A Soldier's Quest

by Lori Handeland

  Lucky whimpered, and Jane put her hand on the dog’s bony head. “What happened?” she whispered.

  “They got here before us. But I can’t see how. Or why.”

  His eyes narrowed on the airfield, then he gave the trees and the foliage a good stare, too.

  “Who’re they?”

  “No clue. I’d like to get my hands on the radio in that hut, but I have a feeling that’s what they’re after.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Booby trap. Or maybe just a trap.” He went silent and thoughtful for several moments before lifting his head. “We’re going to have to move on.”

  “Where?”

  “Nearest large city is… Puerto?” She nodded. “There’ll be a phone. I can make a call and get you out of here.”

  Jane contemplated the bodies. Someone wanted her dead very badly. She wasn’t sure if walking through the jungle was the best idea. Then again, she didn’t have a better one.

  “You okay?”

  His rough fingers brushed her elbow. The texture should have been unpleasant, even startling, but the slight contact, the heat, the strength of him soothed her.

  Jane took a deep breath. “This has never happened to me before.”

  “What?”

  “Bullets flying, people dying, strangers trying to kill me.”

  Bobby’s hand dropped back to his side. “Happens to me all the time.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  BOBBY COULDN’T COUNT the number of occasions he’d been forced to flee through enemy territory. He much preferred chasing to being pursued—who wouldn’t?—but his preferences were rarely consulted when the army made a game plan.

  Usually he was dressed like a local and could blend right in. However, since he’d been told this mission was a simple in and out, he hadn’t taken the time to create a disguise. Therefore, he appeared to be exactly what he was—an American Special Forces operative sporting bright blue eyes in a country full of brown ones. He suddenly missed his contacts as much as he missed his mommy.

  Even if he’d been able to blend in, the doctor and her ugly dog would stand out like processed white bread at a health food store.

  Well, maybe not the dog. Bobby glanced at the one-eyed, mangy mutt that sat next to Dr. Harker’s foot preening as if she were the most recent elect to Best in Show. There were a thousand dogs just like Lucky all over Mexico—except they were better-looking.

  Bobby lifted his gaze. Pale skin, light eyes and hair, Jane didn’t fit in, either. One look and anyone would know she was an Ivy League physician playing at poverty. He didn’t want to imagine what would happen if the men who were after them got their hands on her. Unfortunately, he kept imagining it.

  “We need to move,” he snapped. “Step where I step. Don’t wander off.”

  He expected a sarcastic comment, but Jane merely nodded and inched closer. He caught the scent of a storm on the air and glanced at the sky.

  “What?” She followed his gaze.

  “I smell a storm, but…there’s not a cloud anywhere.”

  He sniffed again. That scent was coming from her hair.

  “Oh!” Jane’s hand went to her head. “I rinsed with rainwater.”

  Bobby gritted his teeth. How was a man supposed to think when a woman smelled like that?

  He shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs and the lust. He had better luck with the cobwebs. As soon as he got out of this jungle he was going to get laid—twice.

  “Why should I step where you step?” she asked.

  He thought of the demolition someone had stolen from him. “Could be trip wires.”

  “Trip wires?” Her face paled. “Like in Vietnam?”

  “Like in every sweaty country. Don’t worry. I doubt they had time to wire the whole jungle, even if they do know how.”

  When she didn’t laugh, Bobby sighed. “I’m just being cautious. I’ve seen a hundred places just like this.”

  “A hundred?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve had sand duty lately, but I know what to look for. Relax.”

  She stared into his eyes for several seconds, then nodded. “I’m sure my mother would only send the best.”

  “Your mother didn’t send me. Only the army can do that.”

  “You obviously don’t know my mother.” She smiled. “Forget it, Luchetti. I promise I won’t wander off. How long until we reach Puerto?”

  “Several hours. If we’re lucky.”

  She glanced at the sky. “It’ll be dark before then.”

  “I know. We’ll have to hole up somewhere.”

  She nodded again, accepting the inevitable.

