by Susan Stoker
“What?” Casey asked groggily, waking as she wrapped her arms around Beatle’s neck.
“Shhhh. Truck found a good place to bunk down for the night. We’ll be there in a jiffy.”
“Ants,” Casey murmured.
“What was that?” Beatle asked, leaning into her. Truck held branches away from him so they wouldn’t smack into Casey as they walked.
“Make sure there isn’t a bullet ant mound nearby,” she told him.
“I don’t particularly like any kind of bug,” Beatle told her. “But why specifically should we be concerned about this bullet ant and where is it found?”
“The bullet ant has a sting that people say is as painful as being shot. Thus the name,” Casey informed them. “The worker ants kinda resemble wasps. They like to build their colony at the base of a tree so the workers can forage for food in the leaves in the canopy.”
“We’ve been bit by fire ants back in Texas, is it like that?” Truck asked.
Casey shook her head. “No. Worse. You did hear me say the pain is like being shot, right?”
Truck chuckled. “Yeah, sorry.”
“I can tell you don’t believe me, but I’m not lying,” Casey insisted, sounding more awake.
“Oh, I believe you,” Truck said quickly.
“Some people have described the pain from a bite as waves of burning, throbbing, all-consuming pain that can continue for up to twenty-four hours. I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely not all that fired up about experiencing that. I think being kidnapped and buried alive is enough for one trip for me.”
Beatle tightened his grip on the woman in his arms. He was thrilled her voice sounded better and she was talking more, but he didn’t like hearing her talk about her ordeal so flippantly. But he kept his mouth shut. It was good she was joking about her experience. He and his teammates did that all the time in order to better deal with their emotions after a tough mission.
“I’ll make sure we don’t use trees to anchor the hammocks if there’s an ant nest under it,” Truck reassured her.
“Hammocks?” Casey asked, turning to look up at Beatle for an answer to her question.
“We aren’t about to sleep on the ground, sweetheart,” Beatle said.
“Smart man,” she quipped. “Do you know how many species of ants and spiders there are in Costa Rica?”
“No, and I don’t want to,” he said quickly when she opened her mouth to respond.
She smiled up at him. Then the grin faded and she asked, “What about me?”
“What about you?” Beatle retorted.
“Where will I sleep?”
He didn’t answer her for a long moment, confused about what she was asking. Then finally said, “In a hammock.”
“Then what about you? Where will you sleep?”
“In a hammock,” he repeated patiently, still confused.
Casey looked over at Truck, then up at Beatle again. “You brought one for me?”
Understanding dawned. “Yeah, Case. We always carry extras. We definitely have extra supplies since we were on a rescue mission.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh. But make no mistake…if I did only have one, it’d be yours.” Not giving her time to respond, Beatle stopped. “We’re here. Do you think you can stand on your own for a bit while we get things set up?”
“I can help,” she said.
“That’s not what I asked,” Beatle told her patiently.
Casey took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah, I can stand.”
She didn’t sound so sure. Beatle leaned over and gently placed her feet on the ground, then kept his hands on her hips, supporting her as she took her own weight.
He didn’t miss the grimace on her face and knew he needed to do something about her feet. He hadn’t missed the fact that they were wet, and probably had been for a while.
“Thoughts on this spot?” he asked her, trying to take her mind off the pain of her body.
She looked around. They were in a small clearing surrounded by trees. There weren’t any mounds to be seen and nothing that screamed, “Watch out! Scary bugs live here,” but Casey was the expert.
She finally nodded. “Yeah, this looks good. Can’t say there won’t be any mammals wandering through, but that’s not my area of expertise.”
Beatle backed up slowly toward one of the trees on the outside of the area. “Yeah, there are a few trees close together we can use for the hammocks.”
“Good.”
He smiled. He heard the disappointment in her tone, but knew she wouldn’t ask. He leaned close and whispered in her ear, “There isn’t a lake or river nearby, but Truck assured me there is running water. A small stream just beyond the trees over there.” He gestured to them with his chin. “I’ll help you get clean later.”
