He shook his head. “No. I’m good. Found her,” he hollered over his shoulder.
She wouldn’t have gone far anyway. There was no way she’d leave the warmth and safety of the solid male body she was planted against, not unless he took her with him.
With a quick flick, he reached out and brushed the huge spider off her arm. He’d actually touched it. Ewww! Just that fast, it was gone. Adam didn’t even blink, but she shivered all the way down to her toes. Just great. It’s on the ground now.
She pushed her backside harder against Adam, her eyes riveted to the jungle floor. That thing was down there. Walking. Stalking. Her! She couldn’t see it, but something fluttered over her neck. She slapped a hand to cover her bare skin as a burst of goose bumps travelled at the speed of light up the length of her body. Adam had the nerve to chuckle, right before he blew another teasing puff of air down her neck.
“You’re laughing at me,” she said petulantly, her heart rate still climbing.
He shook his head, but there was a definite playful light in his eyes. “No. I’m laughing with you,” he said in mock seriousness. “Honest. I’d never laugh at you, especially not if you keep pushing your butt against me like that.”
Connor crashed through the banana fronds, a hefty stick raised over his head. “What was it? A wild pig? Where’d it go?”
Adam smiled the most glorious smile. It literally cracked his serious face wide open. Shannon wanted to bask in it if not for that remark about her butt, and the fact that he’d laughed at her. Embarrassment warmed her cheeks. Kind of. It was a really big spider, but it was hard to stay angry with Adam after that butt comment. He liked it? She noticed he hadn’t let go of her, so she pushed again.
“It could’ve been a tiger,” he teased, his chin in her neck. “It was black and orange like a tiger, wasn’t it?”
Another shiver slithered up her spine. “And it had furry legs. Really long legs.”
Connor’s brows wrinkled. “Long legs?”
“Don’t forget there were eight of them,” Adam added.
“Quiet, you.” Shannon felt her lip sticking out. There she’d thought she was the conquering heroine, only to turn into the damsel in distress. “There was this giant spider, Connor, and it landed on me, and it was really big.”
Annoyed disbelief flickered through Connor’s eyes before he outright laughed at her, too. Adam still held her tight, but somehow it didn’t feel as good as it had before. Darn men.
“Don’t ever come into the jungle alone again,” he scolded, his breath warm and moist in her ear. “I’m not kidding. There might be more than spiders out here. Wait until I have a chance to look around.”
“But I found something to eat.” She pointed with just the tip of her index finger at the clumps of bananas overhead, no doubt still protected by tiger spiders with hundreds of sticky, hairy legs. She’d learned her lesson. No sense in extending a whole arm when one finger would do.
“I see that. You did good, Shannon. Scared the living hell out of me, but you did good.”
“Crap. All that noise over a stupid bug.” Connor rolled his eyes, grumbling when he stepped forward and hacked an enormous bunch of bananas from the tree with Ramsey’s knife. “It sounded like someone was dying out here.”
Shannon kept her mouth shut while Adam escorted her back the way she’d come. They had to walk single file through the bushes where every branch and every leaf could hide another eight-legged beast. She held her breath and kept going, her gaze ever watchful over the top of Adam’s head, and her fingers gripping his hand.
Covered with goose bumps, she finally faced Izza, her eyes bright with curiosity. “What was that all about?”
“I found some bananas,” Shannon offered weakly, pointing at the rack of green fruit slung over Connor’s shoulder. Just looking at the possible spider nests setting on his bare back made her shiver again.
“And...” Adam looked expectantly at her, one brow lifted and his eyes lit with mischief.
Connor still seemed annoyed, his foot tapping.
Shannon bit her lip. “And I found a really big spider. You had to be there. Honest, it was huge.”
Darn it. Even Izza laughed.
Chapter Ten
“A tree house? Really?”
Despite their tenuous circumstances, Adam smiled at Connor’s question. He looked stricken at the thought of building anything long-term on the island, but something had to be done. All of them were injured. Adam’s broken ribs allowed limited movement. The only thing that kept him going was the very obvious fact that he had no choice.
