Deep blue eyes stared into her own, silently demanding her focus. "Stay with us. I'm going to tether us together so you can't drift off."
In the distance, Landon was almost to the shore. Cooper splashed in behind her, then came to her side. Dane swam to the other, and together, they started for the shore. Alea kept pace, not wanting to fall behind or drag them down. She looked back, but only briefly saw as the plane that was supposed to take her to freedom began to sink to its watery grave.
She stared forward resolutely. She'd brought them into her nightmare. She wasn't going to let them down.
Chapter Seven
As the sun started to sink over the horizon, Cooper thought about running from Alea. And then he thought about it again. But the truth of the matter was, she would only find him. And she'd only be more pissed off.
"Don't move. I just want to clean it." She walked up to him with a small red kit in her hands.
According to Cooper's watch, two hours had passed since the plane had sunk below the surface and into the ocean. In two hours they'd managed to build a fire, gather palm fronds and bamboo for an eventual shelter, and scout around what was now their base camp. The island was tiny. It had taken Landon a whole twenty minutes to jog the circumference.
But in that two hours, the one thing he'd managed not to do was give in to Alea's sudden desire to play nurse. It looked like that time had come to an end.
"I'm fine. Really, I used to be a medic. This little cut is nothing. Just hand me a bandage and it will be fine." Cooper went back to sorting through the food and water.
"It's only a little cut until bacteria gets inside. Then it becomes a flaming septic pus-filled wound that kills you within forty-eight hours," Alea explained, wielding her first aid kit like a sword. "I won't even go into all the bugs that would just love to burrow under your skin and make a nice home for themselves."
Cooper shrugged. "I got saltwater all in it. Salt can be very purifying."
Alea looked over his shoulder to where Dane was digging a pit. "Can't you command him or something?"
"I tried to command you to get out of those wet clothes," Dane said. "It didn't do me any good. He's a damn fine medic, as well as the absolute worst patient who ever walked the earth. He's a complete pansy when it comes to stuff like this. Oh, you can shoot him and he won't complain, but try taking off the band aid and he'll howl."
"It's a different kind of pain," Cooper grumbled.
He hadn't really had a choice the couple of times he'd been shot. The assholes who'd shot him hadn't brought him in for a consult on the situation. He looked up at Alea, his brain processing what Dane had said and finding something he might be willing to endure that sting to get. She was still in clothes. Despite the heat of the day, it was humid. They stood under the shade of the trees. She was still soaking wet.
The rest of them had immediately stripped down to their boxers and laid their clothes out to dry. Though Alea had unpacked some of the clothes they'd salvaged, they were wet, along with everything that hadn't been wrapped in plastic. She'd fashioned a clothesline by tying some rope between two palm trees and hung their garments to dry. But she was still in her skirt and top.
"Cooper Evans, you are going to let me clean and dress that wound," she said, her mouth firming.
Somehow, after years of fighting with his older brothers and dealing with Special Forces commanding officers, the gorgeous set of curves in front of him just wasn't very scary. Sexy? Hell, yeah. And it was about to get a hell of a lot sexier. "Negotiate with me."
"What?" Her mocha-colored eyes narrowed.
"Life is a negotiation, Princess. You took all those political science courses. You should know plenty about that." Yeah, he liked this idea. It had been a crapfuckingtastic day. This could make it all a little nicer. "So let's negotiate."
Her bare foot tapped on the sand. "Fine. I want to save your life."
"I want to save yours in return. Take off the clothes, Princess."
Her eyes rolled. "Don't be ridiculous."
"You're cold, Lea. You've got goose bumps all over your skin. It's going to get worse as that sun goes down." He and Dane had already talked about the fact that, after sunset, the temperature would drop. The blankets wouldn't have had time to dry out. Alea needed to sleep close to the fire, and she would need body heat. But none of that would help much if she wasn't dry first.
She frowned. "I'm not walking around here naked."