“I’m ready to go now.”
“Man, you need to chill out…”
His eyes washed over the woman who moved with a sultry grace he recognized, and the realization of who she was made his body stiffen. Definitely not in the right places. Not for this beauty.
“Anna?”
A Nikon camera hung on a thick leather strap around her neck, the weight of it pressing her white T-shirt to her full breasts.
“What? Chill out Anna? What does that—”
Dodger grabbed 2-Stroke’s chin and turned him toward the runway. Anna Keegan was walking quickly, with purpose. Her jeans were tight and faded, her small waist accented by a slim leather belt. Gently flared hips met long, long legs. The jeans were tucked into a pair of slightly battered but obviously expensive black military-looking boots. Why was Max’s sister here in Paraguay?
She stopped for a second and stared at him with gray eyes fringed by thick black lashes. The sun backlit her wild black mane like a shadowed veil that made her skin look so pale her mouth stood out like blood on snow. Her full lips tempted a man to trace them with the tip of his finger or the tip of his tongue.
“Anna Keegan? What the hell is she doing here?”
Dodger had no idea, but this couldn’t be good. He’d barely kept his hands off her through all the wedding festivities. Now she had shown up in Paraguay when her brother was lost in the jungle.
That was one hell of a coincidence.
2
Renata froze at the feel of the gun and the sound of his voice. He’d just confirmed that he was an American, which meant she had been right in her initial assessment. American military.
“That’s no way to treat your rescuer,” Renata said tightly. “Neutralizing your dog was necessary, and I was careful not to hurt him, even though he was hellbent on ripping my arm off.”
“Neutralized—”
His clipped tone told her he was angry and worried about his K9, which was understandable. The dog was his partner, and they worked together. It was clear the animal was intelligent and had only stolen her backpack to feed the injured man.
“Not to mention you enjoyed the rest of my fish dinner with a side of stolen artifact, and I believe I’m the injured party here.”
“Injured—”
“So, get that damn gun out of my side so I can see how bad the trouble is that you’re in.”
“Permission to speak, ma’am?” he said, his tone low, insolent, and furious.
She looked down at him, her muscles relaxing. Stunning, piercing blue eyes met hers as a shiver tingled through her, and she found her muscles locking up again. He looked dangerous, and a whole lot like a warrior. A man who thrived on risk and adventure. His too long, tousled black hair and the dark stubble shadowing his lean jaw only added to her immediate and knee-jerk assessment of him. A Navy SEAL maybe?
She was inexplicably but undeniably attracted in a way she had never experienced before. As an independent, intelligent, and capable woman, it irked her that the instantaneous awareness coiled low and deep in her belly.
“As soon as you remove the weapon,” she said, lifting her chin. “I’m unarmed.”
The pressure in her side eased and then was gone. He shifted, grunted from the pain and shoved the wicked looking firearm back into the leather holster low on his upper thigh. She noticed the holster was tied down like the old west’s gunfighters. Well, she supposed that’s exactly what he was. She didn’t wait for his permission—she pulled up his bloody shirts and saw that he’d done an adequate patch up job on the gunshot wound. For now, it was holding.
“Is the bullet still inside?”
“Yes,” he said, groaning as she pulled the layers back over the wound. Breathing hard, his skin glistening with sweat, he growled, “What did you do with him, and how the hell did you neutralize him?”
“I captured him in a quickly constructed net I made from my climbing rope, then I snagged your muzzle and leash. He’s currently tied to a tree and very agitated, which probably isn’t good for him in any way, especially physically, since he’s injured. Can you calm him down?”
“You what?” One firmly spoken command and the barking stopped. She glanced over her shoulder and the frantic K9 had sunk to the ground, as docile as a kitten.
“Captured…net…tied.”
He looked completely flabbergasted. His mouth had dropped open and drew her attention to those sculpted and sensuous lips.
“I get it,” she said. “You’re Special Forces, and he’s a well-trained, very dangerous part of your team.”
High color slashed across his cheekbones, and his lips flattened into a grim line. “You faced a lethal Malinois who would have ripped you to shreds if he’d gotten a hold of you.”
“Yeah, I made that assessment already. I was lucky he wasn’t in fit condition.”
She pulled her pack off to help with her mobility.
“What happened here?”
“We were being SPIES exfilled out of the area after a mission and somewhere below in the jungle, someone open fired on us.”
“Spare me the military jargon. You were spying?”
“No, not spying…SPIES. It’s an acronym for Special Patrol Insertion and Extraction System. When a helicopter can’t land because of the rough terrain, or we need rapid exfil…exfiltrate, meaning our asses are getting the hell out of the area, we use a rope with metal clips that attach to our vests and the chopper lifts us out. A lucky shot severed the rope and we fell.”
“Oh, my God? How far?”
“Far enough. We hit some trees on the way down.”
“Okay, enough talking for now. I need to assess your injuries.”
“All business, huh? What’s your name?”
“It’s Dr. Renata Cavalcante. I don’t have a rank or serial number.”
The corner of his mouth slipped up into a lazy grin, which was both potent and disarming. There wasn’t one inch of this guy that was either subdued or dull. He possessed an abundance of male confidence and sex appeal that, considering his predicament, should have been banked. Yet it was, again, disarming.
“Are you asking my permission to touch me?” As he continued to smile at her, a flash of heat swept over her in a very unprofessional manner. As an MD, she’d never had to control her female reaction to any injured male patient, but she was struggling with this one.
“Examine you,” she corrected, her voice breathless, and she cleared her throat. “Purely as a means to assess your physical condition and administer the appropriate treatment.”
“You a real doc?” he asked. That smile went into full-on melt-her-panties mode. “It’s my lucky day.” Looking very pleased, he smiled again, and if she hadn’t been mush already, she would have been dissolved into goo.
Oh, no, she thought, the pleasure would be all hers. She quashed that wayward thought.
“Yes…and…um, no.”
“Come again?”
“I was an MD, then I went to school and got my Ph.D. in Anthropology.”
“You went from handling live people to studying dead civilizations? What didn’t you like about doctoring?”