He nodded and sidestepped the vigilant nurse on his way toward the door.
Slowly, Amelia stood, careful not to wake Joshua as she returned him to his playpen. Kissing her fingers, she pressed them to his forehead and swept a hand over his tight curls before turning back toward the open room.
And the man who’d filled her life so completely so quickly.>The floor creaked a second before Cuervo stepped out of the bedroom. He stopped at the counter in front of a box of MREs—meals ready to eat. “I see the catering staff is as high-end as ever.”
Bubbles grunted without looking up, moving on from cleaning his gun to sharpening his survival knife.
Cuervo tossed back a handful what looked like generic M&Ms. “Somebody’s a Debbie Downer.”
Gavin “Bubbles” Novak never laughed and rarely talked. Whoever had given him that call sign had a serious sense of the ironic.
Cuervo held out his hand with the rest of his candy. “Want some? They’re yummy.”
Bubbles eyed him for three slow blinks before saying, “You’re a sick puppy.”
“Laugh or lose my cookies?” Cuervo chewed thoughtfully, then nodded. “I’ll go for laughter. Gets a person through the day, right Major?”
Liam just smiled. Usually he did agree with that mantra, but today was harder than most. The responsibility of leading his team, keeping their heads on straight, weighed heavy on his shoulders. There weren’t many opportunities for him to blow off steam these days. But this was the only life he knew, the path he’d chosen at the expense of everything else.
He eyed his team, his family, his kids to keep safe.
Cuervo snapped Hugh Franco’s leg with a towel. “Practicing up your tunes for a hot date, Franco?”
Cocking one eyebrow, Hugh caressed his way through the notes. “This just happens to be Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. It’s called culture. Give it a try sometime, bro.”
“Has everyone lost their sense of humor?” Cuervo pitched back the rest of the candy, his wiry frame not showing the least sign of his junk food habit.
“I must have left it in the pile of mangled corpses.” Franco’s fingers picked up speed on the neck of the guitar, emotion damn near pouring from the strings.
Cuervo took the hint and dug around in the MRE box without commentary. His sugar high would send him pacing around the room, but eventually he would crash.
Quiet settled over the room long enough that Liam considered snagging a bedroll of his own and heading to the other room. The next shift would come around soon enough, with a new level of horrors as the chance of finding survivors decreased.
With a final check-in look at Marcus Dupre and Hugh Franco, Liam shoved to his feet. The floor predictably squeaked under his feet. The room seemed to tip sideways, but God, he was so tired he’d probably gone a little loopy. His shower sandals slapped the scarred wood floor. He leaned to grab his gear and bedding—
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.”