"We'd better get moving," she said, raking back her tangled hair.
"In a minute. I want to take a look at your wrists first."
"They've stopped bleeding." Impatiently, she tore a strip off her tattered shirttail. "I'll cover the abrasions with this to protect them from mosquitoes and—"
"Let me look at them."
Just in time, Margarita caught back a sharp protest. Common sense dictated that she let him doctor the wounds. Even an untended scratch could lead to disaster in the jungle. Yet she wasn't quite ready for Carlos to touch her again. She still hadn't sorted the confusion he'd generated a few moments ago with that shattering kiss. Just the prospect of his hands on her made her distinctly uncomfortable. As a result, she conceded with something less than graciousness.
He lifted her left arm and rolled back her sleeve to inspect the damage. At the sight of the raw, oozing flesh, Carlos sucked in a swift breath and Margarita gulped. The ugly wounds looked even worse than they felt, which took some doing!
"I've got some antiseptic powder in the first aid kit," he told her, frowning. "It'll help prevent infection. Take off your shirt."
"Excuse me?"
"We'll need it for bandages." When still she hesitated, his voice took on a sardonic note. "In case you haven't noticed, it's not good for much else."
She'd noticed, but the actual extent of her near-nakedness didn't sink in until Carlos dropped his gaze from her face to the swell of her breasts, clearly visible through the torn cotton. Heat crawled into Margarita's cheeks when she glanced down and saw what had engaged his unabashed interest.
In her rush to the prison, she'd traded her gown for jeans but hadn't bothered to change her undies. She still wore the red lace bikini panties and wisp of a bra fitted with convenient little push-up pads that transformed her modest curves into seductive mounds.
She'd forked over a small fortune for the scraps of lace. From the glint in Carlos's eyes, the money was well spent. Flashing her a wicked grin, he reached into his pocket for the first aid kit.
"I think I told you last night that I like you in red."
"Did you?" Margarita tossed off a shrug. "I don't recall."
The dart failed to penetrate his impervious hide. Still grinning, he ripped a corner off the packet with strong, white teeth.
"Take off your shirt."
Without another word, she yanked open the few buttons still left on the blouse and shrugged out of the mangled garment. Feeling ridiculously exposed in only her bra and the little locket, she extended her wrist. He held it gently while he tapped a generous amount of powder onto the oozing wounds.
"Dios!" Hissing, Margarita fought the urge to snatch her hand free and smack him. "You might have warned me the treatment is even worse than the injury!"
"You would've just tensed up in anticipation. Now you know the worst. Hold still."
With that calm, callous order, he bent his head and sprinkled the powder along the circlet of rope burns. Margarita saw bits of green nested in his glossy hair. As they no doubt did in hers. A frown of concentration creased his brow. Thick black lashes screened his eyes.
Once more she was struck by the difference between this man and the Carlos she knew. The smooth, sophisticated politician who'd wooed her with such deliberation had disappeared. In his place was a lean, bronzed jungle warrior…one who displayed a lamentable tendency to issue orders.
"Give me your other hand."
Catching her lower lip hard between her teeth, Margarita complied. This time she was prepared for the flash of fire that seared her flesh. Almost.
She was gritting her teeth when he ripped what was left of her shirt into long strips and wrapped them loosely around her wrists. Tucking in the ends, he surveyed his handiwork with a critical eye.
"That should do it."
His gaze traveled from her wrist to her face, with an intermittent stop in the vicinity of her breasts. An unnecessarily protracted intermittent stop, Margarita thought indignantly.
"You always wear that locket," he observed, as though he was admiring the modest piece of jewelry instead of the mounded flesh it nestled between. "Does it hold some special sentimental value for you?"
"Very special," she replied coolly, refusing to react to the gleam in his eyes as they lingered on her pushed-up curves. With obvious reluctance, he brought his gaze to meet hers.
"You can't travel like that. The mosquitoes will eat you alive." Unbuttoning his long-sleeved jungle fatigue blouse, he shrugged out of it. Muscles rippled under his black T-shirt as he held the outer garment for her to slip into.