  “Who do you think did this?” Jane waved at the decimated airfield. “Couldn’t have been the guys who were shooting at us.”

  Bobby cocked his head. Clever girl.

  “You killed most of them, didn’t you?”

  Which had seemed to bother her a lot when it happened. Funny what a few more dead bodies did for the attitude. Or maybe not so funny.

  “Most,” he agreed. But not all.

  The ones who were left had scampered off in the direction of the village. Not that they couldn’t have doubled back. However, Bobby didn’t think two men, no matter how well supplied, could have caused this amount of destruction.

  If they had, where were they? They should have hidden, then snatched Jane—at the very least killed both her and Bobby. It’s what he would have done.

  Which led him to the same conclusion the doctor had made. There were two gangs with guns in the jungle. And wasn’t that just special?

  Bobby started off through the dense brush, using his knife to clear a better path whenever necessary.

  “I don’t understand what’s going on here,” she muttered.

  Lucky muttered, too, but the dog stopped her odd canine “talking” at a glare from Bobby.

  “How many people are trying to kill me? And why?”

  “If you figure it out, clue me in. Now, let’s make some time.”

  The doctor kept pace with him, and she didn’t complain. She didn’t limp, either.

  “Ankle better?”

  “Hard to say. I wrapped it tight enough to walk. When I take off the binding, it’ll probably swell like a blowfish. So I guess I won’t take off the binding.”

  “Your wrist?”

  “Bruised.”

  He glanced back as she held up her hand. A dark blotch had already materialized against the pale skin of her wrist. Bobby winced. “Sorry.”

  “Once again, Captain, better a bruise and a sprain than a funeral. Have I thanked you for saving my life?”

  “Just part of the service included with your taxes, ma’am.”

  “Nevertheless, I apologize for nearly gutting you and for arguing.”

  “You couldn’t have gutted me, and the arguments were…refreshing.”

  “I suppose people kowtow to you all the time?”

  “Unless they’re terrorists or psychotics. They don’t usually spare the time for chatter before they try to kill me.”

  “Nice life you lead.”

  “I wouldn’t be throwing stones in a glass jungle, if I were you.”

  “How do you stand it?” she whispered.

  “It isn’t so bad.”

  People trying to kill him were a fact of Bobby’s life. Maybe he’d gotten a bit tired of it lately, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going back for more.

  He believed in what he did, knew that without his expertise in fighting for truth, justice and the American Way, shit would happen.

  As Colin was fond of saying: shit was inevitable.

  For an instant, Bobby missed his brother so badly his stomach ached. Until he’d turned eighteen and enlisted, Bobby and Colin had been roommates.

  Back home, there’d been three bedrooms for six children. Kim, by virtue of being the only girl, received her own room. No one complained. She’d been snarky from birth.

  Another had gone to Evan, Dean and Aaron. Evan was laid-back, Dean t
erminally pissed off, and Aaron… Aaron was a saint in Luchetti clothing.

  Or he had been until he’d turned his back on the priesthood. No one had known why until a few years ago when his fourteen-year-old daughter by a Las Vegas stripper had show up on the doorstep. Oops.

  Which left the last room for Bobby and Colin—two boys who couldn’t have been more different. Colin loved books, words, pictures of far-off places. He’d studied constantly to get a scholarship to Boston University.

  Bobby had played every sport in high school, excelling at football and wrestling. For some reason he’d been gifted with a good portion of the Luchetti family brains. All he had to do was look at his notes and an A on the test was his.

  He’d used the time everyone else spent studying to work out, honing his body so he’d be ready to join the army at eighteen. While Colin dreamed of writing about exotic lands, Bobby dreamed of saving the world.

  They’d fought over everything—in Luchetti land fighting was considered a pastime, not a crime—but they’d never fought over a woman. None of them had.

  The Luchetti brothers had a code—unwritten, but also unbreakable, or at least it had been.

  Never touch your brother’s girl.