After Shannon’s spider incident, they’d returned to the beach to search for more survivors. In the process, they got a better feel for the place. The island they’d crash-landed on was a hundred-acre sandbox in the middle of the Pacific. Palm trees, vines, and shrubbery filled the center; white sandy beaches filled everything else. Night was coming on fast. A pinkish glow already lit the darkening western sky. Except for rescuing Shannon from Spider Man, it seemed an innocuous place to spend a night or two. Or three.
Adam didn’t want to entertain the thought that this disaster might extend beyond that. Not with four missing drones and two missing people out there, one who might be dangerous.
The Gulfstream drifted in the shallows as much as a downed wreck could drift. Sparks still lit up the fuselage from time to time, and Adam really wanted to extract the pilot’s body and get those three graves dug, but a man could only do so much in one helluva day. The women were their first priority. The dead could wait.
They’d discovered a shallow cove a couple of hundred yards beyond the wreckage. It was no larger than a backyard swimming pool, but there were fish there, and that meant a ready food source. A waterfall would’ve been a nice touch, but the banyan tree sheltering the innermost curve of the cove was better.
Extensive branching from the parent tree had created a crescent-shaped temple-like structure around the crystal-clear pool. Each of the prop roots were more tree than root, some extended into the salty water. The trunks closest to the edge of the cove had died. That indicated to Adam that the cove was a fairly recent development, or else the whole tree would’ve been dead.
Jungle vines strangled the columnar trunks of the banyan, but a little hacking might create a suitable ladder for the ladies. At least a shelter on the lower levels would get everyone up off the ground and away from creepy crawlers and snakes, if there were any.
Aside from the knife, there’d been no sign of Ramsey. Donavan, neither. After hours of searching, Adam and Connor were forced to assume the worst. Their flight had suffered a fifty percent casualty rate, and they were lucky to be alive.
In the meantime, the women needed to be cared for, and maybe Connor, too. He still displayed moments of extreme disorientation, as if he didn’t remember what had happened. And he’d gotten paranoid, a definite sign that something was amiss in that hard head.
“Think about it,” Adam said, hoping to sway Connor to his point of view. “A tree house makes sense. We might be here awhile.”
“Nope.” Connor was adamant and edgy. “We’re getting off this island, if it’s the last thing I do. My kids aren’t going to be orphans.”
Adam bit his lip. He missed his dog, but children were a whole different heartache. “We need shelter, Connor. If it was just you and me, I’d stay on the beach, but we’ve got the women to—”
“Yeah. I know. I get it.” Connor blew out a big sigh. “Heaven knows Miss Reagan can’t sleep on the beach with spiders and bugs like the rest of us.”
That didn’t go as well as Adam had hoped. “You don’t want Izza sleeping in the sand, either. She’s hurt. She needs a decent place to recuperate.”
“No, you’re right. Crap, I get it.” Connor still seemed agitated. He kept slapping his palm to his thigh. “Let’s start on it tomorrow. I don’t want to think about it. Not tonight.”
“I’ll rig a fish trap in the morning,” Adam offered. “We’ll nee
d more to eat than bananas.”
“Yeah.” Connor let out another big sigh and another slap. “Bananas.”
“Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah. No.” Connor shook his head, cringing as if that simple motion hurt more than his skull. “It’s Izza. Her leg’s bad, and she’s running a fever. I’ve got no antibiotics. Crap. Everything went down with that plane. I don’t have anything to clean that cut. She needs stitches, too.”
That explained part of Connor’s foul mood. He was worried.
“Let’s get back to the ladies,” Adam offered. “It’s late. We’ll search the plane tomorrow.”
“I pulled a metal thing out of her back. Damn woman...” Connor’s voice tightened. “She’s laying there suffering while I’m out of my head. She needed me, and crap...”
Crap. Connor’s cuss word of choice. Adam hadn’t known about the thing in Izza’s back until then. That stubborn woman. He clapped a hand to his buddy’s shoulder, still hoping to derail Connor’s angst. “You’re the one who gave me mouth to mouth, remember? We’ll be okay.”
“Me?” That got Connor’s attention. “Damn. Don’t tell anyone.”
Adam allowed a small smile. “Don’t worry. I’m a firm believer in don’t ask, don’t tell.”
