“Last month during the fire,” Tristen answered.
Jimmy leaned forward as if his next question was top secret. “Do you think Santos loves you back?”
Tristen knew the smile on his face held a dreamy quality. “Yes, I do,” he said with confidence. After all, Santos called him meu amor all the time. Tristen had Googled it and found out it meant my love.
Jimmy sat back and said, “Cool,” before taking another sip of his drink.
“That’s all you have to say after grilling me like that? Cool?” Tristen was back to wanting to punch Jimmy’s lights out.
“Yep.” Jimmy’s smile turned evil. “Except you should get him to marry you.”
* * * *
Santos leaned forward on Chester’s back, trying to keep balance as the horse climbed up the steep path. The horse’s ears were twitching around, telling Santos that the horse was picking up a sound that shouldn’t be there.
Sadie had veered off the path some time ago. She would come back to check in at regular intervals, so Santos wasn’t worried.
Their mission was to find two missing fake people in the rough terrain of the mountains. The whole team had been searching all morning. The goal was to find a shirt with an orange flag pinned to it.
His field medic partner today was Parker. That was happening more often than not lately. Since the guys had jumped from the helicopter to pull him out of the pond, things had changed. For one, nobody had left the hospital when he and Tristen had to stay overnight. All of the guys showed genuine concern.
The team was also starting to form a pecking order and deep friendships. Isaiah had stepped up into the role of Roman’s second-in-command. Reese and Rhys formed a tracker-medic team, and Santos and Parker were the other one. Santos liked how things were going, and Roman seemed more at ease and happy with their performances.
“Hey, Santos,” Parker called out from behind him. “Do you think we could stop and take a break?”
“All right,” he called back.
Santos waited until they crested the small incline before he squeezed his knees against Chester’s sides, giving the animal the signal to stop. Blue came up alongside his horse buddy before stopping. For this practice rescue, the packhorse was loaded for a full-out mission to get used to what would be expected during upcoming rescues.
“I just needed a moment to stretch my legs,” Parker said, walking up while leading his horse, Tilly. “During yesterday’s run, I stepped on a rock wrong and tweaked my calf muscle.”
“Are you going to be okay?” Santos dismounted Chester, giving him a light caress on his neck.
“Sure. It’ll be as good as new in a couple of days.” Parker smiled, and a hint of mischief gleamed in his usually serious blue eyes. “So, when are you going to make an honest man out of Tristen?”
“I will have you know my Tristen is always an honest man,” Santos teased.
“You know what I mean,” Parker responded. “I think you two make a great couple. It sure has changed Tristen.”
Santos frowned at that statement. To him, his amor was the same as he always was. “I am not sure I understand what you are talking about.” Santos’s accent had deepened.
Parker lifted his hand in surrender and took a step back. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just pointing out that Tristen’s gone from flirting with everything that moves to being completely over-the-top bonkers for you. That’s a good thing.”
Santos relaxed. Tristen was his, and now it seemed everyone else knew it. “I am thinking that Tristen and I will be taking a short trip down to Vegas,” Santos admitted. “When we come back, I will have made Tristen an honest man, as you say.”
Parker’s laugh echoed down through the small ravine to their right. On the other side of the ravine’s steep back was a road that led up to the top of this small mountain.
“Congratulations,” Parker exclaimed and gave Santos a pat on the back man hug. “I wish you well, my friend. And I hope that someday I’ll be as lucky. Are you going to tattoo the hell out of him like the Captain did Jimmy?”
“That is only a rumor that the Captain’s name is tattooed across Jimmy’s ass.”
“Oh no, it’s a fact,” Parker said. “I caught them doing the dirty by the pool. The Captain’s name is definitely written in huge letters on one of Jimmy’s ass cheeks.”
This time it was Santos’s laugh that echoed in the breeze. “I don’t think I want to mar Tristen’s ass,” Santos admitted.
