His heart pounded briefly in his chest to underscore the molten feelings he held for her. She was right: this was a mess. For more reasons than one.
Chapter Ten
“Hard to believe three weeks have passed,” Ty said casually to Catt as they walked slowly down the dirt path that led to where the houseboat was tied in the channel. Above, the sun peeked briefly out of the humid, ever moving clouds, though its rays never reached the leaf-strewn jungle floor through the dense canopy of trees.
“I know….” Catt murmured. She absorbed Ty’s closeness as he walked at her side. So much had happened since the night they had loved one another. The last three weeks had been some kind of slowly evolving metamorphosis of her attitudes toward Ty. They had never really talked about the past—yet—but Catt was on the brink of broaching the topic with him. Now as she studied him, she decided she liked the soft way his mouth curved when he looked at her. Their arms swung and sometimes their hands inadvertently touched. Catt didn’t draw away as she had before. Now she looked forward to those priceless moments, for touching Ty was a pleasure and very necessary to her.
“At least the homeopathy is helping,” he said.
“More than a little. I’m having Maria write up a full report on it. The rest of my team is examining each person who has survived because of it.” With a shake of her head, Catt marveled, “I’m so glad you were here. Without you, these people, I’m sure, would have died like the others did.”
“I’m kinda happy I’m here, too.” And he was. Ty didn’t know what was happening, but he sensed a miracle was in the works with Catt. She had grown almost indescribably beautiful since he’d made hot, unexpected love with her nearly a month ago. Her skin practically glowed. The look in her eyes held him prisoner. There was gold sunlight in her wide blue eyes, and a new sense of calmness about her. She seemed softer, too, her former edginess replaced with a newfound serenity. She no longer had that hard, defensive wall in place as when he’d met her on the dock at Manaus. Maybe she’d only put it up there to protect herself from him.
At a fork in the path, they moved down a new trail, widened daily by the team members walking back and forth on it. It led to their new camp and laboratory site, on a channel about a hundred feet wide. Rafe’s houseboat fit snugly along the bank, and the placid, muddy-looking water that surrounded it teemed with unexpected life. They were safer here, Rafe had told them, from Valentino’s cigarette boats, now plying the Amazon with their cocaine cargos, headed for the Manaus international airport. Catt had breathed a sigh of relief when they’d moved, because she didn’t want to have problems with those well-known, murderous drug runners. Chief Aroka had told her in broken Portuguese through Ty, that the brothers were dark and evil. And only Inca, the infamous jaguar goddess, had held them in check. Inca fought to free the enslaved Indians who were ripped from their villages and forced to work in chains in their jungle factories to manufacture the deadly drugs. When a man or woman was kidnapped from a village, they were rarely seen again. Too many times, Aroka told Catt in warning, they would, while on hunting trips, find the bodies of those Indians, and sometimes their own people, shot in the head and thrown away by the drug lord’s roving bands of soldiers who raided the villages. If anyone refused to work at a factory, it was sure death. Without Inca’s considerable threat and influence, the brothers would have taken the Juma people, as well, Aroka told her. Without the green warrior, the woman who lived in and called the Amazon her home, the Juma would be enslaved as a nation, or what little was left of their once great nation.
Ty was about to say something when he heard the sound of a plane’s engine coming their way. Reaching out, he gripped Catt’s arm.
“Hold it…” he rasped, and he jerked his gaze skyward. It was hard to see much of anything through the triple canopy.
Gasping, Catt listened. “Oh, Lord…a plane…Is it them? Black Dawn?” Her heart skittered with fear. Automatically, she moved into the safety of Ty’s embrace. She wasn’t disappointed. Instantly, his arms wrapped around her snuggly, as if to protect her from the unknown.
“I don’t know,” he replied, waiting tensely. Every cell in his being was aware of Catt’s body pressed against his. He felt her fingertips digging into his forearms as they waited in fear and trepidation. The engine grew louder and louder. Was it Black Dawn terrorists? Had they come back to spray their lethal germs over the Juma once again? This time, if they had, he and Catt would be sprayed, also. The houseboat was half a mile away—too far to run for cover. No, all they could do was wait and pray.
