Page 30 of Tormented Hearts

He studied her face in the firelight and saw no softness there. Fear, maybe. Exhaustion, definitely. But not surrender.

He’d make a new plan.

At dawn, he’d hunt or forage for more food. Maybe he could find some nuts to keep her going. Maybe he could pick out the dried chunks of meat in the pouch of beef stew and she could eat the vegetables.

One thing was certain—Sinead wasn’t turning back.

He’d planned the hike based on the coordinates, but somewhere along the way, he’d started planning it around Sinead.

* * * * *

Sinead woke to the loudest birds she’d ever heard. She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling, but it wasn’t her bedroom back in Boston or even the mountain resort.

It was a nylon tent.

And Hawk wasn’t beside her.

When they first lay down, side by side, the tension between them could be cut with a knife. He was stiff. She was stiff. Then she got restless and flipped over, facing away from him, and he did the same, facing the opposite side of the tent.

Sometime in the night, she woke briefly when she stretched and touched something hard and warm, but she barely registered what it was before slipping under the strong pull of exhaustion again.

Oh god. What had she touched? Hawk’s shoulder? His chest?

Or…something else?

She bolted upright and crawled across the makeshift bed to flip open the tent flat. The gray of early light kissed the land, leaving rocks, brush, clouds and sky all the same shade.

She glanced around and confirmed what she already knew—no Hawk.

His sleeping bag was already rolled with military precision, his boots gone from beside the flap.

She made coffee over the little camp stove because it gave her something to do. She brushed her teeth and washed her face with water so cold it made her gasp. Then she grabbed her bear spray just in case and slipped behind a bush, careful to check for snakes. She dressed in clean clothes, layering so she could strip some off when it got too hot.

She explored the area for a minute, walking along the edge of the brush and peering over the side where she could. One thing caught her attention, and she made a mental note to mention it to Hawk.

The scent of coffee carried on the air, and she walked back into the camp to find she was still alone.

She considered calling out for Hawk, but he already thought she was a princess. She didn’t want to sound like a panicked one.

Instead she sat cross-legged on the ground and sipped her coffee, wondering what she was going to eat if all they had were meat options. She wished her own food wasn’t laying at the bottom of the ravine.

She got up and walked to the ledge, inching closer to peer over the edge.

“What the hell are you doing?”

She whipped around so fast the coffee sloshed over her fingers. Hawk stood several feet away.

He set down the small bag he was carrying. “I don’t like you standing so close to the ledge.”

Her heart gave a funny leap at his words that had nothing to do with the danger. She moved toward him.

“I was trying to see my bag. I thought if it got caught on a branch or a ledge, I might be able to reach it with a stick.”

He gave her a look and then squatted by his bag with more agility than she expected from a man who, days earlier, had been flat on his back fighting off imaginary venom.

He pulled out a bundle. When he unwrapped the cloth to reveal mushrooms, still damp with morning dew, she let out a gasp.

He offered her one of the first smiles she’d seen, transforming his rugged face into a vision she had trouble looking away from.