Page 72 of Winters Heat

“Man, this explains everything.” He leaned up enough to extend his dirty hand. “Mia, I’m Cash.”

She cut him off. “I don’t care who you are.”

Were those tears in his eyes? What was so funny? She’d knock sense into them all. After they helped Colby.

“Oh, honey. I know you don’t.”

Hewaslaughing so hard he had tears. Now, it was his turn to gasp for breath. This was ridiculous. These lethal warriors needed to march their behinds back into danger.

Jared and two others watched her watch Cash the Cowboy. Blondie. Whatever his name was, the jerk. They were all jerks. God, this was frustrating.

“Honey, we’re going after your boy,” Cash said. “But we don’t want to get killed doing it. Give us a minute to strategize. There are a helluva lot more assholes with automatic weapons set to rapid fire rock-n-roll than we’d planned to tangle with.”

Silence ticked by, one second after the next. The sweltering Colombian heat made the air heavy. All their eyes bore down on her.

She crossed her arms, trying to make sense of their assumptions. “This explains what?”

“What?” Cash asked.

“You saidthis explains everything.”

“It does.”

“Stop screwing with me, cowboy.”

He laughed. “There you go again. The only woman who Winters could ever fall for would be one who tries to push around Ballbuster McGee over there, then strut around, calling men cowboys and shit.”

“He hasn’tfallenfor anyone.” She smirked at Cash, then to each of them, one by one. “He’s just…important.”

“Yeah, we’ve heard that one before, hon. You’ve got him so wrapped up in you, he doesn’t know his asshole from his elbow.”

Eyes narrowed, she looked at them again. Jared still showed no expression.

“I, uh…I don’t know what to say to that.”

Jared cleared his throat. “There’s nothing to say. But we need your help. Recount everything you saw, everyone you met.”

“Let the girl clean up or something,” Cash said. “Jesus, dick.”

“You can do two things at once. Three.” He grabbed a bottle of something red. “Hydrate. Now.”

Wasn’t he the Prince of Manners? Then she thought of Juan Carlos and his absurd etiquette. She’d take Jared any day, and twice on rescue day.

Mia took a big sip and gagged on syrupy fruit punch, warm and fizzy.

“Bug juice.” Cash laughed.

He laughed a lot. No, he laughedat hera lot.

“This is disgusting.”

“That’ll keep you alive, hon. Just the way Winters requested.”

Mia opened the package of wet towels, started on her face, and systematically moved down to her feet. She dug at the grime under her fingernails and ended with a mound of towelettes on the dirt floor.

Jared peppered her with question after question after question. None made sense, but then again, she wasn’t used to planning an offensive attack. She couldn’t wait to do whatever came next. Hell, she couldn’t wait to finish this bottle of bug juice. She took another huge gulp and shook in disgust. Lord only knew what was in bug juice. She didn’t need to know. But if she finished it, maybe she’d earn a bottle of water or protein bar or anything edible.

Last sip down, and Mia crushed the plastic bottle and held it up. Proof positive she finished the awful thing. “Can I get something else now?”

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