скачать книгу бесплатно
He sipped a little more, swallowed, “How long …?” His voice trailed off. Words were hard to come by. His throat felt dust-bowl dry.
She finished for him. “….have we been here?”
At his nod, she told him, “This is the fourth day.”
The fourth day? How could that be possible? He whispered, wonderingly, “So much time …”
“You’ve been very sick. Drink a little more.”
He obeyed her. It felt good, the warmth, going down. He realized he was stretched across the backseat. Hadn’t he been in the front before? He asked, “Back … seat?”
She nodded. “I managed to get you back here the second day. You don’t remember?”
“No. Nothing …”
“It’s better for you back here, without that big console between the seats.”
Outside, lightning flashed. The answering clap of thunder seemed very close. Hard rain pounded the plane.
“Rescue?” he asked.
Her smile was tender. “Not yet.”
His eyes were so heavy. He wanted to stay awake, to talk to her, to find out all that had happened, to make sure she was okay, that nothing had hurt her because of his foolish need to buy big toys and then take risks with them. But his eyes would not obey the commands of his brain.
He couldn’t keep them open any longer. “Zoe. Thank you, Zoe …”
“Shh. Sleep now. Your fever’s broken and you are going to get better. Just rest. Just sleep.”
He dreamed of Nora—Nora, crying. Nora begging him to understand.
“Please, Dax. I know when we got married I said I was willing to wait. But I’m pregnant now and we are going to have to make the best of it.”
“Liar,” he said to her, low and deadly. He said all the rotten things, the cruel things he had said all those years ago. He accused her. He’d always known how much she wanted a baby. And he didn’t believe in accidents.
“I’m so sorry.” The words were a plea for his acceptance, his forgiveness. She swore to him that it had been an accident, her big brown eyes flooded with guilty tears, her soft red mouth trembling.
He wasn’t ready. He didn’t know if he would ever be ready.
But he knew it wasn’t right, to be so cruel to her. He was going to be a father. He needed to start learning to accept that.
So in the end, he reached for her, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close. He comforted her. He dried her tears. He said it would be all right.
“All right, Nora. We’ll work it out. It’s all right….”
A cool cloth bathed his face, his neck. “Shh, now. Shh …”
He opened his eyes, half expecting to see his ex-wife gazing down at him. But it wasn’t Nora. “Zoe.”
“I was just going to check your bandage.”
“Is it …?” He reached up to touch his forehead.
She caught his hand, guided it back down. “It’s fine. Healing well.”
He blinked away the last of the dream about Nora. “What day?”
“It’s Friday.”
“The fifth day …”
“Yep.”
“No rescue plane, no search party …”
She slowly shook her head. “By now, it’s safe to assume they have been looking. By now, my father knows. He will have mobilized and when my father mobilizes, things get done. But no sign of anyone looking for us so far. I found the flares from that large, wonderful, lifesaving box of equipment of yours and I haven’t had a chance to use one yet.”
Five days, he thought. And how much longer would they have to last here? Were they going to die here? He said, “It’s a big jungle.”
“But you gave me the coordinates, remember? We know approximately where we are. Eventually, we can try and walk out of here if we have to.”
He said what he was thinking. “But we shouldn’t have to. We should be wrapping up our ‘great escape’ in San Cristóbal de las Casas about now. And we would be, except for the fact that I’m a fatheaded ass who had to show off his pretty little plane.”
“Stop that,” she said sharply. “Don’t you even go there, Dax Girard. This plane was perfectly safe. The weather was the problem.”
“But if I had only listened to you—”
“If, if, if. Please. You want to talk if? Fine. What about if I hadn’t proposed this trip in the first place, what if you hadn’t liked the idea? And we can always go in the other direction. What if you weren’t an excellent pilot? What if you hadn’t had the foresight to install that box full of necessary equipment in the back? What if you hadn’t put together a first aid kit that has everything but an operating table inside? We cannot afford to get all up into the ‘if’ game, Dax. We need to keep our chins up and our minds focused on what needs doing next.”
