Free Fall (5 page)

What exactly had she been through? What had she endured in the days before the surveillance cameras had been flown into her cell?

Bile rose in his throat again, and he pushed down the lurking question that threatened to drown him. Stella was a survivor. She had pocketed a small arsenal of weapons out of the artifacts. He had to focus on the survivor part of her, the professional part, because allowing himself to dwell on the personal… on the essence of Stella…

Hell. Back to the work side of her, the part that had carried her through this nightmare and whatever shook down. He’d always admired her dedication to her job. When they’d been dating he’d thought he found the perfect woman. One as tied to work as he was. She would understand his call to serve and he understood hers. But it turned out she wanted the one thing from him he couldn’t give.

So many regrets slammed over him, yet he couldn’t ignore the fact that today he could have lost even the comfort of knowing she was alive. Sure, it tore him up thinking about her building a future with someone else, but that pain was nothing compared to the hell of envisioning her dead. The crushing hell he would have lived with if he’d arrived too late.

Shit.

Bubbles slowed as they neared a muddy stream and stopped under the umbrella of a leafy higlo tree. “Time for a breather.”

“I’m good,” Jose insisted and he was—physically. It was his brain that was about to explode. “Stella?”

“I’m all right,” she insisted, then swayed on her feet.

“Damn it.” Jose shifted the student over to Bubbles in a flash.

His teammate assumed the burden without hesitation and settled the dude against the tree trunk. “We’re safe here for now. I’ll check over the student. You take care of Stella.”

“Jose?” Her whisper carried on the night air with the distant chirrup of a cheetah. Stella jolted. “We shouldn’t stop. I can do this. I don’t want to hold you back or make us a target.”

Dark circles stained under her eyes, but sharp attention sparked as she scanned past the tree to the wild dogs lapping from the shallow stream.

Even now, she was worried about him. Regardless of what she’d been through, the lack of food and sleep, she was ready to kick ass again with the help of a protein bar. She was every bit as incredible as he remembered, indomitable. And alive.

To hell with objectivity.

He gripped her shoulders, and without another thought, he hauled her to his chest. He held her vibrant and whole body against his. He buried his face in her hair that still held the barest hint of her eucalyptus shampoo in spite of the hellish few days.

“God, Stella, I didn’t think you were going to make it out of there.” His voice rasped in his throat, each word, every emotion grating through him like broken glass. Each word sliced him so tangibly he could have sworn he saw the starlight glinting off the shards.

“You made it in time.” She pressed her forehead to his chest, her fists gripping his survival vest.

“You called.”

“I can’t believe you’re here.” She trembled in his arms.

His body zeroed into just the feel of her against him and for a few seconds he allowed himself to forget she needed him to be a different kind of man. To forget they were in the middle of nowhere. To forget he still had tough questions to ask her.

A cleared throat had him pulling back. Even keeping a steadying palm on her waist, his arms already felt empty without her.

The injured student—now clearly awake—whistled lowly in the dark. His back against the trunk, Sutton Harper half grinned, despite his injuries. “I take it you two already know each other? Because if not, I’m feeling shortchanged on the post-rescue TLC.”

Jose shot a scowl at Bubbles for failing to alert him that their extra passenger was back in the land of consciousness. Bubbles shrugged. The trumpet of elephants blasted in the distance. The wild dogs twitched their satellite large ears before sprinting off in a streak of mottled fur.

Stella pressed a hand to her chest. “You’re awake. Thank God you’re all right, Sutton.”

“Anybody got food?”

Bubbles leaned over him, checking the cut above his eyebrow. “This isn’t a 7-Eleven, dude.”

Jose gathered his scrambled thoughts and elaborated for his not-too-chatty friend. “What he means to say is that he needs to check you over first. You were unconscious for a long time. We can take a few more minutes, but then we need to find somewhere to hunker down for the night.”

Stella handed Sutton a canteen. “Maybe some water would help?”

“Yeah, that would be good.” Sutton took a swallow and passed it back. “Tell your boyfriend thanks.”

Her hand shook as she swept stray hairs back from her face. “Old friend.”

