by Lois Greiman
And, of course, there was the fact that if they got too close she’d realize what a shithead he could be.
But how on earth would her parents fail to adore her?
“Well…just my father really. Mom’s pretty great,” she admitted.
He scowled, though it was hardly surprising that her old man wasn’t all romps and giggles. In his experience, colonels generally weren’t. In fact, being human was a bit of a stretch. Shep had said on more than one occasion that Gabe would make pretty good colonel material.
“I always kind of felt that I let her down when I didn’t follow through with my medical training,” she said.
He deepened his scowl, mildly disturbed by the realization that she would have made a wonderful doctor while he wasn’t even a decent patient.
“She was always nice about it, though,” she said and winced as she pulled off her right sock.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“What?” She glanced up.
“Do you have blisters?”
“Blisters? No,” she said and dropped her toes to the floor.
He swore quietly as he knelt in front of her. “I’ve never met a woman who was such a piss poor liar.”
She opened her mouth as if to argue, but he was already lifting her foot from the scared hardwood. She tried to pull it away, but he held on to her ankle.
The blister on her heel was the size of a dime, red and round and angry. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?” he asked.
She tugged again. “Because it’s nothing.” Her cheeks were pink. He had also never met a woman who blushed as easily as she did. He couldn’t help but wonder how low that pink stain went. But he cleared his throat and tried to do the same with his mind.
“Stay there. I’ll get some salve,” he said and rummaged around in his pack.
“You brought salve and not toilet paper?”
“No room for John Wayne.”
She quirked her brows at him.
“Standard military TP,” he explained.” Rough and ready and takes no shit.”
She laughed. The sound shivered through him, easing his myriad aches and pains, but he ignored the magic as best he could.
“Blisters will ruin a mission faster than wet ammo,” he said and ferreting out the appropriate tube, returned to kneel by her feet. They were, he thought, about the size of his thumb.
“No room for a podiatrist either?” she asked.
She wasn’t the first person to give him flack about the amount of gear he carried. He ignored her jibe and reached for her foot.
“I can do that,” she insisted, but he brushed her hands away.
“It’s my payment for you learning about Santiago when I was fully focused on the empagenio.”
She scowled at him, then laughed as she remembered their mealtime conversation. “Empanada. I can’t believe you haven’t learned any Spanish.”
There was something about her laughter that made his insides do a hard somersault, but he ignored their acrobatics. “Did you think I brought you along for your good looks?”
She was silent. Opening the tube, he glanced up in time to see her look away.
“No,” she said finally.
“Good.” Squeezing a little ointment onto his index finger, he added, “Because that was just a secondary reason.” He immediately regretted his foolish admission, but sometimes the truth was as seductive as a strawberry blonde with a gun.
“You better be careful,” she warned, “or I’ll get a big head.”
Lifting her foot onto his thigh, he smoothed the salve carefully over the blister. But he had squeezed out a little too much and dispersed it onto her ankle. “It would be the only thing on you that was oversized.”
She raised her brows at him. He considered knocking himself on the side of the head. “I didn’t mean that like it sounded. I meant you’re skinny.” He tried to hide his wince. “Not skinny,” he corrected. “Just…”
“I guess I was wrong,” she quipped and tugged her foot from his hands. “It’s probably better if I don’t get too many compliments.”
“Sorry,” he said and settling back on his heels, drew a long slow inhalation. He’d rather run a gauntlet of pissed off jihadists than participate in this type of verbal combat. “Shep’s usually around to make sure I don’t act like a complete shit.”
“No wonder you want him back so badly,” she said but there was laughter in her voice and something in her eyes that made him feel a little drunk. But he sobered immediately.
“Someone ought to kick his ass for this stunt,” he said and felt his throat close up at the thought. He’d be lucky if he didn’t kiss the fucking son of a bitch if he ever laid eyes on him again.
“We’ll find him,” she said.
He didn’t dare glance at her; her voice alone was as unsettling as hell. Soft, low, and laced with kindness, it made him want nothing more than to pull her into his arms and drink in her essence. And… Essence? Seriously?
Keeping his gaze front and center, he cleared his throat and nodded. “How’s your other foot?”
“It’s fine.”
“As fine as the right one?” he asked and reached for her left. She pulled it out of his reach.
“Even finer. Don’t you have more important things to do?”
“More important than making sure my troops are battle ready? Not really.” He tugged off her sock. “Looks like you’ve got a blister starting here, too,” he said and pushed her pant leg up her calf.
“Don’t,” she insisted and kicked his hand away.
He tried not to take offense to her aversion even though he had once thought there could be something between them. He leaned back a little. “It should be treated.”
“I know. I’ll do it. I just….”
He scowled at her. The pink was gone from her face, now. The word scarlet would more aptly describe her cheeks.
“I just…haven’t shaved,” she said finally.
He stared at her in silence.
“I’ve been kind of busy.” Her tone was prim as she pressed her pant leg firmly against her ankle.
He continued to watch her, trying to get a grip on the situation, on himself, on life. But he couldn’t help laughing.
