Page 46 of Mountain Target

“Different in a hospital,” Beau said gruffly.

“You were amazing, Valentina. You saved his life. Both of their lives.”

“Ry will fly back with them?”

“I think you should go back with them. Make sure you’re there when Ren wakes up.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

“Come,” he said softly, raising her until she was standing. “Let’s get you home.”

Even after she was upright, he kept his strong, thick arms protectively around her. She leaned back into his embrace, knowing he wouldn’t let her fall. And she wanted to tell him she was okay, that he could let go. But maybe it was the stress of the last hours, the worry for Ren … any of those things or all of them together, contributed to the completely irrepressible urge that she knew she might regret but could not help acting on.

She pulled on his arms until he looked down, his gray eyes so full of concern she wondered how she could ever have thought them—or him—cold. Then pulled herself up on tiptoes, raising her mouth to those thick, strong lips.

Something inside her rejoiced when his head came down to meet her half-way. Their lips touched—fire and ice. And she realized he wanted her as much as she wanted him. That he needed this as much as she did.

Words left her, then, and there was only the pleasure of their lips—of their souls, it felt—as they came together.

14

Beau

The sky was pitch black by the time Tristan made the last run to bring them back. His men huddled in their seats, shivering from cold and exhaustion.

They’d been out in the mountains for over fourteen hours. Together with Damien’s team, they’d rescued eight people and lost one man—an older man who’d died of a heart attack, probably around the time of the earthquake. And while it was always hard to lose someone, they recognized how lucky they’d been that the earthquake hadn’t struck in a populated area.

“You all did good work out there today,” Beau said. Lorenz didn’t react, and it took Beau an instant to realize he was asleep already—that man could sleep standing up. Alex cracked his eyes open and gave him a tired nod, while Ry and Hugo gave each other a tired high five.

As tired as they all were—and they were on the edge of crumbling—Beau couldn’t help but be jealous of the way they jumped so easily out of the helicopter, when his knee was locked so tight it felt like it would shatter if he put any more pressure on it.

“Hold on,” he said once he was finally on the ground, “let me find a gendarme to drive you home.”

“My car’s right there,” Ry replied, his expression testy. “I can drive.”

Beau shook his head. They were in no state to get behind the wheel. “You’re not driving home.”

“Isn’t that a bit of a double standard?” Alex said, looking pointedly at Beau’s bike.

Beau shrugged, staring the man down until his friend looked away, still grumbling something under his breath.

That was Beau’s prerogative. And anyway, he wasn’t worried about himself. As bone-tired as he was, he didn’t think he’d be able to sleep.

His mind went back to that mind-blowing kiss.

He shook his head, pissed off at himself.

One would think you’d never kissed a woman before.

He’d followed up with Valentina in several terse messages—knew she’d been there by the time Ren had been discharged, that the two of them had gone home together, and that Ren wasn’t in pain. But he hadn’t dared mention the kiss, even if he’d been thinking about it all fucking day. So even though he wondered if her lips were still tingling, same as his, he didn’t say anything about that.

And he wouldn’t. Because anything he said could lead both of them to imagine things that weren’t … he looked in his mind for the right word … appropriate for their respective realities.

The knowledge that he was doing the right thing should have brought him peace, but instead his chest felt like it was trapped in a vise.

It didn’t take him long to find someone to drive his team home. He was suddenly glad three of the guys were living together—it certainly made it easier for the poor gendarme stuck with driving duty.

“We have a meeting with Bristow and his team at noon tomorrow. I don’t want to see any of you in the office before then,” he said, dismissing them.