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to fish and didn’t squeal about having to touch worms.
    You don’t know she squeals over worms.
    Yeah, right . As if she’d ever been fishing or baited a hook in her life.
    She walked through the woods without complaint.
    Yeah? What choice did she have?
    Chase forced himself to turn away, to stop studying the rise of her shoulder, the dip of her waist, the sweet curve of her hip. The luscious roundness of her ass.
    Fuck. He whipped open his bugout bag and took out the burner phone he kept there. He had to solve this situation and soon. The less time he spent with Miss Sophie Nash, the better. Chase flipped open the phone and sent a text to the only person he could think of who might be able to help him out of this mess without getting HOT involved.
    Nothing to do now but wait.

    S OPHIE BLINKED AWAKE , confusion settling into her brain for a moment. The cot was stiff, she was cold, and the air smelled woodsy and kind of musty at the same time. Her body ached as she shifted, her muscles protesting with sharp soreness in her legs and back.
    When it hit her where she was, she sat up, wincing with pain as she searched the room. It was every bit as dark as it had been when they’d arrived earlier, so she figured she must have slept until almost nightfall. She would have thought that impossible considering the danger she was in, but apparently she was wrong. Her gaze settled on Chase lying on the floor. He was asleep—but then he cracked an eye open and stared at her, proving her wrong.
    Her heart pattered, but if Chase was on the floor looking at her with annoyance—and he was—and they were still in the tree, which they were, then they were safe. Still alive, still hopeful.
    Her stomach rumbled, and she put a hand over it because it was so loud. Chase pushed himself up to a sitting position and shoved a hand through his hair. His jaw cracked as he yawned, and she felt a pang of guilt that he’d had to sleep on the floor while she took the cot.
    Still, she was glad he hadn’t made her take the floor. If her body hurt this much after sleeping on a cot, she hated to think what it would feel like if she’d spent the day on a plank floor.
    Chase reached for something beside him and then threw it at her with a “Here, catch.”
    Sophie caught the plastic package as if it were a fish, fumbling it back and forth until it plopped onto the bed beside her. “What is it?”
    “It’s an MRE—Meal, Ready to Eat,” he said. “It’s what we eat in the field. It’ll fill you up, trust me.”
    The plastic was thick. She tried to tear it, but nothing happened. Chase pushed to his knees and came over to her. He bent his head, taking it from her. He was so close she could feel the heat emanating from him. He smelled like the outdoors, fresh and clean—and a little sweaty too. She bit her lip as he flipped open a knife. He cut the package open and looked up at her.
    Her breath stopped in her chest as their eyes met. His were green, rimmed in brown with golden flecks dotting the iris. She had a sudden insane urge to reach out and touch his cheek, to skim her fingers over the hard plane of his jaw that had a day’s growth of stubble.
    He shoved the package he’d opened into her hand and turned away before she could do anything so stupid. Sophie took a deep breath, trying to calm her fluttering heart and make it beat normally again. Then she upended the MRE, and several envelopes spilled out. She picked them up, reading each one, focusing on them as if they were the most important thing on earth. It was the only way to get her mind off Chase and that weird moment just now.
    “Spaghetti? Really?”
    “Just follow the directions and heat it up. It’s not the best thing you’ve ever eaten, but it’ll do the job.”
    She blinked at the packets littering the bed and wondered for a second if he’d hit his head on something. “Heat it? With what?”
    “The ration heater. It’s in there.”
    Sophie poked around until she found a