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Adela tripped and quickly shot out her hands against the lime-stone wall beside her.
“I’m sorry, Zane. I didn’t mean to—”
Zane grabbed a stronger hold of Hailey’s thighs, clamping his side after she snaked her arms around his neck.
“I took one look in her blue eyes and forgave you,” he said as he nudged his chin in Hailey’s direction on his back.
She only hoped Jack would share the same sentiment…
CHAPTER TWENTY
Jack couldn’t believehis eyes when he saw his best friend tow a blonde on his back while he climbed his way over the rocks.
“Z! Over here! I found a way down on this side where we can shelter from the storm,” Jack said.
Adela followed Zane up and joined Jack, who instantly pulled her into a bear hug. He put his nose in her hair and took his fill of Adela’s sweet, natural scent.
“I’m so sorry, Jack,” she whispered.
His hands roamed over her back before he palmed her face. He held her in place as he memorized her hazel eyes and her long lashes resting above those sweet little freckles that dusted her high cheekbones.
“Don’t you ever do that to me again.”
He knew his voice was harsh and his grip tiptoed towards painful. Jack wanted to hold on to her and never let go.
“I promise. I don’t even know why I didn’t wake you.”
“No?”
She blinked. “No. I just had this urge to go out and look for them. I couldn’t sit around doing nothing for another day.”
He figured that was her line of thought.
“Dom is an idiot for running his mouth. None of us was lying out in the sun all day, drinking margaritas. We all worked hard on things we needed to do to survive, Adi. You don’t need to feel bad that we hiked through the jungle and brought back lake water. Or that we’ve built a shelter so that our friends back at our camp have a place to stay out of this upcoming storm.”
She sighed and Jack knew she didn’t want to listen to him, but he continued anyway.
“I know you feel responsible for your friends, but we also needed to survive. If we hadn’t done any of those things in the past four days, you wouldn’t have been able to hike all the way out here and save Hailey.”
“Let’s go, you guys!” Zane shouted as the first lightning bolts flashed over the beach.
“Follow me!” Jack bellowed.
While Zane had gone down the rocks to get Hailey and Adela, Jack had searched for a way to get out of here without going over the beach since he knew the storm could hit them any minute. He’d seen lighting struck out in the open numerous times in his line of work, and he wouldn’t risk it.
Not only would they need to leave the open space of the elevated mountain ridge, they also needed to avoid any water.
Jack pushed on and lowered himself on a rock, where he held out his hand to Adela so she could follow him closely.
Normally, his hot shot team would separate from each other during a thunderstorm, as it would reduce the number of injuries if lightning strikes the ground.
Not with this group, though. He kept Adela close on the slippery rocks. Seeing her fall down several feet and bang her lower back and even bruise a rib would haunt him forever. He never wanted to see his girl hurting, ever again.
“Thanks,” she said as she accepted his outstretched hand.
“We’re almost there.”
The wind rushed through his hair and he noticed Adela pulling up her shoulders and ducking her head when the thunder boomed closer. He watched the palm trees down below sway with the wind.
