Hot Zone (16 page)

The bliss built… and built… until… release unfurled inside her. Pleasure shimmered over her nerve endings as if he touched every part of her at once. Her fingers dug into his shoulders, her trembling arms all that kept her from collapsing on top of him. He’d pleasured her to the roots of her hair and still she wanted more of him…

“Protection,” she gasped. “We need protection. Or maybe I could—”

“Hold on.” His hand left her breast to scoop his survival vest from the bedside table. “I’ve got this.”

She remembered their conversation from the supply closet about a condom being kept in the survival vest, a more compact way to keep a water carrier. He pulled the packet and tossed aside the vest. Hugh sheathed himself before the last glimmer of ecstasy seeped from her. And then he was inside her, wringing fresh spasms of pleasure from her with each forceful thrust. She came again and again, and thank God for his bracing hold that kept her upright, taking him deeper, because she couldn’t have stayed upright without him.

Biting her lip, she held back the need to shout. While the curtain shielding the cubby room gave them privacy, they still needed to stay silent or risk waking the sleeping little one… not to mention everyone else in the sprawling stucco home.

Finally, finally, the last spasm wrung through her, leaving her limp. Replete. Her fingers unfurled against his chest and she hadn’t even realized she’d scored his skin.

Aftershocks shivered through her until she found herself clutching his shoulders tightly again. She wasn’t the scratching, screaming sort—or rather she hadn’t been before Hugh.

She slumped against his chest. His whispers flowed hotly against her ear as he thrust faster, his voice more urgent. His arms banded around her as he hissed his own release. Muscles bunched and gathered in his arms, tendons tight in his neck.

Once the last shimmer faded, she considered rolling off him, cuddling, but she couldn’t will her body to move. The wind whispered in through the open window, cooling the perspiration on her skin. She drifted in and out of that hazy afterglow.

Her toes skimmed along the tiny green footprints inked on his calf. “What are all the little footprints?”

“It’s a work thing.” His voice vibrated against her, through her.

“Such as?” she asked, enjoying the normalcy of talking as they lingered in the afterglow.

“During Vietnam, pararescuemen were most often transported in a big-ass helicopter called the Jolly Green Giant,” he explained while drawing lazy circles along her back. “Green footprints became our signature tat.”

“Big-ass helicopter?” She chuckled. “Is that a technical term?”

“HH-3 and HH-53, actually. But big-ass chopper just paints a more vivid picture.” Moonbeams through the windows illuminated his grin.

“I agree.” Her fingers skipped along the scratches on his chest. Then from there to the other tattoo, which she suspected held an even deeper story—a staff of musical notes scrolled across his heart. “And this tattoo?”

His hands went still on her back.

“Hugh?”

“Yeah, uh…” He shifted from under her and pulled the sheet over them both. “It’s, uh, a riff from my daughter’s favorite song.”

His answer knocked the wind out of her. She eyed each musical note, a lump settling in her throat. She sagged onto the pillow beside him. No matter how hard they tried, the past was a part of who they were now.

He stroked her wet hair behind her ear. “Aren’t you going to ask me what the song is?”

Patting his chest, she shook her head. She couldn’t probe that wound.

His hand closed over hers. “It’s from a Jimmy Buffett song called ‘Little Miss Magic.’”

“I’ve never heard it, but it sounds…” Sweet? Heartbreaking? “Special.”

“Yeah…” He squeezed her fingers once gently, and moved them away to his shoulder.

“We should, uh, sleep.” Her cheek rested against his shoulder, slick with water, sweat. The light welts of her scratches pressed against her face with a reminder of how easily she’d lost control. How quickly she became someone different with him, a man who was still deeply locked in grief for his dead family.

***

Amelia slept like the dead.

Hugh wished he could stare at her all night long, learn more about her. The way a person slept said a lot about them. She curled on her side, knees tucked tight and protectively. He wished she could be more relaxed, free in sleep, but her body told a different story. But then after all she’d been through, he shouldn’t be surprised. He just wanted to stick around and learn more, be there when she uncurled with security again.