Casey tilted her head up. “Thanks.”
He wanted to kiss her. Badly. But held back. He told her the jungle wasn’t the place for seduction and that hadn’t changed, but his feelings about her were. He could admire a woman’s beauty from afar and not feel the urge to do anything about it, but give him a gutsy, strong-as-hell woman, even when out of her element, and he was a goner. “You don’t have to thank me for providing you with your basic needs. Food. Water. Shelter. Safety. Or a place to wash up. It’s my pleasure to provide them for you.”
She raised an eyebrow. “That’s awfully…philosophical of you.”
He chuckled. “Yup. Now…think you can stand here for five minutes while I help Truck? And be honest.”
Her mouth had opened to reply, but at the last part, she closed it again. Finally, she said, “I think so.” She looked down at the ground. “I’m not standing over an ant mound, so even if I can’t, I’ll be okay hanging out here on the ground waiting for you.”
“I’ll be fast, sweetheart. I know you’re hurting, tired, hungry, and thirsty. I’m going to take care of all those things for you. Five minutes. Yeah?”
He ignored the tears that welled in her eyes and waited for her acquiescence.
“Okay, Beatle. You go do your thing. I’ll be right here.”
Knowing if he took her in his arms again, he wouldn’t let go, Beatle settled for running his hand over her head in a barely there caress and nodded.
Then he turned and headed for Truck. The sooner they got camp set up, the sooner he could get Casey settled, an IV hooked up, and take care of her feet.
* * *
Casey swayed, but refused to sit. Five minutes. That’s all she had to do. Hell, she’d walked for hours earlier. She could stand, no problem.
But it was a problem. Even though she couldn’t feel her feet, she could feel her legs. And they hurt. Hell, everything hurt. But it was more than that. She was weak. The adrenaline of her rescue had long since worn off and the lack of food and water had caught up to her.
The granola bars she’d eaten earlier, along with the constant intake of water, had gone a long way toward making her feel not on the verge of death. But the week and a half she’d spent underground without real sleep, along with all the worry and stress she’d experienced, had caught up to her.
Just when she thought she was going to fall on her face, Beatle was there.
“Fuck, you’re amazing,” he said, then swung her up into his arms once more.
Casey regretted saying earlier that she wanted to walk out of the jungle. Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to have Beatle carry her out, just like this. But no, that wasn’t fair to him, and she didn’t want to be the weak damsel in distress. She’d stayed alive when she knew others would’ve died, so she could walk her own damn self out of the jungle.
But…Beatle’s arms around her felt so good. Safe.
He leaned over and gently eased her onto a hammock. But it wasn’t a flimsy piece of rope that closed around her and sagged when she was placed on it. This was a rope hammock, yes, but it was braced on either end by several sticks he’d obviously pilfered from the jungle floor, making it more of a flat bed.<
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“The wood makes it more stable,” Beatle told her as she looked at the hammock with wide eyes. “I’ll take them out when we go to bed, and get out the mosquito netting, but for now, it’s better if you’re not rolled up like a burrito in the ropes.”
Casey chuckled at the imagery his words evoked.
He’d placed her so she was lying widthwise rather than lengthwise, with her hips on one side of the hammock and her head at the other.
She slowly relaxed back onto the ropes and groaned in appreciation. She took the sunglasses he’d given her off her face and carefully handed them back to him. After he tucked them away, she said, “You have no idea how good this feels. I haven’t laid down, flat like this, since they threw me in that hole.”
Beatle scowled, but didn’t respond. Merely sat on a small folding stool—what else did they carry in those packs of theirs?—and went to work on her shoelaces. He propped her foot on his thigh and bent over her boot, concentrating solely on the laces in front of him. It took him a while to get the knots out of the first one.
“Why don’t you just cut it off?” Casey asked.
“Because I don’t have any extra laces in my pack. I’ve got some paracord, but it’s easier to use these if at all possible.”
