His dark eyebrows pinched together and a shiver skipped down her spine, pooling in her stomach. They weren’t flirting exactly, but she was fast realizing they were engaging in a dance of sorts here. She was not alone in feeling this draw, in needing something tangible to hold on to in a world turned upside down.

“Hugh? And this unfinished business would be?”

“I apologize for doubting you earlier when you told me Joshua was alive.”

She exhaled hard and hadn’t even known she was holding her breath. “I imagine you’ve seen so much in your job, you would get jaded. The worst-case scenarios would be more vivid for you.”

“You could say that. I’d think your job would do the same to you.”

“Sometimes… Mostly when it comes to trusting adults with a history of larceny, armed robbery, and so forth, but you get the idea. I could have just as easily been wrong about Joshua.” The truth of that clogged her throat for a second. “Reality was questionable down there. I had no idea I was trapped for two days—which you were wise not to clue me in about, by the way. My mind obviously was playing tricks on me so I wouldn’t panic.”

Was her brain toying with her now? Leading her to imagine what it might be like to explore every inch of that muscled strength that had saved her today.

“Your mind was doing its job helping you survive, and if your brother is half as tough as you, I predict he will be fine.”

“You have a way of instilling confidence. That’s quite a gift. You pulled me through in more ways than one.” A big battery-operated clock ticked behind her, stirring fear of passing time and how soon he would walk away. Every second that passed reminded her of the precious gift of being alive tonight. With him.

Thanks to him.

“It’s my job.”

Her eyes fell to his survival vest stretched across his broad chest.

“Somehow I don’t think it’s in your job description to shoot the breeze under tons of rubble. You could have left once you found me and put in that IV. You didn’t need to come here to check on us. And you definitely didn’t have to give up sleep to sing to a cafeteria full of children.”

“What can I say?” He shrugged, his green eyes glittering in the dim night. “I’m a softie.”

She snorted her disbelief. “Hardly.” Although the way he’d pushed aside the exhaustion from his face to distract traumatized children with songs had been mesmerizing. She didn’t trust easily, especially not after her father and her ex, but she desperately wanted to believe in what she’d seen in Hugh then and now. “Was the story about the Siamese cat and the little girl next door true? Or were you just shooting from the hip with stories to keep me calm?”

A flash of something shadowy whispered through his eyes.

“The story was true.” He released her hand and fished in his pocket. “I should leave, let you sleep. If you need anything, there’s a number here where you can reach me. Hopefully, cell phones will be working more reliably soon. And if not, just go to any of the military personnel and they’ll be able to track me down from this info. I’ll be on the island working for at least a week, maybe longer.”

“Thank you. That’s generous of you.” She took the folded paper from between his fingers. Was it her imagination or had he held onto the doubled-over slip for a second longer than necessary?

She thumbed open the paper. His handwriting was dark and angled, as if he pushed through the words hard and fast. He’d written a phone number and a local address.

Her jumbled emotions didn’t know what to make of this. Part of her still believed they’d shared a unique connection during their time together, and another part doubted herself on any number of levels. She only knew one thing for sure, she needed closure with him after all they’d shared underground. Maybe that’s what had brought him here as well.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Hugh, but is it okay if I hug you?”

“A hug? Uh, sure.”

He looked so uncomfortable, she almost lost her nerve. She closed the last step between them and wrapped her arms around him. God, he was so much bigger than she’d even realized. Her head tucked under his chin and her arms couldn’t make it all the way around his back. And he smelled so damn good, like Dial soap and vital man. He palmed the middle of her back, but other than that made no move closer. Somehow that turned her on all the more. She could hear his heart beating faster. The heated gusts of him breathing harder steamed through her damp hair. He was every bit as moved—hell, as turned on—as she was. Yet still, he restrained himself.

That honorability stroked her as firmly as any bold touch.

She inched back but didn’t let go of him. She couldn’t. Her brain clamored for the ultimate outlet to the frenzied storm inside her. And with an answering lightning crackle all but radiating off him, her words from their time together underground, about missing sex, came roaring back to fill the wake of her adrenaline letdown. What would it be like to grab him by the shirtfront, haul him into the nearest private nook, and give herself a temporary respite from the worries, the fear, the horror of the past days? Something dark and wild in his glinting green eyes said he could deliver everything she needed and more.

Was she making a fool out of herself even thinking these thoughts and holding on to him this way, this long? And if so, what the hell did it matter? She wouldn’t see this guy again once she left the Bahamas.

Right now, she was overwhelmed and confused and needing to take charge of something in her life. She needed to feel alive, as tangibly strong as the beat of his heart against her chest, a reminder of his health and vitality, the sheer force of his will that had driven him to find her. To stay with her.

Without him… She shuddered. Words weren’t enough to express what she felt for him.

It wasn’t just gratitude that flowed through her veins right now. Her whole body hummed with a primal need to celebrate the moment and the man.

“Hugh?” Her fingers moved restlessly along his shoulders. “About that thing I said when we were stuck together, about how I miss…”

“Sex.” He chuckled lightly against her hair before stepping away. “Hey, I know that was just the stress and the situation talking.”

She looked up and met his glittering green eyes boldly. “What if I was serious? What if I’m hoping you feel the same way?”

He went still, his slow blink the only sign he’d heard her. “I would worry that I might be taking advantage of a vulnerable woman. I would be concerned you are mixing up feelings of gratitude with something else. That you’re in need of an adrenaline outlet.”