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He spoke English. American English. Relief made he limp, and she managed to shake her head in spite of the bruta grip of his hand.
At last that hand left her mouth, though his arm stayed wrapped around her. She held her breath, trying to reassun him with her silence that she had the sense to be very, very quiet.
When he let go, she nearly toppled over backward. His hand on her shoulder steadied her. Taking care not to splash she stood, turned—and almost forgot the need for silence.
His glasses were gone. Everything else was the same—the loose white shirt, baggy chinos, and straight brown hai pulled back in a ponytail—but the glasses were gone, and with them had gone the man who’d worn them. It was the eyes, she thought. Those cold, blue-as-heaven eyes meeting hers didn’t belong to a shy professor. No. The man standing in front of her now, his pants wet from the thighs down, was something else; something so far outside her experience, she couldn’t put a label on him. She stood, mute and shaken staring at the stranger in front of her.
He held a finger to his lips in the age-old gesture for quiet and she realized his hands were the same. The same long fingers and palms, the same calluses and small nicks. Even though the man was different, the hands were the same. I was absurdly reassuring.
She nodded her understanding.
He turned.
She started to follow, but paused, looking down at the water that came up to her thighs now that she was on he feet. The bug was still swimming valiantly, but it was con fused. It was going in circles. She hesitated, but for only a second. The stupid thing was going to drown itself.
Quickly she scooped up the horrid creature, using the hand it had already touched. Ugh. Bug legs. Her face scrunched up in disgust, she dumped the glistening monster-bug onto the relative safety of her bush, and turned.
The man who was not a professor had stopped five feet away. He stared at her, an odd expression on his face. He probably wanted to ask if she was nuts. That was what Doug used to ask her whenever she did something he thought was dumb, which had happened rather often in the last couple of months of their ill-fated engagement.
She shrugged apologetically and tried a smile. It hurt her cheek.
He didn’t smile back. He turned and started for the shore—the western shore, which made no sense to her. He’d said there was another soldier in those woods, so why was he going that way?
Because she had no idea what else to do, she followed him.
Jane felt as frightened and confused as the bug must have been when it swam in circles, looking for land. She wanted to cry. On the one hand, she wanted the boyish professor back. An odd pang of loss assailed her over a man who had never existed. Yet she had to admit that the person she’d thought existed behind those gold-framed glasses wouldn’t have known what to do in this situation. This man, with his cold blue eyes and elegant hands, apparently did.
They reached the drowning trees first, then the muddy shore. He gestured at her, indicating he wanted her to hide behind one of the larger trees and wait.
She shook her head. The safety he offered was precarious, but at least he knew what to do. Jane hated not knowing what to do even more than she hated bugs. So she smiled and refused silently, but the smile made her face hurt where his long fingers had dug into her flesh.
She had actually fantasized about those hands. Her face heated when she remembered that. To her dismay, the rest of her body heated, too.
He moved quickly, startling a gasp out of her, stopping so close to her that she could feel the heat from his body all up and down her own wet, too-aware flesh. One strand of his hair had come loose from his ponytail, and it tickled her neck when he bent his head. “I have to take out the other soldado ,” he whispered so softly she scarcely heard him, even with his lips brushing her ear. His breath was as gentle and warm as his words were cold. “I’d rather not kill him. It will be easier to avoid that if you aren’t trotting along behind me.”
She swallowed, nodded, and went to wait behind the tree he’d indicated. And she tried to convince herself that her goose bumps came from fear, or from being wet. From anything except the remembered thrill of his lips brushing her ear.
Two
The second soldier was as easy to surprise as the first one had been. The watcher came up behind his quarry, silent as a shadow, and locked his forearm across the soldado’s throat, his right hand finding the carotid artery with deadly speed. His victim didn’t struggle long. Cutting off the blood flow to the brain was a faster way of knocking a man out than trying to throttle him, and a good deal quieter and more certain than hitting him over the head.
After seven carefully counted seconds, he lowered the unconscious body to the ground, then lightly felt the artery again. He held his breath, then let it out, relieved, as soon as he felt the pulse.
Killing some poor SOB accidentally would have been a hell of a note on which to end his career with the agency.
