The tremble in her husky voice sent a sheet of longing through Jim. But it was the wrong place, the wrong time. “Help me up. We’ll go slowly and take our time circling the volcano to reach Garcia’s fortress. We can use the daylight to time the guards and observe the routine.”
Somehow, Pepper thought this might end up being a better plan, after all. Knowing the guard’s coming and goings and getting a direct feel for the place would help them tomorrow, when they made their raid into the plantation itself. She got to her feet and leaned over, offering Jim her hand. His grip was strong and steady as he heaved himself to his feet with her help.
She watched him for signs of dizziness but saw none. When she’d fashioned a sling for him to rest his right arm in, he went over to his pack.
“There’s no sense in me carrying all this weight,” he said, bending over it and fumbling with the straps. A left-hander he was not.
Pepper crouched next to him and opened the pack.
“Thanks,” he rasped, offering her a crooked smile.
“I’ll be your hands on this trip,” she joked weakly, as she spread out the items from the pack so he could choose what to take and what to discard. He kept his handgun and its ammunition. At his request, Pepper dug a hole deep enough to bury the items he didn’t need. It took nearly half an hour to repack the contents, then he hoisted the pack onto his shoulders.
Pepper opted to continue carrying the full weight of her own pack. If they got into trouble, she could still use the submachine gun to spray the area and protect them.
As the first streaming rays of the sun shot across the ocean and touched the island, Jim and Pepper began heading toward the fortress. He took the lead, since he was more familiar with jungle trekking. Mainly, they had to be careful not to step on branches that could crack or snap, since the sound carried too far for comfort.
Birds had been calling since dawn. As Pepper followed about fifty feet behind Jim, she noticed how he moved not in a straight line, but in one that took advantage of the brush and taller bushes in the area as protection from curious eyes. She could smell smoke from a wood fire in the breeze drifting toward them. Dogs barked now and then, and once she heard children laughing in the distance.
Because they were skirting the volcano, there were few homes, just thick brush that made for slow going. Every once in a while Jim stopped, consulted his compass and map, then moved on. Pepper worried that his arm must be hurting terribly, but she knew he wouldn’t complain. Still, she watched him for signs of weakening or fever. The antibiotics should hold him, unless she hadn’t cleaned out his wound well enough, which was always a possibility.
Near 0800, Jim stopped. He’d found a fairly thick grove of rubber trees that provided excellent cover, so he dropped his pack and sat down. He watched as Pepper silently came into the circle of trees. Her face had a sheen of sweat from the high humidity coming off the ocean. He was sweating heavily, too, as evidenced by the dark splotches on his utilities.
Taking out the canteen, Jim awkwardly opened it and drank deeply. Pepper joined him, sitting not more than a foot away, after placing her pack next to his. He capped his canteen and watched her drink from her own. She had such a long, slender neck. The greasepaint they wore had streaked off with her sweat. It didn’t matter now, anyway. Jim looked around, satisfied that they were fairly safe from natives who might inadvertently discover them. They were miles from any of the dirt or asphalt roads that lined the coast.
Another sound caught his ears and he looked skyward. A helicopter. Pepper was watching the sky intently, too. They knew that Garcia had a helicopter. The whapping sounds grew closer. The aircraft was coming in from the west and heading south—toward the fortress. Jim barely glimpsed it as it skimmed by, nearly at treetop level.
Pepper stood, straining to catch sight of the aircraft. “It’s a blue-and-white Bell,” she reported.
“That’s Garcia’s,” Jim said. He gestured for her to sit down near him. “Let’s eat.”
Pepper wasn’t really hungry. The excitement and danger levels were too high for her to be in touch with something as basic as the need for food. The chance to be near Jim was enough, however, and she sat down next to him, her legs crossed. He handed her an MRE—one of the military’s ready-to-eat meals that needed only to be reconstituted with water. She watched in distaste as he showed her what to do.
“At least out on the fire line we get real food,” she grumbled.
He laughed softly. “Yeah, MRE’s are the pits. I prefer the Crations we had before they instituted this new stuff.” Glancing at Pepper, he saw that some of the fear had left her eyes. Sobering, he asked, “Are you settling into the routine?”
