Beyond Redemption (5 page)

“No!” She screamed at him, punching, scratching, biting, jabbing at his eyes with her thumbs. She must have gotten him because he howled, then reared back and slapped her. She barely felt it as she continued to fight.

“Fucking Yankee
puta
!” the man screeched. He drew back, ready to punch her, when someone jerked him to his feet.

Acosta. He looked at her dispassionately, then grabbed her wrist and hauled them both outside. She tugged her scrubs over her hips, frantically searching for Carla, knowing a moment of relief to see that Seth had her held close against his side. Until she realized that didn’t seem to be a good thing either.

Acosta had a painful grip on her wrist as he shook her attacker. “Stupid fuck!” he shouted in fluent Spanish. He took a deep breath, shook his head as if to get himself under control, then directed his words to an officer. “Your men have no discipline, amigo. How do think you’re going to win your war if you can’t control your men?” He released the man with a shove. “You hurt the pretty doctor and her friends, do you think any of them will help you when you need it? Will she do a good job treating your wounds? Or will she make sure you suffer? Or maybe she lets you die, eh? Maybe I should save her the trouble.” Then, to everyone’s shock, he whipped out a nine-millimeter pistol and shot the man between the eyes.

”Christ!” Angelique cried, trembling in horror.

Mitch fisted his hand in her hair and pulled her head back. “Can’t say I blame him. You are one fine piece of ass.” Then he leaned down and kissed her. Hard. No sweet kiss, this. Not even a kiss of passion. No, it was a kiss of ownership. He was staking a claim. He lifted his head and looked around at each man, grinning. “This one.” He jerked his head in Carla’s direction. “And that one belong to me and my friend. Any man who forgets will wind up like Hector there. Now, someone clean up that mess.” With those words, he tightened his grip on Angelique’s hair and propelled her back into her quarters.

He let go of her the minute he had her inside with the door shut. “What the fuck are you doing here, Doc? Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he all but growled. “Keep in mind I’m not fluent in idiot, so you’re going to have to speak slowly and clearly.”

She couldn’t help herself; she hauled off and slapped him. “Fuck you, asshole. I’m doing my goddamn job. Jesus, Acosta, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Tsk-tsk, Angel. Don’t judge. I just saved your delectable ass from a very unpleasant experience.”

Angelique gritted her teeth. “Right, my hero. You rode up on your stupid white horse and saved me from myself.”

With each step he took toward her, she took a step back. “You bet I did. I just killed a man to make sure you’re safe and made sure every man out there knows who you and your little friend belong to.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I do not belong to you.”

He grinned, white teeth flashing in his tanned face. “Oh, you most certainly do, Angel, and people will expect me to take full advantage of that fact. Which I’ll be doing as frequently as I can.”

She curled her lip in disgust. “Then you’ll have to take it, because I won’t freely give it to you.” Who was this man? He wasn’t the man she knew. The man she’d been so close to falling in love with.

He shrugged. “I have no problem taking what I want, Angel. If you’re as smart as I think you are, you’ll recognize that. Actually, it’ll be a nice change from playing your silly games.”

“My… Is this really who you are? Was I so stupid I couldn’t see I was falling for a thug?”

“Falling for me? Spare me the dramatics, Angel, because we both know you don’t have the capacity to love me or any other man. You’re the coldest bitch I’ve ever met, but that’s okay because I’m probably the coldest son of a bitch you’ve ever met. ”His face was completely expressionless. “You once told me you had a thing for bad boys. Well, now you’ve got one.” He backed her right up to the bed and gave her a shove.

She fell back and bounced up. “You are so not going to touch me.”

He laughed softly. “Of course I am. Not right now. You need some time to…what is it you do-gooder types call it…to process. In the meantime, I’ve hiked into this shithole from Colombia, I’m tired, and I need a nap. So you’re going to get out of those torn scrubs and lay down with me in case one of those ELN assholes comes in to see what we’re doing. Now, let’s get naked, sweetheart.”

With a tense truce established between the guerrillas and the Helping Hands staff, a sense of normality returned to the camp. A full two months passed before Acosta and his merry men showed up in the village again. The hostages traveling with them were examined by the doctors before being herded away along the border to Peru. Acosta spent one night in her quarters and, fortunately, kept his hands to himself. Six weeks passed before she saw him again.

