by Janzen, Tara
Nikki shivered at the sound of terror cutting across the compound. A minute ago it could have been her death cry, or Josh’s. It might still be.
“Can you reach my hands?” he asked urgently.
“Yes.” She understood what he wanted, and she worked frantically at the ropes tying his hands, her movements hindered by her own bound wrists.
When he was free, he rolled over, ripping off his blindfold and hers. He reached for her hands. “We’ll try for the forest, see who comes out on top in this thing. Come on.”
The rope fell away. Cradling her arms, she got to her knees. A fresh round of gunfire put her right back flat on the ground. She pulled herself closer to Josh, until their shoulders touched. Feathers of dust skittered across the compound on all sides of them.
“We’re pinned,” she gasped, her fingers digging into the dirt, her heart racing.
“Yeah.” Josh lifted his head a fraction of an inch and glanced around. He couldn’t tell the bad guys from the good guys, or if there were any good guys.
A fireball streaked out of the night on his left, sucking up the oxygen with a whoosh and blinding him with a red-orange burst of light. No explosion rocked the air, just a sudden intense heat coming out of nowhere and destroying the shack. Fire crawled down the building and into the forest.
He wiped the sweat out of his eyes and watched their escape route go up in flames. Damn, he wished they were anywhere else in the world. He jerked his head around, looking for an alternative. “Try for Brazia’s jeep. Belly-crawl.” That was the best he could come up with.
Pushing with her elbows and knees, Nikki wriggled forward. The jeep was ahead of her, the four tires marking a safety zone of shadow in the torched battlefield. Yellow and red firelight ringed the north border of the camp. Whoever had come after Brazia was using the mad dog’s own tricks against him—saturation violence and mayhem. They were going to crush him, and maybe crush her and Josh in the bargain.
She slid the last foot under the jeep, pushed by Josh’s hand on her bottom. Then, as suddenly as it had started, the battle was over. The pop-pop of the final rifle shots faded into the crashing sounds of the tumbling, flaming shack. Voices came out of the darkness, shouted orders and cheers of victory. From their hiding place beneath the jeep, Nikki saw a man push Brazia’s body with his booted foot. Brazia cringed.
“He’s alive,” the man announced to his troops. “Take him to Sulaco, inmediatamente!”
Two soldiers hurried forward to haul the colonel away. The man turned, and the lights of the fire lit his face with a flickering crimson glow.
“Cardena,” she whispered, glancing at Josh. “He came back for us.”
“Yeah, but why?” Josh had been used, abused, and double-crossed too many times in the last thirty-six hours to accept anything or anybody at face value. Not Luis Cardena . . . and not Nikki Kydd, not any longer.
“To take us to Delgado?” she offered, her voice catching on every other breath, like his own.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Some things would never change, he thought, and Nikki drawing trouble like a magnet was the worst of those things. Yes, he loved her. Yes, he accepted the responsibility for being the partial cause of her involvement. But there was something about Nikki, and Nikki alone, that lit fuses and created sparks wherever she went. The woman should be under lock and key. She was dangerous, and he’d had his fill of danger. She’d used him in the worst possible way, and although he understood her reasons, he hoped that somewhere deep down inside himself there was a self-defense mechanism to protect him from being hurt further by her. If he sat tight and waited, maybe it would kick in and he’d be able to think straight.
With the unsettling facts firmly planted in his mind, he opened his eyes and stared for a long moment at his hands. Nothing happened. He’d run out of time, and they’d run out of choices.
“Okay, Nikki. The only way we’re going to find out is to ask and hope we like the answer, because we sure as hell aren’t going to get out of here without him noticing.” Pushing himself out from under the jeep, he deliberately refrained from looking at her, at the most appealing face he’d ever seen. Even when it was smudged with dirt and framed by sweaty, stringy hair, he was a fool for that face.
