Marley’s fingers went numb. The pistol seemed to weigh a hundred pounds.

She’d shot him. She killed another human being. The gun clattered to the earth and she stared at it with a growing wave of horror that seemed to send her stomach up her throat. She swallowed convulsively, but it didn’t matter, she couldn’t stop staring at the man’s corpse.

He’d fallen in a twisted heap, face turned away from her so that all she could see was the single bullet wound she’d planted in his skull. There was a growing pool of blood seeping onto the ground, spreading evil-looking tentacles into the dips and valleys on the ground.

“Get down!”

Something flew past her face, her hair whisked past her ear, and then Mack threw her beneath him once more. Something like concern flashed momentarily through his gray eyes. Then he was up on his knees, straddling her waist with his gun raised. He fired off several shots in quick succession, the sharp report of gunfire a few feet from her head piercing her eardrums. She jerked and dug her fingers into the squishy dirt, attempting to ground herself.

No matter how much she fought it, she couldn’t help but search for the dead man. From this new angle, his face was turned directly toward her, dead black eyes wide open with shock. Her stomach revolted and she scrambled onto her side, pulling herself as far away from Mack as she could to throw up.

She fell back, exhausted. She’d done simulations, training, and she practiced weekly with her weapon—but until now she’d never killed a human being. Was there anything else she could have done? Surely she could have stopped him another way . . .

“We’ve got to move. There are more coming.” Mack yanked her to her feet, not giving her time to analyze the situation.

A loud roar penetrated her awareness, a motor growing closer and closer.

She tried to get her feet to move, she really did, but it was like the sticky ground had sucked her down and locked her in place.

Mack’s savage expression filled her vision, mere inches from hers. “Snap out of it, Mitchell. We can’t take on the whole damn Army.”

A loud bang sounded in the distance, followed by a sharp line of something whistling through the air. There was another loud bang and an explosion, and they were both thrown to the ground by a blast of hot air. She landed on her back, the breath knocked from her lungs, and found herself staring up at the green canopy of leaves overhead, dancing and leaping, fire reflecting off their waxy surface.

Gunfire erupted again, growing closer.

There were more coming. More guerrillas. The man had put a gun to Mack’s head. That’s why she’d shot him.

Suddenly she heard every minute sound around her. The engine roar grew louder, the gunfire continued to rattle off. Mack’s heavy breathing a few feet away. Marley managed to turn her head, fighting past the stiff muscles in her neck to see him lying there with his eyes shut, breathing hard.

“Mack?” Her voice came out like a croak.

The approaching sounds continued to get louder and louder.

Marley cleared her throat again. “Mack, are you okay?”

He nodded and then winced, as if that small movement had caused him intense pain. Concentrating on all her body parts, Marley forced herself up onto an elbow. There was blood seeping from one of his ears and the corner of his mouth. He’d been standing kind of in front of her and must’ve taken the brunt of the blast. She reached for him, gently wiping the trail of blood from his mouth with her thumb. “Can you walk? We need to find cover.”

Again with the nod. Marley crawled up to him on her knees, making sure to keep her head below the break and undergrowth that had shielded their position. Mack peeled his eyes open, rolled onto his stomach, and got up on all fours. She couldn’t resist putting her arm around his, trying to help him to his feet. Just like she couldn’t help but notice his biceps beneath the dirty material of his shirt. He stood steadily, swayed once, and then straightened up. “Hold on.”

Mack went down and she dove with him, trying to keep him from falling. They butted heads instead. Pain washed over her already throbbing skull and she grabbed her temples. Mack did the same, groaning. “What the hell?”

“I thought you were falling.”

“I was getting a gun.” His voice was about as friendly as a bear growl.

“Well, I was only trying to help.” Marley shoved up onto her feet, only to have Mack yank her right back down to her knees.

“Stay down. They’ve cut the engines. I can hear them coming this way.”

Her heart jammed up into her throat and her hand went for the sidearm at her waist. Her holster was empty. She had dropped her gun. Leaves and sticks and debris covered the ground around them from the blast. She had no hope of finding her weapon, her only means of self-defense.

