Page 24 of Her Faithful Protector

“Camilla Ross is supposed to be some kind of teacher or leader on this expedition. The rest are mostly undergrads. Some of them come from really wealthy families, the bios are coming in slowly.”

“What’s the four-one-one on the tour guide, do we have anything more on her?” Max asked.

“She’s led wilderness tours in Alaska, Montana, and Wyoming. She just started doing tours down here in Mexico this year. It’s strange because they don’t pay as well.”

“Are you thinking she’s in on it?” Asher asked.

Kane shrugged.

“Doesn’t make sense if she’s the one who made the S.O.S. call. I say we look at her as a friendly who can actually be of use,” Max said grimly. He turned to Nic. “What about Camilla, she’s a teacher. Does she have any skills that would help?”

“Last time I saw her was six years ago. I don’t know.”

“Okay.” Max nodded. “Zed, you take point. Everyone else spread out. These tracks are too easy to follow; I want everyone on alert to make sure there are no booby-traps, or any unfriendlies left behind.” Everyone gave Max an answer in the affirmative.

7

“Tell me about her,” Kane coaxed. Or was he demanding? Nic couldn’t tell, nor did he care, he just kept jogging forward. Forward, they needed to move forward. Fast. They needed to go faster.

“Nic. We’ll get there, man. We’re going to do this. But we’ve got to do it right. You’ve got to trust our team, the men up front. You can’t get ahead of them.”

Why is Zed on point? Godammit, I should be on point!

“Nic, slow down, you’re getting ahead of the others. You know our position.”

Nic didn’t answer.

“Sailor!”

He turned his head. Kane was stone-faced, which was never good. He stopped in his tracks. Fuck, the man was right. He needed to get his head in the game. But…

Cami!

They were to the right of the barely-there road that the Jeeps had used to traverse through the jungle. Just in case someone was on that trail, they wanted to be out of sight.

“Nic, you gotta talk to me,” Kane cajoled. “Who is Camilla Ross to you? You said you haven’t seen her for six years, man. She’s practically a stranger now, right?”

He adjusted his rifle, making sure that it was secure and that he was ready for anything. He felt Kane’s eyes on him.

“Once she was everything,” he finally spit out. “Once she was my other half.” Nic figured his voice was so low that Kane couldn’t hear him above the cacophony of birds and monkeys and other jungle noises. He was wrong.

“But you were kids, right?” Kane’s voice was soft too.

“Does that really matter?” Nic refused to look at his teammate.

They continued on for long minutes.

“No, it doesn’t matter,” Kane finally answered. “With A.J. it could be decades and I would still be there.”

“Six years is damn near a decade,” Nic spit out. “We’ve changed. There have been others. I don’t know how she feels.”

“I always knew your horn dog persona was bullshit.”

Nic’s head turned so fast it was amazing he didn’t give himself whiplash. “What are you talking about?”

“Nic Hale, man whore. Nope, doesn’t compute.”

Nic was seriously confused. “How do you see that?”