Her heart turned to Courtney. He was the only reason she’d come on this beta test. Jed McCormack took care of his new employees. He reached out and nurtured them, and darn it, very few strayed once they were part of his MI team. A genius at inspiring loyalty, he paid his people well. The extra cash from this out of country mission would go a long way toward a better life. If she lived to get out of this country...
A leaf fluttered from up high, drawing her attention to the supply crate. Once again it had proved indispensable. Not only did it hold a set of knives and eating utensils, but the medical kit contained sterilized scalpels and antibiotics, too. That meant surgery for Teague the first chance they got—Hunter, too, if he’d ever climb down from his high horse long enough to let her help him. Maybe she wasn’t a doctor, but she could do more than just wash and bandage. That knife wound had to hurt…
Dashing the darned tear out of her eye, she took another bite of the sweet juicy fruit. What did he want from her, anyway? Obedience and a salute? He acted like he couldn’t stand for her to touch him, the ass. Had she misread him that badly? Ever? Had she missed all the signals? Guess so. She hadn’t kissed a man since her divorce from Eddy, and not much before that disaster. She hadn’t dated. Maybe she was out of touch. Maybe she was the stupid one in this jungle tonight. Gah!
Her problem was the raw virility shuddering off Hunter. Every breath he took, every move he made attracted her heart, mind, and soul like no other man had done. Even with that knife in his chest, she’d seen nothing in him to indicate weakness or indecision. He was more machine than man, now trained in the art of warfare and killing instead of sonnets and lyrics. Had he lost his heart along with all the lives he’d taken?
She dashed another tear and resolved, ‘No more!’ He could hate her all he wanted. There was no way she’d let him die. No way. Hunter Christian was her ticket out of here, and that was all he was. Yesterday was yesterday and it was done, darn it. She snapped off another piece of fruit and ground it to pulp between her teeth. So there!
He’d taken up post at the base of the tree where the roots flared into the soil like the thick bars of cages. Their resting place wasn’t much of a camp. No fire. No sleeping bags to curl up in to keep the bugs away. No mosquito netting.
Hunter’s head pivoted as he continually scanned and studied their surroundings, but not once had he looked her way. Not enough to really see her. She would know. Her traitorous eyes continually strayed for a sideways glimpse of any part of this harder-than-hard man. Her nostrils flared, hoping for a hint of his sweat, his blood, any scent that might waft her way. Maybe spearmint. Maybe tobacco. All of her senses were somehow magnetized, seeking him out, reaching for everything and anything that had to do with his body.
He hadn’t had a cigarette since this exodus started and maybe that was his problem. He was experiencing nicotine withdrawal. Well good. It served him right.
He’d pulled a handful of vines in a pile beside him, probably needing something to keep his fingers busy. Well, fine. Let him play with vines. Meredith focused on the piece of fruit in her hand. Tough and coarse, she hadn’t eaten anything like it before, but it had to be edible. She’d know soon enough if it weren’t. She’d eaten two slices and her stomach had yet to rebel or offer a twinge of distress.
Glancing sideways one last time, she locked eyes with the two-legged predator in camp.
Hunter.
Like him or not, he might be hungry. That would also explain his rabid behavior. Lifting her hand, she offered the slice of fruit in her hand, fully aware how her foolish feminine body responded to him of its own accord. Every part of it salivated at just a glimpse of his handsome, rugged face, despite its perpetual scowl. Her nipples hardened like pebbles rubbing against the silken pressure of her bra. She’d love nothing better than to tear it off and be rid of it. Push-up bras were torturous after all these hours, but she didn’t dare. She didn’t need her breasts loose and swaying beneath the cotton shirt or her nipples drawing his attention to her.
She wanted so much to hate Hunter the way he seemed to hate her, but even her fingertips begged for one more chance to rake through his hair again. Nearly as black as night, she wondered where the blond had gone. Had war turned him so dark inside that it changed his hair color, too?
