by Mary Wine
She strained to move him farther toward the shore. Even with the water supporting most of his weight, she struggled to pull him the remaining feet to the shore. She scraped her shins as she yanked him up onto the gravel, crawling on her knees as she tried to get him out of the water.
He was ghostly white and his skin far too cold. He might be breathing, but hypothermia could easily end his life. She strained and dragged him farther up the bank. At last, even his boots were out of the water. She attacked the thick black vest he wore, opened it and hesitated when she found a chest harness. The butt of a hand gun glistened with water. His shirt was green-and-tan camouflage fabric. She pulled it open to expose his chest.
The man was sculpted to perfection. Every muscle detailed. She hesitated only a moment before lying down on top of him and pressing her chest against his own.
He felt even better than he looked.
Unprofessional…
Yes, her thought was unprofessional, but under the circumstances, she was doing the best she could. If the cold blood in his extremities made it back to his heart, he could go into cardiac arrest. Her body heat was the only thing she had to use. It was an extreme, stab-in-the-dark treatment choice, but she had no other alternatives.
Her gaze focused on the butt of the gun. She shivered, and it had nothing to do with the chill from the water. Whoever he was, he wasn’t a nice guy. The ridges and hard muscle she was pressed against were just other weapons in his arsenal.
Maybe she shouldn’t help him.
She cringed at the thought. Hating the cynical idea. Ten months ago, she’d never question the impulse to help an injured person.
But the butt of the pistol was hard, irrefutable evidence that there were people who valued life far less than she did.
He jerked, his body convulsing. She lifted her body off his, looking at his face to assess his condition. His lips were curled back and his teeth gritted as he reached out and grabbed her throat. She recoiled, but he had a firm hold on her, the delicate bones feeling like they might snap.
He blinked, staring at her nude breasts. His grip relaxed and she scooted back as fast as she could. She scraped her knees again and landed on her bare bottom, but she scrambled onto her feet as he rolled over and shook his head. He struggled to plant one foot on the ground and rise to rest on his other bent knee. The muscles along his neck were corded as he strained to lift his head.
She grabbed her pants and jerked them up. He snarled softly as she grabbed the sweatshirt and fought her way into it. Her wet skin didn’t make it easy, but at least she wasn’t buck naked anymore.
“I have a phone at the cabin.”
“No calls,” he barked. He staggered to his feet, reaching for the gun.
Terror tried to freeze her, but her nightmares rose up to shatter the hold. She reached out and smacked his hand.
“You don’t need that. You need to get down to my cabin and out of those wet clothes.”
He had to be a foot taller than her and outweigh her by fifty pounds of hard brawn, but her tone was pure emergency-room-nurse dictator. She lifted her arm and pointed down the trail.
She tipped her head back so she could make eye contact with him. His scowl was enough to curl her toes. She swallowed the lump in her throat.
“Do it now, mister, because I don’t have a wheelchair to move you with once you collapse.”
He blinked at her and then looked down the hill. Every moment he hesitated might just cost him his life. Men like him didn’t die of disease. They were struck down by injury or exposure.
“No calls,” he ordered, but his voice was failing him. His first steps were shaky, but at least his stride was long.
“Use your strength for walking,” Kalin countered and ducked beneath his arm to help him.
He growled but leaned on her as his body shuddered. His breathing was labored as they covered the distance to the cabin door. He stumbled up the two steps and fell against the door. She struggled to open it, pushing him to the side to clear the way.
He stiffened to support himself and she took the opportunity to move across her small living room to the bedroom door. She turned the knob and pushed it open, but turned when she heard a crunching sound.
Her guest dropped the crushed pieces of her cell phone onto the kitchen bar. His eyes glittered with some sort of intense need as he leaned on the bar. He pulled the gun free and aimed it out the open front door at her jeep. Two quick pulls on the trigger and the front tires popped, releasing their air in a shrill sound.
“No…calls…no one. Or you’ll end…up…dead.”
He gathered his remaining strength and stood up. What little color he’d had drained away as he stumbled toward her. She backed through the bedroom door just in time to avoid being run over. He made it to her bed and flopped onto it. With a last groan, he rolled onto his back and turned his head to fix her in his sights. He gripped the butt of the pistol, seeming to gain some comfort from the feeling of it against his palm before his eyes rolled up and closed.
The sound of a ringing cell phone mixed with the low tones of pleasure in the darkened bedroom. The woman opened her eyes and locked stares with her lover.
“You’re not going to answer that now?”
Major Garrick Gennaro groaned, forcing himself to focus on something other than the woman straddling his hips. Her skin glistened with perspiration and her nipples were tight, proving she was as close to orgasm as he was. But his phone buzzed again.
“Got to.” He reached for the slim cell phone sitting on the gleaming bedside table and the woman on top of him hissed. She lifted herself off him and flounced onto the bed beside him.
“You said you were off duty. You’re a good lay, but you’re not the only man I can get.”
