Page 45 of Duty Devoted
“Even when it’s your own life on the line?”
“Especially then.” His voice was low. Steady. “Because the second violence becomes your default, you stop being the kind of person who should carry a weapon.”
His words settled deep, echoing louder than the frogs and insects around us. Logan wasn’t just a warrior. He was someone who fought to stay human in a world that had tried to strip that away.
We moved in silence after that, but it wasn’t the same brittle quiet as before. It was heavier. Thoughtful. The kind of silence that shifted things between people.
By the time we found dry ground and set up for the night, I realized something else: Logan Kane was all contradiction. Capable of lethal force but choosing restraint. Hardened by violence but still somehow intact. Guarded, but willing to let cracks show if you paid attention.
And in spite of everything—the danger, the sweat, the uncertainty—I found myself wanting to know more.
Even if my tall, practical frame and general lack of grace meant I’d need to keep certain feelings locked up tight.
Chapter 14
Lauren
The rain camein sheets now, driven sideways by wind that bent the smaller trees nearly horizontal. My scrubs clung to my skin, heavy with water, and I had to keep wiping my eyes just to see where I was stepping. Each gust tried to knock me off-balance, but I locked my jaw and kept moving. Six months in Corazón had toughened me up, but this—hiking through dense jungle on the edge of a hurricane—was testing limits I didn’t know I had.
“How you holding up?” Logan called over his shoulder, having to raise his voice above the wind.
“Fine.” The word came out through gritted teeth. My legs burned from the constant up and down over fallen logs and through sucking mud, but I’d be damned if I complained. Not when he’d been doing this for hours without showing any signs of fatigue.
He turned to check on me, rain streaming down his face, and something in his expression shifted. “We can take a break if you need?—”
“I said I’m fine.” I pushed past him, using a low-hanging branch to haul myself up a muddy incline. “Just keep going.”
The truth was, despite the miserable conditions and the very real danger we were in, Logan seemed more relaxed out here than he’d been back at the clinic. His movements were fluid, natural, like this was his element. At the clinic, surrounded by villagers and my colleagues, he’d been constantly scanning, muscles coiled tight.
Out here, soaked to the skin and navigating through hostile territory, he moved with an easy confidence that was almost unsettling.
“You know,” I said, needing conversation to distract from the burning in my thighs, “you actually seem calmer out here than you did back at the clinic.”
He glanced back at me, water dripping from his hair. “You noticed that?”
“Hard not to. You were wound tighter than a surgical suture back there. Out here, even with cartel patrols and a hurricane bearing down on us, you’re practically zen.”
A branch slapped back as he pushed through, and I barely ducked in time. “My body knows what to do out here. It’s trained for this.” He paused, seeming to weigh his next words. “Put me in a combat situation or survival scenario, and everything makes sense. Put me in a crowded market or a dinner party, and my brain can’t process all the inputs.”
That was his PTSD rearing its head. I wonder if he knew that. “You know?—”
Logan’s hand shot up, and I froze mid-sentence. He’d gone completely still, head cocked slightly like he was listening to something I couldn’t hear over the wind and rain. Then he wasmoving, grabbing my arm and pulling me sideways off the barely visible trail we’d been following.
“Down,” he hissed, and suddenly, I was being yanked into the undergrowth.
Everything happened so fast, I didn’t have time to process. One second, I was standing; the next, Logan had pulled me down behind a massive fallen tree, the bark slick with moss and rain. The momentum and his grip sent me tumbling, and I landed directly on top of him, my full weight crushing down on his chest.
Shit. Horror flooded through me as I tried to scramble off him, but his arms locked around me like iron bands, holding me in place. His lips were next to my ear, breath warm against my skin. “Don’t move. Patrol.”
I wanted to die. Here I was, all five-foot-ten and however many million pounds of me, mashing this man into the jungle floor. Water dripped from my hair onto his face, and I could feel every hard line of his body beneath me.
This was exactly the nightmare Patrick used to joke about—how I was less woman and more mythological beast, impossible to move without divine intervention once I was asleep.
I wasn’t asleep now, but that wasn’t going to save Logan from being crushed. He might hope the patrol found us so he wouldn’t have to stay like this.
Then I heard voices, much closer than expected. Spanish, casual conversation getting louder. Logan’s hands pressed against my back, keeping me flat against him when I instinctively tried to shift my weight.
“—fucking Mateo and his obsession with this woman,” one voice complained. “We’ve been out here for hours. The weather is getting worse.”
