Winters Heat (Titan) (30 page)

“Well, let’s go. I need to see Colby.”

“Yes, ma’am. Anything to see ole Winters wrapped around a girl’s finger.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Mia peeled through thick bushes. Wide leaves obscured her view. Spiderwebs caught on her skin, netting her face. Insects used her as a landing zone before vaulting into the dark abyss. It had to be the dead of night, but it felt like the sun was high overhead. Cash marched them toward the shack, and with each step, she made a list of things she’d say to Colby. The list started with
don’t get hurt again
, and ended with
let’s find a shower
.
Together
.

One more step and Cash cleared the shrubbery, holding back a large branch for her. She slipped into the clearing. A huge beam of relief surfaced. This horror story was over, and all she wanted to do was crawl into Colby’s arms to sleep.

Less than a dozen yards away, that stupid shack stood waiting for her return. But this time, she wouldn’t be alone. Amber light shined between the slats and glowed at the front opening. Pure joy energized her faster than a red-eye latte. She’d seriously have to re-evaluate what made her happy when she was back on American soil. Shitty shacks shouldn’t make her so giddy. But a wounded warrior who liked to lounge in her bed… that’d be tops on her list of the super happy. Minus the wounded part.

Angry, male complaints poured out of the shack. She picked up her pace, craning to see the problem.

Colby careened around the doorjamb, arm overhead, middle finger reaching for the moon. He was backlit and illuminated, and he didn’t see her or Cash ahead. He looked colossal. Perfect and heroic. She needed in those arms and couldn’t get to him fast enough.

Behind him, Jared cursed and shouted. “No one else falls for a chick. Ever. Again. No one.”

She slammed into Cash’s backside. He was bent at the waist, laughing. His jungle suit hung off his torso, rifle dangling in one hand. He was always laughing, and she had no time for a roadblock. Mia bounded around him, lunging out of the shadows for Colby.

Torment and relief. His face played a quick variety of emotions that she could name, but she didn’t want to play psychologist. She just wanted him. His arms wrapped tight around her, and his wonderful lips found hers. She wanted everything to be all right and would only believe it when he said the truth.

“Hey there, doll.” His voice cracked.

“Thank God, you’re alive.” She palmed his cheeks. “Don’t ever leave me like that. And don’t get hurt. Ever again.”

First thing on her list. Check. What was number two? She had no idea, ‘cause all she wanted to say was
kiss me.

He didn’t say okay, and he wasn’t nodding.

“Did you hear me, Colby? Don’t leave me like that ever again.”

He hooked an arm around her waist, and she went on tiptoes. He swiped a wisp of hair and tucked it behind her ear. The pad of his thumb traced her cheek as he cupped his giant hand around her chin. The world slowed down. A gentle buzz ran through the air. Electrical pulses quaked around them. If it hadn’t been for the blood, the sweat, the violence, and the depravity, this might have been the most romantic moment in her entire existence.

Cash cruised by them. “You’re welcome, buddy. I’ll let you know how you can repay this teeny favor later.”

Colby folded her into him, sighing and breathing against her ear. The sizzle of his breathy clasp shivered down her spine. Thousands of nerve pathways burst to life, crackling to her core. His forehead dipped and met hers, and the touch burned. They breathed in unison. No words. No explanations.

She swayed into him, and he stifled the quietest of groans.

“Oh, I forgot. You’re hurt.” Mia struggled to detach herself, but his grip was firm, unwavering, cementing her against his broad chest. “Let me go, Colby. You shouldn’t do that.”

“Just give me a sec.” A heartbeat later, he ran his hands over her face, down her neck, and settled his grip on her shoulders. “God, you’re beautiful. You deserve so much more than this.”

“Yeah, I deserve a candlelit dinner. Put it on your list of things to do. Come on. Let’s go inside. You need to rest.”

“Just let me feel you for a minute. I need this. To know you’re okay. That you’re safe. You against me, baby. That’s what I need.”

