Chapter 8

Mia's feet seemed to have a mind of their own and she cursed once more as another shape lumbered out of the darkness to come toward her at a speedy clip. The curse fell from her lips and she felt Aidan reach out and grab her camo vest by the sandy leather weapon holster.

"You okay Mia?"

She cursed again though this time, his name was at the end of her sentence. "Quit asking!"

Aidan let her go almost too fast for her to catch her balance. "I ask because I'm concerned, Mia. You don't have to be so bitchy about it."

"And you don't have to be a prick and ask every ten minutes." The words were snapped back at him with an equal amount of pissiness at his concern as well as her own impatience at her weaknesses. "God! If I wanted mollycoddling I'd have stuck with Demon!"

"I'll remember you feel like that next time, Mia." He saw her begin to sway again and started to reach out, changing his mind before his fingers could touch her. "You're on your own."

Mia sighed heavily. Her hand flew out and pushed against the rough bark of the tree that seemed to have jumped at her. "Aidan..." she began then stopped. She sighed once more. "You know I hate this."

He heard the apology in her voice. It was classic Mia, never looking before she leaped or thinking before she spoke. Reaching out, he grabbed her around her waist, holding her easily a few inches off the ground. "Why don't we just do this the easy way?"

She grinned but her head was still pounding. Aidan had wrapped it earlier, using almost the entire contents of her emergency kit. He'd even given her a couple of the non aspirin pain relievers, but it did little to ease the brain pounding the wound was giving her. She let her head rest back against his shoulder. "Have I thanked you?"

"For saving you or for wrapping your wound, or for keeping you from running into trees?"

"D ... All of the above." Her eyes closed and she allowed him to carry her entire weight. "You saved me again."

He glanced her way. "Yeah, I thought we already had established that fact."

"You know what I'm saying, Aidan. Don't try to deny it."

"Yeah, I know." He lifted her a bit higher and slid his arm beneath her legs, carrying her easily. He took another step and froze, the click under his boot heel easily heard. "Shit, Mia, we have a problem."

Her eyes opened, but they were blurry and she looked up at him, confused. "Problem?"

"Land mine." He shifted his weight, carefully setting her down without moving his foot.

Mia wobbled but caught her balance quickly. "What can I do?"

"We've got to disarm it, Mia." He reached into his pack, tugging out a small rolled leather kit. "You can do this, Mia. I'll talk you through it."

Aidan had become an expert on explosives. But even he had his limitations. There was no way for him to disarm the bomb his foot was on. He had to depend upon Mia, but as he looked into her blurry gray/green eyes, he wondered if his time were up.

Mia took the kit out of his hand and knelt carefully by his foot. She turned on her flashlight, aiming the bright beam

at the mine before carefully pushing the leaves and twigs away from it. "What do I do?"

****.

Mia cursed softly, carefully digging away at the dirt around the mine until she could get a better look at it. It was a pressure switch trigger, that was easy to see but she needed to be able to get a look at the mine itself. Sweat beaded on her forehead under the bandage that Aidan had so carefully wrapped around her head. She swiped at it with the sleeve of her jacket, leaving a smudge of dirt across her skin and the white bandage.

Her hands were shaking. She held them up and then cursed again. "Aidan..."

"You can do this, Mia. You have to do this. You're the only one who can save my life, baby. Take a deep breath and let it out slowly then tell me what you can see."

"Yeah, so much for no pressure." She sighed and closed her eyes tightly before shaking herself out of the pain and dizziness. "I can't see much of anything, Aidan. There's the thing you're standing on and then a small cylinder that's stuck in the ground." She shook her head. "I don't see any wires, any explosives."

Aidan crouched slowly, making sure his weight stayed evenly on the pressure switch. With one hand, he reached out and took her chin in a gentle grasp. "Slow down, Mia. I need you to take a look at the metal cylinder. Is there any writing that you can discern? And the pressure switch ... the thing I'm standing on, is it a plate or does it look more like prongs?"

Mia reached out and brushed more dirt away from the mine. "There's no writing I can see. The pressure switch? It looks like prongs, not a plate."

Aidan closed his eyes. "This is a bounding mine, Mia. That means, if I step off those prongs, the mine will shoot into the air and explode. Shrapnel will shoot out in all directions and kill anyone within twenty feet. Anyone beyond that could be badly injured. Mia, run. Get out of here."

"I'm not leaving you." Mia glared up at him. "You just fucking saved my life and now you expect me to run away when you need me? No, I won't do it. I can't do it."

"God dammit Mia, don't you understand? As soon as I take my foot off, me and anything within twenty feet of me is going to be dead. You've got to get out of here." He reached out to grab her shoulders and almost lost his balance, catching himself just in time. "I can't let you stay here and die."

"And I can't run away and let you die. You stupid son of a bitch. I love you, do you get it now? I love you and I'll be damned if I'm letting you get blown to bits on some stupid landmine in some bum-fucked-God-knows-where jungle. So stop being all heroic and stupid and tell me how to disarm this damn thing!" She glared up at him, her gray/green eyes looking almost stormy.

