When he regained at least a semblance of consciousness, he looked down to see Rachel staring up at him with her heart in her eyes. His breath caught in his throat. Then she said it.
“I love you, Ethan.”
Tears blurred his vision, sharp and stinging. He didn’t have words. He couldn’t have spoken if he’d wanted to. The knot in his throat threatened to choke him. He tried to breathe around it and found himself closed off.
“Oh God, baby. I love you too. So damn much.”
He dropped his forehead to hers, and both their chests heaved against each other as they tried to catch up.
After several seconds, he wondered if he’d dreamed it, if his need to hear it had manifested itself in fantasy.
“Say it again,” he choked out.
Her eyes went soft, and she framed his face with her hands. For a moment she idly stroked the contours of his jaw and stared up at him with so much emotion reflected in her gaze.
“I love you. I love you so much, Ethan. I may not remember everything, but if feels right. We feel right. I’m as sure of this as I am of anything.”
A tear splashed onto her cheek. He hadn’t even felt it fall. His breath simmered in and out as he tried to hold in the emotion. It was like a dam breaking, though. He simply gathered her in his arms, their bodies still joined, and held on for dear life.
CHAPTER 33
THE stench of death lay heavy in the air. Rio eased his hand up to halt his men and then signaled them to fan out and circle. His gut was screaming that this wasn’t right. Any of it.
The air smelled of blood. Fresh blood. His nostrils flared and quivered as he took position in a dense snarl of plants. He blended seamlessly into his environment, more of a chameleon than a human. With slow, careful movements, he sighted his rifle on the encampment below and did a sweep.
He mentally crossed himself. Sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph but it was a brutal sight, and he’d pretty much seen all there was to see when it came to death and murder.
What he saw wasn’t an efficient kill zone. It was a message. A bloody one. Bodies were spread out over the area like litter at a campsite.
Whoever had performed the massacre had been gone at least twelve hours. Rio could detect no movement, no sign of life from the silent village. But he wouldn’t take any chances with his men until they knew for certain the area was clear.
Patiently he waited and watched. Even the carrion hadn’t found the fresh bodies yet, and in the jungle, scavenging was sometimes the difference between life and death.
He carefully moved from his cover and let out a low call to his men to converge on the camp. They came in a tight circumference, their rifles up, their gazes cautiously skirting left and right for the slightest warning they weren’t alone.
Dead men didn’t make any sounds, and all that was left here was the dead.
Rio stepped over two bodies on the edge of the clearing where the huts began and the jungle gave way to the encampment. Rachel Kelly had been held for a year in just such a place as this. Anger blazed through his veins. It was no place for a woman. There was no telling what the animals had done to her.
He noted with grim satisfaction that the assholes had been spared no quarter. Poor bastards probably never knew what hit them. Whoever had performed the hit had come in with fire-power to rival an army.
Terrence stepped into the center of the village and looked toward Rio. Then he signaled the all clear. One by one, his men pushed out of the jungle, their expressions hard as they studied the carnage.
“Somebody did our work for us, I see,” Terrence said as Rio approached him.
“Dead men don’t talk, though,” Rio said in disgust.
Terrence nodded. “Could be why they were killed.”
“It’s highly coincidental that within days of our guys here setting up a new camp after the old one was destroyed in Rachel’s rescue, someone comes through here and takes out the entire village, and I don’t believe in coincidence.”
“Yep, too convenient if you ask me,” Terrence agreed. “Whoever did this didn’t want any loose ends, that’s for damn sure.”
Rio scowled. Sam wasn’t going to be happy. Hell, he wasn’t happy. He’d been looking forward to kicking some cartel