It seemed like some Hollywood creation, a wild, unbelievable thriller—the kind of show she secretly adored.
Living it was something else entirely.
She couldn’t believe it was real but she was, without question, in a hammock in the middle of the jungle wearing someone else’s clothes. She couldn’t argue with the facts.
Things like this didn’t happen to Olivia Anne Lambert. In a few short weeks, she had gone from looking ahead to a safe, secure, boring future as Mrs. Bradley Swidell to breaking her engagement, escaping a ruthless killer and running headlong into the jungle with a sexy turtle researcher.
Well, her friends were always pushing her to expand her horizons and shake herself out of her rut. This might be a little more dramatic than they intended, but she’d come too far to turn back now.
What would Wallace have to say about all this, once she was safe back in Fort Worth? Nothing supportive, she could bet.
No doubt he would look at her with that painfully familiar disappointment in his eyes and tell her she was as impulsive and headstrong as her mother. If she had only followed through with the wedding, Wallace would probably opine, none of this would have happened.
She had to wonder if her father would sing the same refrain when she told him Ren’s hypothesis—that Bradley was to blame for this whole thing, that he owed James Rafferty money in gambling debts and planned to use her trust fund to pay them off.
She still didn’t know for sure if that was indeed the case, but she could easily believe it. Bradley loved money and the process of making it. He was heavily invested in the stock market and dabbled in day trading. She could imagine he would thrive on the challenge and risk of betting large sums of money against a man like James Rafferty.
She rolled over and slid out of the hammock. It was easy to understand how Bradley could be mixed up with Rafferty. It wasn’t quite so easy to fathom how she could have let herself be caught up with Bradley.
She’d been a sucker. There was no other word for it. Bradley had waged a fierce campaign to woo and win her, and she had surrendered without much of a fight at all.
She burned with shame when she remembered how flattered she had been when he first turned all that charm and assiduous attention in her direction. He was an extraordinarily good-looking man and he had been powerful and successful, with the added bonus that he was her father’s right-hand man.
For the first time in her life, she had experienced the warm glow of her father’s approval and she had found it heady and addicting.
At the time, it had seemed wonderfully romantic. He claimed to be madly, passionately in love with her, and she had believed him. Now it all seemed so cold and calculated. He had probably already been in over his head with Rafferty six months ago when he had first started dating her.
She must have seemed a perfect pigeon, just ripe for plucking. His extraordinarily wealthy boss’s quiet, plump, eager-to-please daughter who didn’t have any kind of a social life to speak of because she was so terrified of turning into her mother.
Put so starkly, it filled her with shame but she couldn’t deny the truth. For her entire life, Wallace had been holding up Maelene as an example of everything Olivia should fight against in her own psyche. Her mother had been self-indulgent, weak of character and loose of morals. How the two of them ever hooked up long enough to create her, she would never understand, but apparently Wallace at one time in his life had been drawn to those qualities in a woman, even a stripper like Maelene.
Her conception had been unintentional, she knew, the result of a wild affair, but Wallace had married the woman he impregnated, despite his own misgivings.
She didn’t remember her mother at all—had died of a prescription drug overdose before Olivia was two years old—but her maternal grandmother had pictures in her little house. Her mother had been vividly pretty, in a blowsy kind of way, with the kind of smile that drew people to her.
She imagined living with a stern workaholic like Wallace couldn’t have been an easy life for a woman with Maelene’s vitality and joie de vivre.
The chatter of monkeys drew her mind away from her father, and she realized her dreams weren’t being populated by imaginary creatures. A group of some eight or nine small white-faced monkeys were perched in an adjacent tree watching her.
With an incredible feat of gymnastics, the bravest of the lot swung from the tree onto the railing of her shelter and hopped back and forth along the narrow railing with amazing agility.
He was so close she could clearly see the quizzical expression on his face as he watched her.
“Hey there,” she murmured, charmed by him.
The monkey made that chittering sound again as he hopped back and forth. An instant later, he disappeared below the tree house and her heart stuttered for a moment with fear that he might have fallen, until she reminded herself he was an acrobatic monkey.
Curiosity to see the view beyond their tree house warred with her natural fear of heights, but she finally summoned the nerve to edge to the railing of the tree house.
Awe quickly took the place of her fear at the sight unrolling before her eyes.
Everywhere she looked was color and light. She could see the ocean from here far below them, a vast and stunning blue. Closer to her were a hundred shades of green, emerald to mossy to pale, almost white.
The green was broken up by spots of vivid red, purple, orange and yellow from flowers growing profusely, even here in the canopy. There were moving spots of color, as well—huge, kaleidoscopic butterflies flitted through the trees, joined by birds with bright, extraordinary plumage.
Though the sun was just beginning to crest the hill behind her, the air was already muggy and close. But she didn’t mind, entranced by the splendor spread out like a visual feast in front of her.
“Nice view, isn’t it?”
She jerked around to discover Ren pulling himself back into the tree house.
