by Kylie Brant
Not for the first time she considered telling him everything. Her relationship to Sam, his disappearance, her search for the smallest clue that might lead her to her brother… And not for the first time, she held back. She could trust him now less than ever. Okay, maybe he'd saved her skin back at the capitol, but he'd never told her what had driven him to violate the security there to search the offices. Nor what he'd been searching for.
Indelicately, she licked her fingers, savoring every crumb of sandwich left there. No, trust wasn't something she could afford to give him. Which was a pity, really. Because she really, really wished she could trust Jones.
She looked at him then and nearly gasped. He was watching her, arrested, with such heated intent in his eyes that her heart immediately began to gallop. Belatedly she realized his attention was on her mouth, as her tongue was in the act of cleansing the pad of her forefinger. Maybe she wasn't displaying proper jungle etiquette. The next thought bounced crazily in her head in rhythm to the wild pounding of her heart. Or maybe, just maybe, he was having to restrain himself from reaching for her. From licking those last crumbs himself from tasting her, with an altogether different sort of hunger than the one he'd displayed for his dinner.
The moment spun out, the two of them transfixed in the dim humid heat of the forest Ana's chest grew tight, and her lips parted, her tongue creeping out to moisten them. Jones's gaze tracked the movement, and in one euphoric moment she knew. He wanted her. The way he had on the ship that night. The way he'd made her want, too … a sudden violent longing that seared the blood and sharpened the senses. The kind that made any thought of control laughable.
Then he looked away, and the moment was over. He spent several minutes searching for something in his pack. Ana released a great shuddering breath and took the water bottle he handed her with a shaky hand. Raising it to her lips, she drank. Had she thought he was about to lose control? Hah. The man could have invented the term. She hardly presented a picture guaranteed to inspire lust in the man.
Ana handed him back the bottle and gave herself a rueful look. The shapeless black top and cotton trousers weren't exactly haute couture, even for wear in the rain forest. The boots, though functional, were rather clumpy looking, and she'd long since wound the scarf high around her neck to ward off mosquitoes and other insects. Given the fact that she was probably at least as sweaty as he was, she was certain she fell somewhat short of every man's jungle fantasy.
And that, she told herself grimly, was familiar territory indeed. "I'll bet it's Percy."
"What?" He looked up with a frown from stowing the water back in his pack. "What's Percy?"
"Your name." Annoying him was a great way to get her mind off what she'd felt like doing to him a few short minutes ago, so she threw herself into the task. "It must be something you're embarrassed about. Or else you'd tell me." She pretended not to notice the way his eyes narrowed. "It could be Ambrose. Or Dilbert."
"Dilbert." His tone had gone low and menacing.
She nearly grinned. Getting a reaction from him at all was rewarding. Nearly as rewarding as if he'd told her the truth.
"Listen, I want to know where you got the gun and how long you've had it."
Swatting at a mosquito the size of a Volkswagen, she tilted her head to look at him curiously. "If I tell you, will you give it back?"
"If the time comes that you have to use it, yeah, maybe. If I can he assured you know how."
"I can put a round in a target at forty yards," she answered simply. "Care to find out firsthand? Put a coconut on your head and stand against that tree over there."
He didn't look particularly eager to comply. "Firing at a target is quite a bit different than firing at a human being, and a moving one at that."
She gave an involuntary shiver as his words recalled the precariousness of their situation. "I know," she replied in a subdued tone. "But if the time comes, I'll do what I have to."
Evidently something in her expression must have convinced him, because he gave a short nod, then pulled out the directional finder from the backpack again, squinted at it.
"Are we still headed the right way?"
"We're moving more northeast than straight north, but there's no help for that."
She nodded her understanding. The terrain hadn't made their trek easy, by any means. They'd had to swerve around deep ravines, and hack their way through thickets of jungle. Once they'd scrabbled down a slope so steep she'd been grateful for the near darkness. If she'd had to try it again in broad daylight, she was afraid she'd disgrace herself.
"What will happen to those friends you were supposed to meet?"
Swallowing became difficult "I … I don't know. We never hooked up. I meant to check in with them tomorrow. I mean, today."
He didn't look convinced. "Won't they sound the alarm to someone when they don't see you? Maybe call your family?"
The shrug she gave would have done Hollywood proud. "No, why would they? They'll just figure we missed each other." Deliberately changing the subject, she asked, "How much farther?" She watched a brilliantly colored butterfly, as big around as her fist, dance above their heads and disappear in the trees.
"Seven miles or so, the way I figure it," he answered. Her stomach dropped. Seven miles. At the moment she didn't think she could make it seven inches.
"You're doing pretty good, considering."
He said nothing else, only looked at her. Growing discomfited, she made a show of checking the laces on her boots. She wanted to keep them tied tightly enough that nothing could seep inside them. Or crawl. "Considering what?"
"Considering … I had you figured for a college girl out for a good time with her daddy's money."
Her smile was forced. "Well, my daddy has plenty of that, all right." The pang in her heart was a familiar enough weight. She'd lived with it all her life.
