Dangerous Pursuit (The Protectors)

by Margaret Daley

  Samantha rose and dusted off her pants. Looking at him with an equally piercing gaze, she said, “You’ve purposely avoided my questions about what you do for a living. You won’t tell me why you refused to be my guide and then suddenly accepted the job of taking me to the mission. Why, Brock? I want an answer, and changing the subject won’t work this time.”

  He stood, gaining the height advantage. “For money. What other reason is there?”

  “What do you need the money for?”

  “Some things aren’t your business.” He pivoted and strode from the clearing, disappearing into the jungle as if the trees and vines had swallowed him up.

  It left her utterly alone. Suddenly the sounds of the jungle, that she had begun to take for granted, were magnified, and the dark shadows of the approaching night were growing. Looking around, Samantha thought of the time when she was eight and had stayed up all night to overcome her fear of the dark. Her mind had visualized all kinds of monsters in the shadows, waiting for her to fall asleep. But before morning had come, she had faced the fear and had won. Never again had the dark bothered her.

  The memory prompted her to try and come to terms with her nightmare of the waterfall. She made her way to it, pushing away plants and lianas from her path. At the falls she saw the sun begin to set, the horizon a blood red. She peered into the churning water at the bottom. There was a raw beauty about the scene that turned Samantha’s fear into appreciation.

  The lure of nature was strong, and Samantha could understand the attraction that Brock had for the jungle. While she realized she belonged back in civilization, she felt that Brock was probably more comfortable here, in a place that reminded her of the beginning of time. Man did not control the land; the land dominated, often reclaiming what man had taken.

  Samantha was mesmerized by the power and deafening sound of the waterfall. She hadn’t realized how quickly it grew dark at the equator, but in five minutes the sun had set and the black shadows engulfed her.

  When a hand settled heavily on her shoulder, she gasped, jerking away from the touch. Her foot slipped at the edge of the waterfall, and she felt herself falling. Her arms flung outward. She latched onto a hand and held on to the warm flesh.

  Brock caught her and easily lifted her to her feet. She collapsed against him, clinging to him for a moment as she got a decent breath. All she could hear was the waterfall; all she could see was a faint outline of Brock, but she felt safe again in his arms.

  When her pulse began to slow, she tilted back her head to look at Brock. He placed his thumb under her chin and bent his head toward hers. His other hand moved down her spine and pulled her even closer. Pressed flat against him, she felt the tremendous pounding of his heart, his firm muscles, his warm breath on her cheek.

  Her arms found their way around his neck, and she was the one who urged his mouth to hers. Her tongue slipped in between his slightly parted lips and slid over the smoothness of his teeth. Their kiss became as raw as the waterfall behind them, their passion as intense as the struggle for survival in this primitive environment.

  His fingers pulled the pins from her hair and wove through its lush richness, holding her head still as his mouth ravished hers again and again. When his tongue dipped inside her mouth, their breath and tastes merged, forming a potent combination that was headier than a rich wine. It intoxicated her senses and made her ache for him.

  Her head fell back in wonder, and he nuzzled the hollow at the base of her throat. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders as a moan escaped her lips. When he lifted his head, she sensed his gaze taking her in. Although she couldn’t see his expression, passion leaped between them. Time seemed to become suspended.

  Then suddenly they came together, kissing, embracing, and Samantha became lost in sensations she’d never experienced before. This man had protected her—saved her life. No other person ever had.

  Brock swept her up into his arms and carried her toward their camp. Placing her gently into the hammock, the glow of the fire reflecting their desire-shrouded expressions, he swept his gaze from the tip of her toes to her mass of curls fanned out about her head. Her chest rose and fell rapidly with her labored breathing. She couldn’t seem to draw in a decent inhalation.

  He should walk away now before it was too late, he thought, but he couldn’t. She was like a rare orchid high in a tree, unattainable to all but the daring. He would curse himself in the morning, because making love to her would complicate an already difficult situation, but he wanted the orchid for his own.