“I don’t blame you, man.” Park patted Santos shoulder. “But as pretty as Tristen is, if he were mine, I’d be tempted to tattoo my name across his forehead.”
Santos didn’t respond. Chester had pawed at the ground, putting Santo on alert. Now Chester’s nostrils were flaring as the horse took deep breaths. One ear was turned toward the deep ravine.
Sadie joined them from the path they had just come from. She sat at Santos’s side, ready for instructions.
“What’s going on, Santos?” Parkers asked in a low, quiet voice.
“Chester has indicated that there’s something of interest in the ravine,” Santos answered, still watching the horse.
“Do you think it’s our shirt?” Parker asked.
“No, he would have lowered his head had he found our target. This is something else,” Santos explained. The hair on his arms rose when Chester pawed at the ground again. “We have to go.”
Santos stood next to Chester’s head. He gave the horse a signal while saying, “Chester, seek.” He didn’t say find, as the horse would have gone on looking for the shirt.
He didn’t bother to give Sadie a signal, as she hadn’t picked up on whatever Chester had. After getting on the horse, he turned them toward the ravine and started to descend the steep bank.
Reaching up, Santos turned on the mic portion of his headset. He had been listening to everyone finding nothing so far but hadn’t needed to contribute. When it beeped in his ear telling him that it was on, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened it.
“Captain, Chester has indicated something of interest in a small ravine near Highway 10.” Santos pushed a couple of buttons on the phone. Calmly he gave the rest of the team listening his coordinates.
“Is he giving any sign of what he’s found?” Roman asked. “I know it isn’t the shirt.”
“Not yet,” Santos responded just as Chester stopped and lowered his head. “Oh shit.”
“What’s going on, Santos?” Roman demanded.
“Chester has indicated that we are near a deceased individual,” Santos said. Just then Sadie dropped down onto her stomach and put her head between her front paws. “Captain, Sadie has signaled that we have an individual in distress.”
“Santos, Parker, proceed with caution,” Roman ordered. “Men, lock in Santos’s coordinates and head over there.”
Santos gave the find hand signal to each of his animals. Both started down through the thick underbrush of the ravine.
Fifteen tough minutes later, Santos reached the bottom and kept going. He waited to hear what Parker was going to say. Parker wasn’t a big talker, but sometimes he found the man’s opinions of the situation they were in funny. It would take a few minutes because rescue protocol gave the trackers and their animals a wide space to do their thing. Parker hadn’t reached the bottom yet.
He wasn’t disappointed when Parker’s low voice came through the headset. “Man, that was some thick shit.” Santo did a quick scan of the area. A creek ran through the middle of the ravine. The washed-out sides showed that it regularly flooded from rainstorms in the mountains.
Chester picked up his pace. Ahead of them, Sadie was already making her way across the creek. The clear, sparkling creek turned out to be fast moving but only deep enough to cover the horses’ ankles.
Once they were on the other side, they had perhaps gone fifty yards when Chester’s sides began heaving. The horse stopped and pawed before lowering his head until his nose almost touched the ground.
/> Santos held on when Chester jerked his head up, shuffled his feet, pawed again, and lowered his head halfway. In front of them, Sadie sat, staring straight ahead.
Santos stiffened. His heart started pounding, and a trickle of sweat made its way down his spine. His gaze swept the area in front of him and the side of the ravine, searching for anything out of the ordinary.
In a calm, professional tone, he said, “Animals indicated a find. I am unable to get a visual at this time.”
Chapter Ten
“Parker, check it out,” Roman ordered. “I’m about a half-mile from your location.”
The rest of the guys’ voices filled Santo’s ear. All of them were no more than a mile away.
Parker and Tilly passed Santos, and it wasn’t long before they disappeared through the thick scrub brush on the edge of the ravine.
“I have spotted a heavily damaged red sedan.” Parker’s tone was pure professional. The situation had to be bad. “At this time I see two victims in the front seat. There is no indication of other vehicles or people. I am proceeding with caution.”
