Special Forces Rendezvous Page 3

  A short silence descended, during which Julia tried to come up with a way to ask him if he was sticking around for a while, without sounding like she cared if he was sticking around for a while. After a moment, she gave up. Screw it. She hated playing games, or saying anything less than what was on her mind.

  So she opened her mouth and said, “Are you sticking around in San Marquez for a while?”

  A regretful look entered his eyes. “I’m afraid not. I’m on a nine-o’clock flight back to Ecuador.”

  Disappointment skidded through her, but she hoped it didn’t show on her face. She trailed after him toward the older-model Jeep parked a few dozen yards away. She couldn’t help but admire his taut ass, which looked ridiculously good in those cargo pants of his.

  Oh, boy. She was totally lusting after this man.

  And he was leaving. Just her luck.

  Sebastian opened the driver’s door, but didn’t make a move to hop into the Jeep. Instead, he offered an awkward-looking shrug. She got the feeling this man didn’t feel awkward or nervous often, and she fought a smile as she watched him shift his feet.

  “Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Doc.”

  “It was no problem at all.”

  He cleared his throat. “And if, er, if I find myself in these parts again, maybe I can come see you...”

  He trailed off, making it unclear whether that was a question or a statement.

  She treated it like the former. “Sure, I’d like that.”

  Their gazes collided, and there it was again, the crackle of heat, the sizzle of awareness. Her nipples promptly puckered and strained against her white cotton bra, and that spot between her legs throbbed with anticipation. Jeez. You’d think she hadn’t had sex in two years or something.

  Oh, right. She hadn’t had sex in two years.

  Pushing aside the sarcastic thoughts, she focused on Sebastian, who looked ready to say more. Julia held her breath, waiting for him to speak, but then an indefinable expression washed over his face. She glimpsed reluctance, regret, even a cloud of torment, and before she could try to make sense of it, he slid into the driver’s seat and shoved a key in the ignition.

  “Keep up the good work, Doc.” He raised his voice so she could hear him over the rumble of the engine.

  She swallowed another dose of disappointment. “Have a safe flight,” she told him, and then she stepped away from the vehicle and raised her hand in a wave.

  The Jeep raised a cloud of brown dust as Sebastian executed a U-turn and sped toward the gravel road that would lead him back to civilization.

  “Who was that?”

  Julia turned around in time to see Lissa Purdue descending the porch steps and striding in her direction. Out of all the staff at the clinic, she was closest with Lissa, the fun-loving Australian nurse she’d been bunking with for the past six months.

  “That was that journalist I told you about,” Julia answered, her eyes still focused on the Jeep, which was slowly disappearing from view.

  “For real? Because that was one crazy-hot bloke.”

  She sighed. “Yes, he was.”

  Lissa’s jaw fell open. “No way. The perpetually professional Dr. Davenport is showing not-so-professional interest in a bloke? Are you ill, love?”

  She rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t very well argue. It was true, the opposite sex hadn’t interested her much since she’d arrived on the island. While some of the other women—Lissa included—had no qualms about flirting with the single males in their vicinity, Julia made an effort to keep things professional.

  There were several attractive men working at the clinic, including Kevin Carlisle and Simone’s single father, Marcus, but Julia wasn’t one to mess around with a coworker. During her last placement in Ethiopia, she’d watched two colleagues fall in love—and then she’d witnessed the relationship crash and burn, making life downright unbearable for everyone who’d had the misfortune of being around.

  Unfortunately, with her coworkers off-limits, she didn’t have many other options in terms of sex or romance. Aside from the cute pilot who dropped off supplies every two months, there were no other single, eligible men to lust over.

  “You should’ve asked him to stay for dinner,” Lissa added, slinging an arm around Julia’s shoulder.

  At six feet, Lissa towered over Julia’s five-foot-five frame. Some of the men on staff teased the Aussie about her monstrous height, but truth was, everyone was a little bit in awe of Lissa. Now Lissa would definitely be Sebastian Stone’s type. A tall, gorgeous redhead with a great rack and endless legs?

