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  Though cloaked in hundred percent humidity and heat, Maisey’s teeth chattered. Shock? From a basic first aid kit he carried in one of many pockets on his black cargo pants, he took a metallic survival wrap. Wouldn’t do as much for her as a nice fire, but at least it’d keep her from losing additional body heat. As for that fire, he couldn’t take the risk of smoke leading Vicente’s men right to them.

  “T-thank you,” she managed through her latest violent shiver.

  “No problem.” He’d set her at the base of a cypress. Moonlight did nothing to sugarcoat the toll their adventure had already taken. For him, what they’d been through was all in a day’s work—physically easier than some of the missions he’d had to endure. For her, with her delicate features dirt-smudged, blond curls laced with leaves and small vines, shoulders sagging in defeat, she wore the dull-eyed mask of hopelessness he’d often seen on refugees.

  While his training told him to secure their perimeter with booby traps designed to give a few precious seconds notice in case they were found, he couldn’t in good conscience leave his pregnant friend alone and shivering.

  “You gotta relax.” Seated alongside her, he pulled her against him, intent on sharing his warmth. “We’ve got this.”

  As if operating on instinct, she snuggled closer. Leaning into him with what little remained of her strength.

  For the first time in forever, he felt every inch a protector. Ironic that he was feeling now. It was his inability to feel that had his teammates worried. His friend and business partner, Harding, had forced him to take some time off, told him to get his shit together. The pain of losing his wife and son had been indescribable. So bad that he’d found it best to construct a wall around that part of his life, compartmentalizing it in a corner of his heart that would never again see daylight.

  When Maisey stopped shivering, Nash reached into another pocket for a protein bar. “Eat.”

  She took it, but asked, “What about you?”

  “I’m good. There’s more. Plus, come daylight, I’ll go shopping.”

  “Shopping?” She lifted her brows.

  “Guess scrounging might be a better word. There’s plenty of food out here. We just have to find it.”

  “Please,” holding the bar in front of his mouth, she urged, “you have some, too. I don’t feel right hogging it all for myself.”

  To get her off his case, he bit a corner, then pushed it away. “Happy?”

  “You always were stubborn.”

  True. His tenacity served him well. The only thing he’d ever given up on was his love for this woman.

  Having chewed the last bite of her mini-meal, she said, “You told me my mom sent you. How did she know where I was? For her own safety, I begged her to stay out of my business.”

  “You and your mom used to be tight. What happened that you wouldn’t ask her for help?”

  She took a long time answering. “Vicente. From the first time I mentioned him, her warning bells rang. She had no trouble advising me to stay away.”

  Maisey had stopped shivering. Wanting to keep her talking, to keep her mind from their less than ideal location and situation, Nash asked, “Why didn’t you see the same signs?”

  “I wanted the fairy tale. For the first time in my life, I felt special. This man made me feel like I was the most amazing woman in the world.”

  “Thanks.” Her comment struck like a sucker punch. Didn’t matter that it’d been almost a decade since their last kiss, or that he’d already found and lost his wife, Maisey’s long ago rejection still stung. “Good to know how much you cared.”

  “Really?” she asked with a put upon sigh. “We hadn’t even graduated high school. Did you honestly, for one second, think I’d marry you? Signing on for a lonely life of living on some remote Navy base while you were off getting yourself killed? Or worse—behaving like my father? No, thanks.”

  He forced a chuckle. “Let me get this straight, life with me would’ve been worse than a sham marriage to a drug lord?”

  Covering her face with her hands, she shook her head. “That’s not at all what I mean, you’re mixing—”

  “Don’t move . . .” A long, dark rope slithered from their tree.

  4

  “FREEZE . . .”

  “What? Why?” She started to look over her shoulder, but Nash slowly reached for a mean-looking knife. Forehead furrowed, his narrowed eyes and pressed lips told her he wasn’t fooling.

  “Don’t. Move. An inch.”

  Palms sweating, pulse racing, Maisey wasn’t sure her heart could take much more.

