Hell or High Water (Deep Six #1)(59)

“I guess it was nothing.” She shook her head, wondering if the wind and sun and tide and…exhaustion—both physical and emotional—had finally gotten the better of her. “It’s entirely possible I’m hallucinating at this point.”

“The sunlight on the waves can play tricks on you.” He winked. And how the man could act so blasé after watching his ship get blown to smithereens, after being shot, and after fighting an underwater duel with a terrorist was beyond her. She was a wreck. I hope it doesn’t show.

“Are you okay to swim to the yacht?” he asked. Okay, so obviously some of it showed. Damnit! “I’m itchin’ to go see how the others are farin’.”

Oh yeah. The others. The men she’d dragged into this mess who were probably, right at this very moment, fighting off who-knew-how-many more tangos. “Hell yeah,” she told him, glad her tone was filled with far more determination than she actually felt.

He bobbed his head once, but before he could turn, a big, black weapon appeared behind him. And behind that were the murderous eyes of a radical. It felt like a bolt of lightning had buzzed across the top of her skull. She opened her mouth to scream a warning, but Leo’s spec-ops soldier ESP beat her to the punch. Before the tango could squeeze the trigger, Leo whirled in the water, grabbing the end of the barrel in one hand and the stock of the AK-47 in the other. As he twisted the weapon out of the radical’s grip, a spine-tingling crack echoed through the air. It could only be one thing: the terrorist’s finger bones against the trigger guard.

And, sure as shit, the man screamed in agony. His piercing cry cut off a half second later when Leo propped the confiscated AK against his shoulder and—Bam!—fired. A red hole bloomed in the middle of their enemy’s cheek, the back of his neck—

She looked away, fighting the urge to puke.

“Come on,” Leo said, slinging the strap of the AK over his shoulder before grabbing the front harness on her life jacket. He dragged her through the water toward the yacht and away, thank God, from the corpse of the radical.

For a couple of seconds, she was too nauseous to help him. Then she gave herself a mental kick in the ass for being a big, ol’ ninny and began paddling. “I got it,” she said, swallowing the bile burning at the back of her throat and forcing it back down into her roiling stomach. Eyebrow raised, he gave her a look so stoic that one would never think he’d been a split second away from taking a bullet to the brainpan. “Really. I got it.”

With a quick nod, he released her to make her own way. “Sorry you had to see—”

“You’re not really going to apologize for saving my life, are you?” she huffed.

“Nope.” A muscle near his mouth trembled. “Wouldn’t think of it.”

“Good,” she grumbled. “Because that would be ridiculous.”

“Like a trapdoor in a canoe or a back pocket on a shirt,” he said, intentionally thickening his accent.

Huh? Oh, she got it. Things that were ridiculous. “Like a screen door on a submarine,” she added.

“Like an ejection seat in a helicopter.”

“Like a white crayon.”

“Hey, now!” he said. “I used white crayons on black construction paper the time I made Casper the Friendly Ghost Halloween cards for my second-grade class.”

“My bad,” she relented, trying to imagine big, bad Leo “the Lion” Anderson as a second grader. She’d bet money he’d been adorable and smart and brave, the kind of kid to stand up to the playground bully. “So you win that round.”

“As it ever was and ever shall be, darlin’.”

“Ugh. And there’s that oversized ego all SEALs come equipped with. Somehow I was under the impression the Navy factory inadvertently forgot to install yours.”

“That ain’t the only thing that’s oversized on me.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

She rolled her eyes, fighting a smile. This was the kind of flirtatious banter they’d bandied about for three long months. Banter that made her hoot with laughter one minute and want to jump his bones the next. And now, like then, he always seemed to know when she needed him to throw in a little levity. Or, more specifically, in their jobs it was known as “gallows humor.”

When life served you a nice slice of shit pie, or when you were forced to do something awful—like put a ball of lead into someone’s face—the only way to keep from curling into the fetal position in a corner was to force yourself to remember there were still things to smile about, to laugh about. To remember the world wasn’t all bad.

See? Perceptive.

For a couple of seconds, they swam in silence. Leo easily sliced through the water beside her, the two weapons strapped to his back gently clacking against one another. She could tell he was tempering his momentum to match hers. And hers was pretty damn slow. She glanced up. Twenty yards… Just twenty more yards and they would be at the yacht.

Come on, Mortier. Power through.

“Where did that guy come from?” she asked.

“He was the one I shot off the dinghy,” Leo said. “I must’ve only winged him.”

“Ah.” She nodded, gulping when the image of the terrorist’s ruined neck flashed before her eyes and the bile threatened again. And that’s when it occurred to her. Four… She’d seen four men die violently in her life. And each time she’d been overwhelmed by nausea. To the point that it impeded her ability to function.