“He’s the newcomer. Just showed up one day. Rata didn’t like having another male around his pod, but they’re buddies now. Took some time and quite a few fights, though.” She patted his arm. “Your pod has a lot more alpha males in it than Rata’s. You’ll get the kinks worked out.”
But will it be in time to save her brother? He knew that was what she was thinking, and gave her props for not saying it aloud.
“Why’d you name him Phil?” he asked after a moment of bumping along in comfortable silence. “Why not something more exotic?”
“He’s not an exotic guy. He’s happy and sweet and laid-back. Phil suited him.” She shrugged, and the strap of that slinky yellow tank slipped off her shoulder, showing a whole lot of golden brown skin and freckles.
No tan lines. Jesus.
The image of her stretched out naked on a dock with dolphins dancing in the ocean around her took up residence in his brain right next door to his libido. He tried to shake it by recalling the directions to the limo driver’s house that he’d committed to memory. A forty-five minute drive southeast to a small town in the Amazon region where jungle tangled around the base of the mountains.
And he was still picturing her naked.
It was going to be a long ride.
…
“There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Jesse pulled his stethoscope from around his neck, tossed it inside his medical bag, and snapped the clasps closed. “Want a lolly now?”
“Fuck you.” Quinn grabbed his shirt and stuffed an arm in the sleeve, muttering something that sounded like, “I hate doctors,” with expletives thrown between each word for good measure.
Jesse shook his head. Different dance partner, same ol’ tune. He had almost come to miss it since leaving the military. He’d tended to lots of guys like Travis Quinn back then—burned out and perpetually as mean as a caged bull because of it, but in for the long haul because they had nothing else. The type that knew he wasn’t invincible and just didn’t give a rat’s hairy ass. The type that didn’t exactly have a death wish, but neither did he have anything to live for.
It was a sad, lonely place for a man to be, and could have so very easily been Jesse if it weren’t for his little boy. He’d already been on the edge of it when Connor was born, which was why Lacy divorced him and threatened to take away his son two months later when he got kicked out of Delta Force. Shit, he couldn’t even blame her for it. He’d been a piece of work back then. Pissed off, depressed. That threat was the boot in the ass he’d needed to pull himself together, and he’d done it right quick. His boy meant everything to him.
Quinn needed something like that, something to mean everything, but he’d never open himself up enough for it. And he’d probably kick Jesse’s ass to Jackson Hole and back for giving that particular medical opinion seeing’s how he hated doctors and all.
“I’m not a doctor yet,” Jesse said good-naturedly instead. He would be, though, then his son wouldn’t need to worry about whether or not he’d come home alive from his next mission. HORNET was just a means to an end, a way to keep his skills sharp and bring in extra cash to cover the expenses of med school.
“Close enough. Are we—” As Quinn turned to grab his boots from the floor, something happened—Jesse saw it, like a flipped light switch blew a fuse inside his head. His face blanked. His eyes, though open, went vacant as the Wyoming plains in the middle of winter.
“Shit!” Jesse shot to Quinn’s side, hat flying off his head from the speed of the movement, and wrapped an arm around his waist in case he toppled.
And, just like that, he snapped back. “What the…? Get the hell off me.”
“Nah, pal, you should have a seat.” And a freakin’ CAT scan. Unfortunately, the latter wasn’t readily available in Bumfuck, Colombia. The former was, and Jesse maneuvered Quinn into a nearby chair, then reopened his medical bag. “How long have you been blacking out?”
“I haven’t.”
Jesse snorted, looped a blood pressure cuff around Quinn’s upper arm, and clipped a pulse oximeter to his finger. “I already made a point about your bullshit earlier, so I’ll refrain from beating a dead horse by repeatin’ myself. How long?”
“It’s nothing,” he muttered. “I haven’t eaten. I’ll get some food and be fine in a few minutes.”
“Are you diabetic?” No answer. “Goddangit, you might as well tell me. I’ll find out.”
Quinn said nothing, just stared mulishly at the opposite wall, his jaw clenched so hard his right eye ticked. His blood pressure and pulse were a little high, his O2 low. Not good, but expected after an episode like that. Whatever that was.