He hadn’t looked up while he’d explained, just kept his head down and concentrated on what he was doing. Within a couple minutes, he’d coaxed the waterlogged shoelace to cooperate and had loosened the boot enough to ease it off.
Casey sighed in relief as the pressure on her foot eased, but within seconds, grimaced at the pain of it instantly swelling.
Beatle reached for the top of her wool sock and looked up. “Ready?”
She shook her head but said, “Yeah.”
He smiled at her.
“If you pass out from the smell of my stinky feet, don’t blame me,” Casey tried to tease.
“You haven’t smelled mine after trekking through a desert in Iran for four days,” he quipped.
“You mean Iraq, right?” Casey asked, propping herself up on shaking arms. She wanted to see the damage she’d done to her feet firsthand. “Iran isn’t exactly welcoming to Americans.”
Beatle merely looked at her with his eyebrows raised.
“Yeah, sorry. Iran. Right. Super-secret soldiers. Slipping into off-limit countries and doing your thing. Check.”
He gave her a small twitch of his lips, then concentrated on her foot again. He eased both the sock and liner off at the same time.
Casey gasped at the first sight of her foot and tears immediately sprang to her eyes. Not because of the pain, she really couldn’t feel much, but because of how horrible it looked.
There were a couple of blisters and open sores. She knew that was bad. Fungal infection had probably already started to set in. She knew she could lose her feet if they weren’t dealt with. Immediately.
“It doesn’t look that bad,” Truck stated in a neutral tone from above her.
Casey hadn’t heard him approach, and she stared at him in disbelief. “Are you high?”
“Not that I know of,” was his comeback. “Seriously. Yeah, you’ve got a bit of cyanosis from poor circulation and they’re a little stinky, but I think that blister is more from walking so long today in wet socks than anything else. And I’ll treat that tropical ulcer with a nice cocktail included in your IV in a bit.”
Casey shook her head. “You’re insane.” But she couldn’t deny his words made her feel better.
Beatle had already started working on untying the second boot and had that one off, along with her other sock, before too long.
Staring down at her poor abused feet, Casey asked, “Am I going to lose them?”
Without missing a beat, Truck asked, “Do you often lose your feet like you do your keys?”
Casey huffed out a chuckle. “That’s not what I meant.”
“He knows what you meant,” Beatle said softly, picking up her right foot to get a look at the sole. “They aren’t gangrenous yet, so there’s no need for amputation. I’m not a doctor, but I agree with Truck. We’ll treat them tonight, and I guarantee you’ll feel a hundred percent better tomorrow. I wish you would’ve said something though. It looks like me and Truck will be carrying you out of the jungle after all.”
“No!” Casey protested immediately. “I can walk. Please, I need to walk.”
“She’s as stubborn as Blade,” Truck observed.
“I kept them dry for as long as I could,” Casey told the men. “The Gore-Tex did pretty well at first, but they weren’t meant to withstand being submerged day and night. The boards in the hole weren’t long enough for me to lay down, and I’d fall asleep with them propped up out of the water, but when my legs relaxed they always fell back in.”
Beatle put her foot back down on his thigh and ran the palms of his hands up and down her calves. He’d pushed up her pants, and the feel of his calloused hands on her sensitive skin made goosebumps break out on her arms.
“You did good, Case. Really fucking good. Now lie back and relax. You’re done walking for at least the next twelve hours. We’ll get dinner ready and Truck will prepare that IV. Tomorrow will be a completely different experience for you…you’ll actually have to stop to pee if I read that three-bag-IV look in Truck’s eyes correctly.”
Casey glanced up at the big man. He did have an assessing look on his face. “Three bags?” she asked.
“Maybe four,” Truck responded before turning away and stomping over to his pack.
She looked back down at Beatle. “Guess that bath is out, huh?”
The man at her feet shrugged. “A full-body one, yeah. Although I wouldn’t have recommended you stripping all the way down anyway. Not here in the jungle so close to that village. But I’ve got something in mind I think you’ll like.”