  Bobby shoved the memories from his mind, but the ache in his belly remained. Would he ever get rid of it?

  BOBBY HAD GONE SILENT. Jane could practically see the intense thoughts rolling off him like steam in a jungle dawn. She hoped he was formulating a plan to get them out of here, preferably without body bags.

  She kept quiet and walked in his footsteps. Lucky slunk behind Jane, glancing far too often into the steadily darkening brush. The dog wasn’t any more happy about being out here at night than Jane was.

  Bobby stopped so abruptly Jane nearly ran into his broad back. Nervous, she peeked around his shoulder, expecting at any moment to get her head blown off by a renegade member of a drug cartel, or the men who wanted to kill her. Which would it be? What did it matter? A gun was a gun and dead was dead.

  “We’ll stop here,” Bobby said.

  She glanced around the overgrown path that passed for a trail. “Right here?”

  “Right here wouldn’t be all that bright, now would it?”

  “Not like this is Route 66.”

  Bobby lifted, then lowered, one shoulder. Jane touched her mouth to make sure the drool hadn’t escaped. She must have contracted a tropical fever to suddenly become light-headed over the rippling muscles of soldier boy. Hopefully the disease wasn’t fatal.

  “There’s water over there.” He waved vaguely to the right.

  “And you know this how?”

  “Can’t you smell it?”

  Jane sniffed. All she could smell was him.

  While that should be unpleasant after a day in the sun and the heat, she had to admit the scent made her light-headed again.

  Definitely jungle fever.

  He pushed through the dense brush lining the trail, and Jane scrambled to keep up. Lucky raced off as if she’d just seen a rabbit, and Jane took a quick step after her.

  Bobby put out his arm. “Listen.”

  Splash.

  He’d been right about the water.

  Hoping for paradise—a gilded cove with glistening turquoise water— Jane eagerly followed Bobby through the greenery. She’d just begun a lovely fantasy where the two of them frolicked naked beneath a waterfall, and no one wanted to kill her, when he stopped again. This time she did run into him. Jane nearly fell on her butt before she gained her balance by catching Bobby’s shoulders.

  “Damn,” he muttered.

  Jane jerked her hands away as if he were a hot potato. Nevertheless, she could still feel the heat of his skin and the solid weight of his muscles against her palms. Peeking around his shoulder for a second time, Jane repeated the curse.

  Lucky lolled in the center of a very large mud puddle.

  “Get her out of there before she grinds all of our drinking water into her mangy hide.”

  “Lucky, no!” Jane called.

  The dog turned her single eye in Jane’s direction and snorted, then she flipped onto her back and wiggled.

  “Isn’t she too refined for mud wrestling?”

  “That’s called a mud bath,” Jane murmured. “They’re good for the complexion.”

  Not to mention cool on heated mangy hides.

  Luchetti shot Jane an incredulous look, as if waiting for her to laugh. But she wasn’t joking.

  “There has to be more water than this,” he muttered, and stalked past the dog.

  There were several more puddles farther into the brush. Thankfully, Lucky was already covered in mud and didn’t feel the need to roll in every one of them.

  The water had gathered in a basin. Bobby climbed the small incline that led to an escarpment of dirt topped with vegetation and backed by a small cliff. He tossed her backpack to the ground, then laid his rifle next to it.

  “Is this safe?” Jane nearly moaned out loud at the pleasure of leaving her feet.

  “Safe as we’ll get. With my back to the wall, I can see anyone approaching from that direction. Should be able to hear them, too. Fire wouldn’t be a good idea, though. Cold camp tonight.”

  “No problem.”

  The idea of a fire in this climate was downright nauseating.

  Luchetti sat and nudged the backpack in Jane’s direction. “So, what’s for dinner?”

  Jane opened the bag. “Four juice boxes and two packages of crackers.”

  “Split it up.”

  “You think we’ll be somewhere sane by tomorrow?”

  “Doubtful. But we should be somewhere that has food.”

  Jane divided the provisions. “You don’t have much use for Mexico, do you?”