This was her first chance to see him in full sun, and she had to keep from staring. He was gorgeous in the light—lean and dark and masculine. Even with his smile and the warm light in his brown eyes, he looked rugged and dangerous, maybe because of the dark stubble shadowing his face.
She cleared her throat. “I…yes. The, uh, view is wonderful.”
His smile widened. “I love the ocean, but there’s something to be said for the rain forest in the early morning light.”
She managed a nod, her stomach trembling as he continued to look at her with that strange light in his eyes.
“You’ve been down and back up already?” she asked, then cursed the inanity of the question as soon as it left her mouth.
“I brought breakfast. You hungry?”
“Starving,” she admitted, realizing with shock it was true.
He dropped a small hip pack and dumped a smorgasbord onto the tree house floor—green bananas, pineapple, mangoes, star fruit and a coconut. “I hope you like fruit.”
Her mouth watered and she imagined the splendid tropical fruit compote she could make with this bounty of ingredients.
“They look delicious,” she exclaimed.
He pulled out his machete and started slicing into the pineapple. “I’m afraid I don’t have plates, but those leaves work well in a pinch.”
She braved the railing again and reached up to pluck several of the huge oval leaves. Ren, in turn, divided the fruit between them. For a few moments, they feasted in silence, surrounded by the noises of the jungle. It was a surreal experience, eating fresh fruit in a tree house in the rain forest while monkeys watched and brilliant tropical birds flitted through the trees.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked.
She nodded. “Better than I expected. I thought I would have nightmares the moment I closed my eyes. What about you? The floor couldn’t have been comfortable.”
“It wasn’t bad. No bugs, no snakes. I’ve had worse nights.”
He probably thrived on this sort of thing, the whole wilderness adven
ture thing. She had a feeling she and Ren Galvez were as different as salsa and ketchup.
“Where are we going?” she asked after a moment. “Can we see it from here?”
He pointed in the opposite direction from the ocean, east into the sun. “We need to head over the hills and then down again until we get to Rio El Tigre. There’s a village there where we can catch the colectivo to Puerto Jiménez. You can just make out the trail through the canopy.”
He leaned in to show her, until they were inches apart—so close she could smell the scent of his skin, soapy and male. Her nerves shivered and she had to fight to keep from leaning closer and inhaling.
Ren shifted his gaze from the jungle to her, and raw, wild awareness suddenly blossomed between them. Her breathing hitched, her stomach trembled and their vibrant surroundings seemed to fade as her attention focused wholly on him.
Just when she was certain he would kiss her, he blinked several times in rapid succession, let out a deep breath, then stepped away.
“We should, uh, probably head out before it gets much hotter.”
“Right. Of course,” she murmured. Much hotter than this and she would implode.
“There’s water in the catch basin on the other side of the platform if you need to wash up. I put your beach bag over there and I set out a comb and some soap.”
That must be why he smelled clean and fresh. She, on the other hand, was probably much less appealing.
It had been twenty-four hours since she last showered, and she’d hiked through the mud and muck for hours before going to sleep. Her hair was a tangled mess, she had no makeup on and she had a feeling she smelled decidedly ripe.
No wonder he hadn’t wanted to kiss her!
She hadn’t given a thought to her appearance since he grabbed her off the trail the evening before, but now she couldn’t think of anything else. She could feel her face burn and turned away so he wouldn’t see. “That would be good. Thanks.”
She hurried to the basin he’d rigged on the other side of the platform and splashed her face with the warm water.
Wishing fiercely for a hot shower and the huge bag of toiletries she’d packed along, she yanked the comb through her hair while she chided herself for letting her hormones get stirred up over nothing. A man like him would never be interested in someone like her, and she would do well to remember that.
She scanned the contents of her beach bag, wishing she had something a little more useful in there than a romance novel, sunscreen and a cell phone without reception.
Still, she felt marginally better after using a corner of her beach towel to scrub her face and all the exposed skin she could reach—and even some of the unexposed, when she turned her back to him and stuck the towel furtively under her shirt. She did the best she could without a mirror to yank her hair back into a ponytail.
At last, there was nothing left to do but put on those dreaded boots again. She sat on the floor of the platform, eyeing them balefully.
Ren, busy returning things to his pack, caught her disgruntled expression. “I left out the first aid kit and set out some moleskin for your blisters. Let me take a look before you put on the shoes again.”
She wasn’t sure she could endure having him touch her sensitive feet again, not after the heat still twirling through her, but she didn’t see what other choice she had.
He knelt before her and picked up her foot, peeling away the bandage with slow care. She tried to control a shiver as he gently applied more ointment, another bandage and then the moleskin.
By the time he finished her other foot, her nerves felt stretched to the breaking point.
“I’m sorry about the blisters. That should be a little better.”
“I guess that’s the price I pay for hiking through the jungle in boots that are too small. Still, they’re better than my flip-flops.”
He returned the first aid kid to his bulging pack. “Well, I’m sorry I didn’t have a bigger size.”
Despite the sizzle of awareness, she felt comfortable enough with him this morning to finally ask the question she’d been wondering about.
