Hot Zone (Elite Force 2)

“Aiden?” Lisabeth’s calm, soft voice cut through his thoughts. “Are you okay?”

“Of course, just recharging the brain.” He pulled off his glasses, wiped a spot of blood off the left lens with an alcohol wipe, and put them on again.

She studied him over her surgical mask, her brown eyes turning golden yellow with concern, too perceptive after sixteen years of marriage. He looked away quickly.

Her cool hand fell onto the back of his neck. “I know you better than that. You may look emotionless to the rest of the world, but I see deeper. I know how much you hold in.”

She pulled her mask down, revealing her regal face, which had stared back at him across the pillow every morning since he was twenty-two. “All of this is more than any one person can bear. We need to turn to each other. I need to talk to you.”

He held out his arms without hesitation. “I’m here for you.”

“I know that. But will you let me be here for you, love?” she said with a rare hint of British accent she’d picked up from her father. Her dad had moved to the Bahamas to teach history, met her mother, and stayed. Lisabeth had been their only child, their world, treasured.

The way life should be for a kid.

He turned back toward the sink. “If you want to help me, then ease up right now. I’m maxed out.”

She slid her lithe body between him in the basin. “You can’t always protect your sister. This is not your fault.”

“Do not go there,” he snapped. “Not. Now.”

He already knew how fallible he was.

“Okay.” She eased off in surrender, sweeping off her surgical cap and shaking free her short black curls. “Let’s just sit together for a minute quietly and catch our breath.”

Aiden reached for the antibacterial scrub. “No time for that now. People will die while we breathe in a paper bag. We’ll talk later.”

He was lying about that, but willing to do anything to get her to stop this line of questioning. Bullshit weakness. He shouldn’t have caved to Lisabeth about adopting a baby from her home country. If he’d held strong, they would be home in the States now. They would be safe.

And the child? Joshua? Aiden pivoted away from his wife before she could read the pain in his eyes. She needed so much more than he could give her. He still wasn’t sure why she stayed with him, but God help him, he couldn’t walk away.

He felt her standing behind him for at least five heartbeats before the soft sound of her footsteps faded. Sighing, he let his guard down and swayed, dead tired on his feet.

Through the cracked stained-glass window, he saw a military Humvee pulling up with armed guards in front and back. Most likely the restocking of medical supplies. The last convoy had been ambushed.>“Staying kept her stable.” He frowned, his jaw jutting. “Write me up if you need to, but I wouldn’t change a thing.”

McCabe sighed like a weary parent. “Let Rocha check you over. Now. We need to make sure you’re not hiding any injuries.”

He grinned, forcing a smile through caked-on grime so the major wouldn’t realize how blown to shit his insides were. He refused to be benched. “Would I do that?”

“Yes you would. Go. It’s an order.”

“Yes, sir.”

A light breeze parted the stifling air, welcomed for the cooling. Dreaded as it stirred the flies and the stench. Snakes and rats already scavenged through the debris. The fetid wind rolled across the uneven landscape, gathered grit and stray papers before lifting the door flap of the nearest medical tent…

His boots picked up speed toward the field hospital they’d put together shortly after landing. Triage was in place for major injuries to the left, minor to the right. Lines of wounded streamed out of both. His teammate Wade Rocha was already waiting, just as the major had insisted.

Still, Hugh checked one last time… just as Amelia’s stretcher reached the tent flap. He could swear she stared back at him, held him with those intensely blue eyes. Eyes that reached down deep in his gut and twisted.

He’d only felt this connection once before in his life. The day he’d looked at Marissa’s tear-filled eyes as she’d begged him to get her Siamese out of the tree. Next thing he’d known, he was hauling his ass up a twenty-foot oak.

He didn’t want this.

The past few hours had proven beyond a doubt that Amelia Bailey was dangerous as hell to his peace of mind. More than ever he couldn’t afford this during a mission that already put him raw and on edge.

And still… He bolted across the jutting mass of broken concrete. His eyes locked on the stretcher being carried to a drab green tent, the canvas flapping in the muggy air, stirring fat flies around.

He grabbed the arm of a foreign medic, a wiry guy with a top-of-the-line Motorola two-way radio and a clipboard. “Where will she go after you finish here?”