He stared up at her. “Wow,” he said.
“Wow, what?” She glared down at him.
He didn’t even try to hide the admiration he knew had to be written all over his face. “I don’t think I realized until now just how tough you are.”
“I have seven bossy brothers and a pigheaded dad. You’re damn right I’m tough.”
His stomach chose that moment to growl. He put his hand on it. “I think I’m starving.”
Her sudden grin was like the sun coming up. “And that is a very good sign.”
The next day, which was Saturday, she helped him get up on his feet and out of the plane for the first time since they’d left Nuevo Laredo almost a week before. Every muscle, every bone, every inch of his skin—all of it ached. He was weak as a newborn baby. And he was filthy. He could smell himself and the smell was not a good one.
But his ankle was healing faster than even he could have hoped. He could put weight on it, gingerly, could hobble around if he took his time and was careful. Zoe had a camp set up, with the two collapsible camp chairs from the box in the baggage area, the tent and the few cooking utensils. And a campfire ringed by rocks she had gathered, with a large, jagged piece of the wing nearby. It took him a moment to understand the purpose of the piece of wing.
Then it came to him. When it rained, she could use it to shield the fire a little, to keep at least some of the coals dry. The wood she’d collected waited under another hunk of the ruined plane.
She had water heating for him.
He shaved. In the small mirror from his travel kit, his face looked haggard, pale and drawn. Beneath the fresh dressing she’d put on his head wound, his eyes stared back at him, sunken and haunted.
“I look like hell,” he told her.
She poked at the fire and nodded. “Yes, you do. Hurry up. I have a surprise.”
He wished for the impossible. “A shower would be nice.”
“Close. You’ll see. Finish your shave.”
Something close to a shower. That, he wanted. He wanted it bad and he wanted it now. He shaved faster, nicking himself twice and hardly caring.
When his face was smooth again and he’d put his kit away, she got him some clean clothes. She gave him one of the hunting knives, one of the two canteens and a bottle of shampoo.
“I need a knife to take a shower?” he asked.
“You never know what you might need once you get in the trees,” she warned.
“We’re going into the trees?” It was a stupid question. Of course they were going into the trees. He could see the whole clearing by turning in a circle. There was nothing that would provide anything resembling a shower anywhere in it. But how far would they be going? He couldn’t make it any distance on his weak ankle.
“Not far,” she said, as if she’d read his mind. “And I’ll help you. We’ll take it slow.” One of the travel blankets was strung on a line she’d run between the plane and the camping shovel. She grabbed that and slung it around her neck, stuck the other hunting knife in a loop of her waistband along with the other canteen, and grabbed the hatchet she had found in the equipment box. “Come on, wrap your arm across my shoulders.”
He obeyed. Together, they hobbled toward the forest.
The trail became clear as they approached it. They went in, the trees closing around them, into deep shadow. Without a breeze. Instantly, the insects started biting.
“Ignore them,” she said. “It’s not far.” She led him onward. He focused on hopping along, trying not to trip on the thick ropes of exposed roots that twined across the trail.
Maybe fifty yards in, with the clearing just a memory somewhere behind them, she stopped. “Listen. You hear it?”
He did. A hard, hollow rushing sound. He probably shouldn’t have been surprised. Rivers were everywhere in the jungle. Still, he felt excitement rising. “A river?” Rivers not only meant a place to wash away the filth and maybe even catch some fish to eat, they were the highways of the wilderness. You followed them and eventually, you found people—people who might help you to make your way home.
She nodded. She looked very pleased with herself. “Yes, a river. Come on, it’s not far now.”
And it wasn’t. Another ten yards or so and the trail opened up and there it was, gleaming in the sun that shone down through the gap in the trees. They stood on the bank and he admired the gorgeous sight. There was a waterfall above, a nice inviting pool below, right in front of them. Some distance to his left, the shallows formed rapids that raced away downstream.
“Have you tried fishing yet?” he asked.
She shook her head. “The freeze-dried stuff isn’t going to last forever, though. We need to get out that pole. I would have done it sooner …”
Guilt, ever-present since the crash, pricked him again. “But you were afraid to leave me alone for that long.”