She nodded and picked at her mushy MRE. “Yes, I am.” She wrinkled her nose as she tasted the fare. “It tastes like cardboard.”
Chuckling quietly, Jim agreed. He tried to ignore the pain in his arm by concentrating on Pepper—which was easy to do. Despite their circumstances, her vibrant inner beauty shone through. Several more curls had escaped from beneath her black knit cap. “You’re the first woman I’ve seen wear Recon gear and look damn good in it.”
Pepper’s heart thumped once to underscore his huskily spoken words. She glanced up and nearly melted beneath his burning green gaze. Feeling suddenly shaky, she tried to concentrate on eating the unpalatable food. “Sure,” she joked, “my face is streaked with that awful stuff, my hair desperately needs to be washed and I stink—some pinup poster I am, Woodward. Maybe you’ve been out in this jungle a little too long, huh?”
He grinned and spooned some more rehydrated fruit into his mouth. “Do you always parry a compliment, Ms. Sinclair?”
“Probably,” she admitted, chewing thoughtfully. “It comes from my hitch in the army. Sexual harassment was everywhere. I got so I hated it, and most of the time I wouldn’t take it.”
“I don’t blame you,” he answered. “No one should be subjected to that kind of humiliation.”
“Usually, marines are the worst harassers.” She watched him laugh at her with his eyes. For the moment, Pepper felt safe, and she relaxed for the first time. Was it Jim? His confident presence? The fact that he’d done this before, and if he was relaxed, she could be, too? Or was it that lazy, warm smile he gave her that automatically made her feel boneless in such a wonderful, thrilling way? Did he realize what his heated look did to her? She was sure he didn’t. After all, his heart had already been given to Laura Trayhern. Pepper had no chance with him. Though she knew she should be relieved, a ribbon of sadness wound through her at the thought.
Jim finished his MRE, dug a hole and buried the remains. “Marines are diehards,” he finally admitted. “And you’re right—they are pretty macho.”
“The Tailhook scandal proved that.” And the navy and its stonewalling admirals were no less guilty, she thought to herself.
Jim nodded. He couldn’t argue the point. Half the aviators at the Tailhook convention had been marine pilots, and word was out that one of the worst suites at the symposium had been a Marine Corps one. Glancing around, keying his hearing, he reassured himself that everything was normal. The birds were singing, a sign that all was as it should be. If they were to stop singing suddenly, he and Pepper would go on alert.
He lay down carefully, using his pack as a pillow. “Let’s rest awhile. We’ve got three more miles to the fortress.”
“Is your arm hurting you?”
“A little,” he lied. It was burning, as if on fire. He saw Pepper’s eyes change and grow shadowed with worry. “Are you always like this?” he asked.
“Like what?” she asked, leaning against the tree inches from Jim’s shoulder.
“A mother hen.”
Grinning, she said, “I get accused of that all the time by my team. I guess I am.”
“Worrywart is probably closer to the truth,” he said, looking up at her. He watched as Pepper removed the black knit cap. Her hair was a mass of curls from the humidity. With her slender fingers, she began to ease them into
some semblance of order, and he longed to stroke the dark, wavy strands. She replaced the headset, settling the mike close to her lips, but she left the cap off. He couldn’t blame her. The humidity was making him sweat like a racehorse.
Something drove him to get to know her better. He knew he wasn’t going to get many chances, and he wanted to take advantage of everyone of them. “Tell me about your growing-up years. Were you a hell-raiser like your mom—a wild woman?”
Laughing softly, Pepper shared a warm look with him. This was the man she wanted to know, and it sent an ache straight to her heart. His green eyes were dark with an emotion she was afraid to define. His mouth was curved recklessly, giving him a boyish look.
“I was no ‘wild woman,’ as you put it.” Tipping her head back against the trunk of the rubber tree, Pepper closed her eyes, suddenly happier than she could recall being in a long time. “Cam, my older brother, might disagree with me, but I never saw myself that way. As I said, we lived in Montana, so we did grow up in the wilds, in that sense. I spent every spare minute hiking and learning about nature.”
