Chapter 43
“So we head south,” Edwards said. They were alone in the narrow bedroom. Sheer white curtains rustled in the late night breeze. Outside the sky was as black as molasses.
Gabe nodded. “We’ll check Santiago’s paste pit first.”
She had removed a map from his pack and was spreading it onto the bed. “It’s what…about ten miles from here? So maybe four hours to get there.”
“Don’t forget about the river,” he warned and stood to join her by the map.
“I don’t habitually fall into them, you know.” Her tone was a cross between irritation and apology.
He squelched a grin. “I just meant we’re going to have to find a way to cross it.”
She nodded slowly and turned back to the map.
“Without you toppling in,” he added and kept his gaze front and center.
She gave him a wry look from the corner of her eye. “I like to think I’m earning my wages.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you.” Scowling at the map, he traced the length of the gulch with his index finger. “You think the woman’s body was found about there?” he asked but she remained silent.
He turned toward her, brows raised.
The surprise on her face was as clear as daylight and almost made it worth risking compliments. He fought a smile and turned back to the Colombian terrain. “If you’re going to cast off, Edwards, you ought to make sure you don’t use too much bait.”
She stared at him a second. He could feel the heat of her scowl on his face. “I wasn’t…” she began then shook her head and shifted her attention away. “Okay, maybe I was fishing a little bit.” Turning, she sat down on the bed to remove her socks. The mattress shifted beneath her little heart shaped fanny. Mattresses, it turned out, got all the damn luck, Gabe thought but kept his attention front and center.
“If I were a shrink, I would say your parents didn’t give you enough praise,” he said.
“If I were your patient, I would ask if you’re always such a master at the obvious.”
“Yeah?” he said and didn’t try to keep the surprise from his voice. He could imagine her as a little girl, pigtails askew, freckles scattered like confetti across her pug nose. True, he had been careful with his own accolades, but he had his reasons. For instance, she was scared and out of her element. Praise could make her overly grateful, which could, in turn, cause her do things she would later regret.
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.