"Something about you doesn't add up."
"Me? I'm not complicated."
He was studying her as if solving a particularly complex puzzle. His gray gaze was piercing. With the goggles pushed atop his head, his hair pulled back in its usual thong, and the black form-fitting clothes, he looked like a warrior. Half-tamed and primitive. The day's growth of beard only added to the picture. She gave an involuntary shiver at the image.
"There's the gun. And the way you've kept up on this trip." He looked fierce, as if he was on the trail of something he couldn't quite put a finger on. "You're in pretty good condition for someone who … what'd you say? Worked in a software company?"
"Step aerobics," she said airily, secretly quaking inside. Once she'd begun doing jobs for Sterling she'd made sure she was in good shape. She wasn't exactly leaping tall buildings with a single bound, but she'd added weights to her martial arts training. "If it makes you feel any better, every muscle I have is whimpering."
"Yeah." The doubt in his voice said he remained unconvinced.
In an effort to distract him, she said challengingly, "You know, you're not exactly what I'd figure for a charter ship captain, either."
That shrewd look faded from his eyes to be replaced with a familiar wariness. "How many charter ship captains do you know?"
She waved the question away. "You carry a gun. Not to mention a bag of stuff that would do a burglar proud. And you didn't get into your kind of condition by swabbing decks."
As a diversion it worked admirably. But it failed to acquire any new answers. "You'd he surprised. Swabbing decks is pretty physical." He stood, indicating that their rest was over. Taking her hand, he pulled her to her feet. Then he reached down for the ferns she'd sat on and flung them into the underbrush.
"That radio has stayed pretty quiet. There's been nothing but static for hours." Okay, she admitted, she was stalling. She'd rather eat that disgusting mold thing on the tree next to them than start walking again. "Do you think that's good news?"
"It probably doesn't mean anything," he said. "It's going to be the military searching for us in here, not the police, and
this is a police radio. The only way we're going to hear something on it now is if the military use the same frequency, which I doubt."
He turned and started walking again, and with a sigh, she began to trudge after him. The sandwich and drink had made her feel half-human again, but lack of sleep was catching up with her. Her legs felt wooden. Because the upper canopy blocked most of the sunlight, the forest floor was surprisingly clear. Occasional fallen trees blocked their path, but mostly there were only leafy ferns and rotting vegetation. This made a thick spongy carpet of muck that clung to her boots and made every step an effort.
She hadn't lied about her muscles. Every time she picked up her foot she felt the ground sucking at it, making the backs of her legs tremble with exertion. To make matters worse, she thought she could hear a low rumble in the distance, which sounded suspiciously like thunder. She supposed she should count herself lucky that they hadn't been rained on yet, but she wasn't in the mood to count her blessings. "Do you think they have parties trying to pick up our trail?"
"Hard telling." It gratified her to note that walking seemed to be a bit difficult for him, too. Of course, he was also carrying both their bags and hacking through any vines that blocked their way. "If they got really fortunate and figured we'd head for the forest, and found the exact place we entered it—we'd have no more than an hour head start, tops." At her gasp, he looked back at her. "But that's the worst-case scenario. They're going to figure we'd head for the docks. They'd need special equipment to hunt for us in the jungle at night. And it would take a while to put a team together."
"Unless they already had men in the jungle that they could get in contact with," she said, half thinking out loud. When he only looked at her, she added, "That guy they're searching for. What if they have a party already in here trailing him?"
They exchanged a look, and Ana knew she wasn't saying anything he hadn't already thought of. There was more than the danger behind them to fear. They could just as easily be walking into the enemy's arms.
* * *
Chapter 10
«^»
The ominous sound Ana had heard earlier increased, a rumbling in the sky that sent the parrots and toucans screeching in flight, blinding streaks of brilliance through the forest. There wasn't time to appreciate the sight. Moments later the sky opened up in a torrential downpour. If she thought she couldn't get any more miserable, Ana was quickly proven wrong. The rain turned the vegetation beneath their feet into swampy muck that tugged at their boots like a vacuum with each step. The humid air became a tropical steam bath, an exotic sauna from which there was no escape. Soaked to the skin, wiping the moisture from her face, she could only think that the mosquitoes were going to be worse than ever after this.
It was all she could do to put one foot in front of the other. So intent was she on that task that when Jones stopped in front of her, throwing out a hand warning to be quiet, her dulled reflexes had her plowing into his back.
He grabbed her around the waist to steady them both. Ana's first thought was that he didn't let go of her immediately. His hard arm was unyielding around her, keeping her plastered to his side. His body threw off a heat that had nothing to do with the outdoor temperature but was uniquely his own. And for a moment she wanted nothing more than to turn in to that heat, to claim some of it for herself.
The strength of that longing was staggering. Intellectually she could blame it on the situation. Didn't they say that danger was a powerful aphrodisiac? Add bone-deep weariness to the mix, and her sudden desire to rip his clothes off would be reasonable, wouldn't it?
