She was having trouble grasping this turn of events. She’d been rattled at meeting Xavier at the lodge. After all, the father of her unborn child had tackled and handcuffed her. And even as she’d reeled from that, she was distracted by the need to tell him about the baby. It wasn’t the sort of thing one blurted while hiking up a hillside to check on potential damage to an archaeological site. Plus, she was worried about George.

Her brain had been stuck on everything except what this could mean for Xavier and his training. Only now did it sink in how serious this was.

She’d been trying to figure out how to tell him he was going to be a father, while he was worried about security for the training. “You think the SEAL team is going to be ambushed”—she pointed to the pit—“with weapons that were stored there?”

He nodded. “The platoon is in the air right now, armed only with Simunition, and I can’t raise anyone on the radio to stop it.” His nostrils flared. “To be honest, I’m scared of what this means. It’s unprecedented.”

Xavier Rivera was scared. She’d been wrapping her mind around the fact he was a SEAL, and now he’d admitted to being scared. The math on that really only had one solution: they were in deep trouble. Plus, it solidly answered the question of whether or not tonight would be a good time to tell him he was going to be a daddy in late July. He needed to focus on this disastrous turn of events without distraction.

They could fight about the rest later. “Let’s hurry and check on George, then. We can skip the path up here, cut across the forest, and catch the cliffside trail with less zigzagging. You want to lead?”

He nodded. “Step where I step. Try not to make noise.”

She nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

He lifted a hand as if he intended to cup her cheek, but dropped it without touching her. “I know you will.”

He was fast and silent as he moved through the rainforest, heading downhill at a rapid pace. She kept up as best she could, trampling over ferns and dodging roots.

These woods were familiar territory. Four years ago, she’d run an eight-week archaeological field school excavation of the village, and they’d done plenty of test pits to find the extent of the site in areas where the ground leveled out.

During the day, the rainforest glowed brightly in shades that ranged from pale greenish yellow to deep dark green due to an abundance of mosses and lichens, which covered the ground, rocks, and trees. High and low limbs of Sitka spruces, western red cedars, and Douglas firs were draped with mosses and lichens, creating yellowy veils they had to duck under.