Outcast (SEAL Team: Disavowed Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

made either went to my mother’s medical bills, my education, or the station and his studies.” Because Eden couldn’t bear for her father to sink still more money and hopes into her losing cause, she hadn’t even told him about her prognosis. What was the point? She’d had a front row seat to her mother’s physical and emotional breakdown, and the harder she’d fought, the worse the physical toll had been. Eden wanted no part of that. When it was her time, she’d accept it gracefully. Until then, she needed to regain her composure and help ensure Jasper reached safety. Her life was already gone, but she’d fight for his and her father’s. “When the first of the students were shot, I wanted to find my father and Dane, but you can’t imagine the chaos. All I could do was hide, but like I told you, one of Leo’s men easily found me. It was . . .” Cold enveloped her from the inside out. She used to love this place. The isolation. The pure, unspoiled beauty. Now, she’d give anything to be far away from here, in a place where if she tipped her face to the sun, warm rays would soak in like a healing balm. Like Jasper’s softest caress. “Aside from watching my mother die, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done—hiding like a coward beneath a table. I should have fought back.”
    “Give yourself credit for staying alive.” He kissed the crown of her head. “You pretty sure your dad and Dane made it out alive?”
    “Yes.” I hope . “Unless Leo caught them later and . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.
    “Could they have gone to McMurdo for help?”
    “I suppose? But if they had, wouldn’t help have already arrived? I was alone with Leo a few days before you arrived. Doug plays online chess with my dad. He would have mentioned him being at McMurdo. But now, he’s probably dead, too.” She shivered. “What are we going to do?”
    “Since it’s cold as balls in here—” he formed a smoke ring with his foggy breath “—I vote we’re proactive. I’ll try getting the engine started. You make a proper inventory of our food. In this cold, we ideally need about six thousand calories per day. Give me a guesstimate of how many days we’ve got at say six, four, or two thousand a day. We might find civilization in hours. If not, we need to be prepared.”
    “Agreed.”
    He opened the cat’s rear door and leaped out.
    The even deeper cold hit her face like a slap.
    “Jasper!” she called.
    “Yeah?” He squinted against the sun, then took sunglasses from a pocket on his coat and slipped them on.
    “Are we going to be okay?”
    “Absolutely. All you need to worry about is getting back to civilization. Because once we’re in a toasty coffee house, I fully intend to make you explain what you were thinking when you dumped a great catch like me.” His toothy grin and wink started a flutter low in her belly.
    In light of their circumstances, she had no business thinking about anything other than getting help to find her father, but Jasper had always had a way about him that brightened the darkest corner.
    She fought to find a smile, but nodded instead. Yes, she needed to tell him exactly what she’d been thinking when she’d broken her own heart by breaking up with him, but this was neither the time nor place.
    With him outside, she did as he asked, counting an assortment of freeze-dried meals, MREs, and four cases of protein bars that held a hundred forty-four bars each. While it was a relief to know running short on food wouldn’t be their most pressing issue, that fact did little to hold fear at bay. He’d asked her to run specific calorie computations, but in the cold there was no way she could hold her focus long enough to run the figures in her head.
    She found more sunglasses on the dash, then stared out the window at the stark view that usually brought solace.
    Now, the desolation raised her pulse. They were in a bad spot, but if anyone could get them out, it