Page 17 of Burning for Him

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Perfect name. It’s just what we all need right now.”

A few minutes later, two older women hurried into the hut and sighed in relief when they saw the healthy baby nursing ather mother’s breast. From what Jenn gathered from their rapid-fire Spanish, they were Maria’s aunts and would take over for Doug and Jenn, not that there was much left to do at that point except deliver the placenta when it was time.

As the two Americans headed for the door, Diego rushed over to them, shaking their hands. “¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! Que Dios esté contigo.”

While Jenn was baptized as a Catholic, she’d rarely attended Mass after her parents’ funeral. Stepping into a church only dredged up painful memories—the moment she was forced to accept that she would never see her mother or father again. But it was nice for Diego to wish God would bless them for helping his family.

Outside, the normal sounds of the surrounding forest were interspersed with the voices of adults and children talking or crying, dogs barking, and the roar of chainsaws in action on the other side of the mudslide.

Jenn glanced around the nearly annihilated village, her gaze settling on an approximate point of where they’d left Margie. It was difficult to tell amid all the wreckage. She shook her head, displacing the thoughts of the friend she’d lost. Nothing could be done for the older woman now. After things calmed down and it was possible, they would recover her body. “Now what?”

“Let me check in with Romeo.” Doug stood beside her and pulled the radio from his pocket. “We can’t risk trying to cross that mess to get to them—not yet anyway. If another slide starts, we’ll go with it.”

The thought chilled her to the bone. Some villagers were probably buried under the dirt and trees, while others may have been swept down the mountain and killed that way. How she and Doug had survived when others hadn’t was beyond her comprehension, but she was grateful they were both still alive.

“Romeo, you there?”

A long pause was followed by a squelch and then, “Yeah, I’m here. Sit-rep.”

“We helped deliver a baby—a healthy little girl, so that’s good news. The bad news is we lost Margie. She was pinned under a tree, and we couldn’t get her out.” He eyed their surroundings. Several people comforted each other, while others gathered what supplies they could salvage. “Things are relatively quiet over here now. From what I can see, we’ve got a few injuries, but nothing critical yet. We’ll try to locate everyone on this end and get a head count and list of injuries. We might have lost some villagers in the slide, but I don’t know for sure. Unfortunately, we can’t risk poking around.”

“Copy that. And we’ve got the same issues here—not going to risk anyone digging in that mess without backup, but we still have buildings that need to be searched for survivors. Parsons got through to emergency services. They’re sending a military unit up to us, but it’s going to take time. The heavy equipment won’t reach us until at least tomorrow morning, so you’re stuck over there tonight. Do you have shelter?”

“We’ll find something. Not sure about food and water, though.”

“Got something you can use to make a visible target? A helicopter is en route with supplies. We’ll tell them to drop what they can on both sides of the slide.”

He bent over and opened the large canvas knapsack on the ground by his feet. “Roadside flares are in the emergency kit. I’ll use those.”

“Copy that. Stay safe, and we’ll keep you posted.”

“Thanks.”

Doug stuck the radio back into his pocket, then pulled a wrapped silver blanket out of the emergency kit.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“A survival blanket. You use it in cold weather to stay warm. We have three of them, so I thought I’d use this one for...” He gestured toward the massive pile of trees, dirt, and rocks.

Margie. He hadn’t forgotten her or Jenn’s request to cover her. She inhaled a sharp breath and nodded, trying to keep from breaking down again. “Thank you.”

He reached out and briefly rubbed her upper arm. “I’ll be right back.”

“Be careful.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Doug said a small prayer for the deceased woman’s soul as he covered her head and upper torso with the rescue blanket. He placed a sizable rock on each corner to keep it from blowing away.

His heart ached for Jenn. While the circumstances were vastly different from when she lost her parents, her new friend’s death in such a brutal manner was understandably hard on her. He could see it in her eyes. As far as he was aware, that was the first time she had ever seen someone she knew die right in front of her, and the fact that they’d seemed close made it worse. Meanwhile, Doug had served in combat, watching his teammates die in horrific ways that he could never forget. He’d also killed many people during that time. Yes, they were the enemy, but someone must have loved them—their parents, siblings, spouses, or children. Someone mourned their deaths as Doug thanked God he hadn’t been the one to fall in the kill-or-be-killed situations.

Then there was Jacob Keller, Doug’s coworker at Blackhawk Security, who was shot and killed while they were protecting Jenn four years ago. The owners of Trident and Blackhawk were good friends and often shared personnel, equipment, andintel. That was how the two men from BHS ended up on Jenn’s detail. It was only the third time they were partnered together. They were still in the process of learning the other’s strengths, weaknesses, and personal details when Keller was killed instantly by a 9mm bullet to the head at close range.

While Doug’s former boss, Chase Dixon, and his current ones, Ian, Devon, and the rest of the original Trident Security Alpha Team, told him he hadn’t done anything wrong, he still wasn’t convinced. Many a night, he awoke in a panic, reliving the event repeatedly in his mind. With sweat pouring off him, he’d gasp for air as if his lung was once again deflated from the bullet that tore through his chest. He’d see Keller’s lifeless body, with half his face missing, and blood and brain matter splattered over the windshield and dashboard. He’d hear Jenn’s desperate screams for help, knowing he couldn’t do anything to save her. The kidnappers left him for dead. All he could do at the time was speed-dial Devon for help. The man passed the information to Brody before hightailing it to the scene. Yeah, it caused about a thirty-second delay in alerting 9-1-1, but Brody was able to relay more information to emergency services than Doug could before he passed out. With a computer system that some joked rivaled NASA’s, Brody knew Doug’s exact location and was able to give it to the dispatcher along with a description of Jenn and the probable motive behind the kidnapping.

Sighing, Doug pushed the thoughts of the dead and the past from his mind. Over the downed trees and other wreckage, his gaze found Jenn pacing back and forth outside Maria and Diego’s hut. Her shoulders were slumped as she wiped her eyes and shook her head. Tension rolled over her—he could tell even from that distance. Despite her grief and being disheveled and covered in mud, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. The urge to go to her, pull her into his arms, and comfort her was too strong for him to deny.

He climbed back over the trees and strode over to her, getting in her path and forcing her to stop. Her red, swollen, watery eyes rose to meet his. The ache in his chest increased, and not where it usually hurt—under the bullet scar. No, it was his heart squeezing in reaction to seeing her so broken in her sorrow. She’d been through so much in her young life, more than anyone should in any length of time, and the past few hours heaped more anguish on her.

---