It took only a moment to use the man’s belt to tie his arms behind him. That wouldn’t hold him for long, but they couldn’t expect a long delay, anyhow. There were other searchers, and not all of them were Ruiz’s poorly trained, poorly equipped guerrillas.
Not all of them were after the woman, either.
He straightened and looked down at his victim, who wasn’t really a man at all, he saw. Not yet, anyway. Sixteen or seventeen, at a guess. Scarcely old enough to grow a beard. Had soldiers always been so painfully young? Or was he getting old?
Of course, he was himself capable of looking both young and innocent, though he couldn’t remember being the former, and wasn’t sure he’d ever been the latter. It was a useful skill, but he doubted he could manage it if he were the one unconscious.
He made his silent way back to where he’d left the woman. She was peering around the trunk of the tree, looking in the wrong direction. Her gauzy sundress had originally been long and loose and white; it was still long, dragging about her ankles, but now it was wet and dirty and nearly transparent He had a marvelous view of her rounded rump and white bikini panties beneath the clinging fabric.
He smiled and gave in to a rare impulse. “Boo,” he said conversationally.
She jumped half a mile.
He had his impulses under control and his smile tucked back out of sight by the time she spun around. She was really kind of cute, even half-drowned as she was right now; small and cute and round all over, like a kitten. Her face was round and innocent Her body was nicely rounded, too, if not so innocent looking, with plenty of curves and softness in just the places where a man liked to find curves and softness. Even her big brown eyes were round at the moment
Then they narrowed. “You scared me on purpose. I take it the other soldier is, uh—unconscious?”
He shrugged dismissively. Let her wonder what he’d done. It might make her jump more quickly when he wanted her to jump. “There’s no one close enough to hear us at the moment.” They needed to put some distance between them and Ruiz’s men while they could. He turned away. “Come on.”
“Where?”
He headed for his mango tree.
“Dang it,” she said. The rubbery squish of wet tennis shoes hurried along behind him. “Where are we going?”
“To get my gear, first.” He reached the tree, crouched, and jumped, catching the lowest branch. He heaved himself up.
“Then what happens?” She tilted her head back, watching him.
“We go to a village I know about on the old Camino Real—that’s the royal highway.”
“I know what it means. What I want to know is—”
“That’s right, you speak Spanish, don’t you? I hope we can reach the village before dark, but I’m not sure of the route. Between Ruiz’s troops and the new lake, my choices have become limited.” He grabbed his backpack from the crotch of the tree. “Watch out.” He tossed it down.
She jumped back just in time.
He swung down to land beside her. The sight of her from the front was just as appealing as it had been from behind. A little gold locket lay in the valley formed by full, pretty breasts. Her lacy white bra kept him from seeing as much of her nipples as he would have liked, but he could see their shadows beneath the two layers of wet cloth.
It was probably just as well she had on the bra, he decided. The low hum of arousal he felt now was pleasant More would be distracting.
Either she liked letting him look, or she was too upset to realize how transparent her dress was. “But the old Camino Real is in the high country to the east,” she said earnestly. “Shouldn’t we head south, back where we came from? Or west? There’s a decent-size town to the west—Narista, I think it’s called. I’m sure they’d have a garrison of the national police there.”
He raised his brows. Apparently she’d done some homework on San Tomás. “There’s a man in the village where we’re headed who can be trusted to get you back to the capital.” Which was where she should have stayed. The local government made great efforts to keep the beaches safe for tourists from the cruise ships. “Going south is out. Ruiz will have his troops watching the road.” He shouldered his backpack.
She frowned. “Who’s Ruiz?”
“The man who sent soldiers to kidnap you. Let’s go.”
“Wait a minute.” She laid her hand on his arm. It was a small hand, surprisingly warm, with rounded fingernails that had been neatly manicured before she soaked them in a lake while hiding from guerrillas. Now the pretty pink polish was chipped. “Who are you? I mean, I saw you on the bus, but we weren’t introduced.”
“John,” he said. It was as good a name as any, and the man he was taking her to thought of him as “John.”
“John. I am very glad to meet you.” She smiled, and her fingers tightened in a friendly squeeze. “I’m Jane.”
Heat, quick and compelling, dazzled his system for one crazy moment.