She scooted off the edge of the bed and disappeared into the spacious master bathroom. A second later, the shower turned on, proving that even pissed off, Monica remembered the rules of having him under her roof. No listening in on classified conversations.
He sat up and pushed the button on his phone. “Major Gennaro.”
“This is Slynn.”
Gennaro was on his feet instantly. The general wouldn’t be on the line if something catastrophic hadn’t happened. “Yes, sir?”
“Your team is down. All three birds. Preliminary reports suggest no survivors.”
“What the fuck?” The words were out of his mouth before he recalled the stars on the man’s shoulders. Even after the information processed through his shocked brain, he couldn’t bring himself to apologize for cussing under the circumstances. “I’m coming in, sir.”
“I’ll hold the recon team for your arrival. Slynn out.”
Gennaro dressed with quick, efficient motions. Every man on his Ranger team flashed through his mind as he made ready to depart. He tucked the laces on his boots in before checking his gun and holstering it. The moment he finished, he heard a soft tap from the bathroom doorframe.
Monica leaned against it, a pink towel wrapped around her body. The frustration was gone, her expression full of concern. She worried her lower lip and he could tell she was quelling the urge to ask him what was happening.
“Be careful out there, Garrick. I’ll leave the porch light on for you.”
She offered him a smile but her tone told him how forced it was. He did admire the effort. Not many women could roll with the demands of his career. Being dedicated didn’t mean he didn’t get lonely. Far from it.
“You do that.”
He turned and left. Monica’s soft sigh was the last thing he heard before allowing everything but the status of his unit to dissipate from his thoughts.
Her knees gave out.
Kalin’s emotions surged past her shock as she slid down the wooden wall of the bedroom. She ended up sitting on the floor, her eyes glued to the man unconscious in her bed. The fingers he’d
locked around the gun relaxed until his hand lost contact with it.
She drew in a deep breath and forced herself to stand. Her knees felt weak but she leaned on the wall for a moment before turning and rushing through the doorway. She stumbled to a stop in the middle of the small living room when she got a look at her jeep. Both front tires were sunk in, the rims resting on the gravel road.
She could still walk.
The weather was good and it was only ten miles to the main road.
“Facing your fears is the only way to slay the demon.”
She hesitated in the doorframe, gripping the decorative wooden molding her grandfather had cut and shaped with his own hands. His voice filled her head, making the next step feel wrong. The cabin had been her last resort before she admitted she couldn’t deal with her psychological trauma.
She turned around, looking through the open bedroom door at the soles of the man’s boots.
He had a gun and wasn’t shy about using it.
“He needs help.”
She was insane to stand there instead of walking toward help.
A distressed sound came from the bed as his limbs jerked. It was all it took to get her moving toward him. The passion she’d had for nursing, even amidst the poor odds of the emergency room, kicked in. She opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of scissors designed for cutting off clothing. The bottom blade was flat on the side that would touch his skin. They made swift work of his wet clothing and she rolled him so that she might pull it away. She left the gun on the bedside table and ordered herself to not think about how easy it would be for him to kill her.
He had a large lump on the side of his head but no other obvious injuries. That meant nothing. He might very well be bleeding internally. He needed a hospital, but he’d managed to make it impossible for her to get him to one. The only thing she could do was treat his exposure. She pulled the cap off a permanent marker and traced the outline of the head injury and put the time.
The bedding was wet and she tugged at it until he was lying on the mattress. Without a partner, she wouldn’t be able to put a sheet on, but getting him dry was the most important thing. His skin was still far too cold. She covered him in dry blankets before going into the family room to build up the fire. The wood popped and crackled as it caught, but he needed more immediate heat.
With a muffled curse, she stripped down again and pulled on a pair of shorts and tank top before crawling into the bed. She pressed herself up against him to keep the blood in his chest warm so that his heart wouldn’t go into shock.
Kappel rubbed a hand over his head. Waiting for dawn had tested his patience. His prey was loose in spite of his perfect ambush. Three helicopters lay scattered across the forest floor, broken and bent after a collision with a private plane.
At least that was what it looked like. He’d taken down two of the birds with surface-to-air missiles. One of his men had sent the plane into the mess and jumped before it crashed. The remote location had masked their burning wreckage very well.
All it had taken was one little snitch on base willing to sell the location beacon frequency of Devon Ross’s unit. It was too bad they’d had to fake the man’s suicide, but the client had specified no trails.
“The Army is going to be crawling all over this site.”
“Of course they will,” Kappel barked at one of his men. “Get the bodies out.”
“That won’t help us track our merchandise down.”
Two of his men unloaded the body of a man with the same build and weight as Devon Ross. They dumped it among the mangled remains of a helicopter and drenched it with jet fuel. A quick addition of a lit match and it flared up. They dumped another body in the battered cockpit of the small plane and set it ablaze.
“What it will do is keep the Army from deploying search and rescue teams. Intel says they don’t implant tracking chips in these psychics for fear of throwing off their heightened senses,” he said.
“They could still do DNA.”
