Page 92 of Hot Pursuit
Jo pulled back, keeping their foreheads pressed together, and held the back of his head in her hands. “What happened?”
Nate sighed, not sure where to begin.
Jo’s gaze dropped, and she jerked back. “Nate, why am I naked?”
Okay, I wasn’t going to start there…but that’s as good a place as any.
“You—”
“And why is Agent Alvarez watching from the corner like a creepy lecher with an oddly goofy smile on his face?”
Nate arched a brow and turned on his partner, who was, in fact, standing a few feet away, grinning like a buffoon as he hugged his arms around his torso and unabashedly watched their reunion. At least he was, until Jo’s words registered and he had the decency to flinch back to life and turn away.
Nate looked back at Jo. “Because Leo’s a softie at heart. And he’s never fully grasped the concept of boundaries.”
“I resent that, Parker.”
“It’s true—”
Jo gasped and lifted her fingers to her lips in shock, silencing Nate midsentence. Her muscles went slack. His arms were the only things keeping her upright.
“The house… The explosion… Daddy…” Her voice cracked and broke off, catching in her throat as the memory of those last few moments rushed over her, making her tremble. She looked up at Nate, the most hopeful look in her eyes. All he could do was shake his head and watch as her world crumbled. Jo closed her eyes tight, squeezing them so hard her entire face wrinkled with the motion. Moisture leaked onto her lashes, pooling at the edges, silently spilling down her cheeks. For this pain, there was nothing he could do to help but hold her and tell her it would be okay. Which he did, as many times as it took for her to open her eyes again. They were shiny and wet but determined and resilient.
“Is Thad…?” A whisper was all she could manage.
“He called me to warn me that you were in danger. He’s the only reason I got here so fast. But he hung up before we could fully trace the call. Our men scoured the area but didn’t find anything except for stray bullets. The Russians were gone. So was Ryder. But we have no way to know if he got away or was caught, at least not yet.”
Jo nodded silently, taking it all in.
Before either of them could speak, boots thudded on the deck outside the cabin. Nate whipped his head to the side, already reaching for his gun, but it was the coast guard. It was the good guys.
“Here!” he shouted, lifting a hand to catch their attention. “She needs help.”
Two men raced deeper into the yacht, a stretcher held between them. “We have a chopper outside, ready for a medevac to Nassau—”
“Jolene Carter, age twenty-five, United States citizen, in good health, no known allergies or disorders.” Nate launched into the rundown immediately, not bothering to let them finish as he moved out of the way to reveal Jo huddled against his chest. The men rushed over and took Jo from his arms to strap her to the stretcher. She was weak enough not to protest, but held on to his hand the entire time, refusing to let go. And Nate held right back. There was no way she’d be leaving his sight—not anytime soon. “Hit by the blast, possible head trauma, no visible sign of burns. I wasn’t there to witness, but I heard through the phone. We got to her a few minutes after the explosion to find her unconscious in the water. I began CPR immediately in the water and moved to the boat to begin chest compressions. We ran the defibrillator twice before a successful resuscitation.”
The emergency responders nodded along, already checking her vitals. “And the blood? Where’s the wound?”
Blood?
Wound?
Nate pushed his brows together, staring at the floor, noticing for the first time that a wet ruby trail painted a gory path from the edge of the boat, all the way inside, spreading into a pool around his body. And then he remembered.
“Oh, the blood! The blood is me.”
“What?” Jo shouted, sitting up in an instant, eyes wide.
“I was hit. I’m fine.”
“You were hit?” she shrieked, finally overwhelmed by everything that had happened, and taking it out on the only person there who could survive the heat. “As in shot? As in a bullet? Why the hell didn’t you say anything?”
Nate squeezed her fingers with one hand and then used his other to gently force her back down against the stretcher so they could finish strapping her up. “Because I’m fine. I’ve been wounded on active duty before—”
“You have?”
Only his palm against her shoulder kept her from leaping to a seated position again. “I’m fine, Jo, I promise. See?”
