The Spanish Duke's Holiday Proposal. Robin Gianna
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you off duty?” she asked.
“Yes. I was on my way to the main collapse when I saw John run in after Benny, then get hit by a chunk of concrete.”
“My little dog...” The two men picked up the stretcher, ready to carry him out, and John’s words were bitten off as he moaned.
“You get out of here too, Mateo,” one of the rescuers said. “You’re not equipped. I’ll send some guys in to check for anyone else, just in case, but the good news is that it looks like a structural collapse, nothing else. We’ve got plenty of crew on the scene and if no one else is in here, that means everyone’s out and clear both places. So you can go on home.”
“I have make sure a certain stubborn doctor gets to the hospital first.”
“Tough job you have,” one said, laughing, as they made their way toward daylight.
Miranda bent to casually retrieve her purse and flashlight from the ground, not wanting to show him how eager she was to get the heck out of there now that John was taken care of. Not wanting him to see how she’d been staring at his beautiful body. “You know, I’m not stubborn. It just seemed like I should help if I could, just like you did.”
“It’s my job to run into harm’s way when necessary. Don’t think that’s in your job description. Come on.”
He slid the filthy coat back on over his naked torso, then reached for her elbow. As they stepped over chunks of concrete, Miranda suddenly longed to be outside in the cold air and out of the dark gloom. Which she wouldn’t admit to Mateo for the world. “You don’t need to hold me up. I’m perfectly capable—”
“I just want to get outside, and if you fall and gash open your head we’ll be stuck in here all that much longer.”
“I’m sorry if I’ve made the situation more difficult,” she said, her stomach churning a little that he seemed to still think she’d done exactly that, and what did that make her? A pain in the neck, that’s what, just like her stepmother had told her for years. “I should have thought it through better and gotten a firefighter instead of coming in here myself.”
“Yes, you should’ve. But I have to admire how brave you are. And you were a big help, even though I hate to admit it.”
Even in the darkness she could see the smile in his eyes, which put a warm little glow in her chest and had her smiling back.
“That’s much better than telling me I’m annoying and stubborn,” she said. “You—”
A deep, ground-shaking rumble was followed instantly by sharp cracks and the thud of chunks of concrete hitting the ground. Miranda gasped, instinctively covering her head with her arms, as though that flimsy barrier could protect her in any way, when a heavy weight slammed straight into her.
MATEO’S HARD BODY took her down like a football linebacker, as he somehow managed to wrap his arms around her before they hit the earth. The sharp pebbles they landed on stabbed and scraped her one bare leg, a bigger chunk of concrete jabbed into her ribs, and her face landed on the hard pillow of Mateo’s muscled forearm before sliding off it into a pile of silty debris.
His weight smashed her down so hard she couldn’t get her mouth clear to breathe, and his body jerked at the same time as he grunted loudly in her ear. Lifting her head half an inch to suck in a chokingly dusty breath, she twisted and pushed at him, blinded by the dirt in her eyes, which sent tears streaming down her cheeks. “Get off! Can’t breathe...”
He didn’t move, and she jabbed her elbow into his ribs, which sent another low grunt into her ear. “Hold still a minute,” he said. “I just took a boulder for you and you’re trying to hurt me more?”
“What?” His weight lifted slightly off her, and she twisted around fully to lie on her back, sucking in deep breaths as she stared up at his grim face. Her hands decided on their own to grab at him, landing inside his coat on his shoulders, clinging, pulling him close. Somehow, she wriggled enough to move her spine off whatever was currently lodged there.
“You okay?”
“I—I’m okay.” She realized that was true, she was fine, possibly only because she had a two-hundred-pound blanket of bone and muscle covering her. “You?”
“Bleeding, but okay. And see? Seems to be all finished,” he said in a ridiculously calm voice. He lifted his gaze to scan the tunnel. “Let’s give this a few more seconds to make sure it’s done, then we’ll get the hell out of here.”
Light silt still showering down in intermittent swishes mingled with his heavy breaths against her lips, and her own fast breathing against his. Their eyes met and held, and she was suddenly acutely aware of the feel of his skin against her palms, the strength of his muscles, the movement of his naked chest against her. The grip she had on his warm shoulders loosened, and her hands moved down his pectorals, smoothing across the soft hair covering them before she realized with dismay what she was doing. Making herself let go, she curled her fingers into her palms to keep from touching him again. Fought the peculiar combination of sensations swirling around her belly that didn’t seem connected to the fear that had consumed her just moments before.
She pulled in another deep breath. What in the world? The two of them were lying in a collapsed tunnel, for heaven’s sake, and it was long past time to get safe.
“I’m...I’m ready,” she said unsteadily. “To leave.”
“Finally?” His lips curved just a little. “Let’s go.”
His big body lifted from hers, and his hands grasped her waist, effortlessly swinging her to her feet. His arm wrapped around her shoulders as they moved quickly out of the tunnel toward the light. Miranda blinked at the brightness of the sky—how had it seemed so gray and gloomy before? The fresh, cold air filled her lungs, sharp and stinging and wonderful. Trembling a little now that the whole thing was over, she tried not to think about how bad it could have turned out, and turned to see Mateo watching her with an odd expression on his face.
“You sure you’re okay?”
Probably, she looked pale and shaken, her pretense of bravery through the situation now shot to heck. “Yes, okay. Thanks for, you know, crushing me with your body so I didn’t get crushed worse by flying debris.”
“You’re welcome. Except I didn’t completely succeed. Your coat is torn.”
She followed his gaze to the large rip in the shoulder seam of her coat, and couldn’t help the little dismayed sound that came from her lips. “Oh, no! I just bought this last month! Must have happened when you tackled me.”
“Better a torn coat than a broken head. Which you would have deserved for not leaving when I asked you to.”
“Not even I deserve a broken head.”
That statement made his lips quirk as he reached out to brush his finger across her dusty eyelids. “You’d better get washed up.”
“Me? You look like a gray-haired old man right now.” Which couldn’t be further from the truth, since no old man had the kind of wide, muscular chest that was mostly bare right in front of her, or flat, rippling abs, or such a chiseled jaw. And because she couldn’t stop looking at him and was enjoying their banter far too much, she forced herself to look away up the sidewalk, pretending to focus on all the emergency equipment and personnel. Then her peripheral vision caught bright red drops of blood splattering on the sidewalk behind his feet.
Wide-eyed, she jerked her attention back to him. “You’re bleeding! Oh, my God.”
“I can tell it’s just a scrape. Maybe a gouge, too, but nothing worse than that.”
“Take off your coat so I can see.”
“I’ll freeze.”