Page 19

Lauren

The rain came in sheets now, driven sideways by wind that bent the smaller trees nearly horizontal.

My scrubs clung to my skin, heavy with water, and I had to keep wiping my eyes just to see where I was stepping.

Each gust tried to knock me off-balance, but I locked my jaw and kept moving.

Six months in Corazón had toughened me up, but this—hiking through dense jungle on the edge of a hurricane—was testing limits I didn’t know I had.

“How you holding up?” Logan called over his shoulder, having to raise his voice above the wind.

“Fine.” The word came out through gritted teeth. My legs burned from the constant up and down over fallen logs and through sucking mud, but I’d be damned if I complained. Not when he’d been doing this for hours without showing any signs of fatigue.

He turned to check on me, rain streaming down his face, and something in his expression shifted. “We can take a break if you need?—”

“I said I’m fine.” I pushed past him, using a low-hanging branch to haul myself up a muddy incline. “Just keep going.”

The truth was, despite the miserable conditions and the very real danger we were in, Logan seemed more relaxed out here than he’d been back at the clinic.

His movements were fluid, natural, like this was his element.

At the clinic, surrounded by villagers and my colleagues, he’d been constantly scanning, muscles coiled tight.

Out here, soaked to the skin and navigating through hostile territory, he moved with an easy confidence that was almost unsettling.

“You know,” I said, needing conversation to distract from the burning in my thighs, “you actually seem calmer out here than you did back at the clinic.”

He glanced back at me, water dripping from his hair. “You noticed that?”

“Hard not to. You were wound tighter than a surgical suture back there. Out here, even with cartel patrols and a hurricane bearing down on us, you’re practically zen.”

A branch slapped back as he pushed through, and I barely ducked in time.

“My body knows what to do out here. It’s trained for this.

” He paused, seeming to weigh his next words.

“Put me in a combat situation or survival scenario, and everything makes sense. Put me in a crowded market or a dinner party, and my brain can’t process all the inputs. ”

That was his PTSD rearing its head. I wonder if he knew that. “You know?—”

Logan’s hand shot up, and I froze mid-sentence. He’d gone completely still, head cocked slightly like he was listening to something I couldn’t hear over the wind and rain. Then he was moving, grabbing my arm and pulling me sideways off the barely visible trail we’d been following.

“Down,” he hissed, and suddenly, I was being yanked into the undergrowth.

Everything happened so fast, I didn’t have time to process.

One second, I was standing; the next, Logan had pulled me down behind a massive fallen tree, the bark slick with moss and rain.

The momentum and his grip sent me tumbling, and I landed directly on top of him, my full weight crushing down on his chest.

Shit . Horror flooded through me as I tried to scramble off him, but his arms locked around me like iron bands, holding me in place. His lips were next to my ear, breath warm against my skin. “Don’t move. Patrol.”

I wanted to die. Here I was, all five-foot-ten and however many million pounds of me, mashing this man into the jungle floor. Water dripped from my hair onto his face, and I could feel every hard line of his body beneath me.

This was exactly the nightmare Patrick used to joke about—how I was less woman and more mythological beast, impossible to move without divine intervention once I was asleep.

I wasn’t asleep now, but that wasn’t going to save Logan from being crushed. He might hope the patrol found us so he wouldn’t have to stay like this.

Then I heard voices, much closer than expected. Spanish, casual conversation getting louder. Logan’s hands pressed against my back, keeping me flat against him when I instinctively tried to shift my weight.

“—fucking Mateo and his obsession with this woman,” one voice complained. “We’ve been out here for hours. The weather is getting worse.”

“He won’t accept that the American bitch got on that helicopter,” another replied. “Keeps saying she’s still here, that she’s waiting for him.”

My blood turned to ice. They were talking about me. Mateo had his men out searching specifically for me .

“Waiting for him?” The first man laughed bitterly. “Like any woman would wait for someone like him. He’s loco. You see what he did to that girl in Santo Domingo? And she was actually interested in him.”

The second voice dropped lower, but the wind carried it to us. “Diego had to pay off her family to keep them quiet. Too much attention.”

I tried to process what I was hearing while simultaneously dying of mortification about my position. I attempted to shift again, just enough to take some weight off Logan, but his hands tightened on my back. Damn it.

“—to be careful what you say, Luis,” the first guard was saying. They were getting closer, boots squelching in the mud. “If Mateo or Diego knew we talked like this…”

Both men fell silent just a few yards from us. Through the curtain of rain and vegetation, I could see movement. My heart hammered so hard I was sure they’d hear it, between that and my fear of crushing Logan, I could hardly breathe.