Catt’s eyes widened as she saw the plane. “It’s blue and white!” she cried.
Hissing a curse, Ty pushed her up against a towering Pau d Arco tree, its branches wide and shielding. He saw flashes of the single-engine Cessna as it puttered overhead. Eyes narrowed, his breath held, he tried to see if there was any spray coming from the plane.
Catt followed the path of the plane as it moved in a lazy circle about a thousand feet above the canopy, before moving toward the river. The engine sounds began to fade away. She forced herself to release the tight grip she had on Ty’s arms. His face was a stony mask. His entire body was hard and tense. She was getting a taste of his Marine Corps side, the military warrior, for the first time. Studying the harsh, narrowed look of his eyes, the thin line of a mouth she had once kissed and been kissed by in return, Catt felt a tremendous surge of protection emanating from him. He hadn’t eased his arms from around her and she felt pinned.
“Is…did they spray anything? I couldn’t see if they did,” she mumbled, her voice wobbly with fear.
Ty shook his head. He eased his grip and allowed her to move away from the trunk of the tree. “No…I didn’t see any aerosol spray coming from the plane, but we have to be sure.” Grasping her by the arm, he said, “Get back to the houseboat. Take a bleach shower and throw the clothes you’ve got on into the firepit and burn them. We’re not taking any chances.”
“My team—” Catt protested.
“I’ll find them and tell them to get back here and do the same thing,” he growled ominously. “Go on, Catt. Don’t fight me on this. We’ve got to take every precaution.”
Nodding, she moistened her lips, her heart still beating erratically in her breast. “Yes, okay…and you? What about you?”
Ty stepped away from her. He saw the fear in her eyes and heard it in her voice. “I want to find Rafe. We’ll do some checking and then we’ll come back here to be with you and your team.” He jabbed his finger at her. “You do as I say, Catt. No heroics on this, okay?”
Holding up her hand, she whispered, “Don’t worry, I’ll stay put.” She was too fearful—and too exhausted—to argue. The truth be known, she was feeling very tired of late for no apparent reason. She usually got an ample night’s sleep. Still, her body felt loggy, and in the afternoons particularly she had this overwhelming desire to just lie down and take a nap. That was highly unusual for her. Last week, Catt could barely keep her eyes open as she made her late afternoon rounds to her patients.
“Get back to the houseboat as quickly as possible.” Ty lowered his voice. “Just stay safe, darlin’.”
She smiled weakly. From time to time, Ty would use that endearment. Absorbing the burning look in his eyes, that incredible tenderness that he was able to share with her, she whispered, “Stay safe yourself, Ty…please….”
“For you, I will.” And he turned and jogged quickly down the path, heading toward the Juma village.
Halfway to the houseboat, Catt suddenly became nauseous. To her great surprise, her roiling stomach revolted completely. She found herself bending over, holding her stomach and throat as she got rid of everything. Her mouth stung and burned afterward. What was going on? Had the plane sprayed something? Had she picked it up this fast? Worriedly, Catt hurried to the houseboat. She stripped, threw her clothes off the boat, moved into the cooling spray of the shower and scrubbed herself with a cloth soaked in bleach as never before. When Ty came back,
she’d know more. As she stood beneath the weak, tepid stream in the tiny shower stall of the houseboat, Catt was worried that she’d inhaled whatever the plane had sprayed. She could die. They could all die.
As Catt sat on the deck of the houseboat, she told everyone what had happened. Her colleagues had all showered, burned their old clothes and put on clean ones, and were now gathered together discussing this latest wrinkle. The look in Ty’s eyes made Catt ache and feel terror at the same time.
Rafe murmured, “I was in the clearing of the village. I got a good look at the plane, and I memorized the number on the side of it.” He looked down at Catt. “But I didn’t see any spray.”
“Could it be just a reaction based on fear?” Maria wondered. She smiled a little and placed her hand over her heart. “I can tell you how scared I was. In fact, my heart’s still pounding over the possibility that we could have been sprayed by Black Dawn.”