Her rebandaged hand was stretched out toward him.

He smoothed the overlong night shirt over her hip. He could just make out the word
Bahamas
printed across the front in twisted cartoon palm trees. The scrolled letters made him think of that night back at the hospital when he’d seen Joshua sleeping in her arms, wearing a similar tourist T-shirt.

His eyes slid from Amelia to Joshua.

Shoving to his feet, Hugh tugged on a pair of khakis and walked to the nursery nook. He scratched the old tattoo, just over the tightness around his heart. Stress. He knew the cause, but he hadn’t figured out how to get past it.

He reached for the curtain three times before he found the guts to pull it back. Joshua sucked on his fist in his sleep, completely relaxed. As a child should be.

Before Hugh even registered the thought, he held the guitar Jocelyn had left behind. It felt right there. He played a riff and tuned it, the old Lyon & Healy a bit worn around the edges, but with a little tuning, the notes took on a full, warm tone.

His fingers plucked along the strings, not Tilly’s tune, but another Buffett song… slow… “Son of a Sailor”… and yeah, he wasn’t a sailor and this boy wasn’t his son. But the music leveled him out, easing the knot in his chest.

“You’re good with him,” Amelia said softly from the bed.

His fingers slowed, then stopped. He looked over at Amelia. She sat hugging her knees, her chin resting on her hands.

“Instinct, I guess.” He rested the guitar on the ground and spun it. The polished rosewood glinted in the moonlight.

She slid from the bed, her bare feet barely making a sound as she crossed to the nook. She rested her arms on the rail of the white crib. “A kid is a pint-sized package of possibility. Stare at a baby and you start thinking about what he or she will look like down the road, what they’ll do with their lives.”

“What do you envision when you look at him?”

Amelia sketched a finger over his fine, dark eyebrows. “With his face all scrunched up like that, I can envision him with little round glasses and a calculator.”

“Sure, I can see that.”

She kissed her fingers, stroked Joshua’s forehead, before turning back to Hugh. “I liked what you were playing for him.”

“I wouldn’t want to wake up the kid.”

“He didn’t seem disturbed when you played before, or with us talking now.”

He stepped away from the nursery nook, swinging the guitar back up to play softly, notes that went through his head when he thought of Amelia. He settled on the edge of the bed.

She sat beside him, her legs tucked up underneath her. “That’s lovely, but I don’t recognize it.”

“Just some chords that went together for the moment.” He played on while talking. “My mom was determined to bring up well-rounded sons. So my brother and I didn’t just play sports, we took music lessons too. My younger brother picked piano and I chose guitar because I thought guitar would be easier. Wow, was I wrong. She signed me up with a classical instructor.” He plucked through a few bars of Bach. “And it was forever before he would let me near the pieces I wanted to play.”

“And you wanted to play?”

“Clapton. Hendrix.”
Ah, Hendrix.
The songs he would play for Amelia if they had days and days together. His fingers found a classic blues riff, morphing into a Muddy Waters tune. “Hindsight, it was smart of my teacher, since it forced me to practice my fingers raw to get to what I wanted.”

“What sports did you play?”

“Football and track, field events. Lots of sitting around after the shot put and discus. I played. The girls gathered around. And then I really practiced, especially for the girl next door.”

His fingers moved easily over the fretboard, the changes and notes coming naturally from the training and practice, much like what happened when he was out in the field, on a mission.

She paused, frowned for moment before her blue eyes went wise and wide with realization. She slumped back against a bedpost. “You married the girl with the kitten.”

His eyes slid back to Joshua in the crib and nodded once. “I did. And we stared at Tilly’s face when she slept, and yes, we talked about what we thought that precious angel-faced baby would do with her life.”

Amelia watched him with those piercing eyes, her lawyer eyes that saw so much.

