Warrior Mine by Megan Mitcham Read Free Book Online

recliner. The high-backed monstrosity looked more like a plastic box. Its footrest, wedged only a few inches from the frame, provided rest for nothing at all.
    “Is that what this is?”
    “Yep. As good as it gets.” Her mouth kicked into a half smile.
    He blinked, struggling to pull color into focus. Khani’s lips were always the craziest hue of orangish-red he’d ever seen, her eyes usually an electric shade of green or blue to really set her face alight. But his abused lenses refused to see color on her porcelain skin.
    “Well damn,” he muttered.
    She unfolded her legs and arms and he found color—albeit a hideous one—in the mint green of the scrubs she wore. His eyes worked okay. She just didn’t wear any make-up. He blinked again, locking his gaze on the tiny, ultra-white scars that tarnished her otherwise impeccable complexion.
    “What happened?” he begged.
    “Doc Williamson called it a class III hemorrhage.”
    Quite the evasion. He smiled and his skin seemed too tight for his face.
    “And you smile about almost bleeding to death. Men, I’ll never understand you. Not ever.”
    “I meant, what happened to you? Not me,” he swallowed against the raw dryness of his throat. “And men are easy. Eat. Sex. Sleep. How simple is that? Women…” His mind conjured Carmen Ruez. Her big, sad eyes. The small, round barrel of her gun. “Y’all are complicated. To put it mildly.”
    Khani crossed her arms and narrowed her gray gaze. “You happened to me.” Her head kicked to the side. “So, was it your eating, screwing, or sleeping that got you into this predicament? Or are you willing to admit that men are slightly more complicated than you thought?”
    “Maybe, slightly, but nowhere near as complicated as women.”
    The scratch worsened with every syllable he spoke, but too prideful for his own good, he didn’t say anything about it. He tried to ignore the rhythmic, stabbing throb in his side as well.
    “You stubborn man.” She poked the red call button on his hospital bed. In the seconds it took for someone to respond, she glared.
    A speaker behind his head crackled. “Yes?” a woman’s voice asked.
    “This is LTC Slaughter. The commander is awake and could use something for pain and some water, please.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” the nurse said.
    “You never tire of that, do you?”
    “What?” she asked Tucker.
    “Having people ma’am you.”
    “Not a bit. Is it that obvious?”
    “The side of your mouth twitches, like you’re holding back a smile.”
    “I suppose I am. It took a hell of a lot of work to earn that ma’am.” She folded her arms and settled back against the plastic. “You came from a military family. Probably heard and said, ‘yes ma’am, no ma’am, yes sir, no sir’ a thousand times a day. Where I came from…the words were nowhere near as civilized.”
    Khani’s clothes crinkled as she turned toward him. Instinctively he knew that was all she’d say about her past. It was more than she’d said over the last year she’d been working for him.
    “I’m wearing these obnoxious clothes and have not an ounce of make-up on my face because I found you face down with a bullet in your gut, hauled you over my shoulders, and lugged you here.”
    “Thank you,” he croaked.
    “Stuff it.” She waved a hand to shoo his words off. “Just don’t ever bleed on me again and we’ll call it good.”
    “Deal.” He nodded. “How bad was it?”
    “The shot? Not bad. Struck mostly muscle. Did nick your large intestine. Williamson performed surgery practically in the hallway. You were pretty out of it by the time we arrived. The blood loss was the biggest concern. He gave you a transfusion. Do you remember the shooting?”
    Again his mind called Carmen into the forefront. Her long tousled hair blanketed her shoulders, corkscrews weaving this way and that. The rage in her eyes directed full-force onto the chained bastard. Then they turned on him, the hatred shifting to pity. For