Then suddenly, the world tilted. In one smooth motion, Logan rolled us, and I found myself on my back in the wet leaves with him on top of me.

The movement was so fast and silent, I barely had time to register it before his weight settled over me, one hand cradling the back of my head to keep it from hitting the ground.

My first thought was relief—thank God I wasn’t squashing him anymore. My second thought hit about two seconds later as my body registered the full length of him pressed against me.

This was…different. Very different.

The solid weight of him, the way he’d positioned himself to keep most of his weight on his elbows while still covering me completely—it was protective and oddly intimate. If we weren’t about to possibly die, this would be a shockingly intimate pose.

I felt more than saw Logan carefully draw his weapon, the movement so controlled that it didn’t disturb the vegetation around us. His other hand found mine in the mud, squeezing once.

When he spoke, his lips barely moved, the words more breath than sound. “If this goes bad, you run. Straight back the way we came, then east to the river. Don’t look back.”

I squeezed his hand in response, though every part of me rejected the idea of leaving him.

The guards were right there now, so close I could hear their equipment rattling.

One more step in our direction and they’d see us for sure.

Logan’s body was coiled like a spring above me, ready to explode into violence if necessary.

“Hurricane’s supposed to hit tonight,” Not Luis said. I heard him get out a cigarette then curse as he struggled to get it lit in the wind and rain. The smell of it—not just nicotine but also something strangely floral—tickled my nose.

“You think Mateo gives a shit about a hurricane? He’ll have us out here until we find her or we’re dead.”

“He’s not his father, that’s for sure. Diego would never risk men like this over some woman.”

“Diego would never get this obsessed in the first place,” Luis said, disgust dripping from his tone. “Man knows how to separate business from pleasure.”

A burst of static made me flinch. Radio chatter, rapid Spanish I couldn’t quite make out over the storm.

“Finally!” Luis claimed. “Did you hear that? All patrols return to compound immediately. Secure for incoming storm.”

“About fucking time. Come on, let’s go before Mateo changes his mind.”

The footsteps moved away quickly, eager voices fading into the storm. Logan remained frozen above me for much longer than I would’ve, weapon still drawn, listening. Only when the jungle sounds returned to just wind and rain did he move, pushing up and off me in one fluid motion.

The loss of his weight and warmth was immediate and unwelcome. He was already scanning the area, weapon still in hand, all business. I sat up slowly, trying to wring some of the water out of my hair and feeling foolish for the directions my mind had gone while we were literally in mortal danger.

“We need to move.” He helped me to my feet, his touch brief and impersonal. I couldn’t blame him. “Mateo pulling his men back is good for us in terms of patrol, but it means the storm is going to get pretty damned bad.”

“Worse than this?” I gestured at the sideways rain and bending trees.

“This is just the outer bands. When the real hurricane hits…” He shook his head. “The cartel’s no longer our primary threat. We need shelter, and we need it now.”

As if to emphasize his point, a gust of wind hit us so hard I stumbled. Logan caught my arm, steadying me, and I tried not to think about how easily he’d rolled me over, how his hands had been strong but gentle when he’d cradled my head. Professional, I reminded myself. He was being professional.

“Can you keep going?” he asked, and there was genuine concern in his voice that made my chest tight.

“Do I have a choice?”

“There’s always a choice. It’s just that most of them suck.”

Despite everything—the danger, the storm, the embarrassment still burning in my cheeks—I found myself almost smiling. “Then I choose to keep going.”

He nodded, something like approval in his eyes. “Good. Stay close.”

I tried to focus on putting one foot in front of the other instead of analyzing every moment of our forced proximity. He hadn’t made any cracks about my weight, but that was because he was focused on keeping us alive. I needed to take a lesson.

After another couple hours of pushing through the strengthening winds and rain, worrying about my weight was the last of my problems as we pushed back through the undergrowth toward whatever shelter Logan had in mind. What would happen if we didn’t find anything?

“There,” Logan called over the wind, pointing through the rain. “Structure ahead. Can’t tell what it is.”

I squinted through the downpour and could just make out what looked like a small concrete building, some kind of abandoned outpost. It wasn’t much, but with the way the trees were starting to bend and crack around us, it looked like salvation.

“Think it’ll hold?” I had to shout now to be heard over the storm.

“It’ll have to.” He grabbed my hand—purely practical, I told myself—and pulled me toward our refuge. “Mother Nature’s about to show us what real power looks like.”