“Tilly colored on walls and defended her rights in the playground sandbox. She was tiny though, born two months prematurely. She spent three weeks in the NICU.”

He set the guitar aside, the fear of that time filling him up again even in memories. “I prepared myself to lose her during that time. But once she made it through?” He shook his head. “I let my guard down. I got complacent, let myself dream of the day she would start first grade, ride a bike, get her license… And while I know it’s unreasonable to expect I could have saved her, I took her for granted, and that’s what I find the hardest to live with.”

She rested her hands on his knees and stayed silent, thank God, she stayed silent. There weren’t words that could make this any better. Although the pain didn’t continue to grow. Her touch didn’t make it go away, but at least it didn’t increase.

He thought that maybe he could actually explain how they died, something he always left to other people to explain. Staying silent, staying busy had been how he survived for five years.

But right now in the silence with Amelia, he found himself saying “I told you before that my wife and daughter—Marissa and Tilly—died in an airplane crash. A fluke, couldn’t even pin it on mechanical error or pilot error. A wind shear forced the airplane down shortly after takeoff. There was no chance for recovery. The jet broke apart.”

Looking in her eyes became too much, so he glanced away and stroked the neck of the soundless guitar.

Her hand rested on top of his. “I’m so very sorry. I can’t even begin to imagine how painful that must have been, must still be for you.”

And she needed to hear the rest. He needed to say it, finally. “It happened when Tilly was in kindergarten, the Christmas after the pet-rock preschool incident. They were going to spend a month with her mother since I was deployed for the holiday. We didn’t really have the money for the tickets, but I surprised her anyway. Put the whole thing on a credit card because I felt so damn guilty about being away too much.”

“You can’t possibly feel responsible.” She clasped his hands, dipping her head and forcing him to meet her eyes. “You couldn’t have predicted that.”

He tapped his temple. “Up here, I know that.” He tapped his chest. “Down here has a tough time comprehending. If I’d gotten out of the air force and taken some regular nine-to-five job, she wouldn’t have needed to go to her parents. She wouldn’t have been so lonely and stressed-out. I wouldn’t have missed over half of my daughter’s too-short life.”

She squeezed his hands harder… Except he realized he was the one holding so tightly. She hadn’t winced even when he must have been close to breaking her fingers.

He let go abruptly. The reason for all this pouring out of his guts came to him. He needed to make her realize. “Amelia, I may be good with the kid, but I can’t go there again.”

Standing, he walked to the French doors, needing to keep his back to her, needing a second to pull his shit together. He needed to get back to the rescue site, back to work. He was technically AWOL by now. But that worried him less than the fact he was needed and not there.

The time in this place had been needed. But now they’d taken care of finding what they needed for Joshua. Amelia would have the night to sleep. In the morning, if there wasn’t a vehicle available, they would have to leave.

Leaving them behind… He couldn’t do that. Not with the past still dogging his ass.

He stared out into the darkness, with only the moon and a handful of stars. There was no city in the distance, no traffic, not even outbuildings. Only the buzz of bugs, the low hum of the generator, and the whistle of the wind rustling the trees. The branches swayed, moving, parting… revealing…

A light shone in the distance. A light that couldn’t be incidental, since it required power, an extra generator. Moreover, the light came from a house on the property. A property Jocelyn Pearson-Stewart had said was empty except for them.

“I need to do a walkabout.”

Amelia jolted upright in bed, wondering if Hugh had lost his ever-loving mind. “You’re leaving?”

“Just scouting,” he said, turning away from the French doors. “It may be nothing, but there’s a suspicious light out there. If Jocelyn’s hiding something, or if she’s become a target because she helped us out, then I need to know. Oliver has no doubt managed to untie himself by now and is out there somewhere. We don’t know why he targeted Joshua, but I need to be damn sure Oliver doesn’t come near either of you again.”