"You'll need protection, too," she protested. Although the mosquitoes that plagued her country swarmed mostly at dawn and early evening, they could make life miserable for anyone who worked outside.
"I'll smear some mud on my forearms. I've found that works as well as any repellent. Come, Rita, we're wasting time."
Still Margarita hesitated. Some primitive sixth sense screamed at her not to envelop herself in his warmth and his scent. The image flashed into her mind once more of a sleek, black panther, his coiled muscles rippling as he rubbed against his mate to mark her with his spoor and warn off all other interested males. Try as she might, she couldn't shake the absurd notion that stripping off her own shirt had constituted the first step in some sort of primal mating ritual. Sliding her arms into Carlos's would constitute the second.
His intent, hooded gaze as he waited for her to take that small step didn't exactly soothe her frazzled nerves. With a vague sense of unease, Margarita recognized that the delicate balance of power between them had somehow shifted dramatically. Mere hours ago, she'd strolled off and left him cooling his heels on a deserted balcony.
Now…
Now, she thought on a spurt of impatience, this dim, primeval jungle was doing a serious number on her imagination and her common sense. She could hardly traipse for miles with only a scrap of red lace to protect her from dive-bombing mosquitoes.
"Thanks," she muttered, thrusting her arms into the lightweight shirt decorated in mottled green and black. He settled the garment across her shoulders.
"You're welcome."
His warm breath ruffled the hair at her temple and tickled her ear. Instant shivers raced down Margarita's spine.
For pity's sake! She needed to get a grip here. Shoving the buttons through the holes on the fatigue shirt, she forced her mind to focus on the very real matter of their survival.
"Do you have any idea how to get to this village you mentioned?"
Nodding, Carlos extracted a small, flat case from his vest pocket. "I memorized the coordinates. This little baby will get us where we need to go…if it held up better than the damned radio," he added under his breath.
They both breathed sighs of relief when the handheld receiver came to life with a quiet beep. Although she didn't say so, Margarita recognized the device immediately. The tiny receiver contained a specialized computer that received signals from NAVSTAR satellites, keystones of the Global Positioning System originally developed by the United States Department of Defense. Military and civilian navigational systems throughout the world used GPS to calculate locations to within a few meters.
The receiver beeped again. Frowning, Carlos did a rapid mental calculation.
"We're exactly ten and a quarter miles north-northwest from the village."
The unpalatable fact that they were so far from civilization didn't improve with repetition.
"Ten and a quarter miles as the crow flies," he corrected. "If a crow or any other bird could fly a straight line through the jungle. Are you ready?"
She swept the jungle ahead with another look, drew in a deep breath and nodded.
Sliding his machete free of its scabbard, Carlos took the lead. For all of a moment or two, Margarita thought about challenging his automatic assumption of command. As quickly as the thought occurred, she dismissed it. The trek through the jungle wasn't a matter of sexual politics. It was a matter of survival. She'd con
tribute to their journey in whatever way she could.
* * *
The going was even tougher than she expected.
The dense canopy shut out most of the sunlight. Ropelike vines draped from the towering trees, so thick in places that Carlos had to hack through them. Beneath the high canopy, the forest floor was covered with rotting vegetation topped by layers of mossy mold five or six inches thick. The greenish slime sucked at Margarita's boots with every step and soon had her calf muscles screaming in protest.
Steep slopes and plunging ravines made traveling on a straight line impossible. They headed south, then east, then doubled back to the west so many times Margarita soon lost any sense of direction. The rainstorms that burst without warning overhead and needled through the canopy didn't help matters, either. Her clothes were still steaming from a late morning shower when an early afternoon storm drenched her all over again.
Despite the discomforts of the walk, she couldn't help but drink in the raw, secret beauty around her. Clouds of red and gold butterflies dazzled her. Brilliant turquoise and purple parrots swooped through the trees. Orchids the size of bridal bouquets dangled from vines and tree trunks, contributing both color and fragrance to the scene.