By the time he got his mirth under control, she was glaring at him.
“Are you serious?” he asked finally.
Her lips were pursed, her expression accusatory. If he was any judge of women, which he was not, she was beyond serious. But how could she honestly think he would care about her leg-shaving habits? Or notice? Holy shit, in his current state, he’d be lucky to remain conscious if she bared so much as a kneecap.
“Yes, I’m serious,” she said. “I didn’t pack a razor and my legs are hairy.”
“Compared to whose?” he asked finally.
“What?”
“Your legs are hairy compared to whose?” he repeated and tugged up his own pants.
She jerked as if shot. “Holy cow,” she said and blinked at his exposed skin. “Were your parents…arboreal or something?”
“Guerrillas,” he said. “Of the military nature.”
She chuckled at his poor pun then sighed and relaxed a little. “I always wanted a scar like that.”
“What?” he asked and glanced down.
“The one on your shin. Where’d you get it?”
He scowled at the blemish in question. “I tripped over a coffee table.”
She chuckled. “You’re lying.”
“It was dark,” he said, letting his pant leg drop. “And I might have had one too many beers.
“Not a very sexy story is it?”
Her smile was as warm as sunlight on his skin. “You’re probably going to want to embellish it a little if you hope to make any conquests.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said and felt himself falling into her eyes.
She cleared her throat. They pulled their gazes apart. It was like tugging on magnets. “How’s your chest?”
Muscular, he thought but didn’t say the word out loud. He couldn’t deliver a line like that if he had UPS tattooed on his ass. “Healing,” he said instead.
“I should take a look at it.”
He raised his eyes back to hers, but her expression was no nonsense.
“I lost the GPS,” she explained. “I’ll never find my way back to Bogotá if you drop dead of septicemia.”
“Stop it,” he said. “You’re making me blush.”
She laughed. “Take your shirt off.”
God he wanted to, but Shepherd was out there, probably hurting, maybe starving, almost definitely in some kind of big ass trouble. “Listen, Edwards, I’m sorry…about before.”
She stared at him, mute for a moment then, “You mean…” She motioned toward the bed where they had so nearly found heaven. “Oh, yeah, don’t worry about it. I was just relieved to…” She swallowed. “Learn that we weren’t being filmed.”
“Yeah,” he said but his khakis felt tight at the thought. She’d look damn good on film. And he didn’t dare take off his shirt. Not that she’d be uncontrollable if she saw his chest or anything, but…well, hell, maybe she’d be uncontrollable he thought and found that his damned traitorous fingers had already peeled the first button open. “I just didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”
She lifted her gaze from his chest and jerked it toward his gargantuan backpack. “No, of course not. I mean, I’m fully aware that this is strictly business.”
He managed a nod as he tugged off his shirt.
“We’re here to find Shepherd.” Lifting out a couple of Telfa pads, she set them aside then straightened and put her palm beside his latest bullet wound. “Nothing else.”
He was pretty sure the area should hurt like hell, but her fingers felt as sweet as hope against his skin. “Right.” His voice sounded raspy.
“Does that hurt?”
“No.”
She made a face. “I’m afraid it’s going to sting like the devil when I pull off the bandage.”
“It’ll be okay.”
“All right,” she said and gritted her teeth, but in a moment she’d pulled her hand away. “I’m going to get a wet towel.”
“What?”
“We’ll soak it a little. So it’ll come off easier.”
“That’s not necessary,” he assured her but she had already disappeared into the adjoining room.
“Humor me,” she said and returned, carrying a dripping washcloth. Supporting it with the towel she’d used earlier, she set it against the bandage. “Pretend I’m your mother.”
He raised his brows at her. The idea seemed like a stretch and maybe morally inappropriate.
She smiled. “She must have bandaged your boo boos and kissed your scrapes.”
“Sarge?” His tone had gone from guttural to squeaky. There weren’t a hell of a lot of people whose memory could put the fear of God into a man like dear old mom.
Her laugh was like falling water, soft and light and soothing. “I forgot her nickname,” she admitted. Sitting down on the bed next to him, she lifted her moss-soft gaze to his. Her proximity made him fidgety.
“What nickname?” he asked and scowled into the near distance. It was a hell of a lot safer than looking at her. “That’s how she was christened.”
She laughed again. He didn’t know why it made him feel dizzy. “Sarge Durrand?”
“That’s Sergeant Durrand to her subordinates,” he said. “And everyone’s her subordinate.”
She was quiet a second. He wanted to glance down, to guess what she was thinking, but seeing her so close to his…everything…did dangerous things to his self-control.
“You miss her,” she said.
He jerked his gaze to hers. “What?”
“You miss your mother.”
“I’m a Ranger, Edwards,” he said and, clasping his hands behind his back, assumed military rigidity. “Rangers do not –” he began, but she straightened with the bandage in her hand.
He raised his brows. Honest to God, he hadn’t felt it come off.
“I’m pretty good at kissing boo boos, too,” she said.
He stared at her. She was inches away, her expression kind, her eyes warm, but he tried to resist. Honest to God he did.
