Under Fire: The Admiral (3 page)

“Stop,” she demanded.

“Stop?” He whirled on her, his arms held out.
“A few minutes back you were hell-bent on go. Now it’s stop. Which
is it, survival woman?”

“Listen.” Gemma held up a hand and cocked her
head. It was faint but there. A hum. An engine’s hum.

“To what?”

She went closer to the beach. Holy shit. She
bolted back, shrugging out of her pack as she ran. “It’s the boat.”
She hadn’t factored in wind direction while listening. It was
almost on top of them.

“Damn it, I told you we shouldn’t go
north.”

“Get that shirt off,” Gemma ordered.

“Why?”

For crap’s sake.
“It’s white. An
unnatural color in the jungle.” She dropped her pack. “Difficult to
hide.
Off. Now.” Fuck.
Why hadn’t she thought of
this
?

“Your shirt is white and you aren’t . . .”
Before he could finish she was tugging hers over her head. His pack
hit the ground and he peeled the offending garment away. They stood
staring at each other. Her at his broad shoulders, a lightly furred
chest bisected with an ugly angular five-inch scar on his right
side. His eyes flicked from the tat on her shoulder to the gun
holstered between her breasts. Engine sounds broke through the
palms, clear and loud.

“
Run.”
Gemma grabbed her pack and took
off through the dense tangle of vines, shrubs and small trees.
Hopping over roots, slipping on rotting leaves, pushing branches
and vines away, hoping like hell none were snakes, until it was
impossible to advance. She did a feet-first, load-the-bases slide
under a plant with huge leaves that looked like something from a
science project gone bad. Walsh dropped in the small space, rolling
half on her. The thrumming engine sound became louder than the surf
and was accompanied by an occasional voice until they saw the boat
cruising just outside the surf line. Gemma positioned the packs
between them and the water for further camouflage.

“Can you make out what they’re saying? Your
Spanish is better than mine,” she whispered. He raised his head and
she shoved it down. “Stay low.”

Ben turned his head, working on catching the
voices. “Nothing. They’re too far away. Why are we whispering?”

“Electronic equipment. That boat is loaded
with it. No telling what it’s for.”

The boat vanished from view and engine sounds
were quickly overtaken by jungle sounds.

“How long do you think before they come
back?”

She squirmed and wiggled until she could turn
enough to see his face. Dirt and other things stuck to the film of
sweat coating his face and chest. “No telling.” She twisted her arm
from under his body and swiped the back of her hand over her face,
coming away with the same kind of debris. “We went into the water,”
she said and checked her watch, “an hour ago. We aren’t that far
from where we went in. Say it takes them ten minutes to reach the
plane.”

“The water there is clear,” Walsh said, worry
creeping into his voice. “They put somebody in the water it’ll be
easy to see we aren’t in the plane.”

“There aren’t any clear assumptions. The
doors are open. We could have been killed and our bodies floated
away. Maybe we attempted to get to the beach and drowned. We could
have made it to the beach. In that clear water they should be able
to read the logo and know we were a medical mission. Know we
weren’t looking for them.”
And know anybody aboard would bring a
fat ransom.
He didn’t need to know that. At least not yet.

“What now?”

Gemma opened a side compartment on her pack
and removed a tightly balled piece of khaki-colored knit material.
“We get some clothes on before one of those mosquitoes with bad
vision finds us and thinks we’re a duck.” She pushed up and sat
facing him. Might as well give him a good view of the tat and gun
and get any discussion out of the way now. Walsh didn’t hesitate to
stare at the three-inch lighthouse on her left shoulder.

“Guardian.” He repeated the word written in
the beam of the lighthouse.

“A nickname.” True. The Coast Guard were
guardians of the coast.

His eyebrows moved up his forehead. “You’ve
done this before.” It was a statement.

“Yeah.” She shook the material until it
became a shirt.

“That gun going to work after it’s been
wet?”

“Yes.” She was surprised there wasn’t the
standard
“What’s a woman like you doing with a tat like
that?”
question. She squirmed and battled with the science
project leaves until she faced away. “Brush off my back and make
sure there aren’t any crawly things.”

