of this forsaken—no, not forsaken, Abuelita’s voice corrected her, God was even in this jungle—Gabby felt her face grow warmer. The soldier must think she was slow-witted. As she had constantly for the past two days, she gripped the medallion on the chain around her neck and asked for faith that they would make it home alive. Abuelita had given her the silver medal for her First Communion and it always comforted her.
“Ms. Diaz?”
The soldier’s face came into focus. His concerned face. Because she’d halted.
“We have to keep moving.”
“Right.” She straightened her shoulders and forced a smile. “Call me Gabby.”
* * *
CLAY COULDN’T DECIDE if this woman was the bravest civilian he’d ever encountered, or the craziest. Maybe she was both.
For instance, that smile she’d just flashed. After what he’d just told her she should be complaining about something by now. They’d missed the rescue helo. They weren’t going to make it to the secondary extraction. And surviving overnight in this jungle was going to prove challenging. But knowing all this, she’d...smiled? And that smile had hit him right in the gut. She’d been held captive, shot at, bitten and scratched up, and wasn’t smelling too sweet.
But that hadn’t stopped him checking her out. He wasn’t called Hounddog for nothing.
Her thin, used-to-be-white shirt was damp and clinging to her, showing through to her very practical, plain white bra. Her dark brown eyes were fringed with thick lashes and didn’t miss a thing. And those lips. Made to be thoroughly kissed. Plus she had the kind of figure he loved on a woman. Full and lush in all the right places. He’d had to muster up an extra ounce of discipline wrapping that gauze around her waist.
But he had a job to do.
He heard an abbreviated shriek behind him and spun to check on her.
With a flinch she whisked off a beetle that had landed on her chest. Her lips trembled, but she pinched them together. They’d been traveling about an hour and she was keeping up pretty well, but she looked done in.
Keep her distracted. “So, Gabby.” He resumed heading west, hacking through twisting vines and thick fronds with his knife, holding a tangle of ferns out of the way for her. “Where you from?”
“Texas. In the Rio Grande Valley. A little town just outside of Corpus Christi called San Juan.”
“And how’d you get into banking?” He glanced back at her.
After seeming confused by his curiosity, she drew in a deep breath. “What can I say, I’m a mathlete. A nerd. Yeah, my Twitter sign is even at symbol nerdy bank analyst. How nerdy is that?”
As he slashed through the dense undergrowth, he listened while she chattered. He could hear the pride in her voice when she talked about going to college. She’d won a scholarship to the University of Corpus Christi, earned a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Statistics. Then got her Master of Science in Finance at the U of Texas, San Antonio. Geez, a master’s? He’d barely graduated high school. If he hadn’t crammed for the ASVAB like a son of a gun, he’d have never passed the Armed Services exam. Book smarts were not his strong suit.
“What about you?” She sounded out of breath.
“What about me?” She wanted to know if the guy who was saving her butt had a degree?
“Where are you from? Somewhere in the South, right?”
Defensive much, Bellamy? “Yes, ma’am. Talladega, Alabama. Home of the Superspeedway and the Peach Jam Jubilee.” Would she catch the edge of bitterness to his tone?
“Jubilee? That sounds fun.”
Fun? Nothing associated with home sounded fun to him. Except, now that she mentioned it, he guessed maybe he did have a recollection of sitting on his stepdad’s shoulders and watching some floats go by. Catching a piece of candy the beautiful Peach Queen threw. Giving the candy to his little sister and her grinning up at him like he was her hero.
And he’d end up playing that role for her over and over again.
“Clay? Is something wrong?”
Wow, that flash of memory brought a tightness to his chest. A distraction he could not afford right now. He cleared his throat. “Not a thing.” He checked his diver’s watch. Oh-nine-fifty. And they’d only traveled about two clicks. Still, her breathing was labored. The humidity was a factor. And she probably hadn’t eaten much, if anything, in the last couple of days. A few feet ahead was a small clearing of sorts. “Let’s stop and rest a sec.” He sheathed his knife.
As she gave a relieved sigh and moved to sit on a fallen tree branch, he dropped his pack and dug out a protein bar and the water bottle. “Here.”
She took them eagerly and he unsnapped his metal flask and allowed himself a mouthful of water, watching the woman for signs of pain, fatigue or mental breakdown.
She was short, but sturdy enough. Other than a wince of pain every so often—probably related to her bullet graze, she seemed in fairly good condition. Her torn skirt showed off her shapely legs. His gaze followed the length of her legs, imagining the rest of her thighs hidden by the skirt. Wondering if her panties matched her plain white bra. For some reason they seemed more erotic than any of that lacy underwear most women he hooked up with wore.
He really was a hound dog.
She tucked her legs under her and folded her arms over her chest, and he met her gaze. Damn. She must feel violated enough already and he’d gone and—but that wasn’t anger or fear he saw in her eyes. It was desire.
Which there was no way he was going to act on.
He put away his flask. “We’d better get— Don’t move, all right?”
“What?”
“I said, hold completely still.”
Though he kept his volume low, she must’ve responded to the command in his tone because she obeyed. He slid his knife from the holster on his hip, aimed at the long red-black-and-yellow-striped coral snake next to her right foot and threw it with enough force to pin the reptile’s head to the ground.
Gabby warily turned her head a fraction and moved just her eyes to glance at the dead snake at her feet.
Her eyes widened. Her mouth dropped open in a silent scream.
Then she started hyperventilating.
GABBY COULDN’T BREATHE. Her vision wavered. All the greens ran together around her, and then everything turned black in her peripheral vision.
The next thing she knew, her head was cradled in the crook of Clay’s arm and he was stroking her head and murmuring soothing words.
“Just take a deep breath in. That’s it, you’re gonna be fine.”
Gabby opened her eyes. Clay
