Torrid Nights by Lindsay McKenna Read Free Book Online

attention to her. “We got a problem with—” He hesitated, giving her a piercing look. “Mac, you all right?”
    Mackenna forced herself to sit up, running her fingers through her hair. “I’m fine, Sully. What’s wrong?” She clenched her jaw, and her skin crawled with goose bumps. How could she possibly be cold?! She shook her head at the absurdity of it all. Sounds were beginning to mesh together. Brock glared at her, and Sully’s face suddenly went pale. The mechanic’s gnarled fingers gripped her upper arm.
    “Mac,” he growled, moving next to her, “you’re sick. Your color’s terrible. What’s happening?” he demanded.
    Tears sprang to her eyes, and suddenly Mackenna wanted to cry. She forced the tears back, giving Sully a confused look. “I-I don’t know.” Inwardly she groaned, realizing her voice was shaky and didn’t sound at all the way that of a construction supervisor should sound. Especially not with Brock Hampton only a few feet away.
    “You ain’t been forgettin’ those malaria pills, have you?” Sully growled, watching her keenly. “Look, your skin’s damp and cold. You got chills?”
    Blackness began to rim her vision, and Mackenna opened her mouth to say yes, but the word never came out. Suddenly, she was slipping into an abyss. Simultaneously she heard Sully’s gruff voice rise in alarm, and Brock’s voice cut like a whip through it, giving orders that were unintelligible to her….
    When she awoke she was on a cot in a tent, unaware of how much time had passed. It was dark outside, she realized. Where was she?
    “Mac?” a gravelly voice thundered through the cobwebs of her nightmare. “Mac, wake up! Good Lord, girl, you’re colder than hell.”
    Her lids felt lead-weighted, and it took an effort to open them. Sully’s grizzled face danced above her. Her mouth was gummy and sticky. She swallowed, trying to gather her scattered thoughts. Where was Brock? Where was the truck? Why did reality seem like a dream? Her teeth chattered involuntarily, and she felt her entire body jerk in response.
    Sully watched her intently for a second, his gnarled hand never leaving her shoulder. “You’ve got malaria, Mac.” His fingers tightened. “We’ve sent for some quinine pills for you.”
    Mackenna heard his voice, but only one word registered: malaria. Her heart began to pound unevenly. Her head ached as if clamps were being applied to the base of her skull, the pain radiating upward toward the crown. No, a voice cried within her , not malaria. Can’t get it… can’t…
    She curled up tightly, aware of the chills passing through her body with regularity. It must be part of her nightmare. The nightmare of her memories…Ryan’s sickness, his death. Her body heaved softly as, through her delirium, the memories came flooding back.
    The strain of malaria Ryan had contracted was a common one. It should have been easy to treat. Yet the fact that they had been so far from hospitals and so low on quinine tablets had turned the situation into one of life and death. After the malaria had lowered Ryan’s resistance, he had contracted deadly black-water fever, and he had died before they could reach a doctor. Suddenly, the raw sense of loss overwhelmed her and, as though from far away, Mackenna heard her own voice rising in uncontrollable sobs.
    It seemed like hours before Sully shook her again. He and Frank Bevans placed a protective mat of plastic on the tent floor and covered it with a pile of blankets. Then they gently lifted her from the damp cot onto the clean pallet. They took five more blankets and wrapped her tightly in them. Sully remained at her side throughout the period of nausea and vomiting. Sounds meshed together, and her head ached intensely as the sound of machinery outside reverberated against the sagging tent roof. Mackenna wanted to talk, but it hurt too much to make a sound, each noise magnified like a tuning fork inside her head.
    It was growing dark outside when