“Thank you for—”
“Come on.” He pulled away from her, looking for a game trail to take them deeper into the forest.
She scrambled after him, making every bit as much noise as he’d expected she would. “What about west? Why aren’t we going west instead of heading into the hills?”
“Go west if you want to. I’m going east.” The strength of his reaction to her disturbed him. He was familiar with the effects of danger—the heightened senses, the rush of adrenaline, the occasional swift slide from sensory stimulation into arousal. But he’d never reacted this fast, this hard, before. She’d only squeezed his arm, for heaven’s sake. One simple squeeze, and his body had gone on full alert.
He didn’t just want to kiss the woman now. He wanted to lay her down on the spongy floor of the forest, push up her dress, pull down her panties and push inside her. He wanted to nde her until they both screamed.
She followed without speaking. He’d almost hoped she’d turn around and head west—where, as she’d said, a town with a large garrison of the national police waited to welcome her back to what passed for civilization. Of course, Ruiz’s men would almost certainly pick her up before she’d gone a mile.
They traveled in silence with him in the lead, moving slowly but steadily upward. The trails he took twisted and branched. He used the compass from his backpack to keep them heading in the right general direction, and by late afternoon they were deep in the rain forest and several hundred feet higher. The light here was shadowy and green, filtered by the leafy canopy overhead. Vague scurryings in the brush spoke of tiny lives being lived all around them, lives that had nothing to do with them. The man who called himself John was comforted by the indifference of his surroundings. Bit by bit, as they pressed farther into a world that cared not at all for their exalted status as humans, he relaxed back into his usual detachment
It was just as well this was his last job. He’d known it was time to get out. Ever since Jack’s death he had known, but his reactions today were so far out of line he had to wonder if he should have agreed to take this job, even as a favor. He owed Patrick a great deal, but messing up this job wouldn’t repay him.
He heard a muffled squeak and turned. She was brushing frantically at something on her arm, a spider or some other small, multi-legged creature. “Did it bite you?” Concern hit him with a quick, unexpected punch. Few of the creepie-crawlies on the island were dangerous, but—
“No,” she said. “Its wiggly little legs got on me.” She looked as if she thought she’d been poisoned.
“You saved the other one,” he pointed out. “In the lake. The beetle.”
“It was going to drown.” She rubbed her arm as if she hoped to wipe the insect germs off. “I couldn’t just let it drown after... Well, the bug thought my arm was safe, and by holding still, I was sort of deceiving it. When it fell into the water, I felt responsible.”
He looked at her, disbelieving. She’d felt responsible for a beetle? “Come on. I see a stump up ahead where you can sit. We need to get dry socks on.”
“Why?” She limped after him. “Our shoes will still be wet.”
“Jungle rot.” He stopped by the stump to unzip his backpack. “One of the first rules in climate and terrain like this is to keep your feet dry.” He handed her a pair of socks.
She shuddered and sat down.
He changed his own socks without sitting, balancing first on one leg, then the other, checking each foot for any small cuts or blisters. Open wounds in the tropics could be dangerous. When he had both shoes back on he looked at her and frowned. She was taking too long. She’d only done one foot. Her other foot was propped on her knee, her dress gathered up to her knees to droop in concealing folds between her parted legs. She was pulling the wet sock off slowly.
The sock had a wide, lacy border. It also had a red stain. “You’re bleeding.”
She eased the sock the rest of the way off. “Brilliant observation. Wet shoes and socks can rub blisters, you know.”
He tightened his lips. “Leaving an open, untreated wound on the foot in a tropical zone is just begging for infection, fungus—” He shook his head, disgusted, as he unzipped the backpack. “What about your other foot?”
“It’s fine.”
He thought about the fact that she’d just kept going, without complaint, when her blister must have hurt like hell. “Take your shoe off.” He got out the ointment and gauze. “I want to check both feet.”
She had an odd expression on her face. “It’s like my mother’s purse.”
“What?”
“Your backpack. It’s like my mother’s purse. She carries a tote the size of Manhattan, and it’s got everything in it. Having you got a sewing kit in there?” she asked, interested.
As a matter of fact, he did. Among other things. He knelt in front of her and grabbed her foot.