  Call her selfish, but Julia was kind of glad Sebastian had already left before Lissa came outside. No doubt the man would have been drooling all over his hiking boots.

  “He had a flight to catch,” she replied as the two women headed inside.

  “Pity. You could’ve benefited from a good shag.”

  Julia burst out laughing. “Why are you so concerned with my sex life? Seriously, you talk about it a scary amount.”

  “I just don’t like seeing my mates work themselves to the bone, love. I wish you’d let yourself have some fun.”

  “I’ll have fun in three months.”

  She neglected to mention how incredibly not fun the thought of heading home was, but because Doctors International demanded mandatory breaks between placements, she had no choice but to return to Boston when her time was up.

  The nine-months-on, three-months-off cycle was liable to kill her. She’d joined D.I. the second she’d finished her residency, and she’d been with the organization for three years now. She was already dreading returning to Boston and twiddling her thumbs for twelve weeks while she waited for her next cycle to begin. She usually spent the time off taking shifts at a colleague’s private practice and counting the days until she could go overseas again.

  “Anyway,” she added as they headed for the small nurses’ station past the waiting room, “you can have fun for the both of us.” She grinned. “That is, if you’re still planning on seducing Kev?”

  “Definitely,” Lissa declared, her vivid green eyes shining with mischief. “The second you and Marcus graciously bestow me with a night off, I will be sneaking into Dr. Carlisle’s tent and finally putting us both out of our misery.”

  “You have been dancing around each other for six months now. It’s about time.”

  “Exactly.” Lissa pulled out the elastic restraining her hair and retied the curly red strands in a fresh ponytail. “I’ll see you later, love. Sally needs help with those vaccinations.”

  Julia watched the nurse bounce off in her usual lively fashion. Earlier, when she’d told Sebastian that her colleagues were her family, she hadn’t been kidding. Lissa truly had become like a sister to her. Kevin was her teasing older brother. Marcus was the father figure she’d lacked her entire life. Helga, the midwife on staff, was the sweet grandmother who handed out endless words of wisdom.

  With both her father and sister gone, Julia was all alone in the world. Sure, she still had her mother, but the two of them had never been close, and once Darlene moved to the West Coast a few years back, they’d completely lost touch. Not that Julia was beat-up over it—Darlene Davenport was a cold, self-absorbed woman without a single maternal bone in her body, and Julia was better off without her.

  “Jules, I need you in here.”

  Shifting her gaze, she caught sight of Nadir Patel poking his head out of an exam room. Along with Julia, Kevin and Marcus, Nadir was the fourth physician on staff. In his native India, he had run a thriving pediatrics practice, so he was responsible for dealing with the younger patients in Valero.

  “Everything okay?” she called.

  “I’m attempting to take a blood sample and our patient is a tad cranky. Perhaps you could lend a hand?”

  A loud, petulant wail came from the exam room, telling Julia that Nadir’s patient was more than a tad cranky.

  “Sure thing,” she called back.

  Ten minutes
later, she’d successfully assisted Nadir in drawing blood from the bawling two-year-old. Afterward, she went to check on her own patients, pleased to see that many of the ones who’d come in complaining of malaria-like symptoms were no longer showing signs of the parasite. She still couldn’t release them until the blood test results were in, but she was fairly confident they weren’t looking at a serious outbreak.

  For the next three hours, she bustled around the clinic, doing everything from stitching up patients to changing bedpans. Her white coat might label her a doctor, but the clinic was so understaffed that the responsibility lines blurred significantly, and Julia often found herself being not just a doctor, but also a nurse, a surgeon, a janitor, a cook, a babysitter or any other job that cropped up.

  It was no surprise that by the time nine o’clock rolled by she was ready to collapse. Because she was on the evening shift, she hadn’t eaten dinner with her colleagues. She’d scarfed down a can of cold beans during a break between patients, and her stomach rumbled with hunger by the time she shrugged out of her coat and left the clinic through the back doors.

