Page 51 of Vaquero
Time stopped. Julio didn’t want her to see him like this, on his belly and bleeding. Too many generations of proud, Spanish-male machismo ran deep. “It’s just a scratch,” he told her like the idiot he was.
“It’s not a scratch,” she breathed, dropping to her knees at his side, her big, beautiful green eyes luminous with tears. “Oh, my God, Julio. You poor thing. You’ve been shot. Twice! Let me look at you.”
His breath caught. She was crying—for him. No one had ever cried for him before. Not Bianca. Not his parents. Not Paloma. Her brand of sisterly love had always been competitive, push-and-shove, rough. If he’d gotten hurt or banged up back when they were little kids, she’d been more inclined to punch and tease, to tell her older brother to man up and stop whining.
But the light reflected in Meg’s eyes was pure panic and fear. Pain. She was hurting for him.
Some guy in fatigues loomed larger than life behind her, a matching mini-gun in his gloved hands and a tactical headset strapped over his bare head. Military haircut. Dark as sin five o’clock shadow. Sharp black eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a while, either. His chin ducked into his shoulder as he cut out, “Man down,” into his mic.
Had to be Charlie’s wingman, Hotrod.
“Corpsmen already in transit,” a voice from theIwo Jimareplied over the radio Velcroed to Hotrod’s beefy shoulder. As they should. Hotrod was obviously another operator. He would’ve called for backup the instant he’d known Charlie was taking fire.
By then Meg’s hands were gently mapping Julio’s chest, his arm and his thigh. His face. She blinked back big shiny tears, hiding her fear, but she couldn’t disguise the tender way she handled him. Or the way her face glowed with—concern. Couldn’t be love. Julio was not that kind of lucky.
Groaning from the sheer pleasure of her touch, he closed his eyes and leaned his cheek into her palm, wishing he could finally rest. It’d be heaven to hold her. Kiss her. Take all night making love to her. Sleep for a week with her tucked naked in bed beside him, with him tucked inside of her. But why the hell had Charlie brought her along with him? Pushing to his side, Julio captured her roving hands before he lost his mind from the sensual pleasure of them.
“Those killers will be back,” he told her as he lifted slowly to his elbows. “We need to move now.”
“Not until I wrap a tourniquet around your thigh,” Meg insisted as she leveled him onto his back. “I won’t let you bleed to death, Julio. I’ve got you. You’re safe with me.”
He had to blink back more tears then, his lashes working overtime to stop the flow before it got away from him. He was safe? With her? If she only knew what those words did to him, she’d stop comforting him. Because Julio had never been safe, not once in his poverty-stricken life. Most certainly not once he’d joined the Navy and deployed, though, to be honest, things had settled down for him then. Until Domingo Zapata raised his ugly, tattooed head and destroyed everything.
Hotrod sent back one curt nod, his stance alert, his gaze constantly parsing the landscape for enemy combatants. “Understood, Agent Juarez, but Meg’s right. You need a tourniquet now, then sickbay on that carrier. Only problem is we need to disarm the warheads before we leave. That’s why Doc Hazelton’s here. She’s a nuclear engineer from the UK’s Proliferation and Nuclear Policy Institute. She’s the best there is and can do it. So lay your ass back down and let Meg do her thing.”
The woman with Charlie could disarm a nuke? Good to know. “They’re Russian ICBMs.”
Hotrod’s head bobbed. “Understood, Juarez. The United Kingdom and Washington have been tracking those warheads for months. You know how this fire started? Did an explosion create this fuckin’ mess?”
“It’s how I ended Orlando Zapata,” Julio admitted humbly.
Meg had unbuckled his belt by then, making his body think of other, more pleasant scenarios than bleeding to death. It was hard to focus. “Oz brought the Russians and their ICBMs here,” he explained. “He was entertaining them, roasting a wild pig. Celebrating and drinking. When he stepped between his fuel pumps and the barrel of my rifle—”
“You ended Zapata?” Hotrod’s head canted. Skepticism colored his tone. His voice went hard, as if he thought Julio were lying.
“Julio fired the shot that ended Oz,” Meg inserted with attitude, her fingers busily working Julio’s belt under his thigh, then tightening it.
What he wouldn’t give to close his eyes and be in bed with her.
“I was here,” she continued, her voice radiating certainty. “I saw the whole thing. Charlie and I were over by the cabin when it happened. I thought Charlie had fired too soon and ruined my rocket attack, but it was Agent Juarez who’d fired. With one shot, he ended Oz and that stupid barbeque. Then, Julio fought off the soldiers Oz had hidden in the tunnel. Single-handed.” She pointed to the smoking depression in the stone wall below. “There used to be two tunnels there, but I couldn’t let Julio hold them off alone, so I fired another rocket and ended those suckers before they could kill him.”
She was the person behind the well-placed rocket attack that had saved his life? Julio hadn’t realized that until then. “You saved me,” he told her sincerely.
Meg’s slender fingers intertwined with his. She blinked those gorgeous green eyes down at him. “You are an idiot,” she said in her tough, tender way. “Walking straight into those assholes like you did. Did you ever once think about me while you were strutting to your death? Shit, Julio. You scared the hell out of me. What else could I do but fire that rocket and save your life? You were throwing it away!”
“Why are you here?” He had to know.
Her brows furrowed and her forehead wrinkled. “To find you and Pepe. We think he ran away to find Oz and kill him.”
That jumpstarted Julio’s heart. Once again, he shoved up to his elbows. “Pepe is safe, Meg. I saw him. He was here. Oz had him working in the tunnel with everyone else. His name is Pepe Velasquez. His father is Rafael, the village mayor. They were both working in the same tunnel but didn’t realize it until I showed.”
“Really?” she nearly squealed. “You saved Pepe? And his father?”
Julio nodded, so damned proud of Meg for the way she adored every last one of her kids. “Yes. They’ve gone home now, but they took as much of Oz’s weaponry with them as they could carry. They will be able to protect themselves now.”
“Oh, good!” Meg cranked that belt extra tight, then secured the end through the buckle—just before she leaned over and her mouth melted all over Julio’s.
He would’ve growled at the severe pain radiating up his right thigh and into his groin that extra tight tourniquet caused— if not for the honeyed-taste of her sweet tongue in his throat. If not for the way her hands clutched his head in a tender life-saving vise, her thumbs caressing his cheekbones and her tears dripping into his face. No woman had ever cried for him. Each drop felt like a blessing.