  "I should walk away. If I don’t soon…" His rough voice faded into the stillness that hung between them. "You’re beautiful. I’m not even sure you realize that. You’re a diversion I don’t need in my life, Sam." But as he said those words, he leaned over as though to kiss her.

  The nickname her brother always called her hovered on the moisture-laden air. She zeroed in on it and stiffened. Hearing Brock call her Sam doused the fire that raged inside. It reminded her of the reason she was in the jungle with Brock: her brother’s disappearance. It reminded her of the questions about Brock that she had to have answers to.

  Brock straightened, seeing immediately the change in Samantha. "At least one of us obviously has some good sense left." He backed away from her.

  Samantha swung her legs over the edge of the hammock. “Why do you need the money, Brock?”

  He walked to the fire and sat on his haunches, staring into the flames as he rubbed the back of his neck.

  Indecision was apparent in his usually closed expression. Samantha moved to the circle of fire but remained standing a few feet from him, perched like a bird, ready to take flight if danger was evident.

  “I don’t answer to anyone and haven’t for a long time. I’ve made a point to keep it that way.”

  “Please. I need to know.” She hated the desperation in her voice, but she didn’t want to spend the next week wondering if she could trust him.

  “I need the money for an oil deal. I’m an independent geologist. I have to have twenty-five thousand dollars if I want a quarter interest in a project I’ve been putting together. Of course, my services are included as part of my share.”

  “A geologist! I thought you might be—”

  His robust laugh cut off the rest of her statement. “You thought I was an uneducated bum, a soldier of fortune, or someone like that.”

  She blushed and looked down at her feet. “Well, your opinion of books, staying at the Grand Hotel, having lived in the jungle…”

  “All adds up to an unsavory character?” One eyebrow rose mockingly.

  She couldn’t meet his steadfast gaze. “Actually, a lot worse. How did Carlos and Paul know we were going to be at the mission?”

  He frowned, thought a moment, and replied, “Paul was in your room. Perhaps he bugged it. Or when we were in the lobby checking out of the Grand Hotel, maybe one of us mentioned the Para Mission and someone overheard us. Why do you ask?”

  “I thought you were working for Carlos and Paul and that you had told them. You’re always so mysterious.” She braced herself for his anger but was surprised when Brock threw back his head and laughed again, a rich, deep sound.

  “No wonder you’ve been giving me frightful glances all day.”

  "Not all day,” she protested, realizing she might have misjudged him.

  “No, not when we were kissing.” His voice mellowed and his eyes clouded with a sensuality that was almost palpable.

  Flustered by the way he could make her forget everything sensible, she asked the first thing that came to mind, “What’s a geologist doing in the jungle?”

  One corner of his mouth tipped up. “Looking for oil.”

  “The Amazon has a lot?”

  “We’re just scratching the surface, so to speak. But the potential is there.”

  “Why here?”

  “Why not here?” He lifted his shoulder in a shrug as if to say it was a natural place for him to
look.

  “Oh, I don’t know. You have to battle so much just to get where you’re going.”

  “I like the challenge.”

  “Ah, yes. That’s why you agreed to take me to the mission—that and the hope of a treasure.”

  He rose to his feet and stretched in one fluid movement, the gesture a startlingly sexy one. “We have a lot of ground to cover tomorrow. We’d better turn in for the night, Sam.”

  Samantha still had a long list of questions to ask him, but she sensed his barriers, usually erected about his personal life, rising back into place. Tomorrow she would delve a little deeper and find out why he preferred the jungle to living in Houston. Personally, she couldn’t imagine anyone voluntarily choosing the Amazon over a city in the States—or anywhere for that matter.

  She had started to walk past him to her hammock when he reached for her wrist and stopped her. She stared into his gleaming gray eyes and had to fight the urge to throw herself against him. No man had a right to be so full of masculine vitality.