As the day wore on, she came to appreciate the statistics she'd absorbed intellectually over the years about the jungle they traversed. It covered almost four-fifths of Madrileño, varying from the rain-soaked cloud forests atop the highest peaks to the lush tropical vegetation of the lower slopes. More than a hundred rivers and streams tumbled down the mountains and crisscrossed the jungle before emptying into the sea. Just last year, a professor at the University of San Rico had catalogued seven different species of insects that existed nowhere else on earth but Madrileño.
Reading about these insects and encountering them face-to-face were two different matters, however. She managed not to shriek—barely!—when she ducked behind a tree to relieve herself and the largest spider she'd ever seen crawled out from under some leaf litter to observe the process. The thing looked like a Frisbee, with a body at least six inches in diameter and a leg span of more than twelve inches. Margarita beat a hasty and exceptionally undignified retreat, leaving the field to the black monster.
Her skin still crawled with distaste when a different sensation suddenly made her nerve endings jump. She stopped in her tracks and slapped a hand to her chest. The sharp sound spun Carlos around.
"What is it?"
"Nothing," she lied as the locket vibrated under her sweaty palm. "A mosquito."
Nodding, he turned to lead the way again. Frustration ate at Margarita as she trudged after him. If only she could contact SPEAR. Jonah must have received a full account of the night's activities by now. He'd be as anxious to know she'd survived the kidnapping and firefight as she was to report in. Worry over how she'd get word to SPEAR shoved all thoughts of the spider out of her head.
* * *
Unfortunately, the black monster wasn't the only unpleasant creature Margarita encountered that afternoon. During the break Carlos insisted on later in the day, she almost sat on another. She knew enough to kick the fallen tree trunk she chose as a seat to dislodge any resident scorpions. But she wasn't prepared for Carlos's laconic warning when she sank down with a weary sigh.
"Watch out. That Mycetozoa will crawl right up your leg."
She sprang up, searching frantically for some hairy insect with oversize mandibles and a nasty gleam in its eye. All she spotted was a slippery dark mass on the underside of the log.
"All right," she snapped at a grinning Carlos. "Where and what is this my-see-a-thing?"
"Mycetozoa." Still grinning, he strolled over and hunkered down beside the log. "That's the scientific name for it. Most people just call it slime mold. It's a curious little creature, half fungus and half animal."
Gathering a gooey green blob onto a fingertip, he held it up for her inspection.
"The fungus feeds on bacteria in the rotting wood as it oozes upward to catch some light. Once in the light, it sprouts into these flowerlike filaments and release spores. Here, take a look."
The slimy blob didn't hold the same fascination for Margarita it evidently held for Carlos. Firmly, she declined his invitation.
"I can see it from here, thanks."
"Wind, rain or passing animals will spread the spores, which each contain a living cell. The cells then attach to a damp surface, split like an amoeba and start forming a brand-new slime mold."
"Just what the world needs," she drawled. "More slime mold."
Laughing, Carlos swiped the green gob off his finger and rose. "It has its uses, querida."
"If one of those uses isn't providing sustenance for humans, I'm not interested."
He quirked a brow. "Are you trying to say you're hungry?"
"A little," she replied with magnificent under-statement. The bacon-wrapped shrimp canapés she'd nibbled on at the reception before last night's ball had long since passed through her digestive tract. She'd snatched enough sips of water from the streams they'd passed to quell the worst of her hunger pangs, but tantalizing images of hearty bowls of black beans or the sizzling beef strips street vendors grilled on every corner in San Rico were starting to dance in her mind.
"Can you hold out a little longer?" Carlos asked with a small frown. "I'd like to keep traveling as long as we have light."
Resolutely, she banished the black beans and beef. She'd gone without food for days during her SPEAR training. Besides, she could stand to shed a few pounds. "It'll be dark in three or four hours. I can last that long."