  “I don’t have much use for a lot of places. Don’t take it personally.”

  “I like it here.” She stabbed the straw through the tiny hole in the juice box. “Or at least I did.”

  “You have any idea why someone wants to kill you?”

  “None.”

  “How about kidnapping?”

  “Well, my mother isn’t hurting for money.”

  “Weird,” he murmured. “If they’re after ransom, they should be more careful where their bullets are flying.”

  “You won’t get any argument from me.”

  “And Enrique definitely wanted to kill you.”

  Jane stilled at the memory, which upset her more than the drug dealers in the jungle. Enrique had been her friend. Why would he try to kill her?

  “Speaking of Enrique,” she said. “Is he…?”

  “Dead? I hope so.”

  Jane kind of did, too, and that was so unlike her she had to fight back an annoying urge toward tears. She hadn’t cried yet, and she wasn’t going to start now.

  “There must be two groups after you,” Bobby murmured. “But why?”

  Excellent question. Jane had always wondered what it would feel like to be popular. She didn’t like it.

  Jane watched as Bobby fumbled the small juice box with his big hands. “Let me.”

  The punch of his blue eyes was like a fist to her solar plexus. Men shouldn’t have eyes that pretty.

  “I can—” Sighing, he shoved the mangled straw and box into her hands. “I can’t. Why do they make those things so small?”

  Even though his gesture was impatient, Jane shivered at the scrape of his skin against hers and botched her first attempt.

  “They’re for children.” She pushed her thumbnail into the hole and inserted the straw easily on her second try. “Not Captain America.”

  He gave a short, surprised bark of laughter.

  “What?” she asked.

  “My brothers always called me G.I. Joe. Still do.”

  Jane handed Bobby the box and some of the crackers. “Your family doesn’t approve of your career?”

  “They don’t like it when I disappear. Sometimes months, even a year can go by without a word from me. Can’t say I blame them.” />
  “What about your wife?”

  He stiffened. “Not married.”

  From his reaction, Jane figured there was more to that story, but she didn’t know him well enough to pry. At least she could put aside the nagging guilt over the lust she couldn’t seem to control.

  He wasn’t married. Hallelujah.

  Lucky dropped next to Jane, smudging mud all over her right thigh. After the day she’d had, the extra dirt was hardly noticeable. What Jane wouldn’t give for a hot shower and a glass of red wine. Not that she’d seen either one since coming to Mexico more than a year ago.

  Jane split her crackers with the dog. Instead of wolfing them down like a dog should, Lucky nibbled daintily on them one at a time.

  “You shouldn’t give her half,” Bobby protested. “Dogs can go a long time without eating.”

  “I couldn’t enjoy my share if Lucky went hungry.”

  “I’ve never understood people who treat their pets like children.”

  “I’d never treat Lucky like a child. She wouldn’t allow it. She’s my friend.” Jane patted the bony head. “Don’t you have a pet?”

  “I don’t even have an address.”

  “Stupid question. I meant haven’t you ever had a pet?”

  “Not really. Farm dogs are working animals. The cats come and go—and they multiply like rabbits. They’re hunters and not exactly cuddly. Not that I’d cuddle with them or anything.”

  He made a manly face and flexed his muscles.

  Jane laughed, even though she wanted to throw herself into his lap and touch all of his bronzed, rippling skin. The jungle brain-rot fever was back.

  “It’s strange how reality and belief can be so different,” she murmured.

  At his questioning glance, she continued. “I lived in big cities and apartment buildings most of my life. I figured all the farm kids had pets up the wazoo, and I envied them. I couldn’t have a pet because Mother was allergic to cats.”

  “What about a dog?”

  “Dogs and apartments don’t go together very well.”

  Or at least that had been her mother’s excuse. When Jane was sent off to boarding school, the whole issue became moot.

  Her childhood desire for a pet explained why she’d fallen in love with Lucky at first sight. Or maybe it was just her lack of friends and the compulsive desire to help anyone or anything she considered helpless.