He crossed the room in five long steps and checked the lock on the door leading out to the hall. He tugged on his shirt and boots. Their weapons were lined up on the dresser, two guns and a pair of knives. He took one of each for himself. The fact that Jocelyn hadn’t asked for them had to be a good sign. Right?

Maybe he was overreacting. It wasn’t as if the woman had slipped tranquilizers or poison in the canned spaghetti. But even if their host posed no threat, that didn’t mean Joshua was safe.

Her stomach jolted with nerves. “Um, do you think you could make that ‘walkabout’ really quick? Because I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

“Very fast. I promise.” He dropped a quick kiss on her head, even though from his eyes she could see he’d already slipped away from her. “No one will know I’ve left. Keep the door locked and the gun close. If you have any problems or concerns, shoot once or scream your head off, and I will be back before you can blink. I swear.”

Gnawing her bottom lip, she crossed the nursery nook and peeked behind the curtain, just to reassure herself Joshua was okay. His back rose and fell with each steady breath.

She let the curtain fall back into place and turned to Hugh. “You’re certain about going? I can’t help but think of those teenage horror movies where we all shouted, ‘Don’t go in the basement!’”

He paused halfway through putting on his survival vest and grinned. “So which is it we’re living in here? Horror movie or ‘Hotel California’?”

“Both?”

His smile faded. “This is my job. It’s what I’m trained to do, and believe me, I wouldn’t leave unless I thought it was absolutely necessary.”

“All right then.” She picked at the bandage on her hand and tried not to think about the human snakes with a much deadlier bite. “Pass me the damn pistol.”

Hugh scooped up the other 9 mm, Oliver’s, and placed it into her hands. “Just in case.”

“Just in case,” she repeated, her fingers closing around the cool steel.

“You are…
amazing
.” He cupped the back of her neck, her hair a tangled damp mess around her face. But she looked in his green eyes and saw Hugh. Here and totally with her for this moment before he left.

He kissed her, another of those intense kisses that was about more than passion. The kind that made her think about what life might be like after they left this nightmare behind. Then his touch slid away.

He opened the balcony doors, stared into the distance for an instant before he stepped out onto the porch and simply disappeared from sight.

His stealthiness gave her a moment’s pause. Although she reminded herself that was a good thing. If she didn’t see him while looking, then others wouldn’t either. Still, butterflies kicked around inside her stomach. Fear. How much longer until she could feel safe again?

A rustling noise from across the room shook her out of her useless self-pity. Joshua shuffled and kicked in his sleep. She had to think of him first.

She yanked on her underwear quickly and pulled the Bahamas T-shirt back over her head. She strapped the gun belt around her waist and slipped into the borrowed khaki pants. If something happened, she needed to be ready to move. The boots Jocelyn had offered were much more practical than the battered and soggy tennis shoes she’d been given at the hospital a couple of days ago.

A cry from the crib carried her across the room. As she tugged aside the curtain, she found Joshua tugging himself up to stand. “B’ana? B’ana?”

He reached for her even as she stretched out her arms for him. A diaper change and song and cuddle later, he still hadn’t gone back to sleep. He continued to chant, “B’ana, b’ana.”

No doubt, the child was hungry. She tugged her T-shirt over her belt and hitched Joshua onto her other hip. After all he’d been through he would have catching up to do filling his tummy again and why, why, why hadn’t she thought to bring snacks from the kitchen?

The thought of leaving the safety of their locked room scared the spit out of her. She did not want to qualify for the too-stupid-to-live starring role in one of those slasher films. She jostled Joshua faster, patting his back and making
shh
,
shh
,
shh
sounds. God forbid he wake up others in the house and have one of them see Hugh running around the compound.

Okay, so the decision not to go downstairs wasn’t as clear-cut as she’d thought. She eyed the door, then the yard. Was that Hugh darting behind a tree?

Joshua’s bottom lip jutted out with only a second’s warning before he started crying again, harder this time, louder. If he kept this up, the whole house would be awake.