She stopped struggling and all but disappeared into his arms, which were the size of tree trunks, hiding her from the world. She pressed against his pecs, listened to the rhythmic thump of his heart. “I can’t believe you worried about me. You were shot.”

He relaxed around her, caressed her cheeks again, and tilted her gaze to his. His eyes glowed in the night.

“Colby?”

His lips touched hers. Delicate and soft. Not at all how she thought he might kiss her right now. Nothing she’d expect after their awful adventures. He was sweet. Careful. Savoring.

He stopped, but his lips still moved against hers. So quiet the words, she almost missed them. “I’ll never forget.”

Hell, she’d never forget this either, but a sentimental Colby Winters was something altogether new to her. Another facet to the man. Every day, she learned more about him. And, thanks to him, about herself, too.

“Mia—”

“Enough is enough. Get your asses in here,” Jared called from the shack, a short distance away.

Colby smiled, straightened, then winced. She could tell he was in far more pain than he admitted.

“Let’s go. Move your stubborn butt. You need to sleep and eat.” She pulled back and gave him a wink and a smile. “They’ve got bug juice.”

“Bug juice, huh? What do you know about that?”

“I know it tastes like the ugly step-brother to watered-down Kool-Aid mixed with day-old seltzer.”

“That’s an accurate description.”

“And they’ve got edible plastic that looks like spaghetti.”

“MREs? Well, aren’t you the seasoned field grunt?”

“You know it.”

“What do you have, Winters?” Jared shouted out the door. “A case of the dumbasses? Collect your woman and move in.”

“What do you say, woman? Ready to be collected?” He scooped her into his arms and tried to hide the flex of his jaw and the sawing of his teeth with a closed-lip smile.

“You’re insane. Put me down. You’re hurt. I’m not.”

“Tell me what to do because I’m hurt one more time, doll, and we’re going to have a problem.”

Without waiting for a response, he limped them to the shack, brushed past Jared, and set her down by the table, bracing a hand on it. He breathed heavy. Sweat sprouted fresh on his brow.

“You okay, Winters?” Jared eyed him, wary.

“Yeah. Dehydrated.”

Jared continued to study him. “You take something for the pain?”

“Yeah. Something.”

Brock, a few feet behind Colby, shook his head. Jared noticed. Mia noticed. Everyone but Colby noticed.

He cracked his knuckles against the table and shifted his weight. “I just ripped out the bandages in my cuts and doused it with cauterizing powder. Hurts. Blazing pain. Not in the mood to dwell on it. That okay with you, boss man?”

Jared didn’t respond. The guys looked concerned, but whether it was because he challenged Jared or his spectacular wound care decisions, she didn’t know.

Mia broke the tension. “Well then, let’s get you some water.”

“Bug juice,” Jared said.

“Bug juice,” she said more for Jared than Colby. “Cash, you mind?”

Cash tossed him the bottle. They loved to throw things. Why was that? They were an arm’s length apart. It had to be some unwritten code of dudedom.

Colby cracked the cap and downed it in a few swigs. “Got any Dots in this shit shack?”

Cash chuckled. “Nope. But we’ve got beef stew, beef bbq, beef—”

“Cash.” Mia glared at him.

“Learning their tricks, doll?” Colby asked, eyebrows raised.

“Two of them, I have pegged.” She pointed to Jared, who grumbled, and Cash, who threw his hands up in innocence. “These other two, we’ll see.”

“Pays to have a couch doctor around. She’ll get into your brains.” Colby pulled his shirt from his ripped stomach and mopped the sweat on his face. “How is it a million degrees here, but I’m freezing? I need to shake this off.”

Jared eyed him again. “That bug juice helping?”

“Yeah, might be.” Colby grumbled under his breath.

Not wanting to tread on Jared’s steel-toed boots, but not wanting Colby to topple over in a pile of rock-hard, shot-up muscle, Mia said, “Why don’t you get some rest? Lie down on that bed over there. I’ll keep you company. That bed isn’t so bad. Scratchy, but you won’t even notice.”

