by Anna Lowe
He gunned the engine and they shot down the trail with a bump that nearly threw them into the air.
“Oh my God!” Cara screamed.
Yeah, that had been a little closer than he would have liked. But they were hammering down the trail now, and as long as they didn’t get guillotined by a low-hanging vine, the twisting path would provide cover from bullets and darts.
“Just hang on!”
He doubted they ever broke thirty, but the foliage blurred by like they were screaming down a highway at a hundred miles an hour. Having Cara on the back threw off the bike’s balance, and the number of times he barely averted a wipeout by sticking out a foot…well, he stopped counting.
The rope bridge popped in and out of view, and they shot past the point where he and Cara had slashed their way out of the jungle to join the path. Cara’s arms squeezed tighter as he revved to the edge of the rope bridge then stopped. He could feel her weight shift, hear her breath catch as she leaned over his shoulder to see.
“Tobin, are you totally nuts?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Tobin gulped. The bridge extended before them in a low, elegant curve, dipping down, then climbing up toward the other side. Just like one of those perspective drawings, where everything narrowed on a point on the other side.
A very rickety perspective drawing over a very deep ravine. The roar of the rapids seemed angrier than it had been his first time here, and his stomach churned much like the water one hundred feet below.
The bridge was ridiculously narrow, rickety, and uneven. But it might just work.
Scratch that. It had to work.
Cara’s fingers tapped on his shoulder, either in prayer or in a silent series of calculations. He felt her haul in a long breath and let it out slowly.
“Ready?” she whispered.
Damn, that was supposed to be his line.
He turned his head and found her obsidian eyes shining at him. It was a look he hadn’t seen in a very long time. A look that said I trust you and We’re in this together and Watch out future, here we come.
A look he wouldn’t mind getting used to seeing every day for the rest of his life.
A giant insect whizzed by his ear, and he ducked.
“Go!” Cara yelled, thumping him on the shoulder. “Go!”
It took him a second to process what she meant, until excited cries filled in behind the sound of the rapids. That wasn’t an insect. It was a poison dart. And the men shooting at them were swarming out of the jungle and into easy firing range.
“Go!” Cara screamed.
With a twist of the throttle, they shot across the last two yards of firm ground and hit the first footboard of the bridge. The moment the bike made contact, they dropped a foot before continuing across. The bridge swayed and groaned under the combined weight of Lucy, him, and his Italian princess.
Rat-a-tat-tat! Now rifles were shooting, too. Whether that was the drug runners or the bridge guards, he didn’t know. Didn’t care what flavor of death found them first. Only wanted to get away.
A nudge between his shoulder blades told him that Cara had hidden her head there. He wished he could do the same — close his eyes and trust someone else to make sure everything came out all right.
But there was no one else. It was all up to him.
All up to him, and Christ, he didn’t even trust himself.
He clenched his teeth, forced his eyes wide and somehow kept the bike upright when the bridge went from bending beneath him to flexing back upward. They’d had a cat when he was a kid, a crazy cat who liked being tossed in a blanket. Tobin would hold two corners of the blanket while Seth held the others and they’d launch Mittens into the air like an astronaut hitting zero gravity.
Now he knew how Mittens felt, with two important differences.
The cat loved every minute of it. And cats had nine lives.
What the hell had he been thinking with this insane escape plan?
Pfft! A dart whizzed in front of his face. As if the bouncing bridge weren’t enough.
His eyes kept wanting to slide sideways to the cables forming handholds on either side of the bridge. An inch of clearance on either side, max. One little wobble and the handlebars would snag. He could picture it all too easily: the sluggish drag on first contact, the wild swerve he’d put the bike into to pull free. Then he’d tangle with the cable on the other side and get pitched headfirst into the ravine. Him and Cara, flying, flying…
Unless he kept his eyes glued to the far side.
So he kept them glued, religiously, until his eyeballs burned and screamed to blink — just one little blink. But that could be the death of him, and worse, of her. So, no. No blinking allowed.
No blinking, no panicking when the bridge bucked and dipped a lot like his grandfather’s boat did when a wave fell away from under the bow and dropped it with a thud. He knew, because there’d been a lot of that when he and Seth sailed down from New England. But that had been thrilling. This was terrifying.
Something pinged. Without looking, he knew it was another dart, plonking off the fuel tank a hair above his thigh. It bounced off his leg before pitching into space and hurtling into the rapids below.
The bike lurched from footboard to footboard, bumping and bouncing and barely staying on course. Any time now, one of the rotting boards would pop and give way.
But they didn’t give way, and salvation — the far end of the bridge — kept inching closer and closer. He leaned forward like that would get them there sooner. Cara, too: he could feel her whole body hope, her lips mumbling a prayer against his skin.
Cara. Lips. Prayer.
All up to him.
His subconscious made a thousand dirty deals with the devil. Get me through this, and I’ll give you every Friday night for the rest of my life. Every Saturday morning lie-in, too…
The list got longer and longer the closer they got to the other side. The devil could have his best pair of carving skis. His surfboard. Hell, the devil could have his firstborn child. Maybe the secondborn, too, especially if the kid turned out anything like the stories his mom told about him—
He brought that train of thought to a screeching halt. The only woman he’d ever want to have kids with was Cara, and there was no way he’d give anything that precious up. Never.