Keeping Joshua happy and quiet would be the best way to help buy Hugh more time and safety—which was in the best interests of all three of them.

“Okay, okay, sweetie. We’ll go find a banana.” And now that she thought about it further, she might as well use this opportunity to store up extra food in case they did need to leave when Hugh got back.

And she definitely needed to make this fast so she could be sure to return before him.

With each step down the worn wood staircase, she pushed back those thoughts of high school horror flicks. Picking her way through the dark didn’t exactly help steady her heart rate.

Whispers from the kitchen slithered down the corridor. She hugged Joshua closer and walked softly on. Peering into the kitchen, she found Jocelyn’s nieces, Erin and Courtney, standing at the island with their heads close together as they talked. Courtney’s long strawberry blonde hair contrasted with Erin’s sleek brown bob. They didn’t look much like sisters, about twenty years apart in age. Or were they cousins? Jocelyn hadn’t been clear about the relationship between her nieces.

Both still wore the same jeans and T-shirts they’d had on at dinner time, which seemed strange this late at night. But then they could have gotten dressed again as she had, not wanting to wander around in a nightshirt with strangers around.

Their voices weren’t loud enough for her to understand what they said. Their quiet could be chalked up to good manners, trying not to disturb others.

Amelia stepped deeper into the kitchen, fears for Hugh making the air too thick to breathe. “Where’s Jocelyn?”

They jolted apart sharply. With guilt?

Courtney picked up a bottle of juice off the counter, her ponytail swinging, she moved so quickly. “She’s asleep. What do you need?”

Easy enough to answer truthfully. “The baby’s having trouble sleeping. I just need to find something for him to eat. Jocelyn wouldn’t happen to have any baby food left over from that nephew’s kid?”

Erin opened the cupboard doors. “Afraid not. But we have plenty of canned goods. SpaghettiOs? There’s some applesauce. Crackers. Help yourself. Aunt Jocelyn has an open-pantry policy.”

Courtney extended her arms. “Let me hold the little guy while you look.”

“Um, thanks,” Amelia clutched him closer, and God love the little imp, he locked his arms around her neck. “I have to confess I’m clingy with him after all we’ve been through.”

Erin pulled out a jar of applesauce and a pack of crackers. “All you’ve been through?”

“Right after his adoption”—she thought back to what she’d told Jocelyn when she’d claimed Joshua was hers—“Joshua and I got lost in the earthquake chaos.”

Erin tore open the crackers and passed one to Joshua. “You both obviously got out unscathed.”

“Thanks to Hugh,” Amelia said simply, watching as Courtney played with Joshua’s toes until he giggled. “You’re really good with him.”

Courtney looked up, smiling. “I have a son. He’s twenty now, living on his own.”

“You must miss him.” She picked up the pack of crackers casually to take with her when she walked out of the room. Soon. But first, if she could gather a little more information about the people here and keep them occupied while Hugh was outside…

“I keep busy with work,” Courtney said, sipping her juice.

Amelia took an unopened bottle from the counter and tucked it under her arm. “What do you do, Courtney?”

She blinked nervously. “I teach preschool.”

In the middle of nowhere? Amelia’s eyes flashed to Erin, who quickly busied herself with looking into a cabinet. Something felt off. Wrong. And she wasn’t about to let on about the weird vibe she was getting here.

“No wonder you’re so good with children.” Amelia’s inner alarms were clanging away even as she flattered her hostess’s niece. These two women were hiding something, and the chances of them revealing it were very slim. She needed to get Joshua back upstairs as quickly as possible.

“I’ll just take the crackers upstairs.”

Erin passed a bottle to Joshua. “Hey, there’s also plenty of juice. Why don’t you take another upstairs with you in case he gets fussy again?”

“Thanks, you’ve all been more than generous.” Amelia backed out of the kitchen and raced up the stairs.

Once safely back in her room, she looked around quickly and found it still empty. She reminded herself of Hugh’s certainty. He’d managed to keep them alive so far.