“Are you feeling any bads, Parker,” Isaiah asked. For the lethal weapons expert, “bads” meant he was needed to take out what he considered the bad guys.
“No,” Parker answered. “There’s a path cut through the brush where the car left the road above. I’d say this was a car accident.”
“I’m calling in the authorities now,” Morgan said. “What do you need, Parker, an ambulance, life flight, or a coroner?”
“Preliminary indications say yes to all of the above.” Parker’s tone was grim. “We are going to have to use the travois to get the victim up to the highway.”
Santos dismounted and pulled out a stuffed gray toy elephant and a small bar of chopped-up apples and carrots, coated with molasses. Stroking the side of Chester’s face, he murmured warm praises while feeding the horse the treat.
Turning to Sadie, he excitedly praised her while tossing her the elephant. Both animals only received these rewards after completing their find signal. That was the only reason they did what they did, to receive their treats.
After Chester finished his treat, Santos mounted the horse and started toward Parker’s location. He would let Sadie carry around her elephant for a while as a reward.
A glance around the area showed Santos that the rest of the team was descending into the ravine. Entering the brush and scraggly trees that led to the side of the ravine, he caught sight of the car. What was left of the red sedan was lying upside down on its roof.
There wasn’t much of the car that wasn’t dented, scraped up, or just plain missing. After dismounting, Santos gave Chester and Sadie the signal to stay before leading Blue over to the car. Santos wanted him near so they could reach for any supplies that they wanted from the packs he carried. This included the portable travois Parker needed.
Now he could see Parker’s ass and legs sticking out of the broken driver’s side window. Moans came from the interior of the vehicle.
“I have two victims,” Parker said in Santos’s ear. “One D.O.A. and one critical.”
Santos went over to the passenger side of the car. Hanging upside down from her seatbelt was an older woman whose vacant eyes stared straight ahead. A gaping, bloody hole was all that was left of where her arm and shoulder once had been. The blood was dry and no longer pumping. The woman’s skin was tight over bloated flesh, telling Santos she had been dead for at least a couple of days.
With careful movements, Santos unclipped the woman’s seat belt. He was glad she was a smaller when she fell and he was able to catch and guide her out of the vehicle.
“I need some help here.” Parker’s words were short and clipped.
“I’m coming up behind Santos,” Reese said through the earpiece. “I’ll crawl in from the passenger side.”
Santos stepped back and let Reese drop down and wriggle into the car. Hurrying around to the driver’s side, he knelt down next to Parker’s medical kit. “What do you need, Parker?”
As Santos followed Parker’s demands and instructions, he saw that the rest of the team had arrived. Everyone was busy setting up the portable travois and securing ropes up the side of the ravine.
High-pitched sirens echoed through the ravine, and soon Santos saw figures standing at the top where the brush was flattened by the car’s descent.
Santos backed up when Parker started wiggling to get out. In his ear, Parker said, “We have to hurry. I have a teenage girl with trauma to her head and torso. I suspect fractures of her legs, arm, and ribs.”
Above them Santos saw emergency responders and law enforcement descending down using the ropes the team had secured in place.
Things started to move fast when Parker, Reese, and a couple of emergency responders managed to get the still moaning incoherent teenager out of the car and onto the travois.
Santos saw Sheriff Roy Blackstone was working with Roman to orchestrate the travois’ ascent using ropes and a vehicle at the top.
Flyer stepped up next to Santos. “Your Chester and Sadie did good. That girl didn’t have much longer.”
“Thanks,” Santos responded. “I’m glad we found her. It looked like she’d been here for a while.”
“I heard the sheriff tell Captain that the teenager’s mother reported her and her grandmother missing four days ago,” Flyer said. “Apparently they had attended a play in Sandstone, and the family thought they were taking a different road up the mountain.”
“That is too bad,” Santos commented. “Let’s hope she recovers.”
