Her heart kicked harder in her chest. She jogged faster, wishing she had Jose’s marathon skills. Right now, she felt like she was running on fumes. She’d come to Africa so confident in her ability to take charge of her life, solve the mystery of her mother’s death, and bring change to women and children.
Instead, she was nursing a broken heart and barely staying ahead of destruction at every turn.
She held up her badge again to a local soldier. “I’m on the team working with the men in there. I need to check on…” Jose… “on my guys.”
He eyed her shield more closely, then gestured with his weapon, motioning her through. Splashing through what could well be tainted water, she pushed through to a new set of ropes around the shower stalls. Men in chemical suits sprayed down a row of totally buff men in their skivvies. But she saw only Jose.
Alive.
Thank God, alive.
She soaked up the sight of him, of the lean vitality, the strength of his taut muscles and honey warm skin. His hair turned even darker slicked back. Sun glistened off the water sheeting down his back as he turned, turned, turned, and finally faced her. His deeply brown eyes went wide with recognition as their eyes held.
Just like that first time she’d seen him pulled from the sea into her boat, she felt that spark of something special, of her body acknowledging his. And for a woman of logic, this whole soul mate thing was totally knocking her for a loop. She’d expected to fall for the man most reasonably suited for her.
Not one who battled alcoholic demons and vowed he couldn’t give her the kind of forever she craved. But she couldn’t imagine living that dream with anyone else. Which left her pretty much confused as hell. All she knew right now was that he was alive. He’d faced the possibility of a horrific death without so much as a blink.
And he would do it again and again and again, because that’s the kind of man he was.
Her nose clogged and she hadn’t even realized she was crying. Damn it. She swept the back of her hand over her face, smiled at him, and shrugged. Sure, she shouldn’t be here and she was probably raising more than a few eyebrows.
He shook his head and shouted, but his words were carried away by the roar of hoses. He swiped a hand over his face and pointed to the other row of decontamination cubicles, the one where the trio from the truck had been taken.
What was Jose trying to tell her?
She looked closer at the third man and… recognized Sutton Harper. Her fellow captive from the compound. A student she’d trusted for her month undercover.
The man who’d carried that length of cloth from their warlord captors.
***
Jose was running out of uniforms.
His latest uniform was in a toxic waste bin and he’d been given a set of camos without patches until he could get to his own clothes. He scrubbed a hand over his damp hair, his eyes tracking Stella walking along the rope line until finally they met at the end. She flung herself at his chest hard and fast before pulling away.
“You’re okay?” She searched his face.
“I’m good. No flesh melting off,” he joked—sorta. “We got to the catering truck in time. Exposure appears to be minimal.”
But she had to know this already. Maybe she just needed to hear it from him, and God, it felt good to remind himself now that the aftermath of it was hitting him. He touched her shoulder and guided her out of the path of two guards. He thought about taking her inside, but work would intrude a helluva lot faster there. For just a minute, he needed to look at her and let that steady Stella logic ground him.
“Jose, what in the world was Sutton doing in the decontamination booths?”
Didn’t she know? He’d called in the student’s involvement over his headset, informing Smith right away.
“Sutton was inside the truck with the toxins.” And now the student was wearing sweats and walking between two guards escorting him to… hell, he didn’t know. He wasn’t in that loop. “You really didn’t hear that the student turned? I told Smith over my headset as soon as I recognized Sutton.”
“I had no idea. He didn’t tell me anything.” She gnawed her lip for a second. “But then I went off headset for a while. I’m not even really supposed to be out here now.”
“I’m glad you came.” The way they’d left things this morning, the way he’d walked out on her while she’d slept… Shit. What if he’d died and that was the way their relationship ended? “Stella, I’m…” He wrestled with the right words.
“It’s okay. Whatever you’re thinking, just hold onto the thought and we’ll talk when there’s not so much adrenaline clogging up our brains. Things are moving fast.” She cupped his face. “I have to get back to work… things are crazy at the command post. And no doubt the whole Sutton factor complicates everything. We’ll have to review everything we heard from him. And there’s a second cloth…”
She cut her sentence short, her eyes apologizing.
He squeezed her hand. “It’s okay. I don’t have a need to know. You do your job. I do mine.”
“That’s kinda become ‘our song.’” Still, she didn’t move and neither did he. The worst was over, right? For now. It was a matter of untangling the piece to start nabbing bad guys, which put the ball back in Mr. Smith’s court.