AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Incredibly hot?” She gently slugged his arm. “Well, Doc, you sure do know how to make a girl feel good when you’re letting her down.”
He wanted to tell her to shower her compassion on somebody else. He didn’t need it or deserve it. He’d only told her the bit about Eva for calculated reasons, not out of any honest intent to share something from his past. Every inch of him wanted to shout at her to stop trusting him.
Raindrops picked up speed, pocking the water and offering a convenient excuse to run from a conversation that was shifting into dangerous territory. “We should head in before the clouds open up. Come on and I’ll walk you to your quarters.”
The words backfired in his brain as he faced another night of not sleeping while thinking of her two doors down. Just his luck, the Air Force had been accommodating in providing him and his assistant with base lodging under the guise of accommodating the whole “free the dolphins” mission. Sure being on base offered additional security, but at a lethal price to his sanity.
Max stood, stomping sand off and extending his hand to Darcy without thinking. Until her fingers twined with his. Then he couldn’t think of anything except the way she felt.
He flipped her hand in his. An excuse to touch her a while longer? Maybe. A small white bandage glinted on her wrist, puckered from water but holding strong. “What happened here?”
“Spider bite. No big deal.” She shuddered, only a small tremble so imperceptible he wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t been holding her hand.
“There are plenty of those around here. Don’t forget to shake your boots out before putting them on.”
“I’m used to the buggers showing up in my room.” A light laugh slipped free at odds with the tiny tremor. “But the ugly thing stowed away in my flight bag behind my lunch. Actually, that’s why we landed early. Doc Clark wanted to make sure it wasn’t poisonous.”
Poisonous.
The word twisted something inside Max, and he didn’t like it. It was just a spider bite. The woman was a combat-ready military officer. She didn’t need his misplaced overprotective urges.
He forced his thumb to still, and he dropped her hand. Clearing his throat and thoughts, he stepped back. “I’m glad you’re all right.”
Thunder rumbled a warning just before the skies opened up in a tropical downpour. Darcy slicked back her hair, a full-out wicked smile on her lips. “Last one back is a sea turtle. Ready. Set.”
She shoved him backward into the surf and sprinted away.
“Go!” she shouted over her shoulder already halfway to shore as she splashed through the surf. Her laughs carried along the wind, whipping round him. Open, playful, free of concerns and full of life.
He intended to make sure that didn’t change.
* * *
Screams swelled in Darcy’s throat. She jammed her face into the pillow to stifle the shout begging to burst free. The half-awake side of her brain struggled to smother nightmare cries with reason.
Spiders only crawled in her dreams now.
Snakes only slithered through her subconscious.
Still the coiling pressure around her leg seemed so real. Tighter and tighter it gripped, painful even through her sleep-dazed senses. Darcy flipped to her back. Listened to rain pattering outside. Worked to will away the fog of sleep.
“Okay. Wake up.” She scissored her legs free from the tangled sheets. Her left leg felt sluggish. Perhaps numbed asleep. Something like exercise weights strapped to her ankle anchored it to the bed.
Cold, scaly weights.
This wasn’t a dream.
Darcy snapped awake and upright just as fangs sank into her skin. Hot pain flashed up her calf. Terror spiked through her harder than whatever had hold of her leg.
Only seconds earlier, screams had seemed impossible to restrain. Now she couldn’t push a single squawk past a constriction in her throat tighter than the grip on her leg. She blinked against the pitch-black darkness. Why had she chosen tonight of all nights to roll down the hurricane shutters? She grappled for the lamp.
The needle-like fangs sank deeper. Pressure increased. It couldn’t be as heavy as it felt. Surely fear exaggerated sensations. If only she’d worn sweats to sleep tonight rather than the cooler ribbed T-shirt and panties.
Her clammy fingers fumbled with the switch. The lamp wobbled, tipped, clattered to the floor. Her first muffled whimpers of fear whispered free.
Please, someone hear me. Help me.
Echoes of childhood whimpers for rescue, quiet pleadings she’d prayed someone would hear on a psychic level because she wasn’t allowed to scream or they would bring back the spiders. Or the snakes. Just small, green garden snakes, she reminded herself. Her kidnappers hadn’t wanted to risk damaging their collateral.
