She jerked at his touch, her eyes colliding with his and sending a jolt snapping right through him. How could she appear so different and so familiar at the same time?
If he didn't look away soon, Lucia would be clocking him again long before Chavez found them. "What are you doing?"
A question he should be asking himself.
Sara withdrew her hand from the backpack, a fresh T-shirt in hand. "Before we go anywhere, I need to tie a bandage around your arm. The bleeding's worse since you pulled me up and we won't make it too many more steps before you pass out. Even if you think you're superhuman, you're not, and I can't carry you."
She had a point, punctuated by gunfire in the distance.
He grunted a go-ahead. "Fine. But we need to take cover behind a tree."
Not too tough since there were trees just about everywhere. Scanning for threats, he shoved to his feet and herded them from the clearing.
"Here's good." He rested his shoulder against a towering hardwood, his uninjured side, as close as he would come to relaxing. He needed to watch, be ready to move, keep his defenses in place against sneak attacks from Chavez—and his own damned traitorous libido.
Five years without sex sure did play hell with a man's self-control when his heart was already breaking sound barriers from Sara pitching over the edge of the cliff. Breathe. Shut it down. Get control.
"Lucia, chica ?" Sara palmed her back. "Stand by Lucas for a minute, porfavor. Then I won't have to watch you while I help fix his arm."
He glanced down at the kid, who happened to offer a great mental bucket of cold water as well as making for an effective chaperone. "I don't bite."
"I do," Lucia answered with a mutinous tip to her chin and defiant glint to her saucer-big brown eyes.
He admired grit in a person. This one had the makings of being as big a heart-stealer as her mama. "I'll watch my back."
Lucia leaned against the same tree, but stopped short of actual contact and pretended an exaggerated interest in a caterpillar between her miniature hiking boots.
Might as well get his arm fixed ASAP. He looked up at Sara—finding her gaze glued to the two of them. She had to know he was curious about the child. But he wondered even more if Sara would trust him with the truth.
Either way, this wasn't a conversation they could have in front of Lucia. "Patch me up so we can get out of here."
White T-shirt in hand, she bit the corner and ripped wide strips before picking the edges of his torn flight suit from the slice in his bicep.
Holy crap. The edges of the horizon fuzzed. He pressed his head to rough bark for grounding.
"So you were coming to get me? You already knew I was there?"
"I found out this week." He focused on Lucia to keep his mind off the searing pain—and Sara's butterfly touch.
Wide child-eyes stared back, wary. She was so tiny in spite of her defiance he would let her use him as a bridge if he could. But that was his job, right? Defending the helpless. It didn't have anything to do with a soft heart that could make him too weak to protect them.
Sara looped a cotton strip around his arm. "What do we do now? You're in uniform so I assume your friends are nearby? And you mentioned a plane."
"Other side of that bridge, at the air base."
She yanked tight, knotting. He bit back a wince, pulled a smile for the kid currently engrossed in putting the caterpillar on her wrist. Probably not much of a smile, but hey, he was behind on practice.
Sara looped the rest of the shirt around her hand. "Now would be a good time to call your military pals to come get us."
No kidding, but no dice. "My radio fell into the river."
"Oh. That's not good." She swiped the T-shirt over her daughter's dirty face while the caterpillar made its way up Lucia's arm. "We will take the next bridge."
"Do you happen to know where that would be?" Because unless she knew something he didn't, they were in a crapload of trouble.
"No, but surely there's another bridge close by."
How could she have lived here for so long and not know the area? "Fraid not, according to my charts."