Nikki followed, unsure of what emotion she’d seen in his eyes. Resignation, definitely. But sadness too? By her reckoning the worst was over. She was still shaking, inside and out, but they were both in one piece. Brazia had been neutralized, and Travinas had to deal with her now. She held the winning hand again, if she had the strength to keep her players in line, to keep Josh by her side—the strength and the sheer audacity after that terrible confession he’d wrung out of her in the shack.
Cardena’s men surrounded them in a rush, grabbing them and hustling them to the middle of the compound. Neither she nor Josh put up any resistance.
“Señorita Kydd, Señor Rios,” Cardena said, dropping the pretense of their lie. “You are both lucky to be alive, especially you, señorita. Another second, or a less steady hand”—he raised his rifle and leveled her with a dark-eyed glare—“and you would be meeting your Maker.”
Nikki nodded her thanks and slanted a quick glance up at Josh.
“Damn good shot,” Josh said, ignoring the pull of her eyes. “You missed on purpose this morning.”
“It is the only way I ever miss, señor. Had you not been so eager to run, I could have saved you much unpleasantness. As it is, I will be content with saving your lives.”
Josh took the wound to his pride like a man. He kept his face blank and his hands loose at his sides. He was in no mood to dish out the gratitude Cardena wanted and deserved, at least not for the night’s fiasco. But Cardena had just done him another favor, one Josh would have thanked him for if the situation had allowed. He’d made Josh angry; he’d triggered the self-defense mechanism.
“I’m sure you had your reasons, or your orders,” he drawled, meeting Cardena’s black gaze with a challenge of his own.
“Both,” Cardena slowly admitted, the barest hint of a smile touching the corner of his mouth. “It seems, Señor Rios, that you are a person of much value. Carlos Delgado is convinced you have something he needs.”
“But does he have anything I need?”
Cardena’s gaze flicked over Nikki before coming back to Josh. “That depends on how you value the lady and her happiness.”
Slowly but surely Nikki felt herself being cut out of the deal. All she’d ever had was Josh to bargain with. She was only the liaison between him and Travinas, between him and Delgado. He didn’t need her. She needed him. Everybody needed him.
“Josh?” She touched his arm, gazing up at him. She knew it would be so easy for him to walk away, for she certainly hadn’t given him any reason not to. Quite the contrary, she’d given him every reason to leave and never look back. No, never look back—the way he thought she’d left him.
Josh stared down at her, at her pale face and the look of desperate uncertainty in her eyes. Three years of loneliness had brought him to this moment, three years of missing her with an ache he hadn’t been able to assuage. Two days of pure hell hadn’t changed the emotional reality of his love, his loneliness, or the ache. If anything, he missed her more now, for the young girl he’d loved so completely was truly lost to him. A week ago, the woman waiting for his answer had made her decision. One life for another. He wouldn’t deny her.
“Take me to Delgado,” he said to Cardena. “For the price of Helen Cavazos’s freedom, I’ll tell him what he needs to know to bring Travinas down.”
He felt Nikki’s fingers tighten on his arm. “Thank you.” Her voice was soft, almost too soft to hear.
He ignored her and continued speaking directly to Cardena. If he stopped now, he might not have the courage to say what he still had to say. “There is one other condition. Nicolita Kydd. I won’t tell Delgado anything until she’s out of the country.”
“Señor?” Cardena’s glance traveled between the two of them.
“You heard me. I want her gone, and I want you to take her. Whatever arrangements have to be made for Helen’s release can be done without Nikki. That’s the deal.”
That was the deal, and that was the end of it, he thought, strangely relieved by the simplicity of the plan. He wasn’t up to complications of any sort, physical, mental, or emotional. His body was bruised, his mind even more so by Brazia’s revelations and Nikki’s confession, by the horror he’d felt when he thought she’d died. He never wanted to feel that kind of pain again. It was unbearable. No, he shouldn’t have let her get away from him, but neither should she have asked him to come back.
“I don’t have the authority to—”
“Take it,” Josh interrupted, calling Cardena’s bluff. The man had needed plenty of authority to pull off the raid. “Take her. Or Delgado can wait until I get back from taking her myself.”
“Where?”
