by Terry Spear
Vulnerable, he thought. Both he and Elsie were at a disadvantage, should they be attacked en route to the location where they would be transported out of the country. He felt his stomach tighten with disquiet. He liked being the ghost of a backup. No one knowing he was there. The bad guys died, never getting close to the team. No one to say thanks. No getting emotionally involved.
Except for the last mission he’d had with them, and he hadn’t believed he’d ever get that involved with the team again. That would have suited him fine.
To physically transport a human child out of a potentially volatile situation was also something foreign to him. He was the lone wolf, the hidden security, which fit his personality perfectly.
Paul carrying the boy and Bjornolf the girl, they walked in the center of the group. Mom and the dad led the way, while the dad’s brother hiked behind Bjornolf. Hunter was out in front, Allan bringing up the rear, while Anna and Finn flanked them in the jungle, providing cover to the left and right. Bjornolf couldn’t see them, but he kept thinking that was where he should be.
Elsie whispered, “Did you tell Santa what you want for Christmas?”
Anna instantly popped in his mind. He smiled to himself.
“Have to make up my list,” he whispered.
“I wanna iPad and a phone and a…” Elsie began listing all the colors, brands, and kinds of toys she wanted for Christmas while Bjornolf nodded absently, all the while attempting to listen for trouble.
He smiled to himself. He had to admit the idea of Anna sitting pretty under his Christmas tree sure appealed.
The going was slow, not because of the difficulty with the heat and humidity or the terrain, but because the two brothers and the mom were struggling to keep up. They huffed and puffed as he felt Elsie’s tension-filled legs loosen their grip on him. She’d fallen asleep.
Worrying that she might slip off, he paused. The uncle pulled the sleeping child off Bjornolf’s back and offered to carry her, despite his obvious lack of strength. He looked about done in with his shoulders stooped, sweat pouring off his face, and his eyes heavily lidded.
Bjornolf declined Jeff’s help and continued to carry Elsie in his arms. She was a dirty-faced little angel, her nearly black hair tangled and sweat plastering her bangs to her forehead. He felt a strange pang in the pit of his stomach.
Probably hunger. He hadn’t eaten in hours, he reminded himself.
He caught sight of Anna watching him. He couldn’t tell from her camouflaged expression what she thought. He shouldn’t have cared, but he was curious—as wolves were known to be. Was she amused by what he’d been roped into doing? Or maybe she felt a little sorry for him.
They had traveled for a couple of miles—although the thick jungle made it seem much farther—when he heard a startled male cry come from Anna’s direction. Everyone immediately crouched down. Heart pounding, Bjornolf knew to stay where he was and protect the child at all costs, but he damn well wanted to ensure Anna was okay.
She finally made a bird call, letting them know she was all right and to continue to move the family.
Still caught up in the anxiety that had seized him, he moved with the others, keeping alert, every muscle tense, ready to spring into action in the event of new danger.
Trouble didn’t take long to manifest itself.
The rat-ta-tat-tat of a spurt of gunfire off to his right meant Finn had his hands full. Then Bjornolf heard rustling to the left where Anna was watching their flank. Suddenly, Hunter was fighting a man in front of the group in hand-to-hand combat. Everyone came to an abrupt halt and crouched. Bjornolf handed the child off to the uncle, while Paul left the boy with his father. Bjornolf’s and Paul’s gazes met. Bjornolf motioned with his head toward Anna, indicating he was looking after her. Paul raised his brows a little.
Allan stayed with Hunter to safeguard the family while Paul joined Finn.
Bjornolf stealthily made his way to where he had last heard movement in Anna’s direction. He couldn’t find her. His heartbeat was racing when he heard her soft curse nearby. Even making that much of a sound seemed to be an effort for her.
Hell. He dove through the jungle in her direction.
Chapter 2
Furious that she was currently incapacitated and needed help, Anna Johnson heard a man crashing through the jungle like a tapir on steroids.