With all the ink covering his arms, shoulders, back and chest, he was Hades come to roam Earth, dark with anger and wrath, ready to plunder and pillage. Every nerve in her body escalated to DEFCON Delta, then higher the longer he stared at her without speaking. Could he read her mind? Did he know that with one beckoning curl of his little finger she would run to him despite his rejection? Her tongue slipped between parched, parted lips at the thought. Give me a sign, Hunter. Just blink, for heaven’s sake, and I’ll be right there. At least, let’s be friends.
At last she broke the contact, the heat in his stare too much to bear, the unrequited tenderness in her heart too much to endure. The poor thing pounded loud enough to raise the dead. She’d become prey, but she didn’t want to relinquish her control again. Not to him. Not to anyone. Let him go hungry. She’d dealt with enough asses in her life and lived to tell about them, too. No more.
“Give me a piece,” he ordered, begrudgingly as all get-out, but finally breaking the silence.
She did as he asked, cutting the last of the fruit in half and giving him the larger, fresher piece. He accepted the offering without a word of thanks, and like the idiotic female she was, encouragement flickered to life in her heart. She’d done something to help him. It was a small thing, but—it was something.
Mean Girl roared to life. You. Are. Such. An. Idiot!
Hunter lifted the fruit to his mouth and took a big, juicy bite. He grunted as a trickle of juice dripped out of the corner of his mouth and down his scruffy chin.
She couldn’t look away. Her throat constricted and her tongue lapped her bottom lip. Just once. What would that dribble of juice taste like if she climbed into his lap and licked it off his skin?
As if he’d read her mind, Hunter ran the back of his hand across his chin and wiped the temptation away.
Her lashes dropped, hiding her wayward reverie. She hadn’t meant that slice of fruit as a peace offering, but his acceptance of it felt precisely like a truce. Of sorts.
Her tongue touched her lip as if she could taste that single drop from where she sat. Hmmm. A mouthful of Hunter...
Yeah. I’m an idiot.
Meredith snored. She was quiet about it, but she did snore.
Hunter glanced over his shoulder. He’d lost the war to get her into the tree and that was okay. There she was, her back against Teague’s litter and her head on her outstretched arm, sound asleep with her mouth half-open. She’d swept her hair back and off her face. Her other arm rested on her bare thigh, her hand cupping the cheek of her ass, lifting the long shirt out of her way in the process. She was a sight to see with one knee bent and the other straight. Meredith looked like a sexy little girl. Innocent. Peaceful.
He had to give her credit. Grabbing some fruit for the road was smart. Fruit wasn’t exactly his choice of meals, but hey—it would do for tonight. Maybe tomorrow he’d skewer a monkey or something. Roasted meat would be better for all of them, and if Teague woke up, he’d need solid food to heal.
But that get-up she was still wearing drove him crazy nine ways to Sunday. At least she’d listened and now had boots on her feet. Yeah, they weren’t the best fitting, but they were a damned sight better than nothing.
But that shirt? She might as well be naked for all the good it did him. The girl had tits from here to eternity. More than a handful, but not sloppy. No. Meredith was in fine physical shape. Firm. Taut. Athletic. She worked out. It showed. Yeah. Those kinds of tits. There was a day when he’d called them breasts, but that day was in the past with the gentleman he used to be.
Closing his eyes, he willed the feelings of his heart to cease. How was he going to survive the rest of this screwed up operation if he couldn’t deal wit
h one night in the jungle with her? Hunter honestly didn’t know.
She’d changed. A lot. She’d decimated the cheerleader memories he’d held of her with the way she’d manned up and towed that supply crate without complaining. She’d dragged Teague to safety when she’d needed to, she’d doctored him, and she’d even shopped in the jungle for fruit along the way. She was stronger.
Maybe her marriage to Welch had been a good thing. Hunter didn’t see how it could be, but who was he to judge the dynamics between husbands and wives? He’d never been married—had never entertained the notion after she’d run off and left him. Why compound the problem by marrying someone he couldn’t love the way he’d loved Meredith?
A hush fell upon the jungle. At last the thing in his hands was done. Now was as good a time as any. Hunter shook the vines out and tied the ends together with a quick, tight wrap of another vine. Securing the contraption of interlocked ropes between two nearby tree trunks, he tested it with his weight first. The trees bent and creaked a little when he lowered into it, but not much. The vines were strong. They held. Good enough.