So he rode on through the impossibly narrow slot over an impossibly unstable surface until the front wheel was an inch away from the other side of the ravine. He yanked the handlebars up with everything he had to lift them over the lip between the last footboard and dry earth.
Vrooom! The bike roared away from the swing bridge, running for its life. Gone were the thunder of the rapids, the wobble of the bridge, the blur of the cables left and right. Everything was steady, straight.
Christ. Never in five thousand miles of sailing had landfall been such a relief.
Chapter Twenty-Six
It was ten minutes before Cara worked up the nerve to open her eyes, and another hour before she stopped glancing over her shoulder, watching for the militia she was so sure would appear in hot pursuit. Tobin kept the bike hammering along until the lumpy dirt road joined another that was only very bad, which eventually led to a paved road. That, in turn, spit them out on a highway with a sign that could have said Heaven, only it was spelled P-a-n-a-m-a C-u-i-d-a-d. Panama City. She risked a look at her watch as Tobin slalomed the bike around yet another overloaded truck.
She had to look twice and hold her watch against her ear, thinking the waterfall must have busted it. But no, it really was ten a.m. and she really was on her way to the meeting. Even with Tobin pushing the limits like this, though, it would be tight to make it by three. Super tight. The drive out had taken eight hours, and they only had five.
On the other hand, what hadn’t been a tight call today? The waterfall, the shooting guards, the rope bridge. Jesus, had they really done all that?
She nearly gave a triumphant whoop when she realized they were clear, until she noti
ced how white Tobin’s knuckles were around the grips.
“Hey,” she leaned into his ear and whispered instead of cheering. “We made it.”
He slowly shook his head left, then right. “Could have missed.”
She barely heard the words over the engine noise, but the layer of muscle bundled around his ribcage had gone all tight. When he exhaled, it was slow and shaky.
“Come on, you’ve done a hundred risky things in your life.” Nothing scared Tobin. Nothing!
“Never with you on the back of my bike.”
She could see the thin line of his lips in the sideview mirror. He’d never looked so much like his brother Seth, the serious one.
The next hour must have been the quietest of his life, and hers, too, because everything he’d done for her in the past few days replayed in her mind. The grip she had on his ribs barely eased, though it became a different kind of clutch. The kind that comes from a million regrets and the knowledge that she’d never, ever be able to make it up to him. The only thing she could hope for was forgiveness. A clean slate.
Some example she was, because she hadn’t ever offered Tobin that, had she?
She turned her face away from the mirror and closed her eyes.
A long hour later, Tobin clucked at the fuel gage. “We need to make a quick stop.”
When he pulled over at a gas station, she felt a hundred years old: stiff and spent and creaky. If Tobin felt the same, he didn’t show it. He jumped right off the bike and shot her that trademark smile that had won a thousand women’s hearts.
A thousand women, and the only one he wanted was her.
The smile was a little tight, fraying around the edges with worry. He glanced at his watch instead of the cold drinks display. His foot tapped the ground as he waited for the tank to fill.
The man was on a mission, and that mission was her.
“Damn,” she murmured when she swung the backpack off. Her things were still in the cheap hotel she’d stayed at before heading to the village a week — an eternity — ago. Well, she could come back for it later, if at all. Everything she needed was right here, anyway.
Tobin, Tobin, and Tobin.
She reached for the outer flap of the backpack and froze.
“What?” His impossibly blue eyes latched onto hers.
She swung the bag around so he could see the dart stuck in it. Right at the top, an inch away from where her neck would have been.
“Christ.” He shook his head. “The kids deserve a new roof on the school, but there has to be a better way.”
Roof? What roof? “What do you mean?”
“That’s what the village was supposed to get in exchange for delaying you. A new roof for the school.” Tobin spit on the ground. “Hell of a way to raise money.”
She pictured the smiling kids, the friendly women. The patient elders, the clever hunters. Even Rodrigo — they all struck her as good, honest folk. She considered the dart for a good minute, then grabbed a newspaper out of a trash can and wrapped the dart in it. She stashed the whole bundle in a plastic bag and shoved it into the bottom of his backpack. Then she walked to the toilet on shaky feet and washed her hands for a long, long time.
When she came back out, Tobin was leaning on the bike, staring at nothing in particular. A rugged cross between James Dean and Indiana Jones. He looked weary. Worldly. Smoking hot. What the hell had she been thinking to ever let him go?
There was something round and dark in his hand. When he snapped back into focus on her approach and lifted it, she saw what it was. A motorcycle helmet. A brand new, shiny one.
“Come here.” He waved her over and slipped it over her head. They stood face to face, neither saying a word as he ran a finger inside, smoothing her hair back with a touch so soft and tender she barely held back a sigh. She closed her eyes, leaned into his hand, and shut out everything in the world but him.
He kissed her, and though his lips were dry and cracked, it still felt like home. A hopeful, almost yearning kiss. For what, she didn’t dare wonder. It was another second before Tobin pulled away, and another second before he opened his eyes. When he did, there was a promise in them. That he’d get her where she needed to be. He’d do whatever it took, for her.