“Tell me about it?”
Embarrassed, she shrugged. “I was just a kid with a high sense of curiosity, that was all. I used to hunt red asparagus berries every fall, collect them and make necklaces out of them. Later, I’d dry and shellac them and give them as Christmas gifts to my friends at school. Or I’d go out with my mother with my flower book and try to identify the different wildflowers that grew around our place, then press and save them.”
“So you were a wood nymph.” Jim closed his eyes, imagining Pepper as a youngster. “You must have been a pretty little girl.”
Pepper rolled her eyes. “No, I wasn’t. In fact, I felt awful sometimes because my nose grew larger than the rest of my face, or my lips did. You know how some kids go through that awkward period? Well, I was worse than most. When I was fourteen, I looked in the mirror one day and started to cry. My mom came into my room and found me.” Her voice went soft. “My mother, bless her heart, just put her arm around me. I blubbered about how ugly I was, and she said that each part of me was beautiful in its own right, and that one day soon I’d grow into all of them. She assured me I was just going through a gangly stage.”
Jim opened his eyes. “Your mother is special—like you,” he murmured.
Flushing, Pepper said, “I don’t know about me, but yes, my mom is special. Cam and I were really lucky. Hearing all the horror stories nowadays really makes me appreciate my parents. I know we weren’t perfect kids, and I’m sure we caused them some anxious times, but out in Montana, at least we didn’t have problems with drugs and gangs like the big cities do. Anaconda is a relatively small town—a silver-and copper-mining community.”
“I think some of the old-fashioned Western morals and values are still alive and well up there, don’t you?”
Pepper was grateful for his grasp of her world. “Yes, that’s why I love living there,” she said, smiling as a vision of her home flashed before her.
“Western people seem different from Eastern types,” Jim offered. “I grew up in Maryland, in a suburb a stone’s throw from Annapolis. It wasn’t the wide open spaces, but we still learned serious values, it being an Academy community.”
“You were lucky,” Pepper said. She smiled at him, loving the ease of conversation now that the barriers between them were down.
“Tell me,” he said, catching her dreamy gaze, “what are your dreams?”
“What?”
“Your dreams. You’ve got to have some. What are they?”
Frowning, Pepper ruminated. She drew up her knees and rested her arms around them. “You’ll die laughing, Woodward, if I tell you.”
“No, I won’t. Come on, what are they?”
She moved uncomfortably. “They’re nothing special….”
“So? I’d like to hear what’s in your heart.”
Pepper tore her gaze from his. Her mouth was getting dry again. She wanted to blurt, “You’re in my heart, but I know I can’t have you.” Bowing her head, she said instead, “I have a very common dream, Jim, but it seems to have been taken from me.” She swallowed against the lump forming in her throat. “Despite my choice of careers, I wanted to find a man who loved me as much as I loved him—one who’d love Montana’s mountains and plains as I do. I dreamed of having his babies and of teaching our children, as my parents taught me. I would close my eyes and picture those kids as if they were real—and me showing them the red berries of the asparagus in the autumn, or hunting fresh-water mussel shells along a trout creek. Little things…important things.”
Jim eased into a sitting position. He saw the tears in Pepper’s eyes. What remained unsaid was that John Freedman had been the man meant to fulfill those dreams. “You’d make a good mother,” he said in a low voice filled with emotion. “You’re like a kid yourself in some ways.” He smiled a little. “That’s one of the many things I’ve come to like about you, Pepper—you’re completely adult when you have to be, but there’s also a kid inside you that never grew up. I think that’s great.”
Shaken by the grittiness of Jim’s voice, Pepper stared at him. He was so close, mere inches away, and she could feel the heat throbbing between them. The burning look in his eyes rushed through her, making her aware of herself as a woman in every way. The thought that Jim would be a wonderful father himself flashed through her head, and Pepper quickly looked away, afraid he might see a yearning in her eyes. If he did, she’d be mortified. Still, she longed to reach out and tenderly touch his face, though the shadow of his growing beard and the streaked remains of his camouflage paint made him look even more dangerous. What would it be like to kiss his firm mouth again—to feel his powerful form against her heat and need? She ached to reach out and slide her hand across his chest, to absorb his strength. His wonderful half smile tore through her, beckoning to her, and Pepper literally had to stop herself from leaning forward…to meet his mouth and melt against him.