He’d started playing with the woody vines because his cigarette-deprived fingers needed something to do. Now he was glad he had. The primitive hammock would support a woman as light as Meredith without any trouble.
With his knife in his hand, Hunter sliced the sheet covering Teague into halves. The man seemed to be holding his own, but traveling had to have been hard on him. Hunter got him to swallow another mouthful of the bottled water from the supplies and vowed to get him to safety once the sun came up, at least where he could remove the bullet still buried in his chest.
The next part would require every last bit of Hunter’s already shredded willpower. He sheathed his knife and quietly, he knelt beside Meredith where she lay. The poor thing was exhausted, and yet she commanded his heart as she always had. He’d been smitten long ago by the joyous light in this woman. Even there in the dark of a sweltering jungle night, all that blonde hair on the ground around her gave her the aura of an angel. When he traced a gentle fingertip down the edge of her jaw to her chin, she sighed a breathy, girly sigh and scrunched up her nose.
Hunter lifted her from the ground to his chest. She came easily into his arms, her hand splayed innocently over his heart. He smoothed the dirt and leaves out of her messy tangles. He closed his eyes and wished the troubles of the world away as his nose dipped into her fragrant tresses. A hint of flowery shampoo lingered. That was his Merry, a breath of something good and sweet.
Waking in the morning with her in his life and in his bed could heal him. He knew damned well it could. He might see the rainbow again instead of the storm clouds. He might finally be able to leave the darkest parts of his soul behind and see beauty in the stars at night. He might once again be the man he’d left behind in that one immature, foolish decision he’d made long ago.
“Hunter?” she asked, all dreamy-eyed and angelic. “Is that you? Are you, umm...? Are we, umm...?”
“There is no we, Merry. Shush,” he whispered. “I’m just going to spray you with repellant. Go back to sleep.”
“Hmmm,” she breathed, already asleep in his arms. “S’gonna be okay.”
“Good night, Meredith.”
“G’night,” she mumbled groggily, her nose pressed into his shirt.
He bowed his head in humility and wonder. This woman had always been his Helen of Troy, his Juliet, his Desdemona. Hell, she’d been his Eve, his only true love, and his most wicked temptation rolled into one. She, a married woman, was the ultimate forbidden fruit.
But for this one moment, holding her in yet another warm embrace, Hunter couldn’t bring himself to pull back—the feel of her against him was so tender. He wished he were a stronger, nobler man even as he closed his eyes and pressed a fervent kiss to the satin of her forehead.
There he was on bended knee and holding all his lost dreams. His hungry soul drank her in. His starving heart believed yet again. Whatever fate lay in store for the two of them, it would end or begin in this god-forsaken jungle a couple of thousand miles from home. All he had to do was keep her safe, like that was no small feat.
In humility, he pledged his honor and his pride, as battered as they were, to the task. No Marine had ever pledged more.
If he were a smart man, he would’ve left her lying on the ground. He would’ve never picked her up. He would’ve kept his distance and walked away, but no. There he knelt, a foolish man forced by unrequited love to walk alone, his heart slowly being consumed by the feminine wiles of the gentle lady in his arms. God, he wanted her to stay.
But she couldn’t, and he wouldn’t want her to be a vow-breaker. Marriage was a sacred covenant. With a blur in his eyes, he broke the heartfelt kiss, and, lifting her gently so as not to wake her, he transferred her to the hammock. The tree branches didn’t squeak when he nestled her into the bed of vines. Cautiously, he removed the men’s boots from her feet and set them within reach for the morning.
Ah. Her heels and toes were red with blisters, yet the poor thing hadn’t uttered a word of complaint. Damn, she needed decent socks and properly fitting footwear, not some dead guy’s boots. It was a wonder she hadn’t limped. She should have.
