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When the pewter haze of dawn chased away the blackness of night, Tanner finally fell into restless sleep.
He dreamed of Alessandra as he had last seen her, half-naked and altogether beautiful. In one dream, he went to her and took her in his arms. In another, she slapped his face when he tried it.
The cries of a troupe of howler monkeys shot him bolt upright. His hand closed around the SIG-SAUER—he’d slept with it next to him—and he was instantly alert, thanks to years of training.
He was also in a lot of pain, thanks to his fucking leg, but there was no time for pain and he got to his feet, holstered the pistol and worked on stretching the leg as best he could.
The good news was that the fire was still going and when he checked, there was enough water left to pour into the pot and put up to boil.
The better news was that Alessandra was still asleep.
He could see her inside the shelter, sprawled on her belly, wearing his shirt and the scrubs. They’d have to get moving soon, but he’d wait a little while before he woke her. And if that marked him as a coward, what the hell. He was a lot of other things. Why not a coward, too?
Carefully, he retrieved his boots, got a clean pair of socks from his pack, put them on, then put on the boots and stepped into the trees to relieve himself. A couple of minutes walk brought him to the stream. He went down the steep bank carefully, wincing as he balanced his weight on his bad leg. Twisting it again would be a really bad move. Quickly, he splashed his face with the cool swift-running water, then dunked his head and drove his fingers through his wet hair. His face was bristly, the way it always was in the field, but it wasn’t yet at the itchy stage that could drive a man nuts. He had a disposable toothbrush in his pack. Two, actually. When he got back to camp, he’d use one, give one to Alessandra…
“Okay,” he said into the morning quiet, “that’s it, dude. What are you, the King of Procrastination? Get back there and deal with whatever’s waiting for you.”
Rage. Coldness. Sarcasm. Accusations. Whatever she could dish out, he could take.
Tanner plodded back to camp, dreading the moment that was coming, waking her up and…
Damn.
She was already up, standing outside the shelter. Her hair was pulled back from her face, tied at the nape of her neck with what looked like a strip of cloth. One of the plastic cups from his backpack was cradled in her hands, its contents steaming into the already humid air.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she said, “but I checked your pack and found some freeze-dried coffee.”
Her tone was calm. Nonchalant. As if nothing unusual had happened last night. He felt like breathing a sigh of relief. Maybe they could handle this like two adults after all.
“No,” he said. “That’s fine.”
“And you have two toothbrushes. I hope it’s okay that I used one.”
“No,” he said again, “that’s fine, too.”
She nodded. “I noticed a couple of coconuts on the ground. Do you want to open one? I’d have used the pistol to shoot it in half, but I didn’t want to run the risk of damaging it beyond use.” Her teeth flashed in a big smile. “The very last thing I want to do is make problems for you, Lieutenant.”
“No,” he started to say, “that’s…”
She knew the instant he got the message.
Not only did he choke back another “that’s fine,” but that hard, handsome face, no longer striped with camo paint, became striped instead with crimson.
Superman was embarrassed.
It was a joy to see.
Last night, after he’d walked out, she’d wanted to curl up in a corner and die of humiliation. Or, even better, fly out of the shelter and slam her fist into his square, stubbled jaw.
Of course, she hadn’t done either. And after a minute or—okay—more like an hour of wasting time feeling sorry for herself, despising herself for what had almost happened with a man who’d obviously had second thoughts about it happening, she’d calmed down.
It hadn’t been difficult to come up with an explanation of how they’d ended up climbing all over each other.
She wasn’t into hookups, but this wasn’t Manhattan, which was kind of ironic, because New Yorkers referred to the single scene there as a jungle. This was a real jungle, okay, a rainforest, if you wanted to be technical about it. Whatever you called it, this was a dangerous place.
And sex was a life-affirming act.