“The States.”
“No. No, Rios.” Cardena shook his head, becoming agitated. “We—the revolution, Delgado—none of us can wait that long. The schedule has been set. The country will be freed in two—soon, very soon,” he corrected himself. “Delgado wants to give your information to the people immediately after he gains control.”
“Then take her,” Josh demanded.
“Maybe one of my men—”
“You, Cardena. Only you. You’re the one who saved her life. You’re the one I want to take her out of here, tonight.” He didn’t want time for anything else to go wrong, for Travinas to marshal his forces, for Delgado to change his mind. He didn’t want time to think about her leaving. He wanted time to heal, alone, knowing she was safe.
Nikki heard the conversation through a haze of shock, her initial relief dying like the flames coming up against the damp forest floor. Josh was sending her away, and Cardena was going to let him. She saw the indecision on the older man’s face, but she also saw the inevitability of his answer.
“No,” she said quickly, trying to sway the odds in her favor. She didn’t want to leave him like this, with so many things left unsaid, with their love and friendship tainted by the ruin of her deception.
“Don’t undercut yourself, Nikki.” Josh looked down at her. “For your mother’s sake, you should be begging him to take you out of here. Nothing’s going to happen until you’re gone.”
“I’ll leave. I promise. But not like this. Not tonight. I can help you.”
“I’ve had all the help from you I can take. No offense”—he raised his hand to stop her protest—“just the plain honest-to-goodness truth. You’re hell on a man, Nikki, real hell.”
One look at him proved his point. Dirt and mud covered every square inch of him. His clothes were torn. Blood stained the collar of his shirt. And none of it compared to the weariness in his eyes.
“I can change, Josh,” she said softly, pleading with him to believe what even she doubted. She needed to change, wanted to change, but she’d been running so hard for so long, subordinating everything to one ultimate goal—her mother’s freedom.
“Prove it. Leave with Cardena. When your mother is released I’ll bring her to you.” He turned to Cardena, not giving her a chance to say anything more. “What’s your decision?”
“You’ve given me no choice,” Cardena said. “I will take Nikki home.”
“How long will it take?”
“I have connections. We can be in Miami by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Miami?” Josh asked in a wary tone.
“Don’t worry, Señor Rios. Not everyone in Miami deals in contraband. My connections are old and trusted family friends. She will come to no harm under my care.”
“If I didn’t believe you, you’d be showing up in Sulaco empty-handed instead of taking off for Florida.” He dismissed Cardena and turned to Nikki. He thought about kissing her good-bye, then decided against anything as dangerous as a kiss. He thought about touching her face, her hair, then thought he’d better not. So he stood there, looking down at her, struggling with the words that wouldn’t come. “Are you going to your aunt’s in Colorado?” he finally asked.
“I think she’s the only one in the family who’ll have me.” Nikki attempted a smile.
“You’re a celebrity. You’ll have them all eating out of your hand,” he assured her with a weak smile of his own.
“I don’t know, Josh. I left a long time ago. I was only fifteen the last time I saw my aunt.” Her glance strayed to the toes of her tennis shoes. She hated saying good-bye, hated leaving him. “Maybe I’ll go to Washington. David can put me up until I get reassigned. That is, if he doesn’t fire me. I promised him I’d stay out of trouble . . . and now I’m going to miss out on the biggest story in San Simeon.” Her gaze slowly rose to his, and she swore softly. “Dammit, Josh. This is practically blackmail, making me leave now.”
“Priorities, Nikki, not blackmail.”
“You’re going to get a week’s worth of front-page exclusives out of this.”
“And you’re going to get your mother.”
“David will kill me.”
“Only if Travinas doesn’t get to you first.”
The sobering fact hit home with the force of truth. She’d rattled the mad dog’s chain, and the master wouldn’t be too far behind. He’d used her, never intending to fulfill his end of their bargain. The only chance her mother had was in Delgado’s victory, and Delgado needed Josh.