The guy held out his uninjured hand. “Well color me lucky. I’m Sutton Harper, and to whom do I owe my life and my firstborn child? She called you Jose, right?”

He simply grunted, easing back from Stella, keeping an arm around her waist. Names weren’t passed around in his or Stella’s professions and he would prefer the less known about her life, the better.

Harper lifted an eyebrow at his curt response. “How cool to have an on-call military boyfriend if you happen to be kidnapped by warlords in a foreign country. Kinda coincidental for a simple student, don’t you think?”

Unease iced up his spine.

Stella stepped aside. “I guess I’m just a really lucky lady. Your good fortune too, to be kidnapped with me, don’t you think?”

Bubbles passed the student a protein bar. Damn good distraction and a reminder they had practical concerns.

Jose studied Harper, noting his pale face and twisted ankle. A few superficial bruises and some scratches, but no stitches needed after all. Butterfly bandages would take care of what he could see. Granted, not all torture left visible marks and there could be more injuries under his clothes. But right now he was wondering if the student had flipped, giving over information… Except what did he know?

He damn well didn’t need to learn anything more. “I think we need to stop chitchatting and find somewhere to park ourselves until our next ride rolls around.”

“Next ride?” Harper sat up straighter and scrubbed his sleeve over his sweaty brow. “So you dudes really do have a plan B. That’s a relief. Preferably something that doesn’t bail on us when it gets a little hot.”

What the hell? Saving this fella’s ass had cost them those precious seconds. If the student hadn’t panicked and set off the land mine, they could have made it to the rendezvous point, and they wouldn’t have brought a slew of forces charging right at them.

Jose forced a smile. “You sure are picky for someone who just got rescued.”

“Chalk it up to nerves. Makes me mouthy. Sorry to be an ingrate. Thanks for the Rambo moment.” The student’s voice rang with sincerity, easing some of the tension. “What can I do to help now since I’ve been a total slug so far?”

“Can you walk on your own or do you still need to be carried?” Jose turned to Stella. “And you? Are you sure there aren’t any medical issues I need to know about?”

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with a shaky hand. He sensed a brittleness in her from her efforts to hang on to professionalism to the end. And pride, he saw that too in her eyes, a defensive wall she’d erected between them because of how they’d ended things. He scratched the ache lodged in his chest—not that he expected any relief from the pain of losing her, from the teeth-grinding frustration of knowing he wasn’t the right man to give her what she needed.

Sutton cricked his neck from side to side. “Isn’t there a boyfriend/girlfriend conflict of interest in you treating her?” He held up his hands. “What? I’m standing, ready to walk.”

Bubbles coughed once, flicking a fuzzy caterpillar off his arm in disgust. “Quiet’s a beautiful thing.”

“Fair enough.” Sutton raised his hands again. “I’m embracing the chi of quiet.”

Jose slid an arm around Stella’s waist for support, nothing more. She’d made that clear enough when she broke things off with him. There could never be anything more.

***

Stella wasn’t sure she could take much more.

She understood they needed to get far away from the compound. The place would undoubtedly be crawling with bad guys. She prayed they assumed everyone had flown out in the chopper, but they couldn’t count on that.

Still, Jose was making damn sure their tracks were covered. Now Bubbles had Sutton over his shoulder, the student’s ankle having given out after five minutes of hobbling.

They were all business—and her brain was still locked on that impulsive hug from Jose. For that moment, she’d forgotten all about their fight and the fact that he didn’t want to build a real life with her. She could only lose herself in the undeniable connection they shared, a chemistry that could too easily make her lose her objectivity when she needed it most.

Stella stepped alongside him as they trekked through the scrub brush, around acacia trees, the thorny branches reaching out like gnarled witch’s fingers. “Is it safe to talk?”

“For now,” Jose said, jabbing a stick at the high grasses for snakes, keeping his eyes on the horizon. “Just keep it low. Stay on the lookout. If we’re lucky, they don’t even know we’re out here. They’ll think we all got away in the helicopter.”

“That’s what I’m hoping.” She leaped over another protruding root. “I can hardly believe you’re really here.”

“You sent for me,” Jose answered, eyes ahead, searching through the night.