“Chief Aroka saw the plane,” Steve noted gravely. “He said it was the same one as before, but that it wasn’t spitting anything on them this time. He said last time it fell like a fine rain from overhead.”
“And we gathered a lot of soil and plant samples to check,” Maria said. “I’ll get busy with the microscope and see if we can detect any residue on them.”
“I don’t think you’ll find anything,” Rafe said. He reached over and patted Catt’s shoulder. “Frankly, I think it was just a fear reaction. Concern for your team, Doctor. You care deeply for everyone, I’ve found out.” His smile deepened with respect.
Catt shrugged. “I feel a little stupid,” she said apologetically. “I’ve never done this before. You’re probably right, Rafe.”
“We need to stay on guard,” Ty warned. “We don’t know if Black Dawn is in cahoots with the Valentino brothers or not.”
“Yes,” Rafe said heavily. He surveyed the medical team. “Above all else, we need to stay on alert.”
Maria moved toward the ramp of the houseboat with the samples in plastic bags in her hand. “Let me look and see what I find. At least we can know for sure if there was spray or not….”
Everyone left the boat except Ty and Catt, who sat down heavily on the coil of rope. She saw Ty approach, seating himself on the coil of rope next to her and placing his hand on her shoulder.
“You okay? You look pale.”
Managing a weak smile she didn’t feel, Catt said, “I’m fine. Just scared, is all. Isn’t it funny, Ty? I can jump headlong into an epidemic outbreak with an unknown enemy. Yet seeing that plane and knowing that it could be spraying a deadly germ into the air just tore me up.” She rubbed her mouth with her fingertips and gave him a quick look. “Maybe I’m getting old?”
Chuckling, he moved his hand gently across her shoulder. He could feel the warmth and strength of her body beneath the pale yellow cotton blouse she wore. “I think Rafe’s right—it’s your care of others, your worry for everyone else that probably triggered your reaction.”
“I hope so,” Catt said fervently.
Something was wrong with her. Catt slowly got up off her hands and knees after vomiting, again, for the fifth afternoon in a row. Yet Maria had confirmed that there was no residue on the soil or leaves last week. Though she didn’t understand her condition, Catt had started carrying a damp cloth in a plastic bag and a canteen of water. Now, as she sloshed the water around in her mouth, spit it out and wiped her mouth with the cloth, her stomach roiled threateningly once more.
She stood up, trying to recall where this reaction, this symptom, had occurred to her before. As she placed her hand on the trunk of a nearby tree, a memory slammed back to her: she had been pregnant with Ty’s child! Gasping, her eyes wide, she stared down at her slightly rounded belly. Instantly, Catt placed her hand protectively across that region. No! It couldn’t be! Or could it? Her mind raced back. It had been exactly four weeks since they had made unprotected love with one another. She hadn’t had her menses; it was two weeks late…. Oh, Lord, no! Could it be?
Fear shot through her. Shaky now, Catt headed toward the houseboat. It was midafternoon and everyone was at the village conducting their rounds. In the medical supplies she always brought with her were pregnancy test kits. On trembling legs, she hurried up the gangplank and moved down into the tiny cabin below. Her hands shook as she riffled through the bag that contained all the pregnancy items. Locating a test kit, she stared at it, her heart racing wildly.
What if she was pregnant with Ty’s child? With a soft moan, Catt closed her eyes. She threw out her hand to stop from pitching to the left as dizziness assailed her. There was only one way to find out.
An hour later, Catt sat on a coiled rope, sipping tepid liquid from her water bottle and staring out across the muddy channel. She saw a great white heron land no more than fifty feet from where she sat, hunting for its favorite meal of frogs or small fish that swam in the shallows. Clenching the water bottle, she felt reality wash over her once more, shattering her peace. She was pregnant. She’d run the test twice. Both times, the indicator showed she was carrying a child. But it wasn’t just any child—it was Ty’s.
Gently and tenderly, Cat slid her fingers across her abdomen. This explained her general tiredness, for she remembered that early on in her other pregnancy she could barely keep her eyes open during afternoon classes at the college.
