Torrid Nights by Lindsay McKenna Read Free Book Online Page A

her temperature began to soar. She broke out in a heavy sweat. The darkness closed around her, and she thought she was dying. The quinine arrived. Sully patiently remained at her side to give her the pills when she could swallow without vomiting them back up. Yet she didn’t feel any relief….
    Ryan was dead. Sully meant well, but he couldn’t give her the comfort she needed so desperately. Where was Brock? She pushed that thought aside. Instead, she raved about the pain she had withheld for too long, the pain of Ryan’s death. Finally, her mutterings died away, and she slept, her blankets soaked with sweat.
    It was noon the next day before Mackenna awoke. Sully was watching her dully. He hadn’t slept throughout the night, she guessed. Watching him, she felt damp and chilled. Gingerly, she touched the blankets with her fingers.
    Sully got to his knees and came over, feeling her forehead. “How ya feeling, Mac?”
    “Better,” she ventured, her voice raspy. “Thirsty.”
    He grunted, slipping his arm beneath her neck, putting a canteen to her lips. “Good. You’re in the rest stage now. Drink all you can because you’re damn close to dehydration already. I think we got this attack under control. Soon as you can travel we’ll get you to a doctor.”
    Mackenna’s eyes widened, meeting his. “What have you been giving me? Quinine or chloroquine?”
    “Chloroquine.”
    “Do we have enough?” Mackenna was relieved to hear she’d been given the stronger drug.
    Sully eased her back down, pulling some dry blankets off the cot and trading them for the wet ones. “Yeah, we got plenty, Mac.” He frowned, his mouth compressed as he tucked her back in.
    “Then what’s worrying you?”
    “The drug’ll make a difference in a few more hours.”
    “Meaning?”
    He sat back on his haunches, sighing. “Meaning you’ve run yourself into the ground for the last year. Even the chloroquine’ll take another twenty-four hours to turn you around. You’ve driven yourself too hard, Mac.” His gruff voice softened. “Look, gal, you’re special. You don’t have to prove yourself to us anymore. We believe in you. We bust our tails out there for you. Quit pushing.”
    Mackenna’s heart wrenched. “I couldn’t ask for a better crew,” she whispered, meeting his gaze. “And—” she swallowed hard “—you’re right. I’ve been trying to run away from—from Ryan’s death.”
    He reached out, patting her shoulder awkwardly. “Well, there’s always time to make a change. Let the past go, Mac. You got a bright future in front of you.”
    Mackenna grimaced, wrinkling her nose. “I suppose Hampton’s furious that I’m laid up.”
    Sully’s silence confirmed her suspicions. “There goes my job,” she muttered glumly. Not that she cared. Right now she was experiencing only loss and anguish. The job seemed inconsequential. She would miss the construction crews, of course. The men were tied to her by the invisible steel strand of loyalty. They would go to hell and back for her if she asked them to.
    “Screw Hampton!” Sully growled. “I’ve never seen so cold a man in all my years of living.”
    Mackenna reached out, touching his gnarled hand. “Sully, he’s to be pitied, not hated.”
    “Huh! He ain’t got a heart, Mac. He’s cold steel to the core.”
    She shook her head slowly. “No, he isn’t, Sully.”
    The mechanic gave her an odd stare. “Then you see something nobody else does. And you’d be feelin’ differently if you knew how he was behaving about you being laid up right now.”
    “I feel compassion for anyone who locks himself into a box and doesn’t let his emotions out.”
    He grinned. “You haven’t been doing much better, gal. Until recently. And it took the malaria to bring you out of it.”
    “I suppose it’s a good thing,” she admitted slowly. “Sully, what do you know about Brock Hampton? You’ve been all around the South Pacific. Why is he like this? I’m sure he wasn’t