Connor shrugged away from Adam’s hand, but Adam couldn’t leave it well enough alone. “You are my hero though. Just want you to know. I’ll always be thankful for that kiss of life—”
“Shut up!” Connor punched Adam’s arm, which hurt his ribs, but made him grin, too.
Their circumstances were pretty darn bleak, but there were four survivors, and three of them were SERE trained and damned good sharpshooters. Their gear might be at the bottom of the ocean, but all that survival, evasion, resistance, and escape training would count for something. Except for the knife Adam had found, they were unarmed, but no SEAL was ever helpless. No Marine, either. Shannon was the only one they’d have to watch out for.
The way Adam figured, cannibalizing the wreck had better be their next order of business. They’d use what they could to set up a decent camp, establish an around-the-clock guard routine, and hunker down until help showed. He picked up a small tree limb from the sandy beach as they walked. Even that small movement sent a painful reminder to his ribcage.
Approaching their camp, which was simply where they’d left the ladies, Adam spotted the glow of a fire. It was small, but a definite surprise. Did Izza have a lighter he didn’t know about? He waved Connor to stand back in the shadows with him. Together, they listened and watched who they’d thought was the weaker sex.
Shannon sat cross-legged at Izza’s side, leaned over and peering down, her brows knit in concentration as she worked something around Izza’s leg. Drawing in closer, Adam saw that Shannon had torn the sleeve off her very expensive designer blouse. She’d used it to make a decent bandage for the slice on Izza’s leg.
Izza leaned against the tree with her fingers knitted together over her chest, quietly watching while Shannon tied bows to hold the bandage in place. Adam couldn’t help grinning. Bows. Three of them. Everything Shannon did was ultra-feminine and just plain adorable.
Both women were bruised and exhausted-looking. She probably didn’t know it, but Shannon boasted a black eye amongst the bruises on one side of her poor face, and Izza looked as pale as a Hispanic ghost.
“There now, you’re all set.” Shannon patted Izza’s leg carefully. She leaned back and cocked her head while she surveyed her handiwork. “That ought to hold you. Just don’t go running around. The cut looks pretty clean. I’ll check it first thing in the morning to make sure it isn’t getting infected. Does it hurt?”
“No, but I wish I’d shaved my legs today,” Izza muttered. “How’s your arm?”
Adam couldn’t help but smile when Shannon flexed her broken limb like she was showing off her bicep. Only a very dainty arm showed up for the drill. “It hurts, but I’ll live.”
“You know, in some parts of the world, people eat spiders,” Izza teased.
Adam saw Shannon shiver from where he stood. Her shoulders scrunched, her head shook, and she stroked her sore arm as if she’d gotten chilled. “Ewww. I couldn’t do that. Could you?”
Izza shook her head. “I was just kidding, but we might get that desperate. You might not have a choice.”
“Uh-uh. No spiders. No bugs, either. And don’t go telling me how they eat chocolate-covered grasshoppers in some parts of the world, either.” Shannon sounded adamant. “I don’t do crawly things, but if the guys go fishing in the morning, I’ll steam whatever they catch. Course they’ll have to clean it. And cut its head off. I’ll need some nice big banana leaves, too. Stuff like that.”
“I almost killed a turtle once,” Izza replied dreamily. “Me and Connor were lost in the desert and starving. Figured I could make turtle soup out of the old critter.”
“But you didn’t?”
“Nah.” Izza crossed her arms behind her head, watching the fire. “Connor named the darned thing. I couldn’t kill a turtle named Homer.”
“Why were you starving? How’d you survive?”
Izza grunted. “We tangled with the Sonoran cartel. Not smart. We got ourselves dumped in the desert. It was tough, but we made it. Connor trapped jackrabbits for food. I would’ve died without him.”
“Ewww,” Shannon whined. “You ate bunnies?”
“Let me tell you what, girlfriend. When you get hungry enough, you’ll eat anything. Besides, these weren’t cute, little, fluffy bunnies. They were tough, rangy jackrabbits with long radar ears. I had to boil ’em twice just so we could chew on ’em once.”