That she had. Guilt scuttled around inside her again, like the lizard scrabbling up a tree trunk, but she knew she would do the same again.

“I wasn’t sure the message would be picked up.” She was careful to keep her voice low so Sutton wouldn’t hear the details. “I wasn’t even sure they would understand the message if it did go through.”

“They didn’t understand.”

“But you did.” She’d suspected and now she knew for sure. “Because of that time we slipped away to a hotel along the Nile River, and in the restaurant I blinked Morse code to get you to…”

“Proposition me. Yeah. Pretty much.”

She stumbled and he caught her elbow. She forced a smile. “Keep going. I’m okay.”

Not really. Three days of limited food and sleep deprivation was taking its toll, but she couldn’t give in. She couldn’t let her guard down for a second when even a racing ostrich could be dangerous.

“You can do it.” He slid his arm around her waist with the familiar ease of a lover. “One foot in front of the other, like the snowman in that kiddy movie.”

“With legs like melting snow.” She laughed on a gasp.

His arm went tighter, pulling her more firmly against his side, muscles moving against her in perfect synch. So familiar. So sensuous. “Do you need me to carry you?”

“No.” The pain of remembering how good it was with Jose was almost more than her exhaustion-stretched body could withstand. If he took her in his arms, she could well say something she would regret. “No need. I. Can. Hold. On.”

“You’re amazing, woman. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”

Had he brushed a kiss over the top of her head or was that just the heat of his breath, of his words? She was likely starting to hallucinate as her body gave out after all she’d been through.

Her side hurt from the pace. How far had they gone? A mile at least and she wasn’t carrying another human as Jose had done earlier and like Bubbles was doing now. Even as Jose helped her, he wasn’t even breathing heavy as perspiration sealed their clothes to their skin. His buddy Bubbles—the PJ with a fuzzy phobia—cleared the path ahead, Sutton bobbing unconscious again over his shoulder.

They pushed through more scrub brush, past a fat buffalo thorn tree that jutted at awkward angles as if desperately searching for a drop of rain. Deeper and farther they trekked. No sound of the helicopter. No sound of gunfire, just the faraway snort of animals—a rhino or buffalo maybe. And the sound of her labored breathing, the crunch of their footsteps.

Okay,
her
footsteps.

The two superhumans barely made a noise even as they charged ahead full steam. Their hard-muscled bodies moved in sleek stealth mode into nigh wrapping around them all like a humid blanket. Or was she losing consciousness? She gripped Jose’s vest tighter to anchor herself to his side, use him like a crutch.

One more step, she told herself time and time again.

Finally, they stopped.

She almost missed the fact she wasn’t walking anymore since the world seemed to be spinning. They were standing in a small clump of Acacia trees with twisted trunks. Branches spoked like an umbrella, creating a shadowy cave of sorts.

Bubbles slid his burden to the ground, then sagged back against a gnarled trunk, gasping for a second before he dropped to his knees beside Sutton. He shrugged out of his pack and pulled out medic gear.

The student was in good hands.

Stella pried her numb fingers from Jose’s vest and slid to the dusty ground. Sitting cross-legged, too tired to move, she allowed herself to look her fill at the man she’d thought she would never see again. With smooth efficiency, Jose gathered broken branches, snapping off longer ones to make shelter. He showed no signs of slowing, only his bloodied uniform and the streaks of sweat through his camo paint, testified to all they’d been through this evening.

Lean, with a whipcord strength, he had a runner’s body—a by-product of marathons he ran in addition to his special operations military training. He’d told her once he used intense running regimes to help him fight a drinking problem. While he’d been sober for five years, he still attended AA meetings and ran. And ran.

His body shouted health and vitality and pure sensuality. She’d wanted him the second she’d seen his angular good looks. She wanted to stroke her hands over his sleek black hair and test the texture between her fingertips.

Her eyelids grew heavy, and so easily she could envision just falling asleep, knowing he would keep her safe. But damn it, she had to pull her weight for as long as she could. She had a job to do and she’d already asked too much of Jose today.

She struggled to stay conscious a few minutes longer. “We’re camping here? What can I do?”