In his ear, he heard Roman say, “Gather up your equipment, and then we can go home.”
* * * *
Tristen walked into the hacienda happy and relaxed, but glad to be home. He and Jimmy had ended up staying in the city for a scrumptious seafood dinner after taking in an action movie that satisfied Jimmy’s need for explosions and Tristen’s love of muscles.
They were almost home when they realized that they had both forgotten to turn on their phones after the movie. How they laughed after seeing Roman had left ten voice messages and seven texts. They laughed harder when they saw Santos had left fifteen messages and ten texts. How good it felt to be wanted.
Neither was brave enough to actually listen to the voice messages. And they read only the last text on each phone. Both texts asked where they were. They ended up decided to deal with their men when they got home. They were having some quality brother time and celebrating Tristen’s new job.
Inside the entryway, he and Jimmy stopped in their tracks when they saw Roman and Santos standing side by side, with their legs spread and their muscled arms crossed over their wide chests.
Both men were frowning, and Tristen saw Santos was gritting his teeth.
“Uh-oh,” Jimmy whispered.
“I’ll open the door. You get the car keys ready,” Tristen whispered back.
“Don’t even think about it, little bit,” Roman said. “I’d like to talk to you in our bedroom.”
Tristen winced when Jimmy straightened and put his hands on his hips. His brother was preparing for battle, and there was no way he was going to win against Roman.
“Wouldn’t you and Santos like to hear about our shopping trip in town? We have good news.” Jimmy’s voice held so much false sweetness it was almost nauseating.
“You can tell me all about it, in our bedroom,” Roman responded.
The man’s face was so emotionless that it made Tristen nervous. “Jimmy, you don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to.” Tristen wondered how much it would hurt if he had to physically defend his brother.
“It’ll be fine,” Jimmy whispered.
Tristen looked at Jimmy in surprise. Jimmy’s voice had gone all husky, and Tristen could see he was trembling. Now that he was looking closer, he saw Jimmy had a huge hard-on tenting his jeans.
“I think you should worry about yourself, my anjinho,” Santos said.
The next second Santos’s s
houlder was connecting with Tristen’s belly, and he was lifted in the air. Damn, he shouldn’t have taken his eyes off the big man.
Tristen put his hands on Santos’s back to hold himself up. His belly was too full of lobster and ice cream for it to be able to handle the abuse of Santos’s gait.
“Why are you mad?” he asked. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Santos set Tristen down in the middle of the bedroom that now had some character thanks to Tristen’s decorating abilities. A few pillows and pictures made all the difference. “You were not here when I came home,” he said. “Now strip.”
Tristen was sure the big man had lost his marbles. They were having an argument for cripes sake. At least he thought they were.
“I am not going to take off my clothes when you are mad at me.” Tristen put his hand on his hips and looked Santos in the eye to show the man he wouldn’t be pushed around.
“I expected you to be home. I did not like it when you weren’t here,” Santos complained. “You could have left me a message on my phone.”
“Well, I was with my brother, and we were fine,” Tristen said. “Besides, I was offered a job today. If I take it, I might not be here every time you come home.”
Tristen thought it best not to tell Santos right now that he had not only accepted the job but was starting on Monday. It was better to take little steps when the man was in a tiff.
“We will discuss this job offer later. Now strip.” Santos stepped toward Tristen.
Tristen jumped back a step. “I will not strip when we are arguing.”
“It is a rule that when we argue, you will be naked,” Santos stated.
Tristen was so shocked that he didn’t move when Santos stepped closer and pulled off his shirt. After shaking his hair out of his face, he said, “We don’t have rules.”
Santos took Tristen by the shoulders and pushed him back until the backs of his knees hit the bed and he tipped onto it. Before Tristen could recover and move out of the way, his jeans, socks, and shoes were lying on the floor. Quick as he could, he scrambled to the center of the big king-sized bed.
The Tracker Claims the Cutie [Rescue for Hire West 2] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) Page 8