Opening it, I looked inside. “What is it?”
“Lemonade. Friend of mine made it, and all the food. She said sour things can help with morning sickness.” When I looked up at him, he shrugged. “She’s pregnant, too. I also brought a bunch of water.”
“Thank you,” I said, smiling and heading over to my designated bench to wait. It wasn’t exactly a hardship to watch him load himself up with everything he brought and carry it over. Muscles were flexing everywhere and by the time he was done a small crowd was gathered and every female eye was glued to him. Most of the guys standing there looked a little put out that their girls were watching the show. I just grinned and drank my lemonade while staring at the hot guy who was somehow mine, for now. I wasn’t about to complain.
CHAPTER 9
Bolo
Jesus fucking Christ. I kept having to adjust my hard-on over by my SUV. Every damn time I caught sight of Devyn in that tiny little bikini my fucking dick twitched. She looked fucking good.
I got all the stuff over to the bench where she was waiting just in time for the first bus to pull up. I loaded everything underneath as people piled on and took their seats. Sweating, I climbed on the stuffy bus and sat next to her. I was looking forward to getting into the water. It wasn’t a long ride up to the drop off point, but the days were already hot. It wasn’t going to be long before they were reaching one hundred fifteen plus temperatures with the nights hardly cooling off at all.
There were two different floats you could do on this river, but I’d chosen the two hour—shorter—version. I didn’t want to keep her out in the sun all day.
She’d sounded like hell the last week as we’d talked, like she was exhausted. And I wanted this to be fun for her, not a strenuous stressful task. Her eyes were bright, but she still looked a little tired. Though I doubted anyone else would notice. I planned to keep a close eye on her. If we didn’t make it the full trip, it wouldn’t matter. That was why Relay was standing by to pick us up.
There was a group of guys next to us and I didn’t miss the way they kept staring at her. I met one of their gazes head on and he quickly looked away. That was all it took for them to mind their own business while the bus jerked along up the road.
Once it was stopped I waited while most everyone unloaded, then stood up and we got off the bus. I turned at the bottom of the steps and held out my hand. My mom had taught us manners—though according to her she had to beat them into our thick heads—and fuck if I’d disappoint her. Besides, I didn’t want Devyn tripping and falling.
I sent her off to sit on another bench as I unloaded our gear from the bus. Me and my brothers may have gone a little overboard, but we’d have everything we needed while we were on the river. Camila and Kilo had come down from their apartment as I was packing up my SUV this morning—I’d bought it a couple years ago to take to the construction sites we worked on so my bike wouldn’t get dinged by the crew or visitors—and had dropped off enough food to feed an army. Or, you know, me.
Camila was such a sweetheart and a damn good cook. And Rue had given me a small bag with emergency medical supplies in it, just in case. They were both excited to meet Devyn. I was looking forward to introducing her to my brothers and their women as well, but didn’t want to scare her off. I needed to take things slow.
Using rope, I threaded our tubes and the small raft I’d brought together so that we wouldn’t have to paddle to keep up with each other as we floated. I stuck an umbrella in one of the slots in the tube and secured it. That had been one of Hype’s ideas. The fact that he’d even thought of it had shocked us all. Which had only irritated him because he claimed he could be thoughtful about shit. We didn’t give him any points for that, which pissed him off more.
I dragged the tubes and raft to the water and then anchored them to the beach while I loaded all the supplies. We could survive on this river for the next two weeks if we had to, but nothing was going to take me unaware. And if anything did pop up, I had Merc in the water, Relay up on the first pull out spot, and Drifter on stand-by in case he was needed. There were contingencies for my contingencies, thanks to Ruck and his ability to put together a successful mission plan.
I had skills of my own, which was why all the shit I’d brought fit perfectly and was easily accessible. But Ruck had filled in any holes we’d missed in our emergency plans.
“Ready?” I asked, as I turned and found Devyn standing there watching me.
“Thank you,” she said, taking the hand I held out to help her into the tube. She sat, that curvy little ass disappearing into the water, and gave a little squeak as the cool water covered it and her legs.
I took the stake out of the ground and wound up the rope, dropping both into the raft for use later, then I walked the tubes further out into the river before jumping on my own.
“Good thing you’re so tall,” she said with a laugh. She pointed over to where the group of guys were struggling to shove away from the shore as they weighed down the tubes they were already sitting in. They’d stopped to take some shots and have a smoke before getting into the water.
Grinning as I watched them struggle, I told her, “Yeah, it comes in handy.”
“So what did you do in the military?” she asked, watching me with those gorgeous gray eyes.
“I was a sapper.” She blinked slowly at me, making me realize I needed to explain. “A combat engineer. I destroyed and built stuff for the Army.”
“Oh wow, like what kind of stuff?”
“Bridges, buildings, things like that.”
“Which did you destroy and which did you build?”
I grinned. “Either. Both. Pretty much anything they needed cleared up or erected, I did it, or made the plans for others to do it if I couldn’t get to the area in time. I also cleared minefields, constructed fortifications and roads, and made anything they needed to breach enemy defenses.”
Her eyes were wide. “That’s really impressive.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Thanks, but I’ve been working with my dad building shit since I was in diapers. Been working with my brothers to destroy everything Dad built, also since I was in diapers. Between the two they taught me everything I know and I just kind of capitalized on that.” I watched as she ran her hands through the water on each side of her inner tube.
We hadn’t come up on any rapids yet and were just floating along at a lazy pace. She was mostly in the shade thanks to Hype’s umbrella idea. Despite that, she splashed some water on her chest like she was trying to cool herself. The effect was a wet glisten over her cleavage, making me gulp and have to adjust my hard-on yet again. I managed to choke out, “What about you? How did you get into the investigation side of fires?”