Mack yanked the black AK-57 from the dead soldier. Jerking his head over his shoulder, Mack said, “Follow me. Stay low and stay quiet. If they find us, stay behind me.”

A fresh line of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Marley resisted the urge to reach up and brush it away. He was giving off that whole wounded alpha male vibe, and as much as she wanted to soothe and comfort him, she didn’t want to lose her fingers.

“Right behind you.” She’d have to rely on him now, since he had the only weapon. At least he knew how to use it.

Mack took off in a quiet, crouching run and Marley stayed right at his heels.

She had seen the quick, lethal efficiency with which he had taken out attacker after attacker, using a single bullet each time. He didn’t waste his movements or his rounds. His men didn’t either. It seemed almost unreal, moving with that kind of grace in combat.

A limb slapped her in the face and she bit her lip to keep from gasping at the sharp sting. Mack picked up the pace as they put more and more distance between themselves and the sounds of the enemy soldiers. What about his team? His men?

Where were they? How the hell were they supposed to get out of this godforsaken jungle?

Vines seemed to spring up from everywhere. Hanging down from trees as tall as buildings, draped over their huge knotted roots. In so much abundance, it almost felt like she was surrounded by snakes.

She caught more than one pair of glowing eyes peering at her from the thick foliage and tucked up extra close to Mack. In this one instance, she had no problem acting girly—creepy crawly things freaked her out. She didn’t second-guess it, didn’t try to pretend like they didn’t—just accepted her fear as a rational feeling that any sane human being would have.

They moved like that for what seemed like hours, until the little bit of sunlight capable of piercing the canopy of leaves overhead faded into a dim, distant glow. Night crawlers and animals hummed and chirped and howled. Her legs screamed with fatigue.

She’d stopped thinking about how dry her mouth was hours ago, or the gnawing pain of hunger gripping her stomach. There was no way in hell she was going to plead with Mack to stop on her account.

And the man hadn’t even bothered to turn around and check on her once. What if one of those giant snakes had popped down and swallowed her whole?

He’d probably be glad he didn’t have to deal with her anymore . . .

Poor Maddie—the Air Force would’ve realized her plane was missing. Had someone called her father? Had they told anyone? Her throat closed off at the thought of the pain and suffering her family would endure from that kind of phone call. She knew from personal experience after having received a phone call like that herself. Her husband’s commanding officer had been the one to break the news that he was missing in action. And then the funeral officer had arrived at her front door to deliver the news of John’s death.

No. She would not do that to her daughter. She wouldn’t put Maddie through that kind of pain.

She’d crawl out of this place on her hands and knees if that’s what it required.

Mack came to an abrupt stop, and Marley didn’t have time to register it before slamming into his solid back. She caught her own body before falling and muttered out, “I’m sorry.” She’d have to get her head in the game if she was going to survive this place. Everything in this jungle wanted to kill her. Human and animal alike.

“Wait, we’ll sleep there.” Mack pointed up and moved toward a sheer solid gray rock face right in front of them. She had failed to notice it until this very moment because it was mostly covered in dark green vines and vegetation. There, where? All she could see was what looked like a thousand-foot wall jutting up into the treetops and disappearing into the sky beyond. He wanted her to climb that?

“Yep.”

She shook her head and dropped her chin to meet the intent gaze. “What?”

“The answer to your question is yes, I do want you to climb that wall.”

“You heard me say that?” She hadn’t even realized she’d spoken out loud.

His expression took on a look of shrewd knowledge and Marley fought to keep her own face neutral. Why did she get the feeling she wasn’t going to like whatever he was about to say next?

“You are afraid of heights.”

Marley choked and then tried to play it off as a sort of laugh. She rolled her eyes, forcing her seriously thudding heart to slow the hell down before she had a coronary. “You’re crazy, I’m a pilot.”

He nodded slowly, in an irritating, knowing kind of way that made her want to cross her arms and let out a huff and stomp her foot.

“I’ve seen it a couple of times before. I think it has something to do with actually seeing the ground beneath you. When you fly, you only see the clouds, and besides, you’re in complete control of the airplane. But when you have to jump out and parachute or you’re dangling from a tree, you don’t have much control there, do you?”