* * * * *

Angelique cursed under her breath at the sound of small-arms fire as she tied off the last suture in the leg of the four-year-old boy lying on her exam table. The ongoing civil war and the war on drugs constantly spilled over the border as a steady stream of predators crossed from the neighboring Colombia. All were heavily armed and dangerous. They stopped at the field hospital the locals were calling
Manos de Ayuda
when one of them needed patching up. Angelique begrudged them every inch of 4-0 silk used to stitch their wounds.

Equally as bad were the mercenaries looking to make a profit off the backs of those less fortunate. Rough-looking men with rough behavior, which they often visited upon the women of village. She’d had a couple of scary moments herself, but word got out that the doctor
rubia bonita
—the pretty blonde doctor—could wield a scalpel with the best of them. That and the fact that Acosta and Boudreaux had claimed her and Able was enough to assure the thugs left her alone. But they continued to take what they wanted from the camp’s limited supplies. Either way she looked at it, the conditions at the relief hospital were less than ideal.

She put on a clean pair of latex gloves and applied a topical antibiotic ointment, then dressed the boy’s wound. Large brown eyes studied her as she reached into the pocket of her lab coat and retrieved a cherry lollipop.

“Here you go, little one,” she said in Spanish, handing him the sucker. She called all the children
little one
, regardless of their age. It was the only way she could think of to remind them that they were still children, in spite of their hardscrabble their lives.

When the mother moved forward to pick up the child, Angelique stopped her with a gentle touch. “Just a moment. I want to give you some ointment and clean bandages.”

She put two tubes of antibiotic ointment in a plastic ziplock bag, along with clean bandages and tape, and a bottle of peroxide, reminding the woman again that she would need to clean the wound a minimum of once a day. “Keep him out of the jungle and away from the river until his leg healed.”

“
Sí
, Doctor,” the woman mumbled and hurried out the door.

Angelique sighed in resignation and began cleaning up her work area. The woman probably wouldn’t heed her instructions. Brass shell casings meant money to the poor, and the children often foraged deep into the jungle for them. Angelique could only hope he didn’t develop an infection.

“She won’t do it, you know,” a man with a deep voice spoke from the doorway.

Angelique’s heart thumped when the one man she didn’t want to see echoed her thoughts. She turned to face Acosta, allowing the full force of her contempt to scorch him. She’d never hated anyone in her entire life, but her anger toward him overshadowed most of the tender feelings she’d once held for the man. He’d meant something to her once, back in Darfur when he and his men had defended them against the Janjaweed. When he’d bathed her in the dimness of her little hut and made the horror go away, if only for a little while.

Angelique had been shocked to see him when she arrived in Manos de Ayuda, and the sense of betrayal was a visceral thing when she discovered Shepherd was right, that Acosta was no more immune to corruption than the next man. He wasn’t the man she remembered so fondly, but she hadn’t
really
known him, had she? Still, the knowledge she’d misjudged him so badly stung her pride.

He leaned his long frame against the doorjamb, all but filling the space. Hair long past needing a trim curled damply around his neck, and the sculpted jaw hadn’t seen a razor in days. His muscled biceps bunched as he crossed his arms over a too-impressive chest. Why did he have to be such a gorgeous son of a bitch? Unattractive mercenaries were so much easier to ignore. She licked her lips instinctively, as though preparing for his kiss, and his gaze went from intense to smoldering.

“I might have known you’d be behind the gunfire in the hills. It’s much quieter when you’re gone. What do you want, Acosta?”

He allowed his dark brown eyes to flicker over her face before his lustful gaze took a leisurely stroll down her body.

“We have a couple of injured men who need patching up.”

At his slow perusal, an unwelcome shiver ran down her spine and her pulse kicked up.
Damn it!
She hated that, on some visceral level, she was still drawn to a man who’d led her to believe he was something he was not. Not that she’d ever let him see anything other than her disdain. She was determined never to let him know how badly his defection had hurt her. And yet somewhere deep inside was the hope she was wrong, that he was still the man she believed him to be.