Hunter ran a quick hand over his face. Standing over Meredith and holding her slender, ravaged foot in his big, callused hand, the difference between them seemed an insurmountable chasm. She was Beauty, and he the veritable Beast. Her life was meant for balls and gowns, champagne and lace, his for the deadly art of war and the never-ending solitude that went with it. The ugliness of death. Someday she would be a mother, a giver of life, but he would forever be the taker. The sinner. The shadow that wasn’t worthy to stand in her light.
He cast a mist of aerosol repellant over her, making sure to cover her feet. It had to sting, but she didn’t budge. Wrapping her in the cocoon he’d crafted for her, he returned to his post, his back to the tree, his eyes on his ragged camp.
Hunter blew out a sigh of resignation. What he wouldn’t give to slide into that hammock beside her and hold her until morning broke. Just once. But he didn’t. He wouldn’t. He was her sentinel, her last line of defense. Not her lover. His sin now was that his heart had begun to melt.
But she must never know.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Such a racket! Meredith had never heard so much chattering, chirping, or whistling interspersed with the loveliest melody this early in the morning. It was amazing. She peeled open her tired eyeballs and stared at the treetops, enthralled with the spectacle of color and music. Courtney would love this.
It dawned on her. She wasn’t on the ground. There were no bugs on her as she’d fully expected.
Fingering the light covering on her body, part of the sheet she’d given Teague, she stretched in one long, languorous muscle-rousing stretch, her arms over her head before she rolled to the ground. Her feet were bare. She felt—good. Tired, but good.
Teague lay quietly in his litter, his chest lifting and lowering in steady rhythm, his face clean and his hands folded on his belly. One of Hunter’s boots extended from the edge of the tree so she knew right where the grouch was.
She pushed the vine hammock backward and let it swing. So, this was what he’d been making last night. How thoughtful. She wiggled her toes to brush the ants off her feet. Maybe there was hope for him.
Morning had truly broken out in the most amazing chorus she’d ever heard. Birds were everywhere, but the music had to wait. She needed to pee in the worst way. Grimacing, she pushed her feet back into those awful boots for another day of toe-pinching, heel-burning travel, and she tiptoed away from the men to take care of business behind a not-too-distant patch of leafy fronds.
Crouching there in the ferns, she surveyed her domain. The spectacle of the new day was everywhere. Tiny bejeweled hummingbirds zipped and raced overhead on their search for enough fuel to top off their high-octane energy. Electric blues flashed through the emerald shades, followed by brilliant flashe
s of reds and even more brilliant yellows. Oranges striped with indigo caught her eye only to be replaced by shimmering iridescent jewels on wings. And that was just the birds.
Rising to her feet, she secured her underwear, but she couldn’t stop looking. Or smiling. All of nature was alive, and it was beautiful. Clouds of tiny insects lifted from the curly fronds of six-foot-high ferns. A huge blue butterfly drifted overhead, the most elegant creation she’d ever seen. As she strolled back to camp, she noticed tiny tree frogs were everywhere, all adding to the noise.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” Hunter asked softly from where he leaned against the tree, his ankles and arms crossed.
“This jungle is the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.” She shot him a cautious look, nodding toward the hammock. “That was a nice way to wake up. Thanks.”
He shrugged. “You needed to be off the ground and away from the bugs. No big deal.”
But it was. “I mean it. Thank you,” she said, very aware he’d also been the one to put her into that bed. Maybe some part of the man she’d once known was still in there. “Did you see all the frogs? There are so many different colors. And they’re cute.”
“No pets,” he teased, and she had to look twice. There he was again, that other Hunter she used to know. The one she missed. Would she ever figure this guy out?
By then he was on his knees, tending to Teague, so she enjoyed the view of morning in the jungle, feeling she might survive after all.
After they breakfasted on the remaining fruit, their journey to the river continued. Hunter dragged the heavy litter while she commandeered the supply container. It was slow going, but Teague’s forehead had felt cooler when she checked him, and Meredith was encouraged again. Hunter didn’t hate her. She was sure of it.
But then he spoiled it. “Whose bright idea was it to beta test the ActiveCamouflage System in South America? Why Brazil?”
“Probably Mr. McCormack’s. He’s the only one savvy enough to get around the current administration. Why?”
Hunter (In the Company of Snipers Book 14) Page 10