  “No matter what . . . stay still.”

  Afraid to even nod, she swallowed hard, assuming Nash knew she understood.

  Painstakingly slow, he raised his arm, menacing knife held at the ready. Drawing his lower lip into his mouth, he inched closer, and then lunged, swinging at whatever was behind her with such force she heard his knife’s swoosh alongside her ear.

  When that something thumped against her back, she screamed, scrambling to her feet with newfound superhuman strength.

  Writhing on the dirt were two halves of a cottonmouth.

  Growing up in Florida, she’d been schooled on which snakes to steer clear of and this one topped the list.

  Hands clutched to her chest, she couldn’t breathe past the wall of panic rising in her throat. Would this night ever end? The man she’d loved ordered thugs to shoot her, and now she faced venomous snakes?

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  Nash had sliced off the snake’s head and was now stripping the skin. “Making breakfast.”

  She retched.

  “You might feel that way now,” he said with a chuckle, “but pardon the rhyme—the meat is sweet. It’d really be good deep-fried with beer batter, but we’ll have to make do.”

  “You’re crazy. Get me out of here.”

  “That’s the plan.” He used a small stick to spear the snake lengthwise like on a spit. “But last I checked my GPS, we’re off course by a good five miles.”

  “So you do have somewhere specific in mind for us to be?”

  “Yeah.” He gathered brush and small twigs, dropping them onto a pile. “And if you hadn’t fought me back at Hubby’s—sorry, Vicente’s—you’d have already been home in a nice, soft bed.”

  Legs too rubbery from the snake incident to stand, Maisey crumpled to her former nest against the tree. Before leaning back, she glanced up and found the shadowy branches snake-free. Settled and as comfortable as she could be given her current location, she said, “I don’t have a home.”

  “Trust me, your mom would like nothing better than for you and your baby to live with her.” Using a sparking device, Nash lit the small fire. On his knees, he blew on the struggling flame. “I shouldn’t be doing this, but you’re going to need protein for our morning hike.”

  “I’m not eating that snake.”

  “And you call me stubborn?” He made quick work of raising a stick rack on which to rest their meal.

  “Who are you, MacGyver?” Was there anything the man couldn’t do?

  “Close.” He dragged a log closer to the fire, then had a seat. “I’m a SEAL—at least, I used to be.”

  “Like the ones in movies?”

  He shrugged. “I guess.”

  “How can you be so blasé? That’s a big deal. Your mom must be proud.”

  Stoking the fire, he said, “Point of fact, she hated it. Now, I’m more like a bodyguard and she’s all the time asking when I plan to retire or take a safe job selling cars.”

  For whatever reason, the fact that Nash’s mom wasn’t proud of her son’s achievements made Maisey sad. For as long as she’d known him, he’d wanted to be in the Navy—like his dad. “I assume your mom’s feelings have more to do with her already having spent a lifetime worrying about your father?”

  “You remember?” Their gazes met and in the fire’s glow, she saw him for the man he’d become.

  I remember everything. �
��I was sorry to hear he’d passed.”

  Most especially, she remembered how much it hurt letting Nash go. Growing up in a broken home had been at times a nightmare. There had been constant bickering and her mother’s tears. Nash’s house had been her haven. His dad served in the Navy, too. He’d never cheated, but was deployed a huge chunk of his time. When Nash announced he’d enlisted, then proposed, Maisey’s gut reaction had been that she wanted no part of being a military wife.

  Like your drug lord was so much better?

  For the first time since Nash had blown back into her life like a category five storm, she appraised him. He was classically handsome. Square-jawed with a nose crooked from when he’d been hit with a baseball the summer between their junior and senior year. When he was mad, his gray eyes sometimes took on the color of clouds on a stormy day. He used to wear his dark hair on the long side, but he now sported a messy military buzz. After all these years apart, he still took her breath away.

  “Mais?” She barely heard him over the fire’s crackle and a tree frog determined to steal the show. “What are you thinking?”