  The D.I. staff lived in heavy canvas tents behind the building. There were four large tents, two for the men, two for the women, which housed six cots each, and along with those, there were a few smaller tents for people with special circumstances; one for Simone, and the others were reserved for the married staff.

  She strode to the tent she shared with Lissa and two other nurses—Kendra, a lovely African-American woman from Detroit, and Marie-Thérèse, a young French blonde right out of nursing school.

  Kendra was passed out on one of the cots, so Julia tried to be quiet as she sank onto the edge of her cot. She dimmed the battery-operated lamp so as not to disturb the sleeping nurse, then opened one of the two drawers and pulled out her toiletry kit.

  As tired as she was, she wanted a cool shower before bed to wash off the heat and grime of the day. There was a bathroom and shower area behind the tents, which they shared with the men. Not that it mattered much in such primitive conditions, but a schedule had been arranged to preserve the modesty of those who actually still cared about things like that. Julia was always far too exhausted to worry about who might see her naked.

  She stood up with her toiletries in hand, then froze when the radio on the night stand began to crackle. Shooting a quick look at Kendra, she grabbed the radio and hurried out of the tent, ducking through the flap.

  Outside, the small recreation area was deserted, and she headed for the long picnic-style tables where the staff usually congregated for meals.

  “J-J-Julia...c-can...h-hear me?”

  She could barely make out the tinny voice emerging from the speakers, but it sounded like Kevin’s. Her brows furrowed as it suddenly occurred to her that he still hadn’t come back.

  As more static hissed out of the radio, she clicked the button and said, “Kevin, is that you?”

  “J-Julia...”

  She heard him more clearly this time. Relief swept through her. All right, at least he was still in one piece. He’d probably decided to spend the night in one of the villages rather than trek it back to the clinic in the dark.

  “Kev, do you read me? Where are you?”

  “I...village...Esperanza...”

  Julia frowned. “Esperanza? Why did you go so far north?”

  More static, followed by what sounded like a round of heavy coughing. “Things...h-here...bad.”

  For the first time since she’d heard her colleague’s voice, a real pang of concern tugged at her gut. “Kev? What’s going on there?”

  “I...t-treatment...don’t know...never seen it before.”

  Unease circled her spine like a school of sharks. Her palms started to tingle as a wave of panic swelled inside her.

  “The water...maybe...don’t know.” Kevin sounded more anguished, and his British accent grew more pronounced, the way it always did when he was upset. “B-bad, Jules... Don’t know wh-what’s wrong with me...stay away.”

  Those last two words sent a chill through her body.

  “Y-you hear me, Julia? D-don’t come here.” He repeated himself, more desperate now. “Don’t...come...here.”

  And then the radio fell silent.

  Chapter 3

  “You’re at a church? You’re kidding, right?” The incredulous voice of Second Lieutenant Nick Prescott blared out of the satellite phone.

  Chuckling, Sebastian swept his gaze over the single-story brick building a hundred yards away. Two simple wooden crosses were the only hints that it was a church, one adorning the door, the other affixed on the roof. A yellow glow spilled out of the window at the side of the structure, telling Sebastian that the elderly priest who’d shown him hospitality was still awake in his quarters.

  “No joke,” he replied. “Though technically I’m in a barn.”

  He glanced behind him at the darkened entrance of the little barn he’d be spending the night in. He’d already scouted the area to make sure it was safe, and now he was looking forward to collapsing on the big pile of hay in that empty stall and falling asleep listening to the snorts and neighs of the priest’s two Appaloosa mares.

  “So you ran out of gas, and instead of hiking to the nearest gas station, you decided to spend the night in the San Marquez countryside?” Nick’s confusion only seemed to deepen. “And since when do you not carry an extra gas can with you? You’re like the poster boy for always prepared.”

  “I had an extra can,” he muttered, swallowing a rush of frustration. “Someone stole it. Most likely one of the patients at the clinic, because I can’t imagine anyone on staff robbing the reporter who’s there to write a story about them.”

