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“Are you helping me only because you feel responsible for me?” The moonlight glistened on her lower lip and her frowning eyebrows. His gut knotted. Had he told her that?
“Not anymore.” I’m falling for you.
“Mitch.” She linked her fingers through his. “To me you’re a hero. You’ve proved it over and over again. Even when I didn’t deserve to be saved, you were there to take a bullet for me. You have to accept that your friend made his own decisions to go with you that night, to do handstands in a dangerous place, and that in his case those decisions didn’t work out so well. But it wasn’t your fault. It’s not your fault for living when he didn’t.”
Cath had been right about Jack. Could she be right that he needed to let the past go? “I thought you’d condemn me.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.” She smiled.
“No, you’re not.” He brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “I don’t want to jinx you. Everyone I get close to gets hurt. That’s why I’ve been holding back”—he raised her hand to his lips—“from us.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I’m still here.”
He dropped a kiss on her head. She seemed to accept him, but would she want a man torn apart by battlefield demons? The doctors had told him he could experience PTSD episodes for years. Would he frighten her away?
He wound an arm around her waist and buried his nose in her hair. “You smell good.”
“It’s your shampoo.”
“It smells different on you.” He lifted the hem of her sweater to press his fingers against her warm skin. Her gasp turned to a sigh. “My hand too cold?”
“Are you kidding? You’re an internal-combustion engine.”
“As long as you’re not cold.” He moved his hand higher and pressed his lips to her neck.
“You know where this will lead.” Her voice sounded breathy, and he smiled inside.
“There are worse destinations.” He slid his lips to her ear and went still.
What was that noise? A distant low rattle outside grew louder. He grabbed a flashlight and his gun and flattened against the wall alongside the front window.
That special sense of telepathy he’d only discovered since meeting Cath alerted him to her presence behind him. “Someone’s coming,” she whispered.
The engine grew louder. Headlights approached at a snail’s pace. Was the driver peering down each driveway as he passed, looking for Mitch’s truck? Which he would see because it sat in plain view.
“What if the thugs did see us get off the interstate?”
Cath must have been reading his mind. “Nobody comes out this way anymore.” Mitch punched up the time. “Not this early in the morning. It’s three thirty-five.”
A truck—not an SUV—came into view. A truck pulling a skiff with an outboard motor.
“That looks like a fishing boat he’s pulling.” She stepped away from the window.
Mitch lowered his gun and wiped sweat from his upper lip with the back of his hand. “It is. I forgot there’s a put-in ramp for the bay about a mile down the road. We’re still good.”
But for how much longer?
Chapter 18
The rat-a-tat of machine guns tore apart the night. Mitch ducked behind the mud hut and flattened next to his buddy. The whump-whump-whump of their exfil chopper grew louder. “Come on.” He cradled his rifle. “We got to get to the LZ now.”
“I can’t.” Emerson gripped his thigh. His glove came away dark.
Dammit.
“I’m not leaving you here.” Mitch secured a clotting sponge to the gaping wound and put an arm around Emerson’s waist. They staggered to their feet.
Gunfire licked their heels. Mitch sprayed ammo behind him. A prick of pain lanced his side. Another sliced through his arm. An explosion shook the ground. Emerson sagged against him. Mitch hoisted his buddy over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and rushed toward the hovering helicopter.