Full Throttle (Black Knights Inc. #7)(76)
And, sí, he knew all about that. He’d seen and done things in the Rangers and working for BKI that were easy to rationalize in his mind, but not so easy to accept in his heart. “That part is always trickier. But you know how you make their sacrifice worth it?”
She blinked at him. “No. How?”
“By living. By loving. By laughing. Their job was to make sure you were always around to do all three. And you honor them anytime you do.”
One corner of her mouth pulled back. “You know, I used to think you missed your calling to be a Calvin Klein underwear model by going to med school and then joining the army. But now I think you should have studied to be a psychiatrist. You may not say much, Carlos Soto.” She reached forward to place her hand over his heart, and he wondered if she could feel that it beat only for her. “But when you do say something, it tends to be the right thing.”
“And that’s what I’ve been trying to tell everyone for years.” He made a face, grabbing her fingers and lifting them to his lips. Then, “A Calvin Klein underwear model? As my mother used to say, Dios no lo quiera. Heaven forbid.”
She laughed, and the sound was like church bells ringing.
“That’s better.” He winked at her before turning to continue after Yonus.
For a few moments they hiked in silence, letting the humming, buzzing, screeching chorus of the forest sing them a tune. And for the first time in probably…well, ever…he discovered himself not necessarily enjoying the jungle, but not exactly hating it either. It was still hot as hell. The humidity was still so high it’d likely bust a hygrometer. The frackin’ mosquitoes were still as big as city buses. But Abby was by his side. And not too long ago she’d given him the kind of sex that made his head spin, his heart ache, and his dick swell and pound inside his pants with the need for more. Much more.
He wondered what Boss would say to him taking off for a week or so once they got back stateside, when a florescent-green bird with bright-blue feathers on its chest buzzed by him. The brilliantly plumed fowl was hot on the trail of a fuchsia-colored dragonfly that darted and dipped as it raced toward the safety of the jungle on the opposite side of the logging road.
He smiled after the pair despite the fact that they were locked in a deadly game of cat and mouse…uh…bird and dragonfly? And that’s when he realized he was…happy. He was still itching to make it over the Thai border. Still concerned with who might be the mole. Still scared to death for Ozzie. But all those things played second fiddle to the fact that Abby adored him. She adored him!
“What are you smiling about?” she asked, dragging him from his thoughts. Then her gaze pinged down to the fly of his cargo pants, where he was still semi-erect. “Never mind.” She rolled her eyes. “Of course that’s what’s behind that goofy grin. What else would it be?”
It was so good to hear her sling a gibe that he refrained from reaching over to throw an arm around her shoulders and smack a kiss on her soft, wonderful lips. Instead, he decided to play along. “And what’s that supposed to mean?” he asked, narrowing his eyes in mock warning.
“That as a gender, your minds, when not occupied with the task of making war somewhere, are usually either filled with thoughts of sex, beer, or the latest baseball scores.”
“That’s not true,” he informed her, lifting his nose haughtily.
“It’s not?” she asked.
“No. Most times we’re thinking about all three at once.”
Snorting, she nudged him with her elbow. He, of course, nudged her right back.
“Stop it,” she told him, feigning a frown.
“You stop it,” he retorted. And now the grin he wore had nothing to do with thoughts of sex. Instead, his mind was filled with love.
“Gah!” She shook her head, mistaking his expression. “And there’s that grin again.”
“Don’t act like you don’t like it.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her, slowly giving her a wink. “Because I know for a fact that you do.”
“And why would you possibly be suffering under that delusion?”
“Because Rosa told me you once told her that my smile was the sweetest you’d ever seen. And that my dimple should be outlawed.” And you had better believe that had stayed with him through the years. There’d been times when he thought he wouldn’t make it out of this battle or live through that mission that he closed his eyes and relived the memory of the day his sister fed him that delicious little nugget, imagining Abby’s adorable face as she confessed.
He expected her to hit back with one of her patented jabs. So watching her face blanch and then crumble caught him completely off guard. “Ah, hell. I didn’t mean to—”
“No.” She shook her head, lifting a hand to stop him. “Please don’t apologize for anything. Really.”
Back in the hut, he’d noticed she had a difficult time talking about his sister. And the question of why she was still mourning Rosa so vigorously bothered him. It’d been eight years. His own grief had mellowed from a sharp, searing pain that nearly brought him to his knees to a soft, blunt kind of remorse that was almost wistful in its melancholy.
Yes, he missed Rosa like crazy. And there wasn’t a day that went by when he didn’t think of her and wish she was still by his side, still giving him shit, and still holding the fact that she was a full two minutes older than him over his head. But he’d managed to move on with his life, move past his sorrow to a place where he could look back with laughter and love on the time he’d spent with her.