Every time she thought of Ty now, her heart warmed and she felt a flood of joy move through her. What would he do if he knew she was pregnant? Would he walk conveniently out of her life again as he had before? Would his career take precedence over her and the baby again?
Grimly, Catt felt a powerful surge of protectiveness. No matter what, she was going to keep this baby this time. There was no way she was going to jeopardize this child’s life. Should Ty even know? she wondered. Catt tried to find the right answer to that question. Everything hinged on the fact that he’d abandoned her before. Even though Ty was obviously more mature at this age, could he be trusted with such information? In the past month, he’d never spoken of loving her. True to his word, and at her request, he hadn’t tried to take advantage of her or their situation.
Yet Catt felt his care of her. She saw it every time Ty looked at her. She knew that the tender flame in his cinnamon-colored eyes spoke volumes to her. Catt bowed her head, feeling unsure. “What a helluva mess you’ve gotten yourself into, Alborak,” she muttered to herself.
Her quandary was interrupted by the sound of voices. Raising her head, Catt saw her team coming toward the boat. Rafe and Ty were with them. Happily chatting and laughing among themselves, they were carrying medical equipment back from the village. That meant they’d finished up their work. They could go home now. Catt slowly rose. She felt weak, and unsure about telling Ty anything. She wanted to tell him and ask him for his help. Yet, Catt realized as never before her own weakness in refusing to ask for help when she needed it most. Asking made her feel stripped and vulnerable. He was looking for her now, and she avoided his sharpened gaze and moved toward the gangplank to join her team by the tents pitched on the channel bank.
Ty frowned as he watched Catt come down the gangplank. Damn, but she was looking bad. What the hell was wrong with her? His mind raced. She was thinner, and he was sure she’d lost a good five or so pounds this past week. Yet her skin glowed like sunlight, and there was a soft flush in her cheeks. Maybe it was just the demands of her work getting to her. Maybe it was him being around that was wearing her out. Guilt niggled at him. He couldn’t deny the joy of simply being with Catt. Perhaps his presence was weighing her down in a way he didn’t realize or anticipate. After all, she’d never spoken of love to him. The past had remained buried between them, unexplored and unopened. How badly he wanted to open it up now, to talk at length with her. No one wanted a second chance more than he did with Catt, but from the looks of things, he was a pestilence to her, not a healthy influence. Hurt moved through him as they halted and met Catt at the bottom of the gangplank.
“I’m going to take yo
u and Ty by motorboat back to Manaus,” Rafe told Catt. “You’re all wrapped up here.” He smiled a little and gestured to the tents and the rest of the team. “Once I get you two to Manaus, I’ll motor back here. By the time I return, your team will have gotten everything on board the houseboat, and then I’ll bring them back on it.” He reached out and patted her shoulder. “And from the way you look, I think a few days in a nice five-star hotel with good food, a firm bed and plenty of sleep, would do you good, Doctor.”
She tried to smile. “Thanks, Rafe. I think I’m ready for it, too.” She noticed Ty was assessing her from the rear of the group, his eyes narrowed and questioning. Catt felt panic. Did Ty know she was pregnant? How could he? That was impossible. No, right now, she had to keep the secret to herself.
“Excellent!” Rafe said. “Ty will help me load your personal luggage on board my small aluminum boat, and we’ll be off. I should be able to get you to Manaus by twilight.”
Ty waited until everyone had dispersed. Catt was pale looking, the shadows beneath her eyes pronounced. Ty felt anguish. She was distancing herself again. The skeletons of the past were alive once more. He felt helpless. She was shutting him out again as she had done all those years ago. He’d never get close to her if she didn’t allow these protective walls around her to dissolve. The love and care he wanted to share were stifled. He followed her down into the hold, to their cabin. At the bottom of the steps, he reached out and gently curved his hand around her upper arm. Instantly, she gasped. He released her.
Catt turned around and nearly stumbled. He reached out and caught her by the arm again. Once she was upright, she pulled free of his grip.
Was his touch so unwanted that she reacted to it this violently? More hurt moved through him, but he tried to keep his personal feelings out of it.
“You’re looking ill. What’s going on?” he asked.
Hunter's Woman Page 15