  And if he hadn’t been so distracted by Julia Davenport’s big hazel eyes, maybe he would have noticed the missing gas container when he was leaving the clinic.

  Fortunately, once the Jeep could no longer run on fumes, at least it had the decency to break down near this church.

  “Fine. That doesn’t explain why you’re not walking to the gas station as we speak.”

  Sebastian stifled a sigh. He couldn’t explain why he needed this respite. It didn’t make much sense—he definitely couldn’t afford to be lazy right now. Unless he wanted to spend the rest of his life on the run, he needed to find out who wanted him dead, and to do that, he had to learn everything he could about Project Aries and the mysterious virus Richard Harrison had been testing on those villagers.

  But this was the first time in a long time he’d been alone. Without Tate or Nick lurking around, without that feeling of urgency weighing down on him. Not that the situation was any less urgent. It was as critical as ever. It just didn’t feel so...smothering at the moment.

  A part of him wished he had stuck around in Valero, maybe talked Julia Davenport into having a cup of coffee with him.

  Oh, fine, who was he kidding? He would have talked her into going to bed with him.

  He’d been thinking about the woman all damn night, and he still couldn’t figure out how a skinny, overworked doctor could get his blood going like this. Hell, he’d barely even blinked when he’d met the drop-dead gorgeous Eva Dolce last month, and Eva oozed sex appeal. Julia Davenport was pretty, sure, but she wasn’t sex incarnate or anything.

  So why had he been having X-rated thoughts about the woman ever since he’d left the clinic?

  A sigh lodged in his throat. It was probably a good thing he hadn’t stuck around. Sex had the power to be distracting as hell, and at the moment, he couldn’t afford any distractions.

  “I’ll catch a boat tomorrow morning,” he told Nick. “There’s no reason for me to rush, anyway. This malaria thing was a false alarm.”

  “It would help if we knew what symptoms to look for. We don’t know a damn thing about the virus that killed those people in Corazón.” Nick grumbled in aggravation. “Are you sure Cruz didn’t offer any other details about the state of those bodies?”

  “You can keep asking that question a hundred mo
re times, Prescott, but it won’t change the damn answer. Cruz said the only visible signs of illness were nosebleeds and some foaming at the mouth. That’s it.”

  The irony of the situation didn’t escape him. All the information they had on the virus had come from a source that could hardly be considered trustworthy—Hector Cruz, the former leader of the ULF, who was now very much dead thanks to Tate. But although Cruz had been responsible for killing Tate’s brother during that ill-fated mission in Corazón, the rebel leader had insisted that he hadn’t laid a finger on his countrymen and women, whose dead bodies had been strewn all over the village.

  Cruz and his men had apparently burned the bodies in case they were contagious, but Sebastian still wished he’d seen the evidence of a disease with his own eyes rather than having to take a dead man’s word for it.

  “Well, it probably isn’t something that’s found in nature,” Nick was saying, still sounding incredibly irritated. “Harrison headed up the biological weapons department at D&M Initiative, so we have to assume the virus he was testing was manufactured.”

  Sebastian let out a breath. “Yeah, and it’s probably a mutated strain of something or other, which means it’s doubtful there’s an existing vaccine for it.”

  Nick’s answering breath was equally glum. “Can’t be government-sanctioned either. President Howard has been firm about his position on the manufacturing of biological weapons.”

  Unlike his glass-half-full counterpart, Sebastian was far more cynical. “Oh, this is government. But my guess is Mr. President knows nothing about it. I think we’ve got a bad apple trying to poison the rest of the tree.”

  “Maybe.” Nick mumbled an uncharacteristic curse. “Look, just get your ass back here, Seb. Eva and her hacker friend are looking into Project Aries and trying to find out who worked on it. Once we have some names, Tate says you and I should go stateside and do some digging.”

  His brows shot up. “The captain actually thinks it’s safe for us to go home?”