Candace Irvin - Crossing The Line

This was no tin soldier.

Neither was Bishop a man to be toyed with.

Each and every one of those deep lines carved about his eyes and mouth had been earned, etched in over the years spent in Special Forces. The man hunkered down in front of her was no weekend warrior. Nor was he a man who spent his days merely training for war. This was a man who’d lived it, day in and day out in the deserts and jungles of the world. On covert campaigns that had never made it into the nightly news. Those etched lines served as permanent testimony of a youth squandered on the planning and execution of missions no American mother wanted to know her son had ever been tasked with, let alone accomplished. There was no doubt in Eve’s mind, Rick Bishop was one dangerous man.

God help the enemy who dared to cross his path.

God help her.

“Well? What are you waiting for?”

Eve nearly jumped out of her skin as his low growl rumbled between them. But at least it succeeded in forcing her thoughts as well as her breathing back on track. Bishop might have the rugged looks and the mystery to attract a woman’s interest, but he didn’t have the personality to hold it.

At least not hers.

“I—uh—don’t have anything to give you for the pain.”

“Didn’t ask. Just do it.”

Yup, the man was definitely lacking in personality.

Still, she owed him. Bishop might have the manners of a caged mountain lion, but he had spared her the task of retrieving Carrie’s body as well as those of her crew chief and passenger, and he’d buried them. For that reason alone, she tried her damnedest to work as quickly and as gently as she could.

It seemed to help.

The only hint of discomfort Bishop gave as she stitched was the subtle clenching of his jaw as well as the occasional tensing of his broad hands. Every now and then he swallowed firmly, but that was it. Had she been in his place, the added pain would probably have sent her over the edge. As it was, anything deeper than the shallowest of breaths still sent an eye-watering ache ripping up the side of her chest.

They made quite a pair.

Bishop must have thought so too, because as she reached the halfway mark on his three-inch gash, he shot her a half-hearted attempt at a smile. To her horror, for a moment the pain in her ribs actually ebbed. Good Lord, what kind of a woman was she—let alone soldier—that she could be reacting to this man as a man here of all places?

And now?

“You’re pretty good with that needle.”

She yanked her gaze from his. “Yeah, well, I hear women go wild for the wounded-soldier look. I’d leave a better scar, but then your wife would have to drive them off with a stick.”

Good one, Eve.

She picked up the next stitch as the reminder that the man had a life back in the States—one that she wasn’t part of—helped to restore her breathing.

“Don’t have one.”

She almost dropped the needle.

He must have taken her clumsiness for confusion because he elaborated. “A wife. That is, I don’t have a wife.”

Wonderful.

She forced a stiff smile of her own as she regained control of the slender needle and resumed her stitching. “Girlfriend then.”

“Fresh out of those, too.” His smile deepened briefly.

The effect was devastating.

Who’d have thought Super Soldier would have dimples?

“What about you? Husband? Boyfriend?”

For a single, blinding moment, she couldn’t respond. She didn’t know how. Surely the man wasn’t coming on to her?

After the way he’d barked at her?

Not that it mattered. She could not afford to get personal. Not now, and certainly not with Rick Bishop.

She must have sat there gaping too long, because he sighed.

“Look, Paris, I was making small talk. It’s bound to be a long trek.” He might as well have come out and said she wasn’t his type.

Despite her relief, she flushed.

What the hell. The man was right, it was going to be a long trip. And since Bishop had an M-16 rifle and a 9 mm pistol as well as a machete to her lonely 9 mm, she might as well stay on his good side. She just might need him for more than company. Besides, the conversation was probably an attempt to take his mind off the pain.

Eve shook her head. “None.”

Despite her nearby stitching, his brow furrowed.

She elaborated, “No husband, no boyfriend. No time.”

“Ah…I know the feeling.”

He probably did at that.

He rolled his shoulders slightly as if to ease his tension as she picked up her last stitch. “So…what happened up there?”

Slick. Very slick.

Small talk, her ass. Rick Bishop wasn’t interested in getting to know her at all. Neither had he been coming on to her. He’d been softening her up for an impromptu interrogation session. Or maybe it wasn’t impromptu. Either way, she didn’t care. While she wouldn’t pretend to misunderstand, neither was she in the mood to discuss what had happened.

As if she even could.

“You were there, Bishop. You tell me.”

But then, he hadn’t been listening up in that chopper, had he? She’d refused him the common courtesy of the extra headset in a fit of pique over his manner toward Carrie.

It all seemed moot now.

Childish.

She tied off the final stitch and clipped the ends before turning away to restow her first-aid kit and tuck it into her flight vest. But before she could scramble to her feet, his hand closed over her arm, stopping her cold.

“Eve…I’m not a pilot. I had no idea what was happening in that chopper beyond the fact that it was about to drop out of the sky roughly four klicks inside enemy territory.” The words were quiet, almost gentle, certainly devoid of the accusation and reproach she’d fully expected.

Even deserved.

Maybe that’s why she was able to scrape up the nerve to meet his gaze. “Then congratulations, Bishop. You’re one up on me.”

She hadn’t said a word in eight hours.

Not so much as a passing comment or even a question as to how far they’d traveled or when they’d stop for the night. Rick held up a hand, bringing them to a halt for a moment so that he could gauge the pulse of the jungle. Other than the rustle of leaves, the distant shriek of a howler monkey and the occasional chirp and almost constant buzzing of insects, there was nothing. He lowered his hand, then switched his machete into his left in order to hack another swath of vine-tangled foliage from his path.

Eve followed him through.

Again, but for the soft thumps of her boots, silently.

It wasn’t normal, even for him. Sure, they were still well inside Córdoba, but no one was tracking them. He was certain. At first he’d been worried about the trail they were leaving. But given Eve’s condition, he didn’t have a choice. With her ribs in the shape they were, it would have taken four times as long to cover the same amount of ground if he’d forced her to pick through the uncut undergrowth. Even now she was stumbling more often than not.

The woman was exhausted.

If she fell and damaged her ribs further or, God forbid, punctured a lung, they might never make it back. He should stop. Force her to rest if necessary. As tired as she was, she’d probably sleep through to dawn if he let her. Still, he had to hand it to her.

Eve Paris was one tough soldier.

He’d had plenty of time to consider the woman as he buried her crew and his sergeant, plenty of time to worry. It wasn’t long before his guilt over Turner’s death had turned to apprehension. Apprehension that his sole surviving companion would fall apart the minute he assumed command of their extraction and pushed her to her physical and mental limits.

Mercifully, she hadn’t.

That the woman was about to fall over was no fault of her stamina. It was a direct result of her injuries. Injuries that were in serious need of re-tending.