  He raised his hand to cup her face. “I wouldn’t hurt you, Sam. You have nothing to fear from me.” Then, almost reluctantly, he dropped his hand to his side and made his way to his hammock.

  She was beginning to believe she had nothing to fear from Brock, but she wasn’t so sure about herself. She was changing since she had come to the Amazon, and the new aspects of her personality confused her. In her hammock she tried to sleep, but the strangeness of being in the middle of a jungle out in the open kept her awake for hours. And when she finally fell asleep, her dreams were riddled with images of herself and Brock, embracing, kissing.

  She woke with a start, her eyes flying open.

  Standing over her were five Indians, painted red and black with lips discs in their mouths and feathered plugs in their noses and earlobes. Her gaze flew to Brock’s hammock. It was empty. Then she looked back at the Indian nearest her. He was holding a six-foot bow with an arrow strung and aimed at her. Tied around his waist was a shrunken head.

  The Indian lowered the bow and arrow and reached toward Samantha’s head. She tried to scream, but nothing would come out.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The Indian with the shrunken head touched Samantha’s hair and said something to his companions. They all nodded in total agreement with whatever he had said. Her scalp tingled as her thoughts raced with possibilities of what the leader had said. None of them were very inviting.

  The Indian again reached out toward her. Finally she screamed, a bloodcurdling sound that sent all five Indians jumping back, confusion on their faces.

  An eternity passed as Samantha stared wide-eyed at the Indians, and they looked at each other, then back at her.

  Brock charged into the clearing, halted, and surveyed the six people who turned toward him. He took one look at the group of Indians, then at Samantha’s pale face, and he laughed.

  “If this is funny, please let me in on the joke,” she said between clenched teeth.

  After easing out of the hammock, she skirted their five “visitors” and crept toward Brock, scared to make any fast moves. She brushed her long unbound hair behind her shoulders and kept stepping inch by slow inch toward the fringe of the trees where Brock was.

  When Samantha was halfway there, Brock moved forward, approaching the Indian who had touched her hair, and greeted him in a language that didn’t sound Spanish or Portuguese. Then he said something to each of the other four Indians. Brock knew the natives’ language? Her heart still pounding, she noted the camaraderie between Brock and the Indians. It looked like a class reunion.

  When Brock came to her side and put his arm around her shoulders, she had a sneaky suspicion he was informing them she was his “woman.” The grins on all the men’s faces held a wealth of meaning, and Samantha seethed at the knowing glances they exchanged.

  “I may not understand the language, but I do know body language, Brock Slader, and I don’t appreciate it. What did you tell them?” she whispered in a furious tone.

  “That you’re my—ah, friend and that we’re traveling together.”

  His slight pause was all she needed to confirm her suspicion. “Somehow I get the impression your meaning of friend and their meaning of friend don’t add up to my meaning.”

  “The last time I ran into them they were very friendly, but a few years back some men of the tribe did kill a scientist who had been living among them for four months.”

  “How can you say that so calmly?”

  “I thought you had a right to know the delicacy of the situation.”

  “Thanks. I’d rather be ignorant.”

  “I don’t want you to do anything you and I would regret later.”

  “Don’t worry. Even I know a dangerous situation when I see one—or rather, all five sets of them.” She looked pointedly at the bows and arrows, then at Brock, fear in her gaze. “That chief touched my hair with a gleam of ownership in his eyes.”

  Brock chuckled.

  “Does everything amuse you? You must be one of those people who laugh in the face of death.”

  His expression became serious, but the glint in his eyes told Samantha it was all an act. “Sorry, Sam. The chief was just admiring your beautiful hair of fire. Perfectly innocent.”

  “Admiring it for what?” Her scalp still tingled, and she was sure it wasn’t caused by Brock’s arm about her.

  “There isn’t much we can do but offer them our hospitality. They want to share their kill with us.”