“Hey!”
“Hold still.” She had small feet, with pearly pink toenails. He couldn’t keep from smiling when he saw those toenails. What was the point of painting them when she wasn’t wearing sandals? He looked at the blister on her heel that had burst and bled into her sock. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurting?”
“Why? We couldn’t have stopped any earlier, anyway, could we?”
“I need to know your limitations to plan properly.” There was a topical anaesthetic in the ointment, and he would pad the area with gauze. That, and the dry socks, should make her more comfortable, but he wouldn’t be able to keep her from hurting entirely. He frowned. Absently, he stroked his thumb along the bottom of her foot. It flexed in a quick, involuntary movement. “Are you ticklish?”
“N-no.” Her eyes were dark when they met his. “I mean, yes.”
He saw the heat in her eyes, heard the uncertain longing in her voice. His hand tightened on her foot as his body tightened elsewhere. Apparently he wasn’t the only one coming down with jungle fever.
His gaze drifted away from her foot. Her dress was still damp. It molded nicely to the firm swells of her breasts, but he couldn’t see her nipples anymore. Not quite. If he were to lean forward, though, and take one in his mouth...
No, he told himself. Not now. The time and the place were wrong. But it was harder than it should have been to look away, take the cap off the ointment, and tend to the part of her body that needed it most. And when he’d finished treating her blister, he stroked the sole of her foot again—one long, seemingly casual stroke of his thumb—and watched her foot quiver. No, he thought again, angry with her for responding so quickly and easily. He wouldn’t take her. It wasn’t safe; not here and now.
But maybe it would be. Later.
Jane caught glimpses of the sun whenever the forest canopy thinned. It was on its way down now, though they still had some daylight left. The man who’d rescued her kept moving tirelessly while she watched, and followed.
Observing him was altogether too pleasant. He was lithe and muscular and graceful, and Jane’s body couldn’t seem to understand that he wasn’t at all what she wanted, no matter how firmly she spoke to it. She didn’t understand it. Her dress was filthy and wrinkled; her feet hurt with every step; she was tired and lost, and mystified by her body’s reactions. After twenty-nine years of reasonable behavior, it seemed determined to embarrass her with outrageous demands.
She felt as if she’d started the day in Kansas and ended up in Oz. Only instead of ruby slippers, all she had to get her home were her filthy tennis shoes, and instead of a friendly Scarecrow or Tin Man, her companion was a cold-eyed liar who made her body burn.
So his name was John, was it?
After noticing the way he’d stared at her breasts, she’d kept her distance from him, not asking questions, though she was nearly bursting with them. Except her foolish body wasn’t listening to her sensible brain.
Maybe, she thought as they started up yet another a hill, this sudden attack of lust was part of the price she had to pay for her foolishness. A solitary, impromptu vacation had seemed like such a small adventure, though. Most of the time, Jane felt mildly foolish about her other name—the one her father had given her—but she’d wanted just once to see if she could live up to it. A woman whose middle name was Desirée ought to be able to handle all sorts of risks.
Which proved how little she deserved such an exotic name, she thought glumly. She would much rather have been helping Frances Ann get her garden ready the way she’d planned to do before Ed had waved that cruise ticket under her nose. Instead, she was on the run with a man who might be a spy. Or a criminal.
At least her inconvenient lust took her mind off the way her feet hurt. “How much farther do you suppose this village is?”
“Hard to say, when we haven’t been traveling in a straight line.”
No, they hadn’t, had they? He’d gone out of his way to avoid that, and she wondered why. Jane added that to the mental list she was keeping of questions to ask at a better time, when she wasn’t out of breath and her reluctant rescuer seemed a little friendlier. But what if things didn’t get better? she asked herself suddenly, pausing to catch her breath. What if things stayed messed up and scary, and the man in front of her stayed silent and scary?
Damn. Jane bit her lip. He was heading downhill, annoyingly tireless. She skidded after him—and spoke up. “So why aren’t we traveling in a straight line? Why didn’t we take that little dirt road we passed a while back?”
“It was going in the wrong direction.”
That sounded good, and yet... Jane consulted her mental list as she made her way unsteadily downhill after him.
