Page 7 of Hot Soldier's Rescue

“No. It’s all medical supplies.”

He swore quietly. In a louder voice, he announced, “The sister will take my hut. I’ll sleep outside.” And guard her.

Enrique’s expression fell as he caught Ted’s unspoken warning to keep his paws off the nun. Pervert.

He waited for her to return from the latrine pit and held the canvas flap of his half tent, half wooden shack for her. “Don’t come out until morning if you value your virtue or your life,” he murmured as she passed close to him.

She glanced up at him, her eyes positively doelike. He jolted. A guy could lose himself in eyes like that. Hello. Nun, here. The lady was strictly off-limits. Even he wasn’t that big a scumbag.

“Thank you for your protection,” she murmured back.

So. She wasn’t that dumb, after all. She’d realized the mortal danger she was in, and furthermore, she was aware of the delicate dynamic between him and Enrique. He dared not challenge the man’s dominance of this cell lest the rebels turn on him, but Enrique needed his weapons and dared not piss him off, either.

He set up a camp cot across the doorway of his makeshift hut and listened to the little noises of the nun settling down for the night. Something about the sounds women made was just sexy. It was easy to envision her peeling off those frumpy clothes and rinsing the mud off her legs with the washcloth and pitcher of water he’d put inside for her.

She’d be brushing out her hair now. How long was it, anyway? Did nuns shave their heads or something under those wimples? Except he’d seen a lock of it peeking out earlier. It had been dark and smooth and touchable. The whole woman was so damned touchable. And yet, she was totally off-limits. Such an odd little nun.

He’d done his damnedest through the day not to let his thoughts go there, but as he sank toward sleep, his formidable mental control slipped. It was no stretch to imagine what she looked like under that god-awful dress. Her waist had been tiny, her shoulders slender, the bones delicate. She’d be a looker, all right, all feminine curves and soft seduction.

He jolted back to full alertness. Stop. It. She was a nun. Hands off. End of discussion. No matter how long it had been since he’d seen or had another woman, he was not even going to contemplate any shenanigans with Sister Mary Elise.

The gentle rise and fall of her breathing came from the other side of the thin canvas wall long before he finally followed her into unconsciousness.

* * *

A scream toreElise from a surprisingly deep sleep sometime in the wee hours of the night. Her nose was cold, and Drago’s blankets were pulled practically over her head. Groans and more screaming were forthcoming.

She’d worked the trauma unit in a New York City hospital long enough to know someone was badly injured out there. She went into action automatically. She grabbed her sweater and threw it on, and glancing around, grabbed a pair of sweat pants wadded up in the corner. She dragged them on, jammed her feet into the black bricks without tying them, snatched up her medical bag, and stumbled outside.

“Where is he?” she demanded without preamble.

Drago was kneeling on the ground, shirtless and entirely glorious. He pointed across the clearing. “I’ll be there in a sec.”

She raced to the fire, where a man thrashed on the ground in the midst of several other men. “Step aside,” she ordered in her no-nonsense, E.R. nurse voice. The insurgents leaped out of the way.

“What happened?” she asked tersely as she dropped to her knees beside the mound of blood and torn flesh that had once been a man’s gut.

“Jaguar attack,” someone offered up.

The jagged tears in parallel lines across the man’s midriff seemed to confirm that. She yanked out scissors and began cutting away the remnants of the guy’s shirt. At least his innards were still mostly in place. The peritoneum was compromised, though. Without massive antibiotics, and soon, the man was a goner. But first things first. She had to stop the bleeding and sew him back together enough to make it to a hospital and good drugs.

“I need someone to hold this pad here.” Strong brown hands materialized in her line of sight. She glanced up to see Drago’s grim face. She nodded, and he took over applying pressure to the worst of the other wounds as she started sewing on the patient.

Thankfully, the victim passed out quickly. Whether from blood loss or shock or overwhelming pain, she didn’t know. But at least he’d stopped that screaming. She’d learned in her job to block it out, but it was nice not to have to.

When the life-threatening bleeding had been stopped, the tedious business of quilting the guy’s gut back together commenced. Shockingly, Drago picked up a suture needle and pitched in, doing a darned credible job of setting sutures on his side of the guy’s belly. She’d lay odds the guy had some sort of formal medical training.

Eventually, she sat back on her haunches. “Done. I’ve given him all the penicillin I’ve got, and that should hold him through the night. But in the morning, he needs to get to a hospital and have a whole lot more antibiotics if he’s going to have any chance of pulling through.”

Enrique nodded, not looking particularly concerned. Death was apparently a common and fairly casual affair for these men.

“I’ll drive him to town in the morning,” Drago announced quietly.

She glanced over at her impromptu assistant. “Thank you.”

He shrugged and offered a hand down to her. She straightened painfully, her legs cramped from two hours of kneeling on the cold ground.

As they walked back toward the ramshackle structure that passed for his quarters, he commented, “There’s nothing more you can do for him tonight. Let’s catch a little sleep before we go.”

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