Then he pulled his own helmet on — the old one they’d left strapped to the handlebars in the rush of their escape — got on the bike, and nodded toward the road.
“Panama City, here we come.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
A hundred times over the next five hours, Tobin told himself to lighten up and enjoy this beautiful-girl-on-the-back-of-his-bike gig. To enjoy the warmth of Cara pressed up against his back. The comfortable hold of her arms around his waist. The curve of her legs snuggled up behind his.
Except the clock was ticking, and every mile that took them closer to the city was a mile that threatened to drive them further apart.
He hadn’t even realized it until now, but the rain forest had slowed time down. He’d been living a fantasy, where Cara was his and he was hers and that was all that mattered. Now they were back in the fast lane — literally — and it felt as if a dozen fingers were snapping at him, hurrying him up. Saying Come on, hotshot, finish this off.
The question was, how to finish it off.
You’ve served your purpose, hotshot. Don’t overstay your welcome.
Clearly, Cara appreciated what he’d done. She might even be thinking they might give themselves a second shot, judging by the warm looks and easy touches she gave him. But where would it all lead? The thoughts crowded and tangled in his mind, much like the traffic that built as a jagged city skyline appeared on the horizon. Panama City. A glittering city stuck between the jungle and the sea. From a distance, it looked almost futuristic, but up close, it was a crumbling mess. He’d been through there before heading to Catalina, and once had felt like enough.
Traffic slowed to a crawl when they reached city limits, and he checked his watch. Two o’clock.
“An hour to the presentation,” Cara said into his ear.
“You know the way?”
She pointed to a sloping steel high-rise to the right of the others, near but still far. Maybe too far.
He tapped his fingers on the handlebars and cursed the traffic. Didn’t matter that it was two o’clock on a Friday and they were heading into the city and not out. In Panama City, the roads were nearly always bumper-to-bumper.
“Screw this.” He revved Lucy up and swung into the breakdown lane.
It worked for a while, until the other drivers did the same thing. Another glance at his watch. Two-thirty. Cara’s fingers plucked nervously at his shirt, even after he put a hand over hers and squeezed it against his ribs. Which only made the ache in him grow stronger.
Maybe they could stay in traffic all day.
But he’d gotten her this far, damn it. Failure wasn’t an option. A man had to have some pride, after all.
He nearly laughed out loud. Him? Pride?
But on the other hand… Why the hell not?
He took off through the narrow space between the crawling cars, praying none of them made a sudden lane change. Cara pointed him down one street, then another, and even down one that was closed. He raced around a construction site, flew down a one-way side street, and even a couple of sidewalks before Cara pointed.
“Over there.”
He screeched to a stop and parked as Cara spoke rapid-fire Spanish to the guard. Then they were sprinting for the doors. Two fifty-five.
“What floor is it?”
“Sixty-fourth.”
Sixty-fucking-four? He pushed the buttons for all the elevators and didn’t stop pushing until one of them pinged open and let them in.
The doors closed in a solemn slide. Within two stories of the climb, he was tugging at his shirt collar. For the past couple of days, he’d been outdoors, and even the bungalow they’d slept in felt like a natural extension of the jungle. Now they were in a suffocating metal box on their way to the sixty
-fourth floor.
Panama. What a country.
There were mirrors all the way around the elevator, each of them a tease filled with Cara’s reflection. She was everywhere, but still too far, so he pulled her close and kissed her for the count of three measured breaths, making the world slow down again. Making him wonder: maybe it wasn’t just the jungle that had the magic power to slow things down. Maybe the magic was in the two of them.
The elevator rattled and they broke apart, looking at each other. Her lips twitched like she was going to say something monumental. Something he really, really wanted to hear.
But then the bell pinged. The doors rolled open. It took everything he had not to punch theClose Doorbutton to shut them again.
Too late. Cara blinked, stepped out, and strode down the hall.
“God, how do I look?” she murmured, and something in him bubbled with hope, because if she’d missed the mirrors in the elevator, she might have been thinking about him. Maybe even thinking about them.
“You look great,” he said, plucking a leaf out of her hair. Never mind the mud splattered on her shirt. Cara always looked like a million bucks.
Then they turned a corner and a secretary rushed up to her, whisking Cara toward a glass-walled conference room. Cara only let go of his hand when they got to the very end of their fingertips.
“Will you wait for me? Please?”
He nodded. Of course, he would wait. A hundred years if he had to.
He was about to say as much when a man in a slick Armani suit stepped up, his jaw hanging open. “Cara?”
Her eyes shot daggers at the man. “Surprised to see me, Enrique?”
Enrique? The schmuck who wanted Cara’s job? The ass she suspected of holding back the message that she needed help? His fingers closed into two tight fists.
Cara rolled her eyes and strode past the man like he wasn’t even worth her time. With a tongue-tied Enrique in tow, she stepped into the conference room. All eyes jumped to her — including the appraising gaze of a couple of men twice her age. Tobin nearly growled aloud. She asked him to stay? He’d stay all right. Right here.