She shoved her thick red braid over her shoulder, sweeping the escaping wisps away. “Most folks have never heard of the pararescuemen. There are only about three hundred and fifty in the world.”
Sutton hooked his arm on his knees, leaning in. “That’s crazy cool. Dude, you should be bragging in bars left and right. Think of the babes you could score.”
Stella scrunched her nose in disdain. “So you’re the kind who pretends to be an astronaut to pick up women?”
Sutton clapped a hand to his chest. “That would be very dishonorable.”
Damn straight.
Stella scooted closer. “Their training takes nearly two years. They do the SEAL survival stuff, assault, protection courses, as well as becoming medics—except for the officer on the team. Anyhow, their focus is on rescue, but they need the insertion and force protection skills to make that happen.”
Jose couldn’t figure out why the hell she was telling all this stuff about PJs, and then it hit him. If she put the focus on his job—more of a known entity—then it took the focus off her real job. She was good. Really good.
So he let her keep talking; no hardship. He could just sit and take in the sight of her, so sexy with her hair mussed from sleep. After a month away from her, he soaked up the sound of her.
He was a sap.
Sutton held up the shield, grinning. “So I shouldn’t piss off these two badasses. What else should I know about your boyfriend?”
“Former boyfriend,” she said quickly, too quickly. “He and his buds rescue downed pilots in war zones—even jump into the ocean to assist during astronauts’ landings. But their work isn’t restricted to military settings; they help SWAT teams, the FBI.”
Sutton whistled. “Hairy stuff.”
As much as he preferred not to talk about his work, Jose reminded himself this kept the focus off Stella’s job.
He clapped the kid on the shoulder. “If you call jumping into a minefield hairy, then sure, it’s hairy stuff. Another of my buddies, Franco, was dropped onto a mountain in Afghanistan to rescue a Green Beret with his legs blown off in a minefield. We couldn’t risk the rotor wash of a landing helicopter setting off another mine that would take out the whole aircraft and everyone in it. So Franco parachuted in alone. He used his medic training to secure the patient, then the helicopter hoisted them both up.”
“Hey,” Stella said, “that’s the same buddy of yours who rescued the lawyer and her nephew from earthquake rubble last year. Right, Jose? You do civilian rescue work too.”
“They were buried underneath layers of concrete slabs.” Jose kept on talking, since sure enough, the kid wasn’t focusing on Stella anymore and that was good for a lot of reasons. “Franco not only crawled through with stabilizing medical help, but also stayed with them through aftershocks until rescue teams could free them.”
Sutton leaned back against the tree trunk. “That’s one helluva bedtime story.”
Although, the sun was rising, which meant they would either be leaving or evading. “You only have about a half hour left to catch some shut-eye.”
“Then I’d better make the most of it.” Sutton’s eyes slid closed.
And as the student began snoring lightly, Jose realized he had no buffer between him and Stella. Nothing left but the two of them and a boatload of messy history.
***
In spite of all her intention to button up her heart tight, Stella couldn’t bring herself to sleep away these last minutes with Jose, not with the dream of their first date still curling through her mind and into her heart. The sun was rising and the chopper would certainly be arriving soon. They would go their separate ways again.
So even as exhaustion tugged on her every cell, she forced her eyes to stay open. She tugged the ponytail holder free and began braiding her hair loosely.
Jose’s eyes glowed coal hot in the night. “Are you seeing him?”
Surprise jolted her. “Sutton? Really? God, no. He’s just a kid.”
“Twenty-two, according to the briefing info we got on the hostages before rolling out. He’s not that much younger than either of us. Hell, I’m a couple of years younger than you and that never seemed to matter to either of us.”
She saw jealousy—and hurt. The first would have made her defensive, but the latter made her lean forward and stroke his jaw lightly.
“Well, I am not seeing him. Why would you think that?”
She was still so raw from their relationship, she didn’t know when—if—she could think about commitment again. And how scary was that? She was nowhere closer to finding out anything about her mother and she’d screwed up any possibility of a relationship with Jose. She wanted a family of her own, but she couldn’t think of being with anyone else.
But what about Jose? Had he already moved on? Was that why he thought she could?