  “What kill?” She said the words louder than she had intended, and the Indians turned their attention toward her. She wished she had kept quiet. It was obvious they didn’t know what to make of her.

  “They were hunting and killed a monkey.”

  “I think I’ll pass.”

  “All I had time to gather was some fruit from a cacao tree. Monkey meat is good, especially when there isn’t anything else. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get one. I’m a bit rusty on my hunting skills.”

  “How can I eat a monkey when as a child I used to love to read Curious George books?”

  Muttering under his breath about picky eaters who could starve to death, Brock shook his head and walked across the clearing. While the Indians prepared the monkey meat over the fire, Brock picked up his harvest of fruit and moved back to Samantha.

  Instead of giving her some cacao fruit, he handed her a cluster of orchids. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

  Surprised, she didn’t know what to say. She stared at the delicate flowers, a touch of rare beauty in their untamed surroundings. Her throat closed as she reached out and took the cluster. Swallowing hard, she blinked to keep her tears at bay.

  Samantha spun away from Brock, not wanting him to see her tears at his unexpected kindness, at his touch of gentleness in their harsh situation. Her tears rolled down her cheeks and splashed onto the orchids, and she couldn’t stop them.

  Silently Brock turned her toward him and drew her close against him, and she cried on his shoulder—for their predicament, for her brother, for Brock’s gesture. Her tears released the tension that had been building since her brother’s phone call two weeks before.

  “When I swarmed the cacao tree, I found the orchids and thought you might like them,” Brock whispered when her tears abated.

  “Valentine’s Day isn’t today.”

  “I never was one to do things when I was supposed to.” He smiled, a crooked half grin that gave the impression he didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Now, that I believe,” she said, laughing and feeling a lot better. Brock had a way of making her feel safe even amid a band of Indians who practiced shrinking heads—hopefully years ago.

  The leader of the Indians said something to Brock, and he replied, then turned back to Samantha and translated, “The monkey is almost done. Are you sure you don’t want to try some?”

  “Absolutely.” Samantha peered around Brock to look at the five Indians w
ho were all staring at her. The chief grinned at her, revealing several missing teeth.

  “Did you see what was dangling from the chief’s waist?” she asked as she straightened, using Brock as a shield between herself and the Indians.

  “From an enemy tribe. It’s very old, but he likes to wear it as a symbol of his position. A lot of their old beliefs and practices are dying with the encroachment of civilization.”

  “Thank goodness! That’s one practice I hope they don’t suddenly decide to revive.”

  Brock and Samantha joined the Indians around the fire. She tried to avoid looking at the men eating the monkey meat, especially the leader with his “ornament” about his waist. All her attention was on her cacao fruit, which was tasty.

  While she ate, Brock and the Indians talked. She was dying to know what they were discussing until the Indians started laughing. She looked up to find them staring at her again.

  “What, or should I say who, were you talking about?”

  Brock poked at the fire, adding a stick that didn’t need to be added.

  “You were talking about me, weren’t you?”

  “Yep.”

  When it appeared that he wasn’t going to give any more details, Samantha asked, “What were you saying?” Brock Slader would be a great spy. Information was extremely difficult to drag out of the man.

  “The chief was giving me advice on how to handle my woman.” His voice caressed the word woman as his eyes caressed her length.

  Samantha was sure her face turned as red as her hair. “And?” She had gone this far, she might as well hear all of it.

  “He said I should beat you at least once a day to keep you in line.”

  “Beat me!” Her gaze veered to the chief, who gave her a semi-toothless grin. Thank goodness she had some sense left or she would march right over to the man and give him a piece of her mind.

  “Sam.”

  Brock said her name with such tenderness that her attention was immediately drawn back to him.

  “This tribe believes strongly in the husband’s right to punish his wife physically, often cruelly. I don’t condone it, but I’m not in a position to change their cultural beliefs.” His voice was soft, very sober, as were his eyes as they wandered over her features.