She set the juice on the table along with the crackers and lowered Joshua to the floor. Once he was steady on his feet, she rose… and looked at the bottles again. What was it about them that niggled at her? She traced the label…

And as if a bomb had gone off in her brain, she remembered those crates in the back of the van. Surely plenty of people had crates of it stocked in their pantry, especially on a remote island where supplies had to be shipped in and groceries were limited. It had to be coincidental that brand was exactly the same that had been stacked in their kidnappers’ van.

Chewing her lip, she watched Joshua playing on the rug in his new borrowed clothes. Another “coincidence” snapping into place. Her T-shirt here with its touristy lettering looked so very close to the one Joshua had been given in the hospital. Again, it had to be a fluke, all these connections between here and the hospital where they’d been kidnapped.

And if it wasn’t just a quirk?

Her eyes shot to the balcony doors. Hugh couldn’t return fast enough.

***

If she kept her eyes closed, Lisabeth could almost convince herself she and her husband were in a car, at home, cuddling romantically by the seashore.

In reality, they were still on an earthquake-ravaged island in the Bahamas. Given the shortage of private places to sleep, they had opted to bunk outside the hospital in the back of a church van that no longer ran, thanks to the telephone pole that had landed across the hood. Aiden had pulled out the seat and spread two bedrolls in the back. The windows were tinted. It felt like their own private nirvana.

She rested her head on her husband’s shoulder, exhausted, but hungry to hang onto the peaceful moment. God only knew what tomorrow would hold. The smell from the pine air freshener dangling off the rearview mingled with the clean bleach scent of the bedrolls brought in by a humanitarian group today for the volunteer doctors.

Aiden stroked along her arm. “I’m sorry Major McCabe didn’t have more reassurance for us.”

She’d been so hopeful the air force officer might point them directly to Joshua and Amelia after one of the nurses at the hospital later remembered him visiting. They hadn’t found out anything during their first visit to the other hospital, due to all the rotating staff. But information had worked its way back to them later.

There was some comfort in that, even if it didn’t bring all she’d hoped for. “I’m relieved to know Joshua and Amelia have someone so well trained in survival looking out for them.”

He turned her head ever so slightly until she had to look him in the eyes. “You do understand they must have been taken? They may not even be al—”

“Shhh…” She placed her hand over his mouth. “There’s no need to say it. I’m not delusional. I realize the state of things. But I also know that they made it through the earthquake and that for the first time in days, I have real hope. Let yourself have that too.”

He kissed her fingertips. “For you.”

His mouth against her skin felt so good and familiar in a world gone insane, she ached for more. Sliding her hand around, she urged him closer until her lips met his.

The bedroll rustled in the dark interior as he shifted to be closer, carefully cradling her face in his palms, deepening the contact.

Deepening the moment.

She needed this, needed her husband. She gripped his surgical scrubs tighter, pulling him to her. Or rather, she tried to, but he held back.

“Aiden, it’s dark. We’re alone. I need you.”

“I need you too,” he said, kissing her gently.

So gently she wanted to tug his hair and scream in frustration.

“I won’t break, you know.”

“What’s wrong with wanting to be tender with my wife?”

“Aiden, you’re an amazing lover, generous, and you have the most talented surgeon’s touch.” She kissed each of his long fingers to punctuate her words. “You know I’m a satisfied woman. I just want to make sure you’re as happy… As completely happy as I am.”

“What makes you think I’m not?”

She squeezed his hands harder, her fingernails digging in half moons. “You are not your father. And you don’t have to make up for what he did every single day of your life.”

He rolled away from her onto his back. “It’s not that simple.”

A part of her wanted to kick herself for bringing this up now. Without a doubt, there wasn’t a faster way to douse the romance than to mention his father, the man who’d raped his son’s fourteen-year-old girlfriend. “You need to find some kind of peace with what happened with your dad. Don’t let it steal your joy at finally becoming a parent yourself.”