“You’re psychoanalyzing me now? Well thanks for the diagnosis, Freud, but you couldn’t be more wrong.” Dear God, the man was astute. How had he figured out her little idiosyncrasies so quickly?

Mack shrugged in an offhanded manner. “Just a hunch.”

She let the floodgates of irritation open—anything to protect her from the vulnerable feeling of this man knowing her secrets. Marley planted her fist on her hip and glared. “Good thing you’re not a psychologist. Because you suck at it.”

Mack let out a long-suffering sigh and promptly gave her his back.

Had he really just dismissed her? Oh, Marley Mitchell did not get dismissed.

“What exactly is so interesting about this cliff you keep staring at? And how do you expect us to sleep up there? There’s nowhere to sleep.”

“About thirty feet up to your left, there’s a small ledge. If you look carefully, you can see it’s a cave”

She’d be alone all night in a cave with Mack and his steely gray eyes and hard muscles. “Can we find somewhere else?”

“You have a better idea?” Yeah, anywhere that didn’t involve her being trapped in close proximity to a man who sent her heart into a tailspin every time he looked at her. She still hadn’t figured out her strange reaction to him.

With John, everything had been so natural, as if fate had lined up for them to be together. Everything in their perfect little life had gone according to her master plan—right up until he died. She’d spent years silently grieving not only the loss of her husband and Maddie’s father, but also the loss of her dream. John had been exactly like her. He had paid attention to details, made plans for everything, and run through life like a well-oiled machine.

Marley had mapped out her next fifty years.

And then a random roadside bomb had destroyed all of it.

She’d been silently struggling to find her footing ever since, carving out her new existence as a single mother, remapping and redirecting her life plan. And that new plan did not have a place for a man.

She hadn’t even really considered the opposite sex—until Mack Grey. And why him? He was overbearing, egotistical, and obviously thought his word was law. He acted too quickly for her liking, not taking the time to fully analyze a situation before making a decision. Rash decisions led to death. Her father had hammered that fact into her head since childhood, and her commander had done the same. But this guy and his team jumped out of airplanes. They climbed hundred-foot trees and dangled from ropes with as much ease as she used a crosswalk. But those rash decisions had also saved her life more than once. There seemed to be a reason to their mayhem and madness.

Maybe she should give Mack the benefit of the doubt. “Okay, let me study the wall for a minute, figure out the easiest route.”

Marley took a step back. The giant rock face shot straight up and the massive, bright green vines braided together across its surface were interspersed with huge, pink and yellow, tropical-looking flowers that smelled almost sickly sweet. Everything here seemed stronger, bigger—even the plants.

“There’s a gap about ten feet above our heads. I say we start here,” Marley breezed past Mack and his inquisitive look to touch a thick vine the circumference of her forearm. “And angle up to the left.”

“It took you five minutes to figure that out?” Mack arched his brows and his lips curled at the edges. The look gave him a boyish appearance that was charming . . . on the surface. She chose not to put too much thought to the sarcastic undertone in his words.

“Acting without a plan increases risk. Risk is what gets people killed.”

Mack closed the distance between them. His palm covered the back of her hand. Electricity zinged up her arm and she felt every callous, every rough crevice, and every ounce of this man’s strength in that connection.

“Sometimes the risk is worth the reward.” Mack leaned in and Marley stood there, her stomach floating around in a mass of nerves. This man was as bold and striking as the jungle. And equally dangerous.

As light as a feather, he brushed his lips across hers, the barely there contact sending shivers down her shoulders and arms.

“You’re not talking about heights, are you?” she whispered.

Mack hooked an arm around her body and yanked her to him so that every ounce of hard packed muscle was pressed to her curves. He brushed another featherlight kiss on her lips before answering, “I’m talking about this.”

Mack let out a low growl deep in his throat, and she felt the vibrations through her torso. That sound awakened her senses, goosebumps spread across her arms despite the heat, and her toes curled inside her boots. With this man, the risk might very well be worth the reward.