What I Fight For: A Bad Boy Military Romance (Easy Team Book 1) by Gemma Hart Page B

towards the official who was waving at us, his expression worried and urgent.
                  “What’s going—” I started again, turning around to Cooper but he put an arm around my shoulder and pulled me close to him, preventing me from turning my head around to look behind him.
                  “The little girl might also need some attention,” he continued, as if picking up a normal conversation. “You might want to give her a check up in the office as well.”
                  And before I could say anything more, the little girl dragged me into the office where the official said something as he quickly pulled us in, shutting the door behind us and barring it.
                  I turned around just in time to see a gang of five men, armed and heading straight towards Cooper. But it wasn’t the men or the guns they were ostentatiously carrying on their hips that caught my eye. It was that look of cold, steel confidence in skill and strength that permeated Cooper’s face as he turned around.
                  Gone was his normal, teasing smile. And in its place was an icy restraint that said, I dare you to make a fucking move. I fucking dare you.
                  Then the door shut.

Chapter Eight
Cooper
                  I stood by the door, asking the official if any of the town’s militia were still around. We could use as many extra hands as possible if we were going to help the medical team set up another station in the city.
                  “I’m sorry,” the official said regretfully, his gray brows knitting together in sorrow. “Any man young enough to fight left months ago. They felt the city was sinking and didn’t want to stay to drown.”
                  I put a hand on the old man’s thin shoulder. “It’s not sinking,” I said gently but firmly. “You and I will help it float.”
                  The man smiled softly and continued to throw options on how the logistics might work in gathering people to receive medical attention.
                  I was listening when suddenly a gust of wind rushed past me. I looked up through the door and saw Emilia running full sprint out into the street.
                  “No!” she shouted. “No, no! Don’t put that in your mouth!”
                  I took a step towards the door. “Hey! What are you doing!”
                  But before I could run out and grab her and read her the literal dictionary definition on ‘protocol,’ I saw her stop in front of a little girl who looked like she had some piece of trash in her hand.
                  I watched as Emilia plucked it out of the girl’s hand and shake her head. I couldn’t hear what she was saying but I felt a reluctant grin cross my face as I watched her try her best to lecture the girl through their language barrier.
                  This woman was something else. She was smart and capable. But that was obvious. She was a doctor. There was no way she could’ve made it this far as a doctor if she wasn’t smart and capable.
                  She was more than that. She was compassionate. She was sharp. She was brave.
                  I still remembered how she had bluntly told me she had called me in L.A. Her eyes had looked directly into mine, with no girlish coyness. The moonlight had thrown shadows across her long lashes.
                  And it made my throat clench to toss her words back to her but I knew what had to be done.
                  When I had met her in L.A., I had literally come back from Honduras where I had just finished a job dismantling a small but critical cog of a large drug cartel that the US military was keeping an eye on.
                  By the time Easy Team had walked away from the mission, ten cartel men were dead and two of my