Page 10 of Her Reluctant Hero
“Whatever. Your choice. You need to decide before the rain starts and makes the rope slippery as hell.”
“This isn’t my fault, you know.” She wasn’t as gentle when she wrapped his hand in layers of gauze. “Do you have scissors or something?”
He fished his pocketknife out with a flick, offering it to her blade first. “What?”
“I timed it so they wouldn’t miss me till morning. It’s not my fault those men are dead.”
He didn’t say anything. Isabella waited for absolution. But she was asking the wrong person to bestow it. Why couldn’t the nice young Hispanic soldier have been the one to save her? He seemed so much more sympathetic. This one was tight with suspicion.
She sawed through the bandage and tucked it into the rest of the gauze, then reached for his other hand. It was pretty raw, with loose strips of bloody flesh. Of course he wouldn’t be able to carry her down. But could she make it?
“Sergeant?”
The voice crackling over the radio made them both jump. He fumbled for the radio.
“Yeah, Cervantes, where you at?”
“Where you left me, man. Tangos are history. Get back on up here.”
“Everyone okay?”
“We lost the agents in the first truck, and Lee was hit by some shrapnel when the truck blew. Jordan’s got him patched up. Get back on up here.”
“Can’t. We’re pretty far down. We slid. Look, we’ll meet you at the extraction point.”
Isabella quailed at that. He was sending the others away? She would be alone in the jungle with this man?
“We’ll come down there.”
“Too dangerous. Just meet us.”
“Our vehicle was shot to shit. We’re on foot.”
“Yeah, all right. Try to reach command and see if they can move the extraction closer. Get us a little more time, since we’re on foot. Let me know.”
He signed off and looked at her. “Get the rope out of my pack and find the gloves.”
“Don’t you need to rest?” She pulled his pack open wider.
“I’ll rest while I make a harness. Not like we have all the time in the world here, Goddess.”
“We will if we’re dead.” She dragged out the rope.
“We’ll get to the bottom.”
“In one piece?”
He ground his teeth. She could see it in the flexing of his jaw. “Funny how you can trust Saldana with your life and not me.”
Safe was not a word she would use to describe how Santiago made her feel, but she didn’t think she could convince Shepard of that.
He worked the rope, twisting it into unfathomable knots.
“I thought sailors were the ones who knew all the rope tricks.”
He looked up, mouth twisted in a mockery of a smile. “You know a lot of sailors?”
Fine. So he didn’t want small talk. “Just one. He was into ropes too.”