“I believe these belong to you.” Cardena returned to them, carrying her duffel and Josh’s satchel. She hadn’t realized he’d left. “My men are ready. You will go with Miguel, Señor Rios. He’ll take you to Delgado. And you, senorita, you will come with me back to the ranch. We’ll take my plane into Costa Rica. From there I’ll arrange our entry into the United States.” He looked at Josh. “I’ll contact you from Costa Rica, if my plans meet with your approval.”
“Bring her passport back with you from Miami.”
“Josh!” she gasped. He was clipping her wings but good.
“Sorry, Nikki.” He lifted the satchel strap over his head and angled it across his chest. His hand automatically slipped inside the front pocket for a cheroot.
“We must go, señorita.” Cardena gestured toward the jeep pulling to a stop in the middle of the compound. “Adiós, señor.”
“Adiós.” Josh jammed the cheroot in his mouth and struck a match off his pants.
Cardena touched her arm, silently telling her it was time to go. She shook him off, keeping her gaze fixed on Josh. “Promise me . . . promise me you’ll bring my mother to Colorado. Boulder, Colorado.”
“I remember.” He inhaled deeply, drawing the smoke into his mouth.
“Promise me, Josh,” she insisted.
He dropped the match and removed the cheroot from between his teeth. Troubled blue eyes met hers through a cloud of slowly exhaled smoke. She read many things in his shadowed gaze, none of which she wanted to believe. The sadness she’d only guessed at before was undeniable now, the weariness even more evident.
“Promise me you’ll come.” This wasn’t going to be their last good-bye. She wouldn’t allow it.
“I’ll come.” He sucked again on the cheroot and blew another cloud into the air. “I promise.”
Thirteen
He’d lied.
Nikki tipped her sunglasses down on her nose and checked the hand-drawn street map provided to her, under duress, by a reporter at the Times. He’d sworn her to secrecy on his Pulitzer, promising to disavow ever having seen her should she confess where she’d gotten the map to Josh’s Texas hideaway. The fishing was too good, he’d said, to risk not getting invited back.
Fishing. Nikki couldn’t believe it. She’d been worrying herself sick over him for the past month, and he’d been off fishing the coastal waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
And this neighborhood. She didn’t believe it either. Stately oaks, old clapboard houses set back from the street, wide lawns, flowering bushes lining the gravel driveways. The place had a
n aura of genteel but homey shabbiness. She’d expected something else, something more along the lines of a modern neighborhood of glassy houses and artful landscapes, not this last bastion of middle America, not for Joshua Rios.
As if on cue, a young woman rounded the corner of one of the houses, garden basket and clippers in hand, a wide-brimmed hat shielding her face from the sun, and a toddler in tow. Nikki checked the house numbers. Josh’s next-door neighbors.
Taking her foot off the brake, she eased her car down the street and pulled into his driveway. Blue hydrangeas followed the dirt and gravel lane around to the back of the white house. A garage with wide barn doors stood on the edge of the lot. The driveway continued to a gate leading to the alley. Nikki stopped the car next to the screened back porch and wished she’d called first. He’d obviously come to this backwater town to disappear for a while. Company, especially hers, might be the last thing he wanted showing up on his doorstep.
But she’d given him a month. A month she’d spent nursing and nurturing her mother back to health. He’d fulfilled that end of the bargain. He’d gotten her mother out of San Simeon. He’d helped Delgado destroy Travinas. He’d gotten his week of front-page exclusives for the Times.
David still wasn’t speaking to her, although he had taken time to dictate her “resignation” letter. She’d signed without a fight. She was tired of fighting.
She got out of the car and shook out her white cotton skirt. Then she reached back into the car for her twenty-nine-cent flip-flops. After a moment’s consideration, she left her duffel bag in the front seat, to save time and embarrassment if he immediately kicked her out.
She’d come this far, she told herself, eyeing the screen door. With a steadying breath to bolster her courage, she mounted the steps and knocked on the door. When no one answered, she ventured onto the porch and tried the kitchen door. It creaked open, compliments of a faulty latch and no lock.