Cosky shrugged out of his backpack, opened it up, and pulled out a flashlight, along with a plastic white box with a red cross taped across the lid. “It won’t hurt to check you out. Wolf’s crew is just starting to load up.”
“And some of them may need my help,” Rawls said, that earlier irritation sharpening his tone.
Zane shook his head. Shifting, he scanned the lawn. “Wolf’s got his own medics on the wounded. And something tells me your westernized medical approach wouldn’t be nearly as effective as their native one.”
She’d known that Wolf had healers on his team, their inclusion was one of the reasons he’d refused to allow Kait on the mission. Both Wolf and Cosky had claimed they didn’t need her services with the other healers on board.
Faith’s attention didn’t budge from Rawls’s face, even though she was curious as to whether these other healers conducted their healings the same way Kait did. He flinched a couple of times when Zane and Cosky removed his jacket and T-shirt, but stood stoically beneath their ministrations as they poured water onto gauze pads and wiped the wounds clean.
His shoulders, chest, and abdomen rippled with sleek, lean muscles in the flickering firelight. In fact, he looked like a piece of art, something Michelangelo might have sculpted in bronze or burnished copper. His sheer beauty took her breath away and sent tingles up and down her spine.
“You’re right. They barely qualify as scratches,” Zane said casually as he pressed a thick pad of gauze against his side and taped it into place. “Might need a couple of stitches so you don’t keep breaking the edges open.”
Scratches? They didn’t even qualify as scratches? He’d been shot, for God’s sake. And not just once.
Could they be downplaying the danger in order not to worry her?
Rawls must have recognized her brewing panic, because he stopped easing back into his T-shirt and took hold of her chin. He nudged it up until their eyes met. She relaxed slightly at the gentle warmth in his gaze.
“Trust me, darlin’. I’m fine. This isn’t my first rodeo. It won’t be my last either. I know when an injury is worth worryin’ over.”
Leaning down, he kissed her. Not a light brush of lips either. His mouth was hard instead—strong. As though he knew she needed an indication of his health and resilience, rather than tenderness. It worked too. Her heart rate settled as she leaned into him, returning the caress, strength to strength.
His sensual reassurance reverberated through her endocrine system long after the kiss ended, and he eased back into his T-shirt and camouflage jacket. But soon her traitorous mind found something else to worry over.
“Not my first rodeo . . . I know when an injury is worth worryin’ over.”
Meaning he’d been hurt before . . . shot before . . . probably countless times. An accepted hazard of his career path.
A memory struck her. Harsh as a bullet, it snagged her breath. Moonlight streaming through huge trees. Rawls stretched across a mat of pine needles, his bloody chest motionless beneath Cosky’s and Kait’s hands.
He’d died that night . . . according to him, according to Jude, even according to Pachico—the ghost he’d brought back—he’d died.
This isn’t my first rodeo. It won’t be my last either.
And there was a chance, a good chance even, that he’d die during the next moonlight rescue, or mission, or whatever drew him out into the darkness. Only next time there might not be a Kait to save him.
This emotion brewing between them was serious—definitely for her, but she suspected for him as well. She needed to consider his career choice and its potential effect on her mental health before things went much further.
Her gaze returned to the long, lean warrior standing so solidly beside her. When their eyes tangled, he smiled, his face softening. Sensual heat, along with tender reassurance broadcasted from his gaze. That was all it took.
Her twenty-nine years and two heart transplants had taught her the value of living in the moment. Of not questioning what the future held. Of finding joy in the here and now. She couldn’t foresee what fate held in store for her, so why make decisions based on possible future events? She shouldn’t. She wouldn’t.
There was no way she was giving up joy in the here and now to avoid possible pain in the future.
A discouraged silence and sense of anticlimax invaded the chopper on the way home. It was a familiar atmosphere, one Mac remembered well from his stint on the teams. Not every operation paid dividends. Some flipped sideways, stirring up shit they hadn’t anticipated. Some brought death and regrets and memories that stole a piece of your soul. And then there were the status quo missions. Operations that cost money, energy, and time but yielded exactly nothing.