  “About the night my mom found out about Dad’s first affair. I was so upset, that you came over to sleep on our sofa. Mom made us Rice Krispies Treats and we watched the Wizard of Oz. We were in fifth grade and quizzed each other on spelling words during commercials.”

  His laugh flip-flopped her tummy in a way she hadn’t felt since she’d first met Vicente. “Mmm . . . Your mom truly has a way with Rice Krispies Treats. She made me a batch while we talked about bringing you home.”

  “She always liked you.”

  “Feeling’s mutual.” He rotated his snake and despite her misgivings, she had to admit the delicious scent had her mouth watering.

  “How strange is it that here we are, all these years later, about to share a cottonmouth meal in the middle of a swamp?”

  “You’re going to eat?” His half-smile filled her with the oddest sense that maybe, just maybe, they would be okay.

  Then she heard gunshots.

  5

  “I KNOW THERE’S a gator eyeing us for a snack.”

  “No chance. You’re too salty.”

  “Ha ha.”

  It had been hours since they’d heard shots. Dawn streaked the sky with slashes of orange and purple, yet Nash wasn’t taking chances. To hide their heat signatures in the event Vicente’s men had thermal scopes, Nash doused the fire and took Maisey into the black water alongside their camp. Her teeth hadn’t stopped chattering since. He wouldn’t tell her, but though he wasn’t too concerned about biting creatures sharing their patch of watery real estate, what spooked him was the prospect of Maisey’s core temp getting too low. A while back he’d read about four Army Ranger candidates dying during training in a Florida panhandle swamp. The water then had been in the low fifties. Lucky for Maisey and him, August water temps in the Everglades pushed ninety, meaning they shouldn’t be in immediate danger from the elements.

  She squashed a whiny mosquito on her cheek. “Is this the worst jam you’ve ever been in?”

  “Not even close.” Striving for a casual tone, he said, “One time, my team and I were dropped off by Bandar Beyla along the Indian Ocean coast. High winds killed our jump plan. We ended up twenty miles out to sea in a storm so bad I could hardly see my hand in front of my face. Oh—and let’s not forget the live nuke we were chasing.”

  “What happened?” she asked with rapt interest.

  “Fifteen hours later, we made shore and completed our mission.”

  “Which w-was?”

  He winked. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you. Ready to get out of here?”

  “Think it’s s-safe?”

  “Come on . . .” I’ll make it safe. He took her hand, leading her back to their previous camp. Again came the sensation that for once in a very long time he was needed. “But try sloshing as little as possible on the way out.”

  “O-okay . . .”

  With her seated at the base of her cypress, Nash made quick work of restarting the fire. Maisey was soaked and no doubt dehydrated. After cleaning a tin can he’d found along their trek, he rigged it to set over the fire to use for boiling water. The CamelBak vest he wore that had held more than enough water to last for days had been shot. Another fact he preferred to keep to himself.

  Her shivering slowed and she held her hands in front of the crackling fire. “A while back, your mom told me you were married and your wife was pregnant. She also told me you . . . lost them.”

  Not sure what to say—preferring not to discuss his family at all, Nash turned the snake he’d set aside when they’d been interrupted.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.” More than she’d ever know.

  “I always like to think there’s a reason for everything, but with your family, and now Vicente, it’s hard.”

  Tensed, he said, “With all due respect, there is no fathomable reason I can see for my beautiful wife and baby to have been taken. For you to suggest there was . . .” A muscle ticked in his jaw. He squeezed his hands into fists, trying to work through the grief her probing raised.

  Give him gunfire. Snakes. Bombs. None of it came close to making bile rise in his throat the way talk of his past did.

  “Sorry, Nash.” He’d crouched in front of the fire and when she placed her hand on his bare forearm, he jolted as if her touch had stung. “Really. In time, you’ll—”

  “Enough, okay?” The snake meat had turned white, signifying it was fully cooked. He took a third for himself, handing the rest on the spit to her. “Eat. Once you get past what it is, you’ll find the taste good.”