Walsh sat, had his own foliage mini-battle,
then began to brush her back.

“You have a thing about bugs on you.”

“No. I have a thing about bugs biting me.
Check my hair.” She let her head loll back and she caught colorful
birds flitting silently through the branches high in the
canopy.

“You’re clear.”

She didn’t care for the humor in Walsh’s
voice and quickly pulled the shirt over her head. If he’d been
bitten enough times to be hospitalized he’d be careful also.
Geeze, what if he . . . ?
She whipped around. “Let me check
you.” Frantically she ran her hands up and down, side to side over
his chest and raked her fingers through his dark hair.

“Hey, take it easy,” he protested while
attempting to shove her hands away. She grabbed his shoulders and
twisted until she could see his back and began vigorously rubbing
away debris.

“Ahh! That feels good. A little lower.”

“Shut up.” She dug his shirt out and tossed
it to him. “Get it on and get back down,” she said, tucking her
body against the jungle floor.

“Do we really have to stay down?” he said,
tugging the shirt over his head. “I just got my back massaged and
cleaned and . . .”

Gemma shushed him. “You hear that?”

He turned his head side to side. “All I hear
is the surf and palms. What did you think it . . . ?” He paused.
His dark eyes turned to her. “Gunfire?”

Gemma bobbed her head. “They’re probably
strafing the jungle.” At least she knew they weren’t looking to
take hostages.

Walsh settled next to her. No, not next to
her—half
on
her.
Again.
His body rested heavy on hers
and she felt the in and out of his breaths. A muscular thigh rested
on her legs. The two thin layers of cloth between them did nothing
to reduce the feel of what he was packing.

“Damn. I’ve been coming down here seven years
and this is the first time I’ve been shot at.”

Was he blaming that on her? She squirmed
until she was on her back, looking up. She opened her mouth to set
him straight and swallowed her words. Walsh’s expression was
humorless. No smile ready to escape twitching lips. His dark eyes
staring at the water. His body tense against hers.

“Relax, Doc. You’re nobody till somebody
shoots at you.”

He looked down, squinting. She guessed he was
trying to determine how serious she was. Finally, a corner of his
mouth curved up. He rested his arm on the ground beside her and
moved his body around, creating a not unpleasant friction. For a
moment she thought he was going in for a kiss. “You don’t need to
get that relaxed.”

“What now, pilot survival woman?” he said in
a loud whisper.

“We stay put. They’ll run south a ways, see
if they can find us. After they head north again we should be
okay.”

“If they don’t find us will they come ashore
looking?”

“Naw!”

“Why not?” He picked a leaf off her shoulder
and held it up so she could see it wasn’t alive.

“Too much trouble for them to come ashore,
and besides—” She paused, making sure she had his full attention.
“They know we’ll never survive the jungle,” she said, unable to
keep the smile from her voice.

“Little do they know,” he said in a deep
voice that sounded like a promo for an action flick, “survivor
woman is here.”

“I’m here to serve.” She raised her hand and
he flinched as if he thought she was going to smack him for the way
he was pressed against her. “Relax. You’ve managed to get more crap
in your hair.” She ruffled his hair, sending bits of flora and
fauna raining down into her eyes and mouth that she sputtered to
clear.

“Close your eyes,” Ben said.

She did and he gently wiped guck from her
eyelids. The pad of his thumb glided damn sensually back and forth
over her lips once, then twice. His breath brushed her cheek,
blowing dirt away. Or, was that . . . what he was doing? She opened
her lids slightly and saw his lips parted, nostrils flared. Was he
. . . ? Her eyes flew open. “Are you smelling me?” She made no
attempt to hide her annoyance, then planted a hand on his shoulder,
stiff-arming him back.

“Yeah.” He licked his lips, looking surprised
and embarrassed.

“Really?” she said incredulously.

“You smell good.”

Was he freaking out on her or . . . ? “How
many of those pain meds did you take?” She checked his eyes to see
if his pupils were dilated but his irises were so dark she couldn’t
tell.

Before he could answer, thrumming engine
sounds broke through the jungle “Scoot back as far as you can.”