Damn, that’s all she needed—another terrorist coming for her after the last one she’d eliminated had collapsed on top of her, crushing her. The brute had to weigh over two hundred pounds and with fallen tree trunks on either side of her, she didn’t have any wiggle room to free herself.
She stayed very still, barely breathing, her heart pounding. With all the jungle noise around her—the bugs, the birds, the frogs, the sound of a river flowing nearby—none of the terrorists would hear her even if she struggled to free herself. If she could move at all. Hopefully, the dead body would hide her, and the approaching man would move along, looking for another target.
“Anna,” Bjornolf whispered some distance from her. She couldn’t see him, but she’d know his voice anywhere, gruff, worried. But he couldn’t see her, either.
Exasperated, she closed her eyes and cursed to herself. Of all the men who could have come to rescue her, she didn’t want Bjornolf to see her like this.
Swallowing her pride, she whispered, “Here.” Her voice came out muffled and barely audible. The dead bastard crushing her made it difficult to draw in a deep breath to say much more.
She thought she heard Bjornolf move closer, but it couldn’t be him. Whoever it was came from a different direction.
The person’s boot pulled away from the suction of mud on the jungle floor nearby, one step at a time. Then the boots moved onto drier land, with more of a crunching sound, slowly growing closer. She barely breathed.
A shadow suddenly blocked out the scant trickle of light through the canopy. A dirty-faced man with cold gray eyes peered down at her. Instantly, a chill swept up her spine. Not Bjornolf.
“You killed Juan,” the grungy man said with a thick Spanish accent. He aimed his pistol, and a gunshot rang out.
Her heart stuttered, and she expected to feel the bullet’s impact. Only she wasn’t shot.
The man fell face forward right on top of the other already resting heavily on her. The new dead man felt like he weighed nearly two hundred pounds himself.
“Anna, you okay?” Bjornolf asked, pulling the top dead body off her, then rolling him to the ground on the other side of the fallen tree.
She was filled with overwhelming relief when he moved all the additional pounds off her.
God, it was good to see Bjornolf, lips thinned with worry, high angled cheekbones giving him a rough, rugged look. In his camo gear, he was formidable, his clothes hugging his tall frame and his broad shoulders blocking her view of the canopy above. He was one sexy, virile wolf. His amber eyes were tinged with sage green, his burnt sienna brown hair cut short as if he was still in the Navy. No matter how much she needed to focus on the mission, she watched him with some envy, the way his muscles strained, showing the power in that tightly controlled body, while he tried to move the second man off of her. “Yeah,” she said, breathing a little easier, but still feeling light-headed.
“Get you out of there in a sec,” Bjornolf said, his voice rough. Despite Bjornolf’s strength, the other man took some time to move. The man was big, and the deadweight made it even harder for Bjornolf to lift. He finally managed to pull him off of her enough so that she was able to shimmy out from underneath him. She was still sandwiched between the two massive downed trees. As soon as she was free, Bjornolf dropped the man into the place where she’d been lying flat on her back.
He quickly leaned over the fallen tree and offered his hand to Anna, his gaze lingering on hers. She clasped his large hand, letting it engulf hers, which seemed suddenly tiny in comparison. In a flash, the jungle felt steamier, as if the temperature had risen another twenty degrees and the humidity le
vels had increased just as much. He pulled her up while she used her boots to dig in for purchase. After he helped her climb the rest of the way over the dead tree, she landed on the other side and took another deep breath.
“You okay? No injuries?” he asked, his words hushed. He focused on her expression, reading it, reading her.
Pride was all that had been injured, but she wasn’t about to admit that. She was sure he knew it already. She shot him a thumbs-up. Given the dangerous situation they were in, talk could prove deadly.
Everything was quiet as far as weapon fire was concerned, the jungle noises again reigning. Bjornolf headed back with her to where the team had been. Everyone was waiting, watching, protective of the family, but not moving until Bjornolf and Anna had been accounted for.