“In their skins?” Shannon sounded appalled, and Adam smiled. This girl was a breath of pure, fresh air. Naïve to her toes maybe, but as honest and sweet as the day was long. She had to be adopted. In no way did she take after her nightmare of a father.
“Oh, my hell, Shannon. What are you thinking? Of course I didn’t cook ’em in their fur. I skinned ’em first.” Izza sounded just as appalled as Shannon. “Good grief. Haven’t you ever gone hunting before?”
Shannon shook those dirty blonde curls of hers. “Never had a reason to.”
“You’ve never fished or anything in your life?”
Shannon shook her head again. “I’m a writer, Izza, and I own my own publishing company. Plus, I know some pretty good restaurants. I could recommend a few if you’d like.”
“What the hell on earth have you been doing all your life, girlfriend? Living in a rich bitch bubble?” Izza sounded harsh, but Shannon lifted both shoulders and giggled. The crystal-clear lilt in her voice caught Adam by surprise. She had a beautiful laugh.
“My gosh, don’t you read the tabloids? I’ve been raised by the megalomaniac of the century. Why would I need to worry about where my next meal’s coming from? All I’ve ever hunted is a way to stay clear of the media frenzy my father creates.”
“You do have an interesting dad.”
“You could say that.”
“So how’d you know about steaming fish in banana leaves then?”
“Discovery Channel.”
Shannon’s simple answer damned near pulled Adam’s heartstrings out of his chest. This was a woman accustomed to the lap of luxury, not living off the land. She shouldn’t be there, but there she was, learning to survive and making sure her fellow survivors were cared for even though it meant facing a really big spider.
He couldn’t take it. He and Connor stepped into view. “Hey. We found a better place to camp. Plan on moving after breakfast tomorrow.”
Connor went straight away to Izza, pointing at the fire. “You got matches or something I don’t know about?”
Izza looked to Shannon. “It’s all her fault,” she teased. “She did it.”
“How?” Connor asked bluntly, his brows furrowed and an edge to his question.
Shannon smiled shyly. “It was easy. There was a fire in the cockpit. It was still smoking, so I found a long, dried branch an
d used it to make a torch.”
“Yeah, but she had her tinder and firewood ready before she went swimming, so all she had to do when she got back was light it up,” Izza said proudly, her palms to the cheery flames. “Nice, huh?”
“Damn it. You went out there all by yourself? In the dark?” That surprised Adam. He didn’t know whether to kiss Shannon or spank her. Going into the jungle alone was dangerous enough, but sharks lurked in the shallow surf, not to mention the danger of getting too close to the burning wreck. Didn’t this girl know anything? “Don’t do it again.”
She shrugged. He’d embarrassed her. “Okay.”
“You made that fire and you... you helped Izza? Why?” Connor’s bewildered question drew Adam’s attention back to his buddy. Connor wasn’t coping well. Adam understood the feeling. It had been a tough day, but the guy sounded stretched to the limit. Maybe beyond.
“Izza’s leg needed to be covered, so it wouldn’t get infected. I just wanted to help,” she explained.
“Here. Since you’re so good at doctoring, I brought you something.” Adam changed the subject, holding out the small branch he’d picked up off the beach to Shannon.
The cutest puzzled expression passed through her eyes when she took it. He saw a completely different look when he pulled his shirt over his head. Her heated gaze fastened to his chest and slid quickly down his abdomen. She blinked once, glanced up at him, and blushed.
He looked down at his banged up body. “Damn,” he breathed, taking in the sight of all his bruises for the first time. “Guess I should’ve kept my shirt on. I thought I was going to impress you. Guess not.”
Shannon took a step toward him. “You’re hurt.”
“No. I’m fine,” he muttered, one palm forward, halting her advance. “Sit down. Here.”
He motioned to the palm tree across from where the Mahers sat. Obediently, Shannon knelt, the stick still in her hand. Adam knelt with her. With one hard tug, he ripped his shirt at one of the side seams, and then the other. Taking the stick from Shannon, he broke it in half and positioned her broken forearm gently between his upper arm and his side, binding her arm to the sticks with more strips of the shirt. It was primitive, but it would work.
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