“Only if they suspect something,” Kappel snapped. “I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to make sure they see only an accident caused by an intoxicated local pilot.”
He swung his rifle over his shoulder. “We need Devon Ross alive. Don’t let anyone else see you. If they do, make their deaths look like an accident. Dresner doesn’t suffer failure.”
Kappel climbed into his helicopter. The burning piles of debris didn’t interest him. At least not beyond making sure the bodies mixed in with the wreckage were unidentifiable. His objective was to find Devon Ross now that he’d gone to so much trouble to make the Army believe the man was dead. Part of him was enjoying the chase. The third helicopter had landed, swooping in to try and help their comrades just as he’d hoped. But Devon had made it out of the machine while Kappel was capping the pilot. He looked at the charred remains of the pilot. There would be no reason to do an autopsy with so much evidence. He was counting on that because he didn’t need that bullet found.
Devon Ross couldn’t be far.
Kappel wanted to believe that, but the truth was Devon Ross was a trained soldier. They couldn’t follow his tracks from the crash site because the Army recovery team would only follow the tracks they left. Lifting out was the only way to preserve the scene he’d gone to so much work to create. They had to lose the helicopter too or risk it being picked up on radar. His pilot circled a small clearing and set the bird down. Kappel exited with his team. Their expressions were tight as they started searching the forest for signs of tracks.
It was success or death, and every last one of them knew it.
“Pull up!”
Her patient jerked, his body thrashing as he relived whatever event was playing inside his unconscious mind. Kalin tried to scoot back but his eyes opened and locked on to her. He was still caught in his mental illusions, the subconscious workings of his mind more real than she was.
“You’re in—”
He flipped over, rocking the old cast-iron-frame bed with a violent motion. The springs squealed right before he jabbed his arm beneath her chin to pin her to the mattress. He dropped most of his body weight on her, making it hard to breathe.
“Who are you?” he demanded. His tone was stone cold with a ruthless edge.
“I am a nurse.” She fought the impulse to struggle, but she was helpless against his strength and panic was quickly trying to steal her composure. “You were suffering from exposure.”
He looked around the room but kept his arm braced against her.
“You shot the tires out of my jeep and crushed the phone. This was the only way to treat you.”
She reached for his arm and slowly began to push. He returned his attention to her but his forehead was creased in confusion.
“I don’t remember…”
“You’ve suffered some sort of trauma.” She pushed harder. “Disorientation is normal.”
He lifted his body but stopped before releasing her completely. “For how long?”
The man was used to being in control. There was a note in his tone that sounded like it came straight off a military base.
“I am not a doctor.” She wiggled away from him now that he wasn’t lying on her anymore. “Release me.”
He wasn’t the only one who had learned the value of confidence when it came to issuing instructions. Her voice was firm and solid.
He sat and she rolled off the bed. She looked back at him but shifted her gaze as soon as she caught sight of him in the full light of day.
He was mouth-watering. Hard and sculpted to perfection.
Heat teased her cheeks so she turned to open the closet.
“You cut my clothes off me?”
She gasped and turned around. He moved silently, like some kind of shadow. There was a tingle on the back of her neck as she watched him sorting through his ruined garments without a care for modesty.
“You were…” Her heart had started racing, making her words sound breathless. He wasn’t making any attempt to shield himself from her. Every ridge was bathed in afternoon sunlight and his cock was standing hard. She turned back to the closet. “You were suffering from hypothermia. Without a phone or vehicle, body heat was the only means of treating you. Leaving you in wet clothing could have been terminal.”
She found an old pair of her grandfather’s jeans and a flannel shirt. When she turned to hand them to him, she found him checking the gun. He handled it so naturally, lifting it toward the window and looking down the barrel before nodding with satisfaction. It was also more important than covering himself. That idea made her shiver.
“I’ll leave you to dress.”
“You stay right there.”
His tone was razor sharp. She stared at the gun, a tingle of fear knotting her insides. But something else stirred deep inside her. Some foreign impulse that made her raise her chin.
“There is nowhere to go. The main road is ten miles away and you shot out the tires on my jeep. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
She grabbed the pile of wet quilts and walked toward the door. It seemed much farther than it was, tension making it an effort to move. But she held her chin steady and made it through the doorway.
She’d been holding her breath, and when she made it to the small kitchen that took up the second half of the back of the cabin, she had to suck in several breaths to fend off a wave of dizziness. She leaned on the counter and then pushed away when the wet quilts soaked her tank top.
The cabin was just a tiny one. It had taken her grandfather and father a month to build it. The first half was the living room. The second half was divided into a bedroom and kitchen. The bathroom had been built several years later to replace the outhouse. It was on the back porch with doorways into the kitchen and bedroom. A small washing machine and dryer combo unit was in the corner by the refrigerator. She opened the dryer and pulled out the load she’d tossed in before going up to the waterfall. Her only electricity came from solar panels on the roof. She deposited the dry clothes on the counter and quickly changed.