Aidan's eyes met hers, gold to stormy gray. "I knew you loved me. I just wish you had told me before I landed on this mine."

"So tell me how to get you off of it."

Aidan glanced around the area they were in, seeing a small grouping of flat rocks just a short distance from the path they were on. "Maybe we can fool it into thinking I'm still on it," he mused softly. He nodded toward the rocks. "Bring back the heaviest one you can handle, Mia. But watch where you walk, there might be more."

Mia glanced down at her feet and then at the pile of rocks that Aidan had pointed out. She'd never felt like such a short distance was such a long trip. But that was before she had Aidan's life in her hands. She couldn't fail him. If he were to die here because she screwed up again, it would kill her as well. She sighed one last time and took her first cautious step.

It felt like hours though it could have only been a few minutes. Each small step had her waiting to hear a click. She jumped every time a small pebble was dislodged by her boot and flinched. When she finally reached the pile of rocks, she turned her head to glance back at Aidan. "The biggest?"

"The heaviest. But make sure it's flat on one side."

Mia looked at the pile and slowly chose her rock. She hitched her rifle across her back and stooped down to grasp the edges and heave it up. Walking in her own footprints, she returned a little quicker to Aidan's side. "Will this work?"

"Yeah, it should." He closed his eyes for a moment and Mia saw his lips move. "Okay, the mine is under the ball of my foot. I'm going to unlace my boot. Then I want you to lay the rock across my toes. Understand?"

Mia shifted the heavy rock in her arms. "Then what? You're going to pull your foot out of your boot and leave it here?"

"I don't have much of a choice, Mia. As soon as you put that rock on my foot, I want you to run. I want you a long distance away before I pull my foot out of my boot. Got me?" He growled when he saw the look in her eyes. "Dammit, Mia. No arguing. Please, just do it."

"But..."

Aidan interrupted her. "No, I will not pull my foot out until I know you are a safe distance away and behind something to protect yourself."

"So ... you're going to stand there unless I promise to walk away from you?" Mia could hardly believe what she was hearing. How could she just walk away from him?

"I'll stand here until you do." He met her eyes, his full of stubbornness that she'd never had to deal with before. "I love you and I won't let you stay here and risk your life for me, not when you can run."

"But..."

He interrupted her by simply raising one finger. "No buts. Come on, Mia. I know how strong you are and even your stubbornness isn't going to keep you from dropping that rock soon. Set it on my foot and then get the hell out of here."

Mia came closer but kept her mouth shut. She knelt at his feet and slowly lowered the heavy rock so that it covered much of his foot. Then she unlaced his boot for him, pulling as much of the lace as she could to make the boot loose enough. She stood and stared up at him, gasping when he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her up. His mouth descended, meeting hers halfway.

For a space of time, their lips clung together and his groan covered her moan. Then he slowly let her go. "Now ... run!"

"I love you!" She turned even as a sob caught her by surprise. She ran, her eyes on the ground in front of her, her ears were attuned to hear the sound of his running feet behind her. Or for the sound of the mine as it exploded. She prayed not to hear that sound, prayed harder then she'd ever in her life.

She ran through the trees, finally stopping behind the trunk of a huge oak. She dropped her hands to her knees and caught her breath before she turned ... right into Aidan's arms.

"I love you, too." He lifted her up enough that he could reach her mouth. He was hungry for her taste, for the feel of her passion, for the feel of her. He couldn't get enough. "Mia, I need you."

He could see the look in her eyes, the want as well as the tiniest bit of caution. Her fingers touched his face. "I want that too, Aidan. More than you'll ever know, but it isn't safe now. It's not the right time or place."

"I know." He growled his frustration and speared his hand through his hair. Then he shook his head. "God, you don't know how much I want to bend you over until you scream my name and beg for mercy." He groaned and for a moment she thought he wasn't going to back away because one part of her shout warnings, the other longed to feel him like she'd felt him that night.

"Come on, let's get this job done and get home." He stared down into her pretty gray/green eyes. "I need to fuck you. So I hope you have no plans for when we get home. You're going home with me."

"I think that's the best invitation I've gotten in quite a while." She chuckled and then lifted on her toes to press a quick kiss on his lips. "You ready to go?"

Aidan stared down into her face, amazed at her clear gaze and the animation there. "Well, somebody got her second wind."

"Stopping the man I love from getting blown up kind of does that to me." She grabbed his arm and started him walking, slowing when she noticed his limp. "You're hurt!"

He laughed at the accusation in her tone. "You chose a big rock, Mia."

She stopped walking which forced him to stop in his tracks as well. "Let me see it."

"It's a little bruise, Mia. It's nothing. I've been hurt worse in hand to hand training with you."

"I've never made you limp." She pulled away from him and glared into his gorgeous golden eyes.

"I've never let you see me limp. Can you just hear the guys? If they had any idea that you'd caused me pain, I'd never hear the end of it. Do you remember the day out on the obstacle course, the one that had you and Romeo running block on us? Your knee left a very distinctive mark on a very vulnerable part of my anatomy. I walked funny for a week."