“Why do you have women’s boots in the first place? Who do they belong to?”
His expression instantly changed as his mouth tightened and his eyes shuttered. “A former research partner.”
She definitely sensed more to the story than just those few terse words. “They look like they’ve never been worn. Did she forget them when she moved on?”
He said nothing for a moment. Finally he spoke, his voice low and more solemn than she’d heard it. “She never had the chance to wear them before she died.”
Oh Lord. Leave it to her to stick both feet—wearing a dead woman’s boots—in her mouth.
“I’m so sorry, Ren.”
He looked as if he was going to say more, then he closed his mouth abruptly and stood up.
“We need to get moving.”
CHAPTER 6
His prisoner wasn’t much of a whiner. He had to admire her for that.
After nearly two hours of hard hiking—mostly uphill in the burgeoning heat of the morning—her face was flushed, perspiration was dripping down her creamy skin and her hair was already coming out of the ponytail she had twisted it into.
She winced with every step and he knew her blisters had to be killing her right about now, but she still didn’t complain once or even ask him to slow down.
He admired her strength of spirit even as he wondered how the hell he was going to push her for another five miles.
Though he set a steady pace for them, he was still moving much more slowly than he would have on his own. If not for her, he would have been in El Tigre by now, looking for a ride to Puerto Jiménez.
No, he corrected, he would have hiked all night and been in Port J hours ago.
But that scenario was all irrelevant. He was here on the trail five miles outside El Tigre, doing his best to keep her going when she looked hot, tired and discouraged.
“We can stop here for a few minutes,” he said a few moments later. It was a natural stopping place, near a small waterfall on a spring-fed stream that eventually fed into Rio El Tigre.
With a bone-weary sigh, she sank to the ground, heedless of the mud that was ever present during the rainy season.
It was a nice spot to take a rest, with bright-colored birds flitting across the burbling water and orchids and heliconia growing in wild abundance amid the rich flora.
The air was thick with their perfume, and the sun filtered through the high leaves of the canopy, sending beams dancing on the ground in changing patterns. It might even have been romantic, if not for the urgency of their situation.
He handed her the last water bottle, which she took with alacrity. She gulped about half of it down in three swallows, then stopped and lowered the bottle from her mouth.
He stared at the water droplets clinging to those full, lush movie-star lips and couldn’t seem to look away.
“Aren’t you thirsty?” she asked.
Oh yeah.
“I’m okay,” he lied, ignoring the sudden ache in his gut that he knew nothing else but tasting her would quench.
“Is this all the water we’ve got?”
He managed a smile. “Look around you. We’re in a rain forest. I can find water.”
“Surely not water that’s safe to drink.”
“Lucky for us, I’ve got a water filtration system in my pack and I’ve been keeping our empty water bottles, just waiting for a good spot to use the filter. It won’t take long. Just rest while I take care of it.”
He pulled the small filtration kit out of an outside pocket and set up the hosing, then started suctioning water out of the creek to pump it through the filter unit.
She watched the procedure with a fascinated interest he found both distracting and gratifying, in a weird sort of way.
“That just shows how stupid I am,” she said after a moment. “I didn’t even know such a thing was possible.”
; “You’re not stupid.”
“I certainly feel like it out here. I’m afraid I’m not very good at this.”
He raised an eyebrow. “At what? Resting?”
She laughed, though it had a rough, exhausted note to it. “No. I can handle resting. Believe me, I’m remarkably good at that. It’s the whole outdoors thing that leaves me feeling like…like a virgin in a whorehouse.”
He gave a surprised bark of laughter. “Interesting metaphor, Miss Lambert.”
“Sorry.” He thought she was blushing, but he couldn’t be sure whether it was from embarrassment or just the heat pressing in from every side. “It’s something my grandmother would have said.”
“I bet you’re a lot like her.”
A look of surprise flickered over her features. “I’m not at all like her. She’s brave and smart and out-spoken and…wonderful. I’m nothing like her.”
“I don’t know too many women who would have made it this far without ripping my head off.”
“I’ve been tempted,” she said wryly. “If I were a little taller, I might try.”
“You’ve been great. I’m setting a tough pace and you’re keeping up with me just fine.”
“I’m just afraid you’ll leave me behind for the white-lipped peccaries.”
He laughed. “I wouldn’t do that. We’re in this together now. No turning back, Liv.”
She stared at him for a long moment, an arrested look in her eyes, and he thought for a moment she wanted to smile back at him. But she hid her mouth in the curve of her shoulder, and he couldn’t be sure.
He finished refilling the water bottles with filtered water. “Here we go. It’s not quite Evian, but it will do for the rest of the trip. We’ve got about two hours before the rains hit.”
She watched him package up the filtration system and return it to his backpack. “How do you know so much about survival in the jungle?”
He shrugged. “I’ve just picked it up here and there in the five or six years I’ve been in Costa Rica. It’s not much different than hiking anywhere else. You just have to be aware of the heat and the dangers peculiar to an equatorial lowland rain forest.”
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