He nodded and stumbled over. Cash and Brock took an arm to help him down, then he shut his eyes. She scooted by the guys and plopped beside him. His eyes pinched tight as if in tremendous pain. Sleep wasn’t helping. His harsh, jagged snores couldn't find an even cadence.

Mia stood, found the packet of moist wipes, and went back to the mat. He didn’t stir as she wiped off his face, starting at his forehead and working down to his chin. Fresh sweat bubbled up, creating a pathway of droplets from one temple to the next. His scruff was now a full beard, and she tried to smooth it down.

He looked like hell. Like his twitchy body revolted against his offered peace treaty of sleep. His shirt was drenched. The pants, torn and shredded, clung to his huge thighs. One pant leg fell open at a tear, showing a very red, very raw, wound.

“Jared.” She waivered, not wanting to interrupt the men now bent over the table, working on their extraction plans. No one heard her. She didn’t want to do anything to slow down plans to get the hell out of Colombia. But her gut said
emergency, emergency
.

She approached cautiously. From the part she heard, a chopper would be there the day after next. It was running an unexpected extraction for another team. A few more days, she could handle it. Bug juice and MREs. One mat and a bunch of grumpy, stinking men who’d probably been awake going on thirty-six hours. And then there was the uncomfortable dilemma of communing with nature. They didn’t seem to have a problem wandering off. She, on the other hand, did.

Jared hadn’t been a fan of her interruptions when he ordered men around the shack. And an interruption while in the midst of strategy and plans, Mia would’ve bet huge money that was a worse offense.

“Jared.” She cleared her throat. “Something’s wrong with Colby.”

“Yeah, he extracted a bullet, ran a marathon through the rainforest, and has to deal with you. He needs to sleep. He’ll be fine.”

Deal with me?
Jared was a tool of the lowest order. But she was in the right, and he needed to at least check on Colby.

“I wouldn’t bother you if I didn’t see a change.”

Jared rolled his eyes. Did he do these things just to make her spitting angry?

“You think I want to slow our departure? That I like peeing in the woods, or sitting around with all you smelly men? You think I don’t want a dang shower? Take a look at him. Something’s wrong.” Jared brought out the worst in her. Had she ever yelled at one man so many times?

Jared tilted his head at Brock. “Humor her.”

Mia would have kicked him if she thought it’d help her argument. Instead, she glared at him, pursed her lips, and silently cursed him every way she could dream. And lately, her dreams had been particularly mean.

Brock, who was balancing on the back legs of a chair, let it fall, and put down the map he had been reviewing. “Stubborn ass should have taken a pain pill.”

He pushed his hands off his knees and stood. Mia wanted to grab him by his belt loops and drag him over to Colby, but Brock didn’t seem the type to be pushed around by anyone. Not that their off-putting grumbles brought her to a full stop before. Still, she was going to give him a hot second before she forced him into gear.

Brock ambled to the mat and dropped down to a knee. Mia hovered over him, ignoring his annoyance. He put the back of his hand on Colby’s forehead and took it away. Placed it again, then moved it to the back of his neck. “Shit.”

Two fingers on his neck, Brock waited, taking his pulse. “Shit.”

Two shits
? What did that mean? Would he say something besides shit?

Jared raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“We’ve got a problem.” Brock’s hands moved back to Colby’s forehead.

“What is it, asshole?”

“His brains are cooking. He’s got a hell of a fever. He’s sweating his ass off and shivering.”

Jared stalked over, his face stern. “What the fuck, Brock? I thought you gave him some heavy hitting antibiotics. Penicillin so strong, it’d stop the plague.”

“I did. Something’s wrong.”

Mia felt tiny in the room of raging testosterone but spoke up anyway. “Well, yeah, he’s been shot.”

“No, Winters gets shot all the time.”

Oh, of course he does. What the hell?

He must have seen something on her face. Brock back peddled. “Well, not all the time. But enough that he knows how to handle it. Let’s see what our boy missed.”