Hot Zone (Elite Force #2)(16)
Author: Catherine Mann

The ground rumbled. Unmistakably.

Another earthquake, or at the very least a kick-ass aftershock.

Curses bounced around as fast as feet hit the floor. Fang shot out of the bathroom, wrapping a towel around his waist without missing a step. The front door clogged as they all angled out sideways until they burst through. Liam scanned the cottage fast, finding all out, and followed them to the cobbled road.

The ground stilled as quickly as it had stirred.

Just another aftershock.

But apparently the whole damn town had been just as afraid. The side street was chock-full of locals and relief workers. Except they were all dressed and staring gape-eyed at him and his team.

Hugh Franco held his guitar in one hand, securing his towel with the other. Fang’s knot on his hip slipped and he grabbed for the edges frantically. Marcus covertly checked the fly of his boxers.

Cuervo’s mouth twitched with a laugh that Liam could feel welling inside himself as well.

Ah, to hell with it.

He let the laughter rumble up and free, hopefully carrying some tension out along the way. He flattened a hand to a half-uprooted palm tree and shook his head as Fang jogged inside again, his flapping towel flashing half a butt cheek.

No doubt, Fang was going to have a stripper-style call sign by morning.

Some of the tension unkinked in Liam’s gut and he straightened. “Okay, everybody, let’s close down this peep show and catch some Z’s.”

He pivoted on his heel, a deep dog bark giving him only a second’s warning that he was about to bump into—

Rachel Flores.

“Lose your clothes, Major?” She stood beside her black Lab, leash in hand. Her grimy cargo pants and body-hugging T-shirt declared she was still working.

Her dog started sniffing the edge of his towel suspiciously, all seventy pounds of pooch tensed, hackles rising along the canine’s spine.

“It’s not my clothes I’m worried about right now, ma’am. Think you can get your dog to let go of my towel?”

“Disco?” She thumbed some kind of clicker in her hand and the dog dropped to his haunches. “Good boy.”

“Thanks.”

“And Major?”

“Yeah?”

“You may want to invest in a larger towel.” She clapped him on his bare shoulder matter-of-factly before striding past, toward the cabana next door.

Her touch lingered on his bare skin. He stood rooted to the spot for a solid five seconds, watching her walk away, her thick ponytail gathered high and haphazardly on top of her head. Wavy brown hair swished with each step.

Movement from the cottage door tugged at the edges of his attention, even as he kept his eyes glued to the no-nonsense twitch of Rachel’s hips. Franco charged back out again, no guitar this time, but fully clothed. He ran past in camo pants and a fresh brown T-shirt, yanking on his survival vest.

“Going somewhere, Franco?” he asked distractedly.

“I’ll be back in an hour, sir.” Without giving Liam a chance to protest, Franco jogged away, weaving through the milling crowd.

And it didn’t escape Liam’s notice the brooding sergeant was heading toward the half-demolished school that had been converted into a temporary hospital. The same place he’d said he picked up a guitar earlier…

He should have known Franco would track down Amelia Bailey again.

Women. It was always about the women. His focus went right back on Rachel Flores, slipping inside the next-door cottage.

He’d been searching for a way to wade through the tension of the day. Then just a few words from that woman and the load on his shoulders felt a little lighter. Damn. He studied the tracks left by Rachel in a layer of dust on the street, dog prints in perfect sync alongside.

If he closed his eyes, he could still see the twitch of her hips, the tangled mass of hair whipping around in the breeze. Only a day and he already had every inch of her hot body planted in his memory as firmly as he could hear her voice, see her smile. All that relationship counseling about taking his time and thinking things through when it came to women hadn’t made a bit of difference.

He was already halfway head over ass in love with Rachel Flores.

Chapter 5

Hugh stood in the doorway to the temporary pediatric ward, staring at Amelia like a junkie jonesing for crack.

His need—a gnawing hunger—to see her again wasn’t healthy. Coming back here definitely wasn’t smart. But the second that aftershock had hit at the half-wrecked cottage, he hadn’t wasted a second. He’d only thought of getting dressed and hauling ass to the hospital to check on Amelia.

And now he’d found her. Alive. Safe. Mission accomplished.

He should leave. Should. But didn’t.

Instead he kept his boots planted, taking advantage of the fact that the medical techs on duty with their shortwave radios and walkie-talkies wouldn’t question him being around so late at night, since military presence was a given in these circumstances. So the nurses went about their business while he soaked up the sight of Amelia bathed in the glow of a low lamp.

She slept in a teakwood rocking chair, the kid snoozing against her chest the same way he’d found her the day before. He averted his eyes from the child and back to Amelia. She wore standard-issue green surgical scrubs and a pair of plain white gym shoes that had undoubtedly come from one of those hundreds of empty pallets. And still nowhere near enough gear had been shipped in yet, even four days after the earthquake hit.

Just like when he’d seen her at the hospital before, her hair streamed over one shoulder, sleek and damp. She was a blonde. He hadn’t known that when they were underground and covered in dirt. He hadn’t really thought about how she looked then, just seeing—admiring—her determination. Such calm in a crisis didn’t come around often. He couldn’t even count the number of times the person he’d been sent to save had freaked out. In the water. On a sheer cliff. In the desert. On a helicopter rescue cable. He usually came out with more bruises from being thrashed by the victim than from the actual rescue work.

Not with Amelia though.

Her spirit drew him, and he couldn’t deny the surge of attraction he felt from just looking at her. She was… beautiful. Stunning, even, in a delicate way so contradictory to her tenacious spirit that it made her even more appealing.

A fresh surge of protectiveness hummed through him, tinged with something else. Something he recognized well. He wanted her. So much, the force of his ache to be inside her threatened to drive him to his knees.

He slumped against the door frame. Seeing her again hadn’t reassured him in the least, only stirred up a whole new tangled mess of thoughts—along with the undeniable urge to touch her hair and see if it was as soft as it looked. Find out how it would feel splayed over his shoulder while she sprawled naked on top of him.