He just wasn’t very strong.
And suddenly he was kissing her.
Chapter 44
“So tell me…” Shep said. “Am I handcuffed so I won’t escape, or do ya have more depraved reasons in mind?”
Carlotta turned toward him, plump lips pursed, amber eyes as slanted as a wildcat’s. He’d known her less than twenty-four hours, but he was pretty damn sure she was going to bear his children.
“I do not know what this depraved it mean,” she said and sauntered toward him. She moved with the hypnotic rhythm of a python, every curve undulating.
“Wicked,” he said.
She lifted her brows. “You think I have the wicked plans for you?”
He shrugged. The movement made him ache all the way to his ass, which made him think sex was going to hurt like hell. God, he couldn’t wait to find out. “Ya know I’m naked under this sheet, right?”
She could smile with nothing but her eyes. It was a sight to behold. “I have been meant to ask you regarding that.”
“Really?”
“No,” she said and slipping into the chair beside his bed, settled a bowl onto her lap. She was wearing a candy-apple red dress that clung as if ironed on. He had never been more jealous of a bowl in his entire life. “Now, you must be the good boy and eat your colada de avena.”
“What if I told ya I don’t like...” He glanced into the bowl. The contents looked disturbing reminiscent of vomit. “Whatever the hell that is?”
“I say you will be muy hungry by the morning.”
“What if I say I’ll eat it if ya feed it to me?”
“Muy muy hungry by morning.”
“Ya wouldn’t let me starve, would ya?”
She canted her head a little, making her hair cascade beside her cheeks like a dark waterfall. Her narrowed eyes made her look increasingly feline. “Señor worries that you might be a dealer of the drugs.”
“The doctor,” he said, ignoring the slander. “What is he to you?”
“What is it you mean?” she asked and stirred the awful looking gruel.
“Are ya lovers?”
She glanced up sharply, surprise in her eyes. “This is none of your business.”
He raised his brows, gut twisting. “That sounds like a yes.”
“It looks to be that you will eat your colada de avena alone,” she said and rose to her feet, but he managed to grab her arm.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “we won’t talk about it if ya don’t wanna.”
She stared at him, debating. “Very good,” she said finally and sat back down.
“But ya know he’s—” Shep began. She stiffened. He stopped himself from saying more, though gray memories stirred like angry bats in his mind. She was watching him, brow slightly furrowed. “…an old man, right?”
She shifted to stand again, but he chuckled and tightened his grip.
“I’m done now. Really,” he said and forced thoughts of Doc from his mind. “Tell me about yourself.”
She shrugged and spooned up a bit of porridge. It was as gray as concrete and looked just about as palatable. “What can I tell? I am born here in Solano and this is where I have live the whole of my life.”
“Why not Paris?”
She quirked a brow at him.
“Or New York. I hear Victoria Secret is lookin’ for models.”
She stared at him. “Tell me, do these words of yours work on the women of America?”
“Not on any as beautiful as you.”
She rolled her eyes but didn’t quite hide her smile. “And what of you, Roy Cherokee? She made the ‘r’ rumble charmingly when she said his name. Well, his alias anyway. It was the sexiest thing he had ever heard. “You are a cowboy, s�
�?”
“There’s no boy in me, chica,” he said and took the first spoonful offered by her delicate fingers. “I’m all man.”
She snorted and swung her hair behind her back. For reasons he would never be able to name, the motion made his mouth go dry.
“Truly,” she said. “You seem to be…” She shrugged. “Not so stupid.” The short sleeves of her dress were gathered and clung to the caps of her warm-caramel shoulders. “And not terrible ugly to look upon. Why is it you take to the drugs?”
“Why would you take to the doc?”
She pursed her lips but didn’t try to rise this time. “He was the friend of my papi.”
“Your dad’s buddy?” He thought about that while taking another spoonful. “That just makes it creepier,” he said. She turned away but he was already apologizing. “I’m sorry. Forgive me. Tell me about your dad.”
She drew a deep breath. “My father, he was the farmer. A good one, but it is not easy to make the living on this soil. And when my mother became ill…” She shrugged. Sadness shone in every expressive feature.
Shep thought for a second, drew in a careful breath and spoke. “The old man loaned your father money.”
She raised her gaze to his. “You do not understand.”
He leaned his head back against the pillows behind him. “Ya could explain it.”
“It was much more than the dollars.”
He stared at her, dubious, and she went on.
“Papi was not the same after Mami’s death. And Sofia, she needed the father.”
“Sofia…” He shook his head once, ambushed by the bubble of uneasiness stirring in his gut. “Your daughter?”
She glanced at him from the corner of her entrancing eyes. “My sister.”
The uneasiness slipped away. “So Doc helped ya out.”
“He gave me the job in a café. He became the uncle we did not have.”
But the old man wanted to be more. That much was as clear as vodka. What would she say if he told her about the man whose eye had been pierced by the sapling? The man the good doctor could so easily ignore as he screamed in agony? And what of Curro, dying in this very room?