“What?”
He grinned up at her, and Casey’s eyes widened at the look of playfulness in his eyes. “You’re just going to have to wait. But trust me, you’re gonna like it.”
“Beatle…you can’t tease me like that!”
“Why not?” He’d stopped smiling, and the question came out as serious as she’d ever seen him.
“Because. I…”
She wasn’t sure what she was going to say, but it was going to be something along the lines of how he didn’t know her that well. Or that they’d just met, or something equally ridiculous, but she stopped herself from saying the words out loud. Not because those things weren’t true, but because she didn’t give a flying fuck about them. She liked Beatle. A lot. Respected him. Trusted him. He could tease her all he wanted. It made her feel normal. Not like she was a kidnapping victim escaping from the scene of her confinement.
“Because it’s not nice to tease a woman who hasn’t had chocolate in weeks.”
He smiled then. A wide smile that didn’t completely hide the relief in his eyes. Without a word, he carefully moved her feet from his thighs, leaving them dangling over the edge of the hammock, and scooted over far enough so he could reach his pack and drag it back to where he’d been sitting.
He returned to his little stool but before he did anything else, he placed her feet back on his thighs, then opened a flap on one side of the enormous backpack. He rummaged around for a moment before pulling out an MRE. He grabbed a huge-ass knife from a sheath at his waist and slit the plastic open. He pulled something out, but kept it hidden in his palm.
“Close your eyes.”
“Why?” Casey asked suspiciously.
“Because you trust me,” Beatle said, his brown eyes piercing in their intensity.
Without further protest, Casey did as he asked. She felt his thighs bunch under her feet as he leaned forward. He picked up one of her hands and placed something in it.
“You can look now,” he told her.
Casey opened her eyes—and stared at the tiny Hershey’s Kiss in the palm of her hand.
She gaped at it, then looked at Beatle. “What…how?”
He shrugged.
“Some of the MREs have them inside as dessert. It’s probably completely mush from being out here in the heat, though.”
Casey’s mouth began to water like one of Pavlov’s dogs. Her hand shook with anticipation. She wanted to pop it in her mouth, foil and all, but managed to control herself. She reached for the tiny treat, then stopped with her hand in midair.
“What?” Beatle asked, immediately picking up on her hesitation. She had a feeling he didn’t miss much.
“My hands are filthy.”
Without speaking, he reached for the chocolate and carefully plucked it from her hand and placed it on top of his backpack. Then he dug inside again. He opened the package of wet wipes he’d unearthed from his magic pack and reached for her hand.
Casey wasn’t sure what to say, so she remained silent as he carefully cleaned her hand. He first wiped down her palm, then ran the cloth up each finger. He used the now extremely dirty wipe to get as much dirt and mud off the back of her hand as possible.
Then he put the used wipe down and pulled out a new one. He repeated his actions on her other hand. When Casey thought he was done, he surprised her by pulling out another clean cloth and starting on her first hand again. But this time his ministrations felt more intimate. It was no longer simply about cleaning the dirt off her hands. It seemed to her that, with each swipe, he was attempting to wipe away the bad memories that had caused her hands to be as filthy as they were. He was caressing each finger as he worked on attempting to remove the caked-in dirt under her nails. His thumbs massaged the palm of her hand even as he increased the pressure to thoroughly clean them.
After all was said and done, Beatle had used six wipes to get her hands to their current state. She could still see dirt under her nails, but she never would’ve thought she could be that clean without running water and a shit-ton of soap.
Without the care and reverence he’d used on her, Beatle used the wipes to clean his own hands. Then he reached for the piece of chocolate. He carefully tried to peel the foil off, but the chocolate was simply too melted for him to be successful.
“Trust me?” he asked once again.
Casey could only nod.
She watched as he used his now clean index finger to swipe as much of the soft, gooey chocolate off the foil as he could. He leaned forward and held it up to her.