The weight and wriggle of him in Hugh’s hands felt too familiar. Too painful.
He thrust the child at Cuervo. “Make sure they stay together. He’s hers.” Stuffing his fists into his pockets, he nodded to the gurney disappearing into a medical tent. “Amelia Bailey. She’s his aunt, adoption completed just before the earthquake.”
“Right.” Cuervo secured the kid against his chest. “Will follow through. You should go back to the hooch, clean up, and sleep. You look like hell, by the way.”
“Thanks. I’m outta here.” He pivoted on his heel. Away from the woman.
Away from the kid smiling at him with six tiny teeth.
His throat closed up.
Major McCabe clapped him on the back. “You had us worried there for a while.”
“When have I ever not come out okay?” He scanned the ruins for someplace to help, another mission to take on, the crazier the better, because sleep suddenly didn’t sound like a good idea, with nightmares sure to haunt him. Better to work himself unconscious instead. A good plan. It had carried him through the past five years just fine.
“Hey.” McCabe snapped his fingers in front of Hugh’s face, drawing his attention back. “You can’t count on that kind of logic to carry you through forever. I should have your ass for not coming out after you stabilized your patient.”
“Staying kept her stable.” He frowned, his jaw jutting. “Write me up if you need to, but I wouldn’t change a thing.”
McCabe sighed like a weary parent. “Let Rocha check you over. Now. We need to make sure you’re not hiding any injuries.”
He grinned, forcing a smile through caked-on grime so the major wouldn’t realize how blown to shit his insides were. He refused to be benched. “Would I do that?”
“Yes you would. Go. It’s an order.”
“Yes, sir.”
A light breeze parted the stifling air, welcomed for the cooling. Dreaded as it stirred the flies and the stench. Snakes and rats already scavenged through the debris. The fetid wind rolled across the uneven landscape, gathered grit and stray papers before lifting the door flap of the nearest medical tent…
His boots picked up speed toward the field hospital they’d put together shortly after landing. Triage was in place for major injuries to the left, minor to the right. Lines of wounded streamed out of both. His teammate Wade Rocha was already waiting, just as the major had insisted.
Still, Hugh checked one last time… just as Amelia’s stretcher reached the tent flap. He could swear she stared back at him, held him with those intensely blue eyes. Eyes that reached down deep in his gut and twisted.
He’d only felt this connection once before in his life. The day he’d looked at Marissa’s tear-filled eyes as she’d begged him to get her Siamese out of the tree. Next thing he’d known, he was hauling his ass up a twenty-foot oak.
He didn’t want this.
The past few hours had proven beyond a doubt that Amelia Bailey was dangerous as hell to his peace of mind. More than ever he couldn’t afford this during a mission that already put him raw and on edge.
And still… He bolted across the jutting mass of broken concrete. His eyes locked on the stretcher being carried to a drab green tent, the canvas flapping in the muggy air, stirring fat flies around.
He grabbed the arm of a foreign medic, a wiry guy with a top-of-the-line Motorola two-way radio and a clipboard. “Where will she go after you finish here?”
“There are already over a dozen makeshift hospital sites being set up in schools and churches.” The foreign soldier covered the mouthpiece on the walkie-talkie and tucked the clipboard under his arm. “It’s going to be a matter of which one can take them.”
“I know it’s chaotic right now, but if she’s not going to be flown out—”
“Do you know this woman?”
So easily he could end this now. He could do what he would—and should—in any rescue situation. Ensure the appropriate personnel made a record of the pertinent information, such as her connection to the child, then move on to the next case.
He could not be personally responsible for every individual he saved. It wasn’t practical, feasible, or mentally advisable, if he wanted to keep from falling the rest of the way off the deep end.
But then he’d stopped giving a shit about his sanity five years ago.
Hugh looked back at Amelia, under the sheet with only her face and one arm sticking out. “Yeah, her and the kid… They’re mine.”
Chapter 4