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repeat false alarm.”
    “We heard shots.”
    “Wildlife kill. No sign of your lady, sir.”
    “Keep looking!”
    “You’re no better than Vicente.” Maisey sat up, hugging her massive belly. Rocking and crying with her hands over her face. “You shot those men right between their eyes.”
    “Woman, are you crazy?” Searching the dead for usable equipment, Nash could scarcely contain his rage. “I killed those two men for our safety—your baby’s. They shot at us first. Dozens of rounds. It’s a miracle we’re even alive.”
    She was back to shivering. Teeth chattering, she continued sobbing.
    “You and me?” Kneeling before her, he tucked his fingertips beneath her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “We’re in a war. People are going to die. The goal is for those people to not be us.”
    She nodded.
    “No,” he again forced her gaze to his. “Look me in the eyes and tell me you understand I’m not a stone-cold killer like your ex.”
    “I do, but this is all too much.”
    “Agreed.” He took a bandana from a pocket, then cleaned it with drinking water. “Things got dicey there for a sec, but all’s good now.”
    “ Good ?” Her sad laugh rode the fringe of madness. “Oh—our situation is far from good. I’m cold and hungry and tired and thirsty and that dead man won’t stop staring at me.” Hand trembling, she pointed at the nearest corpse. “Plus, Vicente said over the radio he heard gunfire. That means he’s not far behind.”
    As tenderly as he could, Nash wiped tear-streaked mud from Maisey’s cheeks. He stroked it from her forehead and nose and chin. When she closed her eyes and exhaled, he cleaned her brows and the smile lines at the corners of her eyes. And when she opened those eyes, he leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers. “I will protect you.”
    “I know.” For the first time that day, her voice rang strong. Sincere. Her trust further heightened his resolve to see her and her baby safely through.
    She exhaled. Her warm breath hit his lips, tightening his stomach in a way he hadn’t felt in well over the year his wife had been gone. While the sensation was far from unpleasant, it was also unwelcome. Retreating to a safe distance, he asked, “Hungry?”
    “Very. What’s on the menu? Snake? Gator?”
    “Actually . . .” Nash eyed the still-fresh gator kill lying on the shore. “Seems a shame for the little guy to have died in vain.”
    “Little guy?” She laughed. “That alligator is longer than I am.”
     
     

8

     
     
    AN HOUR LATER, while Maisey sat in relative comfort on a log, using her new palm frond fan, she watched with awe as Nash performed yet another crafty task. Using vines and sticks and a vicious knife, he’d constructed a rack on which he’d hung chunks of meat. He’d stripped the alligator and butchered it and already had a nice, juicy section roasting over a fire.
    While he’d buried the bad guys in shallow graves, her job was to listen and observe. The slightest change in bird calls or a cracked twig. Gunfire. Baying dogs. Anything outside of their current norm.
    “Nash?” She slowed her fanning.
    “Yes, ma’am?” Like back when they’d been in high school, his stoic expression was entirely too mesmerizing. Too brimming with the kind of innate self-assurance that was earned. If possible, he seemed more at ease here in the middle of a swamp than he ever had back in Jacksonville. He wasn’t just in his element, but seemed to have invented it.
    “What do you think happened to the other hound? Is he okay?”
    He paused in his digging with a collapsible shovel to frown. “My fear is that he ran straight home to his food dish and comfy bed. Don’t get me wrong, I love dogs as much as the next guy, but when he returned without his doggy friend or two handlers, it’s not that great a leap for whoever’s on the other end to realize there was trouble.”
    “Oh.” She hadn’t thought of it that way.
    “That’s why I need