Was she going crazy because of the pressure they were under? Pepper sighed and tried to get a handle on her escaping emotions. Sitting here talking with Jim was opening up her heart in a way she’d thought would never happen again. Clearing her throat, she said, “Fair’s fair. Tell me about your dreams.”
He chuckled. “They’re as pedestrian as yours, Pepper. I want a woman who will love me, warts and all. I want a couple of kids, too. I dream of finding a woman who likes to laugh, who can find humor in even the worst situation. I grew up in a pretty somber family, and I’m afraid I was the joker—the guy who was always playing tricks and then catching hell for it.”
Pepper’s eyes rounded. “You?”
“Yeah, sure. Why not?”
His grin was devilish, and in that moment, Pepper caught a glimpse of the original Jim Woodward—before the Marine Corps had shaped him to meet their exacting standards. “So, you’re a joker?”
“Every chance I get.” With a laugh, he said, “Not that I get much chance at the Pentagon. It’s one place where you have to watch your every move. There’s always someone with a lot more rank watching you—ready to mark you down.”
“So when you have a field command, you’re different?”
“You bet I am,” he exclaimed. Looking up at her he found his gaze caught by her parted lips. Damn, but he wanted to kiss her again. Jim knew she was a woman very much in touch with her needs. She lived too close to nature not to be in tune with herself on those levels. What was it he could see in her eyes? Desire? Longing? Or was that just wishful thinking on his part?
Hope coursed through him as his gaze continued to probe hers. She was a woman of incredible strengths and courage—the kind of woman he’d been looking for all his life, he thought suddenly. The discovery sent a sheet of heat through him, radiating from his heart. Pepper was as natural as the timeless cycles of the seasons. She had no pretenses; what you saw was what you got.
But even as those thoughts crowded into his mind and heart, reality drenched him
. They were sitting in a jungle on foreign soil. Interlopers. The government of Nevis would not be informed of their mission until after Laura was rescued—if she could be rescued. And what made him think he would survive this mission? Or that Pepper would? The threat of death was strong. Jim knew Garcia’s guards would kill without a second thought; they’d pull the trigger first and ask questions later. He also was positive that Garcia was on alert, knowing full well that Perseus would attempt to rescue Laura.
“When I was a little girl,” Pepper said softly, her voice sounding as if it came from far away, “I used to sit by the trout stream on our property. I had a favorite rock that was large, round and flat. I’d sit there, shaded by the trees and brush, and watch the rainbow and cutthroat trout flash by in the water. I loved the rainbow trout, because when the sunlight caught them, they really lived up to their name. I’d just sit and watch, my legs crossed, my elbows on my knees and my chin cupped in my hands.
“I’d wonder what my life was going to be like after I grew up. What I’d be someday. I used to daydream for hours, trying to imagine myself as an adult and what I’d look like. Then—” her mouth curved gently “—I imagined my children. I saw the color of their hair, their faces, the color of their eyes. I imagined each of their personalities and how much fun I would have with them.
“I saw this two-story white house with a green roof and a white picket fence around it, too.” She laughed a little. “Actually, it was an exact replica of my folks’ place. Every summer Cam and I would get out there and paint that picket fence. And we’d help dad on the roof when it needed new shingles. Mom would plant bright red geraniums, and I always thought it looked like Christmas in summer with the house’s green trim and the red flowers.
“I guess I’m really pretty simple, Jim. I don’t want much. I don’t need much. I just needed a man who would love me and respect me for what I was—and what I wasn’t. I wanted him to be as excited as I was about bringing a bunch of mop-haired children into the world, growing with them and loving them.” She turned, gazing down at Jim’s thoughtful expression. “Sometimes there’s an ache in my heart when I remember those dreams,” she admitted. “I’m old enough now to realize it won’t happen that way.”
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