Rainforest Honeymoon

by RaeAnne Thayne

  He gazed at her for a long moment, then the edges of his mouth twitched. She almost didn’t mind sitting there covered from head to toe in mud, not if it would earn her a breathtaking smile like the one that spread over his features.

  “You are a piece of work, Olivia Lambert.” Something that looked almost like affection sparked in those cinnamon eyes. “Right now, I have to say I’m very glad I didn’t let Rafferty have you.”

  “You’re just trying to sweet-talk me so I won’t throw more mud.”

  He smiled. “That too.”

  It was ridiculous. Hadn’t she just decided she was at the lowest point in her life? So why should she feel this warmth burst within her like a balloon filled with confetti?

  “If I try to help you up, you’re not going to do something completely unoriginal like yank me down into the mud with you, are you?”

  She tilted her head, considering, as rain dripped from her eyelashes. “Tempting. Very tempting. But then we’d both be stuck down here.”

  He held a strong hand out to her. She gripped his fingers and he pulled her to her feet. He didn’t release her immediately. She was intensely aware of him, the strength of his fingers holding hers, the warmth of his breath on her cheek, the scent of him, masculine and alluring.

  She thought for a moment he would kiss her again and she caught her breath, holding every twitching muscle immobile. Instead, he lifted the edge of his T-shirt, sacrificing a clean corner of it to wipe at the mud on her throat and jawline.

  Her gaze met his and there was a strange, glittery expression there she couldn’t begin to interpret. She drew a shaky breath as the intimate tenderness of the gesture sent the last of her defenses tumbling.

  When he was done, he stepped quickly away. “We’re not making any progress here. We might as well stop and grab a bite to eat until the rains ease a little.”

  She wanted to press a hand to her trembling stomach, but she was afraid to reveal the effect he had on her. Instead, she stood in the rain watching him pull a small folded tarp and some rope out of his miracle pack. In moments, he had rigged a tented shelter for them between a couple of trees.

  By the time he finished, the torrents of rain had sluiced the worst of the mud from her clothes and skin.

  All she needed now was a little shampoo and some French-milled soap and she might feel halfway human again.

  There was barely room for the two of them under the tarp but she climbed in and sat down. Though the improvised shelter did a good job of keeping most of the rain out, it wasn’t dry, by any stretch of the imagination. Still, it was better than the alternative.

  He sat beside her, pulling the survival pack behind him, and the tiny shelter immediately shrunk.

  “I’ve never seen rain like this,” she said. “When the tourist brochures say this is the rainy season, they’re not kidding.”

  “September and October are the wettest months on the peninsula.”

  “Does it really rain twice a day?”

  “This time of year, yeah. We don’t see much rain from December to March but the rainy season makes up for it.”

  “A heck of a time for a honeymoon, I guess.”

  Something dark and sultry sparked in his eyes, and her stomach muscles clenched. She had a vivid image of wrapping herself around him in a warm, clean bed somewhere while rain pounded the windows outside.

  A muscle in his jaw twitched but he quickly looked away, digging through the contents of his pack. A moment later, he pulled out a couple granola bars and a packet of beef jerky.

  Quite a departure from the lunch she had enjoyed the day before at Rafferty’s estate—perfectly poached sea bass with a delectable pineapple-mango salsa—but she suddenly discovered she was hungry enough to eat the tarp covering them.

  “Sorry I can’t offer you something better.” Ren opened the wrapper of the granola bar and handed it over to her. “I cook a mean chicken fajita and caramel flan.”

  Her mouth watered just imagining it, but she forced herself to chew and swallow the stale granola bar that tasted as if it had been at the bottom of his pack for some time. “So not only can you rig a shelter in the middle of a rainstorm in two minutes flat but you cook, too. A man of many talents.”

  He grinned. “I’m glad you think so.”

  Some wolfish light in his eyes reminded her of their kiss, the intimacy they had shared and the awareness burning through her at such close quarters.

  “How did you learn to cook?” she asked to distract herself from the knowledge of how easy it would be to span the short distance between them and taste that hard mouth again.

  “My mom taught me and my two brothers and sister some traditional Mexican dishes when I was a kid, but I never enjoyed it much. I would have much preferred being outside in the grass on my stomach watching the ants scurry around.”

  “If you love bugs, I imagine Costa Rica must be a regular paradise for you.”

  He gestured to the pounding rain outside their tiny shelter. “What’s not to love?”

  She couldn’t help but smile. He gazed at her for a moment, then shifted his gaze to his own granola bar.

  “I’ve been glad of my mama’s lessons in the kitchen over the years. I would have starved to death without them. They would have found me hunched over my data, my withered, emaciated frame clutching my last granola bar.”

  She didn’t even like imagining such a fate. “Don’t you get lonely working by yourself all the time?”

  “I’m not alone all the time. I have volunteers who help me count egg hatches sometimes, and I’ve shared space on and off with other researchers.”

  “That’s right,” she suddenly remembered. “You said you had a research partner. The woman whose, um, boots I’m wearing.” The woman who had died, she remembered.

  Ren was silent and any trace of lightheartedness seemed to seep away, leaving his features hard and unyielding.