“Well, there’s that. Plus, I’ve always hated fishing. I don’t have the patience for it, which is probably why I never catch anything.”
At last. Something she actually might need him for. “I’ll do it, no problem. Best to try at dusk, though, when the fish are biting.”
“I was really hoping you would volunteer for it—but what about bait?”
“I’m guessing we can find some worms or a grub or two.”
She wrinkled her nose, which was red and peeling a little, but nonetheless as good to look at as the rest of her. “You get to bait the hook and catch the fish.”
“It would be my pleasure.”
They shared a long glance, a glance that said a lot of things neither of them was willing to speak aloud.
“Well?” she demanded at last. “You coming in or not?” She ducked out from under his arm and he steadied himself with his weight on his good foot.
She dropped the hatchet and blanket to the sun-warmed jut of rock they stood on and shoved down her shorts, kicked off her shoes and removed her shirt. Beneath, she wore a red two-piece swimsuit. Her normally pale skin had a ruddy cast now, from the past six days in the clearing, where the sun shone bright between the sudden fierce rainstorms. Her red hair fell past her shoulders, gleaming, and her slim body curved softly in all the right places.
She wasn’t wearing that ridiculous fake diamond. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen it since the crash.
He watched her adjust the straps of the red top and he felt desire rising. To touch her, to hold her, to learn all the secrets of her pretty, slender body. He really must be getting well.
Back off, Dax, the voice of wisdom within advised.
He heeded that voice. He would not touch her. Or hold her. They understood each other. She worked for him and in the end, it was a lot harder to find a top-notch assistant than a bed partner. Any willing woman could give him sex.
Zoe had a thousand other talents, useful talents. If they made it back, he intended to find ways to keep her working for him for a very long time.
If …
Her heated words of the day before came to him. We can’t afford to get all up in the “if” game, Dax. She was right about that—as she was about a lot of things.
He put all the nagging doubts as to the likelihood of their survival from his mind and he focused on the moment, as it was, free of expectation, sexual or otherwise. On the pretty woman in the red swimsuit, on the clear pool and the dazzling, roaring waterfall, waiting for him in the sun.
Zoe laughed as she waded in. “Watch out for the crocodiles.”
He thought she was kidding—but then he saw the long, knobby narrow head gliding through the water near the opposite bank. “There’s one over there.” He pointed.
She laughed again and started splashing. The crocodile turned and went the other way. “They’re shy,” she said. “I remember reading that somewhere. Not like their Asian relatives at all. And I’ve discovered since we’ve been here that it’s true—but that doesn’t mean I didn’t scream bloody murder the first time I saw that big guy over there.”
Awkwardly, he lowered himself to the rock. He took off his shoes and socks and unwound the bandage that supported his ankle. It was still a little puffy, but nowhere near as bad as it had been before.
He pulled his shirt over his head and got out of his khaki shorts. In only his boxer briefs and the bandage on his forehead, he struggled upright again. With the bottle of shampoo in his hand, he limped into the water.
It felt wonderful. Cool, clean. Fresh. And as soon as he got in as far as his waist, his injured ankle stopped hobbling him. Keeping his head above water in order not to get his bandage wet, he swam around a little, just because it felt so good.
And then he moved closer to the bank again, got to where he could stand up, and waded to waist deep. He squirted some shampoo on his palm. It smelled of tropical flowers. Plumeria, according to the label, which showed a woman bathing in a tub full of pink blooms.
Not a manly scent, but so what? It had soap in it and it would get him clean.
Zoe swam to him, her hair streaming out behind her, a banner of wet silk, the color of fire. “Here. I’ll hold the bottle.”
He handed it over and then used the shampoo to wash himself, ducking down up to his neck to rinse off the lather when he was done.
She said, “Be careful. I don’t want you getting that bandage wet.”
“Then you’d better wash my hair for me.” He moved up the bank a couple more steps, until he could get on his knees and still have his shoulders above the water. “Go for it.”