Angelique raised one eyebrow in his direction and pursed her lips in disapproval before giving him her back and walking to the sink. She shrugged out of her jacket and ran her hands under the hot water, scrubbing vigorously.

“Take them to your friends on the other side of the border.” Even she could hear the exhaustion in her voice. She’d lost a patient today, a young man, shot down in the prime of his life because he’d dared stand up to a guerilla soldier bent on assaulting his sister. And Acosta worked alongside those bastards, was one of them, had maybe participated in such atrocities. “I’m not wasting my dwindling supplies on a bunch of thugs.”

“No can do, Doc. They’ll never make it.”

Composed, her reaction to him under control, she flipped off the faucet and dried her hands before facing him again.

“I don’t really give a rat’s ass what your problems are, Acosta. I came here to help the people of Manos de Ayuda, not patch up a bunch of scumbag mercs and rebels.” She shook her head. “What the hell happened to you?”

His dark eyes bored into hers, and silence filled the cramped space, but he said nothing.

With casual indifference he unfolded his arms, reached to his side, and unsheathed a wicked-looking knife. Her breath lodged in her throat. Never show fear, she reminded herself. “I guess it’s too much to hope that you’re going to use that pig sticker to slit your own throat and save me the trouble of doing it for you.”

He laughed and began cleaning his nails with the business end of the lethal weapon. Not an outright threat, but she got the message. “Sorry, Angel, this just isn’t your lucky day.”

“You really are an insufferable bastard, Acosta. Beyond redemption.”

“Yeah, probably.” He sheathed his makeshift nail cleaner and strolled over to her, standing way too close. Her heart pounded as he raised her chin with his forefinger, forcing her to look into his rugged face with those all too knowing eyes. He leaned close to her ear and whispered, “Those men need attention, Angel, and I’m not going anywhere until they get it. Fact is, I’m not going anywhere tonight, so I’ll be a guest in your quarters. You’ve put me off long enough, Angel. Tonight’s the night.”

Angelique let her hands rest at his waist as his warm breath stirred the tiny hairs along her neck. Damn her soul, she still wanted him! The taut muscles under her fingers tightened as she ran them over his stomach before coming to rest on his chest. He lifted his dark head and raised an eyebrow in silent question. She pushed hard, catching him off balance so he stumbled.

“Back the hell off.”

Surprise flashed across his face, but he was quick and highly trained and righted himself within seconds. A wide, cocky grin spread across his full mouth.

“I do like a woman with a little fight in her.”

Adrenaline and unwanted desire pounded through her veins, and she willed herself to remain outwardly calm. She gathered her supplies, then yelled down the hall for the orderly to find Dr. Shepherd. At his raised eyebrows, she responded, “I’m not a surgeon, but one of these days you’ll be lying on that table, and I’ll make an exception.”

The look on his face spoke to his amusement. “Oooh, I love it when a fine-looking woman makes exceptions for me. I’ll be looking forward to tonight, Angel.”

“Fuck you, Acosta.”

“Exactly. Nice to know we’re still on the same page.”

She stiffened. “We will never be on the same page again.”

He had the audacity to laugh. “Never say never, Angel.”

* * * *

Mitch sighed as he left the hospital ward. The surgeon said Rico’s badly broken leg would heal, but he’d probably have a lifelong limp. Mitch would have to notify his man in Bogota to have him airlifted out. Rivera would be leaving with him, both of them returning to Miami and on to Walter Reed for months of painful rehabilitation, but at least they were alive. Making the arrangements and seeing to their comfort in camp left time for Mitch to put the moves on the feisty Dr. Vernet.

His Angel really despised him, or so she believed, but he’d seen the pulse in her neck jump whenever he got near her. She might not respect him anymore, but she still wanted him. He grabbed his pack and headed for the showers. He’d heard she’d lost a patient today, and he knew from experience the lovely doctor would be drowning her sorrows in a bottle of vodka in the little cantina that had sprung up in the camp. Liquor and sex were the balms Angelique used to numb the pain. If he’d learned nothing else about her during their time in Africa, he knew that. Add to it the verbal sparring match they’d engaged in earlier in the day, and he figured she’d be primed to erupt. Mitch liked nothing better than hot, angry sex with the doc.