Page 57 of The Woman Left Behind

When they were finally on their way back home, she’d have to set them all straight on what had really happened.

Despite their previous bad luck, they didn’t encounter any more of the FARC hunters and reached the designated clearing just a half minute after two Jeeps roared to a stop. They all hopped on board, the drivers floor-boarded the gas pedals, and they bumped and swerved and tempted fate at a dangerous speed until they reached an airstrip with another small plane waiting for them. This one didn’t hold a candle to the small jet that had brought them in, but this one wouldn’t need as much runway and Jina didn’t care if they all had to pack themselves in like sardines, as long as that engine had enough power to get them airborne.

It did. Even better, it took them to another airstrip, where a cargo plane awaited. As uncomfortable as cargo planes were, at least she’d be able to stretch out her legs, which was more than she’d been able to do in the small plane. She was exhausted. Everything that had happened had drained her dry, and the run through the forest was the least of it.

Levi and Boom went to talk to the pilots. The other guys stowed their gear, grabbed some bottles of water, began winding down. Jina stood alone for a minute, still trying to ground herself, and finally boosted herself into the cargo hold and found a flat place to sit. Wearily she unbuckled the equipment bag, took out Tweety and the laptop, and checked both for damage. They were fine, so she repacked them and settled back, letting the momentary solitude sink in and relax her. She would have only a few minutes, if that long, but by the time the guys began loading up she had regained a measure of equilibrium—enough, at least, to last until she got home, where she could truly be alone.

The guys began boosting themselves into the hold. Levi tossed her a bottle of water and said, “Hydrate,” just the way he had that very first day, months ago. She caught the bottle and began drinking, only then realizing how thirsty she was and how good the water felt on her strained throat.

Ramirez climbed aboard, and his dark eyes swept the interior of the cargo hold. His gaze lit on her and before she knew it he was lowering himself to sit beside her. “Real introduction,” he said, giving her a slight smile. “My first name is Joseph. And you’re Babe...?”

“Modell,” she said, a little bit at a loss.

“When we get to D.C. and I’ve been debriefed, would you be interested in—”

From across the hold, Levi said, “Get away from her or we’ll break both your legs.” He was stretched out, his eyes half closed, but the dark gleam under his thick lashes was hard and direct.

Trapper looked up from where he was wiping down his weapon. “That’s if I don’t shoot your ass first.”

Ramirez’s eyebrows shot up, and he held up both hands in surrender. “I was just—”

“Yeah, we know what ‘just’ is,” Boom muttered. “You heard the man. Get away from her.”

Confused, stunned, Jina looked around at all the guys as Ramirez did what he was told and moved to another spot. They all looked pretty ragged and lethal, and none of them were smiling. What the hell?

“We heard about your rep,” Levi said to Ramirez, which explained their sudden hostility. She was tired, but not so tired that she couldn’t figure out Ramirez was evidently a player. He was good-looking enough, but she didn’t have time to play. Besides... he wasn’t Levi.

Voodoo settled into the spot on her left that Ramirez had vacated. He sat silently for a moment, then held out his left fist toward her. Her sense of surprise was so great she almost gave him a “what the hell?” look, but she recovered after a split second and silently bumped his fist with hers. Okay, the social stuff had been taken care of; now she could close her eyes and maybe grab a nap—

“That’s it?” Crutch demanded. “He’s been an asshole to you since day one, and all he has to do is offer a fist bump and you’re letting him off the hook? He owes you big-time, Babe.”

Jina forced her eyelids to at least half-mast. “I know he’s an asshole,” she snapped. “But he’smyasshole. One of them, anyway.” She paused and thought about what she’d just said. She heaved an exhausted sigh. “That didn’t sound right.”

There were some snickers going around the cargo hold, tired laughter that was drowned out as the engine noise built to a roar and the plane began moving. Jina didn’t care. They knew what she meant, and so did she. They were all her guys. They were a team.

Seventeen

Levi opened his eyes a slit and looked across the cargo hold to where Babe lay curled on her side, fast asleep. She was using her equipment bag as a pillow. The roar of the engines drowned out even the snores he knew would normally rattle the rafters of a building, but cargo planes weren’t built to be quiet inside. About two feet away, on her far side, Voodoo was slouched against some boxes, his chin on his chest as he too grabbed some sleep.

Sleep would have been nice, but Levi couldn’t quite get there. His shoulder hurt just enough to be annoying, especially when he leaned back. Not only that, he was still too rattled from those brief nightmarish moments when he’d thought Babe had been shot. He could see she was alive and moving—he’d have sworn she was glaring at him—but fuck, for a minute there he’d been ready to burn the fucking rain forest down and destroy everything in it. Reining himself in hadn’t been easy.

But she was okay. The relief hollowed him out, knocked him sideways. And somehow she’d kept the FARC asshole from shooting Voodoo, though she’d said it was an accident. How she “accidentally” tackled someone was beyond him, but maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. With her thought processes, it was tough to tell. However it had happened, she’d finally won Voodoo over so at least now they wouldn’t have to listen to his bitching. What rattled Levi most of all was that “accident” or not, she’d thrown herself into the middle of a hot situation. Being heroic wasn’t in her job description, and he had a hard time handling the idea.

Then he got on the damn plane and had to watch Ramirez coming on to her. He’d barely been able to change the “I” to “we” when he’d threatened to break the bastard’s legs.

Shit. Keeping his distance kept the team working smoothly, but on another fundamental level it wasn’t working at all, because it didn’t do anything to lessen his attraction to her. He’d hoped that like most of the time when he was attracted to a woman, after a while the attraction would start fading, whether or not he did anything about it. The fact was no matter how much he’d enjoyed the various relationships he’d had, in the end the work had always been more interesting. But he’d been around Jina for months now, and he still got off on it. Damn, he liked looking at her, liked being with her.

She was sexy, with those two-toned blue-and-gold eyes of hers, all that long, heavy hair, the way she laughed and cussed and tackled life. Her expression was usually that of someone who was about to get up to some mischief, or at least enjoyed thethoughtof mischief even if she didn’t do anything about it. She was funny, gutsy, and had a level head; she finessed keeping that fine balance between being friendly with the team members without letting anything sexual intrude. She treated them like brothers. She got along with Terisa and Ailani. She did her job and did it well. She laughed and joked, and sometimes he didn’t pay attention to what she was saying because he was too busy just watching her. To keep any of the guys from noticing, he tried not to look at her all that often, but sometimes he let himself tease her because all of them did, on one level or another.

All in all, he couldn’t find a damn thing about her that he didn’t like, except that she was off-limits.

And when he relaxed, like now... that was when he couldn’t stop his imagination from stripping her naked and pulling that fine, toned body of hers under him. In his mind he ran his hand over the curve of her ass, then reached lower to where she was hot and wet, pushed his fingers in and got her ready for his cock. The one time he’d had her under him, touching her, kissing her, she hadn’t tried to hide anything. She’d been honest, and real.

She was the only woman he’d ever felt jealousy over. He hadn’t been kidding about breaking Ramirez’s legs.

The truth was, since he’d met her, all he’d been doing was marking time: waiting for her to quit, then waiting for her to fail, and now just waiting.

He could feel his patience stretching thinner and thinner. He was fighting to maintain the status quo, and the internal battle was turning all his inner barricades to rubble. Nothing had ever broken him; he’d always maintained that inner surety of his center. He knew what he wanted out of life, knew his own guidelines, his strengths and weaknesses. Doing what he did gave him the kind of challenge and satisfaction he needed. This was different; Jina was different. Sooner or later, he’d break under the strain.

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