Hot Zone (Elite Force 2)

“But what if I missed something because I was distracted… from earlier?”

No doubt about it, the memories weren’t just in his mind anymore. They were out in there in front of them, as tangible as the sand and waves. “From when you walked out on me before I could zip my pants?”

“If I’d stayed with Joshua”—her hand gravitated to the sleeping boy’s head as it rested on Hugh’s shoulder—“none of this would have happened. He would be safe.”

He needed to keep her spirits up, as important as her energy on a trek like this. “People like those are determined. They would have found another opening when you went to the bathroom or fell asleep. You’re human, you know.”

“Easy for Superman to say.” She picked her way over a fallen tree. “I’m sorry for how I handled things afterward, back at the school. Being with you wasn’t what I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

“Less.”

He just smiled, ready to take this conversation down to a less serious level, to ease the stress lines on her face.

She smacked his shoulder. “That wasn’t a size comment, you Cro-Magnon.”

“Hey, just an attempt at some lightheartedness.” Except he wasn’t usually the one to crack jokes in a crisis. That was squadron funnyman Liam McCabe’s forte. “It’s been an intense time, with the earthquake, that time underground. We were both on edge and those aftershocks just sent us over. We needed an outlet and we found it. Together.” He held her eyes with his. “I don’t regret that.”

Yet rather than being reassured, her faced scrunched with even more worry. “I just wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t walked away. Or if I had made it back to the nursery. Or never left in the first place.”

“Life is so full of what-ifs, you can drive yourself crazy.” He knew all about regrets and self-recrimination. He should have realized he couldn’t make this any lighter for her.

Just as he’d failed to lift her spirits, he’d also failed to get them back to civilization before dark. He couldn’t ignore it any longer. He was going to have to spend the night in the jungle with Amelia…

And the baby.

***

Feeling helpless as hell, Aiden stood outside the tent shower and listened to his wife cry. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to fix this for Lisabeth. He could only stand outside this crummy refugee-like bathhouse and make sure his wife was safe while others filed in and out of the shower stalls and latrines.

His hand rested on his 9 mm, now in a leather shoulder harness he’d been given by a local cop who’d insisted, after Aiden stitched up a gash in the guy’s arm. The policeman said he hadn’t wanted Aiden shooting his foot off with that weapon tucked in his waistband. The weight of leather and metal seared through his scrubs.

He eyed the shift and shuffle of shell-shocked humanity under the umbrella of halogen lights. Generators droned along with night beasts.

His wife cried softly on the other side of the tarp curtain.

They’d arrived at the temporary hospital at the school only to learn that both Amelia and Joshua had gone missing. No one seemed to know what had happened to them. They’d even sent out a search dog, only to have the dog lose the scent in the parking lot.

Their best bet? They’d gotten into a vehicle to leave. But with whom? To go where?

Even though he’d heard that the search and rescue dog handler had given up, he and Lisabeth still spent hours more questioning people at the hospital. They’d passed around the one photo of Joshua that had survived the earthquake, a picture Lisabeth had carried in her purse for the weeks prior to the adoption. Since she’d had her bag with her, it hadn’t been lost in the hotel.

No one remembered seeing the boy after the middle of the night. But he’d been there with a blonde-haired woman who must have been Amelia.

They’d been so close. Just a couple of miles away this whole time, only to learn too damn late. He just had to hang onto that hope that they were out there, safe and searching as well.

Meanwhile, he didn’t know how much more stress Lisabeth could take. There was a tension in her worse than anything he’d ever seen in his normally unflappable wife. He’d taken comfort from her serenity from the start of their relationship. She thought him such a calm man, but he just kept a steely band around his emotions because with the least fissure, all would overflow like acid on everything.

So how did he go about making this right for her when he had no experience to draw on in helping her? And wasn’t that a piss-poor testament to what kind of husband he’d been?

Shit.

Nothing to do but dive in headfirst and try his best.

He parted the shower curtain and slid sideways inside, careful to block the opening with his body until he could seal the cubicle closed again.

Lisabeth gasped, lurching back and covering her nakedness with an arm around her br**sts and a hand between her legs. Then she sagged with relief. “Aiden, God, you could have given me a little warning.”