The men looked over Anna, worried. She gave them a thumbs-up and headed out again to provide security. Before she moved, she saw Bjornolf and Hunter exchange glances. She was certain Bjornolf wanted to switch places with her, but she wasn’t about to give up her job. She liked providing security on the outskirts, making certain that no harm reached the family they were attempting to get to safety.
She couldn’t help but respect Bjornolf for carrying the little girl, and she had seen the other team members admire him for it. Bjornolf might not be willing to admit to himself that he was quickly becoming part of their team, but this cinched it for her. A more disquieting thought came to mind—him as a father, protecting one of his own.
And her… the reminder that she had lost her own.
She shook her head at herself for such a fanciful notion concerning Bjornolf having kids of his own. He would never be the kind of man to settle down. Of course she’d thought the same of Hunter and Finn, and look what had happened to them.
Watching for any sign of movement, Anna resumed the slow, tedious trek with the team. They traveled for another couple of hours, took a break, then moved on until Hunter stopped them and went exploring on his own. When he returned, he led them to the base of a hut on stilts.
Anna looked up at the thatched-roof hut, which was silent and vacant. She sniffed the heavy, wet air. The area smelled strangely of jaguar and tangerine-scented soap.
Hunter said to her, “You and Bjornolf can take turns on guard duty inside the hut.”
She noted then that Bjornolf had already carried the girl up the wooden steps.
Anna frowned at the odd scents so close to the hut and then said, “All right.”
She normally did whatever Hunter said. He was the team leader, and she respected him. But she couldn’t help feeling that Bjornolf had said something to him about giving her a break. Sure, she was dead tired. So were the rest of them. But she wanted to hold up her end of the mission.
“Need a hand up?” Bjornolf asked, peering down from the screened-in porch, a small smile on his self-assured mouth and his eyes lit up with amusement.
She gave him a scathing look and climbed the steps. She tried not to show how difficult that was with all the gear she had on and as tired as she was.
When she reached the top of the rickety wooden steps, Bjornolf gave her a hand and pulled her into the enclosed porch—without her permission. Reminding herself that he would have done the same for any of the guys, she gave him a quick nod and thanked him.
Before she could remove her field pack, he was doing it for her. His large hands deftly moved to the buckle around her waist and began unfastening it. The experience was way too intimate. She felt as though he was going to strip her down the rest of the way. She was certain he would not have offered to help remove one of the men’s packs for them. Unless the man had been wounded.
She was annoyed with herself for having no control over the way her heartbeat increased or the way her temperature shot through the canopy, making her feel as though she was sweltering in an overheated sauna. Worse, her thoughts were straying to carnal possibilities instead of remaining where they should—that he was just being helpful.
With her sensitive wolf’s hearing, she could hear his elevated heartbeat, and the heated gaze he gave her said he was feeling it, too. Thankfully, he didn’t say anything to her. He didn’t need to. She smelled his interest in her. A wickedly lascivious thought came to her—wouldn’t it be nice to relieve some of the tension from the past couple of days by indulging in a sexual frenzy with a really hot guy like him?
She smiled at the notion. His brows rose as if he was interested in what she was thinking, and she smiled even broader. He’d never know.
Once the buckle was unfastened, the weight was instantly withdrawn from around her waist and she could breathe easier. He pulled the heavy weight off her back and laid the pack on the wooden floor of the hut.
She peered through the screen door and saw the two kids and their mother huddled on cots, sound asleep. The two brothers were settling down on sleeping bags, courtesy of two of the SEALs. She was glad the family had a place to sleep off the ground and more comfortably tonight.
“You want the hammock or your sleeping bag?” Bjornolf asked, motioning to the hammock tied to the ceiling of the porch.
The hammock would be cooler, she thought as she sat down on the floor to take off her boots. “I’ll sleep on the hammock.”
“Good.” He sat down on the floor next to her and began removing his boots. She frowned at him. “What are you doing?”
“The same as you. Getting ready to lie down for a bit.”
“I thought one of us was going to have first watch.”
“I am. Believe me, if anyone tries to come up here, he won’t know what hit him.”