The fuzzy, barely formed thoughts were shocking enough to have her pulling away from him. Apparently, proximity shredded her common sense. Despite the fact that he was her only chance off this island, she trusted him less than ever. He'd made no attempt to explain his presence in the capitol. And until she could puzzle that out, she couldn't afford to feel anything toward the man but caution.
"Quiet." His near-silent command succeeded in shaking the wayward thoughts from her mind. She became aware of the rigidity of his muscles. Peering ahead, she could see nothing that warranted his sudden attention.
"Stay back." Jones slipped out of the backpack and reached inside it, taking out the pair of binoculars he'd used earlier. Unscrewing the night scope lens first, he handed that to her before raising the binoculars to look at something up ahead.
Ana squinted through the pouring rain. The vegetation a hundred yards or so in front of them grew denser again. Jones would have to hack his way through it. But try as she might she could see nothing that would warrant his sudden caution.
When he lowered the binoculars, she snatched them from his hand. "Let me see." At first she saw nothing but an up-close sight of the vines and bushes ahead. But eventually, once she shifted the angle of the glasses, she saw what he'd been looking at.
"A village!" The collection of huts barely qualified as such but surely they'd provide shelter. There might even be beds. Food. Maybe Sam had found this place in his flight, and sought help. Perhaps he was even there now.
Hope jittered oddly in her chest. Granted, it was a long shot, but the people there would know of other villages in the jungle, wouldn't they? And chances were she and Jones would be coming across more than one of them on their way to the north shore.
"We'll have to veer right to avoid the village and revert to course on the other side of it."
Dropping her hand with the binoculars, she jerked to face him. "What? Why? Maybe someone down there can help."
"That's doubtful. These people live off the land and sea. They'll be among the poorest on the island. And the villages would be the first place the militia will check if they're combing the jungle."
The tiny thread of hope she'd been harboring abruptly snapped. It was sheer stubbornness that made her protest. "You don't know that. We can't even be sure whether the military is searching for us."
"Let's just say I know what I'd do in their place." He reached up, sluiced the water off his beard-roughened jaw. "They've had not one but two security breaches in the last several days. At least I heard that the man they were looking for had fought with a senior cabinet member."
Wariness flickered. "I heard that, too," Ana said.
"I have no idea what the first guy was after, but they can't afford to let you off the island alive."
The chill traveling over her skin owed nothing to the rain. How much had he put together? "I … you're being overly dramatic."
"Think about it." His expression, his tone, was implacable. "You witnessed a drug transaction and then saw a high-ranking government official conversing with the suspect in his office. I happen to know that Laconos is petitioning the Global Trade Organization for a higher level of participation. If word got out that the government was running drugs here, it would sink the vote in London next week."
Mind whirling, she looked away, afraid of what he might see in her expression. Jones knew a bit more than she'd expected about the Laconos government and their possible motives. Not for the first time she wondered at his background. It had been glaringly apparent for the past twenty-four hours that he was more, much more than he seemed.
And even wondering about that couldn't detract from her worry over his words. He hadn't said anything she hadn't feared already, but hearing the fears spoken out loud made them more real somehow, more threatening. For the first time it hit home that she was in no position to help Sam anymore. It would be all she could do to help herself.
"I didn't mean to scare you." Her gaze flew up to lock with his as he ran a crooked finger along her jawline. "I'm just saying that in their place, I'd do exactly the same thing. We're traveling the length of the jungle, but if they have the manpower, they'll split up and come in from the shore every few miles or so, and cross its width. Crisscrossing that way, they'll have a better likelihood of running into us. So it'd be smartest to stay away from all the areas they'd expect us to stop."
Silently she nodded. He'd o
bviously far greater expertise in tactical maneuvers than she. And though she'd give a great deal to know where that experience came from, she couldn't afford not to use it … for as long as it took to get them both out of there.
"Look at it this way." His thumb skated across her bottom lip, before dropping away. "You're getting that jungle tour you talked about."
Recognizing his attempt to lighten the mood, she forced an answering smile. "Maybe you could expand your business after this. Deep-sea fishing. Ocean charters. Guided tours of the rain forest. Rescuing damsels in distress."
He looked away, hanging the binoculars around his neck, stuffing the extra lens in his backpack. "I'm no romantic hero. If you're looking for a white knight, you've got the wrong guy."
The distance that suddenly yawned between them had nothing to do with proximity. But it was there all the same, and recognition of the fact had her stomach abruptly hollowing out. "Well, that's okay," she drawled, wiping the rain out of her eyes. "I've never thought of myself as a damsel, either. Too clingy. I'd much prefer slaying the dragon on my own."
He spared her a glance before picking up his machete and slicing through the tangled vines to their right. There was a grudging note of respect in his voice when he spoke again. "If the dragon knew you were coming, I'm betting he'd run like hell."
* * *
Jungle rimmed the village like a bowl, with the huts lying well below the ridge in the semi-cleared center. Rocky slopes jutted sharply upward, to the dense green vegetation that would give way to forest. It was around this ridge that Jones led Annie. He didn't want to veer too far out of their way, nor could he afford to stray too close to the outer edge of the vegetation where they would be visible to anyone below.