Defending Zara (Mountain Mercenaries #6)(4)

With one hand, he pushed up on whatever was above him, but wasn’t really surprised when it didn’t move. What he was surprised by was the severity of the pain that went through his body. It was enough to make him see stars, and he had to close his eyes and pant a bit to help alleviate the agony. It was more than obvious he wasn’t going to be able to physically fight his way out of whatever box he’d been put in. He just had to wait the situation out. Assess things, then make plans to get back to Black and the rest of the team.

Lying on his side in the box was excruciatingly painful. Every breath felt as if nails were being driven into his side. Meat knew he probably had a couple fractured or broken ribs as well as a dislocated shoulder. He felt nauseous, which meant he most likely had a concussion too. But it was his ankle that worried him the most. He could fight with broken ribs and a concussion, but he wouldn’t get far on a bum ankle.

Just then, his body was flung slightly forward, and his shoeless feet slammed against the box. There was loud shouting, and the box he was in teetered from side to side for a moment before steadying.

Meat didn’t hear much of anything else, because when his feet hit the wall of the box, it felt as if his ankle had taken a hit from a sledgehammer.

Gasping for breath and feeling light-headed, Meat fought against losing consciousness, but it was no use. There was only so much pain he could take, and he passed out once more.



Zara swore under her breath. She’d been thinking too much about the man behind her and had almost ridden out into the middle of an intersection. The last thing she needed was to get run over with her illegal cargo.

She ignored the people yelling at her from their cars as they passed, and tried to control her breathing as she waited for the light to turn green so she could cross the street. She was almost at Daniela’s neighborhood, and while she wouldn’t look too out of place there, riding her bike and pulling a trailer seemingly filled with trash, she also didn’t blend in as well as she did in the slums.

Daniela wouldn’t know she was on her way, but it didn’t matter. She’d take in Zara and the patient without any issues.

Pedaling around to the back of the house, Zara climbed off the bike and opened the wooden door in the fence. She pushed the bike through, then carefully closed the door behind her. She steered the bike between two beat-up old cars and left it there for the time being. She quickly ran to the door and knocked.

For a heartbeat, Zara thought maybe Daniela wasn’t home, but she breathed a sigh of relief when the doctor finally opened the door.

“Got a patient for me today, Zed?” Daniela asked in Spanish.

Zara had no idea if Daniela knew she was a woman and not a teenage boy, but she hadn’t offered up any explanations, and the doctor hadn’t pried.

Nodding, Zara turned back to the bicycle. She shifted a few things around on the trailer, then unhooked it and lifted the lid.

Her heart lurched when she saw the man lying so still inside. For a second, she thought he was dead, but then she saw his chest rise and fall with a labored breath.

Closing her eyes in relief, Zara was having a hard time understanding why she cared so much. First of all, the man was a stranger. She’d never set eyes on him before today. And second, he was a man.

All her life—well, in the last fifteen years—she’d done her best to stay away from men. But there was something about this man, something inexplicable, that made her want to get closer instead of push him away.

Daniela was busy unhooking the trailer from the bike when Zara finally got herself together. She and the other woman had done this several times, and together they pulled the trailer inside the small, clean house. Daniela got a pallet ready on the floor while Zara stood over the trailer, staring at the man. When the doctor was satisfied with the makeshift bed she’d made, she instructed Zara to kneel on the floor and help guide the man’s unconscious body as she literally dumped him out of the trailer.

The way the man’s body flopped out of the box wasn’t exactly graceful, but there was no way the two of them could’ve lifted him out gently and placed him on the pallet. Zara did her best to protect his head from hitting the floor, and once he was out of the trailer, she quickly worked with Daniela to straighten him out and place a pillow under his head.

He looked even bigger stretched out on the floor in the small treatment room Daniela had set up. His face was white, and a nasty gash on his head was still bleeding sluggishly. Ruben and his gang had done a number on him, and Zara once again felt sorry for the unknown American on the floor.

It was an odd feeling. After what had happened to Zara . . . to her mother . . . she couldn’t remember a time when she’d felt sorry for any man. Hatred and disgust, yes. Satisfaction when they got what was coming to them, yes.

But feel sorry for them? No.

But this man had done nothing more than try to help kids who were destined to end up in Roberto del Rio’s clutches. Something Mags and the rest of their group also tried to prevent.

“Do you know his name?” Daniela asked, bringing Zara out of her musings.

She shook her head.

“Well, I have a feeling he’ll probably be waking up before too long.” Lifting his eyelids and peering at his eyes, she said, “He’s got a concussion, and guessing by the shoe prints on his T-shirt, probably a few broken ribs. I need to examine him, and your job is to keep him calm. Think you can do that, Zed?”