Her Wild Hero

Was he? Because he sure as hell didn’t seem fine to her. She nodded, blinking back tears.

“Okay, troops!” Landon called as he and Ivy came out of the lab. “We’ve got a pickup in two hours. Let’s torch this place and get to the landing zone.”

Kendra turned back to Declan, but he’d already walked over to join Tate and the rest of his team. She tried not to be hurt. He and Tate were like brothers. It made sense they’d want to catch up. She and Declan would talk on the flight home. As she watched them disappear into the building where he and Marcus had fought to the death a few hours ago, though, she couldn’t help feeling that what she and Declan had shared had somehow been broken.

***

Kendra sat staring off into the dark interior of the C-17 cargo aircraft that was taking them home, slowly going over the last several hours and trying to figure out what had happened between her and Declan.

She’d hoped to talk with him on the way back to the States, but it hadn’t worked out that way. Declan had been withdrawn and quiet since they’d left the jungle-shrouded labs yesterday morning. In fact, he didn’t say more than two words to her the entire time.

Landon had pushed them hard to get to the extraction point on the Panama border that he’d set up with John. With all the injured people they were moving, not to mention the rucksacks full of hybrid DNA samples and lab reports, it had been damn hard getting to the clearing by the deadline. But no one had complained about the pace. They’d all been more than ready to get out of that damn place. She’d tried to stick near Declan during the hike out, but he’d disappeared into the forest, saying he wanted to make sure no one was following them. The excuse had seemed logical at the time, but with the way he’d been acting since, she now knew it had probably been a made-up excuse.

Two helicopters from the Panamanian Air Service had been waiting for them in a small clearing when they got to the extraction point. Her heart had crumbled a little more when Declan had gone out of his way to make sure he was on the other helicopter after she’d been buckled into the first one.

It hadn’t gotten any better after they were quietly dropped off at some private facilities near the edge of the Panama Pacific International Airport. The place had food, showers, and doctors to take a look at their wounded. Everyone had laughed and joked as they cleaned up and got some warm food, but Kendra hadn’t felt like doing either. The only thing she’d wanted to do was spend some quiet time with Declan. Unfortunately, he’d disappeared the moment they’d landed, saying something about needing to rest and heal up. She didn’t have the guts to go after him, not if he was going to snap at her again.

She hadn’t seen him again for six hours, not until they all boarded the C-17 Globemaster John had rerouted to their location. Even then, Declan had immediately headed to the back of the plane. The aircraft had been almost empty, and yet the place he’d chosen to crash was about as far away from her as he could get.

A short time after leaving the Panamanian airfield, she’d walked back to check on him, but he’d been in a deep sleep. It was obvious that Declan was still avoiding her for some reason, even if that meant sleeping all the way back to the States.

Kendra continued to replay the last few hours of their time in Costa Rica, looking for that one thing she’d done that had pushed him away, when Ivy slipped into the seat beside her.

“Hey, girlfriend,” Ivy said softly. “I thought you’d be sleeping like everyone else, especially after the week you’ve had.”

She shrugged. “I guess I’m too tired to sleep right now.”

Ivy didn’t say anything for a while, probably assuming she would continue. But Kendra didn’t feel like chatting. Not about what was really bothering her anyway. She would tell Ivy about everything soon enough, but now wasn’t the right time.

“You okay?” Ivy whispered. “Did something happen out in the jungle you haven’t told me about?”

Yeah. She mused silently. I fell in love with Declan. But even though Ivy was her best friend, those weren’t the words that came out. “I’m fine, really. I’m just thinking about what we’re going to have to do when we get back. With John, I mean.”

She could feel Ivy’s gaze on her in the darkness and figured her friend knew she wasn’t really being honest. But Ivy was intuitive enough to know that if Kendra wasn’t ready to talk, she shouldn’t push. She heard Ivy shift in her seat, then sit back with a sigh.

“I know it’s going to be hard for you to sneak around behind John’s back, but you understand why we have to do it, right?”

Kendra wanted to get Ivy focused on another topic of conversation, but she honestly didn’t like this one any more than the previous. At least she could talk about this subject, though.