  “Mercedes Mora,” he said after a long moment. “She was affiliated with La Universidad de Costa Rica. We were working on a joint project studying the effects of organochlorine contaminants on olive riddley sea turtle immunity.”

  She had no idea what organochlorine meant or even what an olive riddley sea turtle looked like. But she knew with surety there had been more between Ren and his partner than a research project.

  She should let the subject drop, she thought, but she was suddenly deeply curious about the woman whose shoes she was literally filling. A woman he must have cared about.

  “You said she died. What happened to her?” she finally asked.

  He gazed out at the now drizzling rain, but not before she saw a haunted pain flicker in his dark eyes.

  He didn’t answer for several moments. When he did, his voice was taut and sharp-edged. “Our research station caught fire while I was out in the field collecting data one day. Probably arson. The fire investigator flown in from San Juan speculated that Mercedes was napping when the fire started and died from smoke inhalation without even waking up.”

  Olivia shivered, both from the hideous fate of his partner and from the dispassionate tone he tried—and failed—to use. She could hear echoes of pain in his low voice though he tried to hide it and her heart ached for his loss.

  “Did they have suspects?” she asked quietly.

  “Plenty of them, unfortunately. A lot of Ticos on the coasts aren’t all that crazy about the work I do. Sea turtle eggs have been a traditional local delicacy. We try to work out a deal where they can harvest eggs the first forty-eight hours after they’re laid, but we sometimes get a less-than-cooperative reception when we try to block access to nesting sites.”

  He sighed. “The day before the fire, Mercedes and I had a confrontation with some poachers from the village. It was pretty nasty, but I never imagined they would go that far. I think they only wanted to stop our research and get us the hell out of there so they could go back to the way they’d been doing things for generations. I don’t think murder was their intention, but th
at’s the way it turned out.”

  She thought her life was so terrible, with a cheating fiancé and a perpetually disappointed father. Her problems seemed so petty compared to the loss he had suffered.

  “I’m so sorry, Ren.” She touched his arm, and his muscles were tight beneath her fingers. “She was more to you than just a research partner, wasn’t she?”

  She thought at first he would answer her, and he took a deep breath as if gearing up to agree. She waited breathlessly, but he only gazed out into the rain forest beyond their shelter.

  “The rain’s letting up,” he finally said. “I guess our lunch break is over.”

  Without another word, he climbed out and started taking down the tarp.

  CHAPTER 8

  At the pace he was setting, most women he knew would have dug their heels into the mud and told him to go suck a pineapple. Though he could feel the waves of fatigue radiating off her, Olivia didn’t complain. Other than that momentary breakdown on the trail earlier, she gave no sign that the going was tough on her.

  He had never met anyone like her. She was a mass of contradictions—vulnerable one moment, tough as steel the next. He had a feeling a man could spend his whole life with her and not discover all her secrets.

  Not him, of course. He wasn’t a forever kind of guy. His life was his work and that’s all he had room to deal with.

  He glanced at their surroundings, recognizing the curve of the tributary they followed. Another twenty minutes or so and they should hit El Tigre.

  Assuming they could make it in time to catch the regular “bus”—really just a beat-up four-wheel-drive pickup truck with bench seats in the bed covered by a tarp—they should be in Puerto Jiménez an hour after that.

  She could be on a plane to the capital by dark.

  It would be a vast relief to know she was safe. She could contact the embassy in San José for help getting out of the country. He didn’t know her family situation—she’d mentioned a father, he was almost certain—but he would make sure she had someone at home to look out for her.

  The thought of saying goodbye sent a weird little pain twisting through his chest. It was crazy. He barely knew the woman. But somehow he knew the events of this day would leave an indelible imprint on him.

  He paused to check her progress as they descended a moderately steep slope. She wasn’t watching the trail, her attention fixed on a small troop of squirrel monkeys climbing a nearby tree, which gave him an opportunity to watch her.

  She had a little mud on her cheek and her hair looked bedraggled in its makeshift ponytail, but there was still a radiance to her that glowed through everything.

  She was so fragile and lovely, a soft American Beauty rose amid the exotic foliage of the jungle, and she took his breath away.

  Her fiancé must have been the stupidest son of a bitch who ever lived. Why would a guy who had this—all those lush curves, that orchid-soft skin, the tantalizing mystery of her—risk it all by messing around with another woman?

  It made absolutely no sense to him. The guy ought to be strung up by his cojones for hurting her.

  A fierce protectiveness swelled inside him. She had been through enough. He had to get her safely through the rest of it.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked as she reached him. “Why are we stopping?”

  “You need to drink something.”

  She made a face but pulled out the water bottle and obediently swallowed a few swigs of its filtered contents.

  “Happy now?” she asked.

  He wouldn’t be happy until she was safely off the peninsula.

  No, he corrected himself grimly. Her departure certainly wouldn’t make him happy, since she would take all that radiance with her. He would miss her when she was back in her safe little life in Texas.

  “We’re almost to El Tigre,” he said instead of answering. “No doubt Rafferty has stationed some of his goons there. We’ll have to come up with a disguise for both of us.”