He would shift into a wolf.
She stared at him, then glanced at his pack. He didn’t have a sleeping bag. “Where’s your…” She looked over at the screen door to the main room. He’d given his to one of the men. Great. So he planned on sleeping in her bag. Bjornolf’s heady male scent of sandalwood and hot hormones and sexy wolf would be all over her bag when she had to sleep in it later.
Then again, he’d breathe her in all night as well. She stifled a groan.
“Why are you here, watching them and watching us on this mission?” she asked with a heavy sigh.
He shrugged and pulled off his camo shirt and laid it next to his boots. He yanked his T-shirt off after that, baring his beautiful chest and all those ripped muscles. “I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone under threat of death, but I figure the secret is safe with you,” Bjornolf said.
Anna looked up from his sculpted abs, dying to know what the secret was and more than surprised that he would reveal what it was to her and nobody else.
“Meara asked me to watch over Hunter and Finn.”
Anna chuckled under her breath. “Sounds like Meara. The guys are glad to have you here. And little Elsie, too.”
“What about you?”
She didn’t know how he managed to fluster her so, but she felt her whole body flush with renewed heat. “Yeah, thanks for the help back there.”
“You’re welcome.” Bjornolf stretched his arms behind his back. She watched as his muscles moved. “Elsie and her little brother shouldn’t have been put through this hell.”
Anna glanced at the room, wondering if the parents were asleep.
“There’s only been one time that I remember being that small and frightened,” he said, his voice more hushed this time.
She took a gander at all of him again. She couldn’t imagine him ever having been…small. Or frightened.
“My friend and I were in the woods when we were twelve. I don’t know how we ever survived all the near-death experiences we had before then. Right before Christmas, we were hiking up a mountain, and we startled a momma black bear that only thought to protect her two young cubs.” He looked away and took a deep breath. “Gregory was mauled to death, and I couldn’t do a thing for him.”
Anna swallowed hard. She could see the grief he still felt for his friend, the feeling of helplessness, of being at fault.
“I ran away before she took notice of m
e. I didn’t leave the area, though. I went back as soon as the mother and her cubs moved off. I was the same size as Gregory, and I was sure that mother bear would come back at any moment. I had to carry Gregory’s body home to his parents. They were grief-stricken; it was awful. And I got hell from my own parents who were furious with me for hiking without adult members of the pack to keep us safe.”
Anna closed her gaping mouth. Even when he was young and terrified of facing his own mortality, he’d been honorable.
“Even today, the sound of a bear roaring in the wilderness gives me flashbacks about that horrific incident. After that, I resolved to be as tough as I could. Take no prisoners. Kill before being killed. Law of the jungle. I never wanted to have to rely on anyone else to get me anywhere safely.” He took a deep breath and exhaled it. “I had convinced my friend to join me on the hike. I was responsible.”
“You were just a kid, Bjornolf,” she said. “We all make mistakes. But the bear killed your friend. It could have been you.”
“Yeah.” He sounded like he still felt he was at fault. “These kids are with their parents. In this case, the mother and father are responsible for putting the children in harm’s way. Who the hell does that to their kids?”
Anna nodded, unsure what to say. Sometimes lending a sympathetic ear was enough.
Yet, she wanted to hug the young boy in Bjornolf who had suffered such a traumatic experience. And immediately thought how dangerous that would be.
She slipped out of her shirt and spread it next to her boots. He stood and unbuckled his belt while she watched. She couldn’t have taken her eyes off him at that moment for anything.
He unbuttoned his pants. She rose to her feet and unbuckled her belt, unfastened her pants, and slid them down her legs. The pants were caked with mud, stiff from the knees down, and it felt good to get out of them. If she had the time, she’d wash them in the morning.
Wearing only a pair of black boxers, Bjornolf lay down on her spread-out sleeping bag, his arms behind his head, his eyes on hers. He looked sexy, his tan muscled legs spread out, his chest lightly dusted in dark hair, his pecs remarkably toned as if he got a regular workout.