“Can’t go back any more.”

She lifted her head. His feet were wedged
against the trunk of a tree twisted with roots and vines, looking
for all the world like it had been created for a Disney theme
park.

Gemma rolled to her belly. The moment she
settled, his body compressed against hers. She flattened against
the moist smelly jungle floor and peered through the space between
the backpacks.

The boat cruised slowly outside the cresting
waves. “Be still and quiet.”

“You’re . . .”

Gemma elbowed him
hard
and gave him
her cross-me-and-you-die look over her shoulder. Thankfully, Walsh
went quiet and still. She rested her forehead on her arm, thinking
about the freaky smell thing until Walsh’s breathing was the only
un-jungle sound. She shouldered him off and he rolled to his side.
“I understand you aren’t used to being told what to do.” He gave
her the innocent little-boy look men use when they’re about to
catch hell. “From here on out, when I tell you to do something do
not ask why or argue.
Do it!”
she said, rolling into a
sitting position.

She stood and brushed off.

“But . . .”

Her boot connected with his thigh. “No buts.
I’m not doing it to make your life miserable. I’m keeping you
alive.”

“I know. Your number-two goal,” he grumbled,
batting the leaves surrounding his head as he sat up.

“Damn skippy,” she snapped.

Walsh stood.

“Come here and let me check you for anything
moving.” She circled him brushing, examining him carefully for
anything moving.

“Now me.” She turned her back and shot him a
look over her shoulder. “And don’t be smelling me anymore.”

Chapter 2

Gemma cautiously made her way to the edge of
the beach. She went down on her haunches, not moving for several
minutes until she was sure the coast was clear, literally, in each
direction and the boat was little more than a dot on the water. The
dark clouds building over the ocean stretched as far as she could
see and were the reason the boat spent so little time searching.
There was no chance of escaping the storm but they could shelter in
that protected inlet. She estimated they had an hour, at most,
before they’d need to stop to shelter from the coming monsoon.

Walsh was standing, shrugging into his pack.
“Sorry about that. I’ll do better next time.”

She nodded, wondering if he was sorry about
the talking or smelling or both. She silently retrieved her pack,
heading north
.
No need to check if Walsh was following. He
made more racket than a squad of professional noisemakers.

“Hey. How long are we going to walk? What
about water? I’m thirsty. Not a good thing. Thirsty means I’m
already dehydrated.”

She glanced at the dark clouds. “Storm
coming,” she said and picked up her pace. The front was traveling
faster than she estimated and that meant stopping sooner.

“I said . . .” he yelled.

“I heard you. Twenty minutes.” She waved an
arm. “Keep moving.”

Some curses reached her but the snapping of
branches and dry fronds underfoot didn’t slow down. She tracked a
few paces deeper into the jungle looking for a safe place to set up
the tarps and hammocks and finding one too good to pass up.

Walsh caught up, breathing heavy, but said
nothing. He stood hands on hips, head back, grimacing and sucking
in deep breaths. Normalizing adrenaline levels mixed with
sauna-like conditions were playing hell with both of them.

“We’ll spend the night here. When you get
your breath back, pick up coconuts. We’ll have to drink the water
from them until we can collect rainwater.”

“Aye, aye,” he said and sucked in a breath,
“survivor woman. Any . . . other orders?”

“Don’t go on the beach and . . . look for
live things before you pick the coconuts up.” His lips and mouth
moved. She couldn’t tell if it was silent cursing or attempting to
work up saliva. He went in the direction where coconuts littered
the ground.

“Wait.” It was obvious he needed water and so
did she. She didn’t need him getting sick or passing out. She took
a knee, removing a knife from the sheaf at her ankle.

“Geezus, woman. What else are you
hiding?”

She ignored him, fingered several vines
checking for critters. Selecting one three inches in diameter, she
hacked and sliced until it was severed. “Come here.”

Before he reached her the vine dripped water
like a leaky faucet. “It’s the jungle juice joint.” She shoved the
vine in his direction. “Drink.” He hesitated. “Go ahead, it’s
clean.”