"We'll have to stop well before dark," Carlos remarked, resuming the steady pace he'd set since they'd begun their trek. "We need to set up camp and find food before the light goes."
His mention of setting up camp brought the minor problem Margarita had been pushing to the back of her mind all afternoon slamming to the forefront. Given their erratic passage, they'd have to spend at least one night in the jungle. More likely two. Or three.
On the ground.
Under a mosquito net.
Together.
As much as she'd like to believe otherwise, the sudden clenching low in her stomach had nothing to do with hunger. Not the kind that demanded black beans and beef, anyway. She was so caught up in the image of that single mosquito net that she didn't notice Carlos had frozen in his tracks until she almost tripped over him.
"What's the—"
"Get back!"
The command came out low, almost strangled. Her nerves shooting straight to red alert, Margarita swept the murky gloom ahead with a startled glance. Aside from the flash of a brilliant turquoise parrot swooping through the trees, nothing moved.
She dropped her voice to a whispery croak. "What is it? What do you see?"
"Get back!"
Slowly, so slowly, she inched backward.
Slowly, so slowly, Carlos reached down to un-snap the holster of his Beretta.
He whipped the weapon out at the precise instant a long, ratlike fanged creature dropped from a low-hanging branch to dangle almost in his face.
Chapter 5
It was a slug rat.
Margarita identified the repulsive creature a half second before Carlos blew it away. A distant cousin of the rats that infested Madrileño's cities, this jungle denizen possessed a foot-long, weasel-like body, rapacious fangs and claws sharp enough to tear apart the dead carcasses it fed on.
Although slug rats normally feasted on rotting flesh, the vicious rodents had been known to attack live chickens, pigs and even small children. After a baby had been gnawed almost to death last year, the government had instituted a bounty for each hide the farmers turned in.
Carlos might not need the bounty money, but he had no more love for the slimy predator than the rest of his countrymen. His first shot blasted it clear off the tree branch. He followed up with several whacking chops of the machete, then kicked the mangled remains into the gloom.
"Hey!" Margarita rushed forwa
rd, her stomach yowling a protest. "Why did you do that? He could have been our dinner!"
"We'll find something else."
"But…"
"We'll find something else!"
She skidded to a halt, her temper firing at the curt tone. She was all set to rip into him when she noticed the white lines bracketing his mouth. And the shudder that shook his muscled frame when he knelt to swipe the machete on a clump of moss.
Well, well, well. Big, strong, unshakable Carlos didn't like slug rats. Margarita didn't particularly care for them herself, but realizing his armor had this tiny chink in it suddenly put him in a different light. What a relief to learn he was human after all!
Feeling oddly lighthearted for someone who'd had a gun rammed into the underside of her chin, tumbled down a mountainside and trudged for hours through a steamy jungle, she squished along in his wake. Just when she thought she'd used up even her considerable endurance, Carlos called a halt beside a rock-strewn river. He cast a calculating eye on the rays slanting through the opening cut by the rushing water.
"We've got about an hour until night drops," he announced, unhooking his vest.
Drops was the right word, she knew. There was no twilight in the jungle. For reasons totally beyond her, day plunged into night almost in the blink of an eye.
To her relief, Carlos set the matter of food as his first priority. He tipped his head back to search the smaller trees that had sprung up beside the river, away from the smothering shadows of the giant strangler figs. The plant growth was denser in the narrow slice of sunlight that followed the riverbed, and the vegetation far more varied.
"I see some plantains in that tree," he said with a note of satisfaction. "I'll climb up and cut enough for supper and breakfast. Think you can collect some of those ferns to make a bed and figure out how to rig the mosquito net over a low-hanging limb?"
"I'll give it my best shot," she replied dryly.
It didn't escape her attention that he automatically assumed the role of provider, assigning her the duties of hearth tender. That was fine with Margarita. Let him hunt and gather. She'd piddle around with the ferns. She could assert herself quickly enough if and when it became necessary.
The Spy Who Loved Him Page 5