  “You take more.”

  “Maisey . . .” Never again would he accept a mission involving a female.

  “All right. Thanks.”

  He nodded.

  Once she’d finished her portion, he made her drink. Satisfied she and her baby were as adequately nourished as he could manage, he said, “Get some sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

  She opened her mouth—to argue? As if guessing bickering about the request would get her nowhere, she turned to her side, settling in for a rest.

  “Here . . .” He gave her a folded rain poncho. Lots of times in less than ideal places, he’d used it as a pillow. Kneeling, he placed it between her head and the tree’s rough outer surface. The feel of her soft curls beneath his rough fingertips knotted his throat. Stupid, but how long had it been since he’d performed such a seemingly insignificant act as touching a woman’s hair?

  Backing away from his charge, he took his seat on the log in front of the fire, glad for the distance between them. For safety from Vicente and his men, as soon as she drifted off, he’d douse the flames. But for now, for morale, she needed them.

  “Thank you for this,” she said of the makeshift cushion.

  “Sure.” He liked to think he’d have done the same for anyone, but how many nights had he spent in the field with his teammates and never felt the need to share? “Rest. We’ll head out in a few hours—oh, and use this.” From another pocket, he withdrew a rolled mosquito net, floating it over her head.

  “You really do think of everything.”

  “Kind of my job.”

  “Still, thanks.” She reached up to take his hand, giving him a light squeeze. “No one’s ever done anything like this for me—putting your life on the line to . . .” Tears welled in her eyes. “. . . How did I let things get to this point?”

  “I’m guessing you went into the relationship with your heart wide open. Granted, there may have been warning signs, but who’s looking for those when everything’s going good?”

  “True.” A sad laugh escaped her. “Once I’m back home, my plan is to steer clear of all men . . .” She patted her belly. “Except for this little guy.”

  “Sounds reasonable.” An image of his wife, Hope, prepping the nursery for their newborn son hit from nowhere. She’d been a space buff and ordered a shuttle mobile to hang over the crib. He
hadn’t been able to find the right screwdriver to assemble it, and scoured the house in his search. Turned out she’d had it in her back pocket the whole time. He’d razzed her about it for weeks. Now, the pain of losing her was so great, he had to look away. He could literally stand anything other than feeling. Remembering all he’d once had and lost.

  Ten minutes later, Maisey drifted off.

  Accustomed to going long spells without sleep, Nash wasn’t especially tired. He’d planned on dousing the fire. Instead, he repaired the hole in his CamelBak, then set about boiling enough water to see them through the next day.

  Humidity and a gunshot had his GPS wonky. Not a major worry as he’d been well trained in old-school compass reading. To prep this mission, he’d plotted escape routes using satellite photos. In a perfect world, calculating a travel time of thirty minutes a mile, come morning they’d make it well before nightfall to the secondary jon boat he’d brought and concealed. From there, it was a four-hour ride to where he’d parked his truck.

  Finished with chores, he had two hours till dawn.

  Maisey lightly snored.

  The heat was still oppressive, but bearable.

  Spying a patch of saw palmettos, he filled his free time keeping busy. He wove Maisey a frond mat that might make her rest stops more comfortable and bug free. He also made her a fan with a smooth cypress handle. Crude sandals to reinforce her slippers. It had been a screw-up, not packing her a change of clothes and shoes—just like not anticipating that she wouldn’t want to be rescued. He hadn’t seen that coming.

  He should have anticipated that potential. Like the fire that had taken his wife and unborn child, though he’d been told the faulty wiring in their fixer-upper sparking a flame had been a fluke, it had been preventable. If only he’d had an electrician replace every inch of wiring. If only he’d insured nothing flammable had been anywhere near the master bedroom or that Hope had worn flame retardant PJs to bed instead of one of his T-shirts.

  He dropped the palm fronds to press his fingers to his throbbing forehead.