  “I think I’ve already demonstrated I make a fairly terrifying mudbog monster.”

  He smiled. “I’m afraid we’ll have to come up with something a little more believable.”

  * * *

  Forty-five minutes later, he stood back and surveyed his handiwork.

  “I look a mess, don’t I?” she asked, self-doubt in her voice as she surveyed her attire.

  “Not at all. Just…different.”

  It was a pretty good disguise, if he did say so himself, for something improvised on the spur of the moment.

  They had caught what felt like their first damn break since he stepped foot on Suerte del Mar when they encountered a woman doing laundry near the river on the outskirts of the village.

  Ren had paid the astonished campesina an exorbitant amount for a rough-hewn blouse and skirt for Olivia and a pair of men’s work trousers and shirt for him.

  The woman—Maria Ramos—had been reluctant to part with the clothes at first, but with what he paid her, she could buy decent replacement clothes and feed her family for at least a month.

  Her husband’s work attire was a decent fit for him, though the pants were on the short side. But Maria hadn’t been a small woman, by any stretch of the imagination, and her clothes swamped Olivia, even with her generous curves.

  After a moment of thought, Ren had come up with a solution.

  Olivia patted her abdomen now, distended a good eight inches by the padding he’d improvised using the blanket in his bedroll.

  “Never in a million years will I pass as a pregnant woman.”

  “Sure you will. People see what they want to see. If you act like you’re expecting a blessed event any moment now, that’s what people will see. Let’s try the hat.”

  He set the big floppy hat he’d purchased from Maria Ramos on her head and tried to tuck as much of her hair under it as possible.

  He tried three or four times, trying not to notice the softness of her hair under his rough hands, but it was no use. No matter what he tried, telltale blond tendrils slipped free.

  “It’s not working, is it?” she asked.

  “No. And that’s a problem. Rafferty’s men will be looking for me and a blond woman. We’re going to have to figure something else out.”

  “Like what?”

  He looked around, his mind spinning with possibilities. He finally found what he was looking for off the trail a dozen feet or so.

  “Be right back,” he told her, then cut a path through the thick undergrowth with his machete until he reached the tree he was looking for.

  Genipa Americana.

  He returned to the trail and quickly found a stone with a slight indentation. It would probably do the trick.

  “Hand me that rock over there,” he said.

  She pried it out of the mud and brought it to him, then stood watching as he crushed berries from the bush between the two rocks and mixed water with them, making a thick paste.

  “Do I dare ask what you’re doing?”

  He glanced up. “You’re not going to like it,” he predicted.

  “I have a sneaking suspicion you’re right.”

  When the paste was ready, he beckoned her to sit on a fallen log.

  “I’m sorry about this but we’ll never get through town with you as a blond woman, even with the hat. It’s just too risky.”

  Dawning horror spread over her features. “No way. You’re not putting that stuff in my hair!”

  “We don’t have a choice, Liv. It will be fine, I promise.”

  “What is it?”

  “Indigenous tribes here and in the Amazon use genipa leaves to dye their hair and skin for rituals. I’m not worried about your skin since Ticos have a wide variety of skin tones. But your hair’s a dead giveaway and we just can’t take that risk. You’ll never pass as a native unless we hide it and this is the only way except for cutting it off.”

  “Tell me this isn’t permanent,” she begged. “It will wash out, right?”

  “I’m sure it
will.” It was stretching the truth a bit, since he wasn’t sure of any such thing, but he decided he’d better not tell her that.

  She shuddered and for a moment she looked as if she were going to cry, but she finally sat obediently on a log.

  “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

  “Not really,” he admitted. “I just thought I’d put the paste in and that would do the trick.”

  She sighed. “You’re crazy. And I’m even more crazy to let you do this.”

  Still, she didn’t protest when he applied the paste to her hair and eyebrows, hiding any trace of blond he could find. Between the two of them, they decided to let it sit for ten minutes and then tested a strand. It wasn’t as dark as his, but she was no longer so obviously blond.

  “Close enough,” he said. “Lean over my arm and I’ll rinse the rest of it off.”

  She obeyed, resting her neck on his left forearm. He was again awash in tenderness that she trusted him enough to do all this. He wanted to hold her close, to kiss the vulnerable soft skin of her neck bared by her position, but he forced himself to concentrate on the job at hand. Finally the last of the genipa was rinsed from her hair.

  While Ren threw on the rough cotton clothes he’d bought from Maria Ramos, she ran his comb through her hair then quickly braided it to further disguise the color and topped it off with the big floppy hat.

  “Well? Will I do?”

  He studied her. Up close, no one would possibly mistake her for anything other than what she was—an extraordinarily lovely woman masquerading as a frumpy pregnant villager.

  He would just have to hope to hell none of Rafferty’s men managed to get that close.

  “You’ll do,” he said gruffly. On impulse, he grabbed her close for a quick embrace, a hard lump of worry in his stomach at what they faced on this last leg of their journey.

  She wrapped her arms around his waist and held on as if he were the only solid thing in her world. Despite her generous curves, she felt slight and fragile in his arms, and he wanted to keep her right here forever where she was safe.