To Save His Child

by Margaret Watson

  “It’s okay now,” he said in a normal voice. “We’re far enough away that no one from the village can see or hear us. We’ll be safe until morning.”

  “That’s a matter of opinion,” she muttered, her gaze following the beam of light as it outlined the trees surrounding them.

  “You’re not afraid, are you, Lexie?” he said, forcing a mocking tone into his voice.

  It was exactly the right thing to say. Moving away from him, she stood straighter. “Of course not. The jungle at night is just a little spooky, that’s all.”

  Spotting the tree he was looking for, he took her hand again and led her toward it. “Thank God for that,” he answered. “It should keep everyone else away from us tonight.”

  Pushing away the tangle of vines that he’d amassed earlier in the day, he used the flashlight to illuminate a dark hole in the trunk of a towering tree. “ Welcome to the Santa Ysabel Ritz.”

  Lexie took a step backward. “What’s that?”

  “Our accommodations for the night. Go on in.”

  She gave him an incredulous look and didn’t budge. “How do you know what’s in there? There could be animals sleeping in there, or worse. You go first.”

  “I need to make sure the opening is covered up,” he said patiently. “There’s nothing in there. I made sure earlier.”

  She took a step forward, then stopped again. “I’m sorry, Caine, but I can’t walk blindly into that black hole. I need to see in there first.”

  Obligingly, he shone the flashlight into the hole in the base of the tree. All she would see was the blankets he’d put there earlier, plus the wad of mosquito netting he’d stashed by the door. It wasn’t much, but the hollowed-out tree trunk would keep them protected and hidden until morning.

  He felt her start of surprise when she looked inside. “You put the blankets in here?”

  “I like to plan ahead.” He unslung his backpack and swung it through the hole, then reached out for hers. She jumped when she felt his hands on her shoulders, but quickly shrugged out of her knapsack when she realized what he was doing. Finally, he heard her take a deep, trembling breath before she bent over and twisted through the hole.

  Pulling the vines back in front of the opening, he followed her inside. He set the flashlight on the floor and looked at her. She sat in the center, her legs crossed and her back very straight. Apparently the baby was still sleeping, because he didn’t hear a sound from the lump in the scarf still strapped across her shoulder.

  “When did you bring this stuff here?” she whispered.

  “This afternoon.” Easing back, he leaned against the dry wood and stretched his legs out in front of him. “As soon as I realized something was up, I gathered what I thought we would need and brought it here.”

  She was silent for a long time. When she finally spoke, she said, “Don’t you get tired of always being suspicious, of always thinking the worst of everyone? It’s an awfully depressing way to live.”

  Her words surprised him. No one else had ever wondered about that aspect of his job. Trying to hide his uneasiness with her perception, he shrugged and said, “It may be depressing, but it’s what’s kept me alive.”

  “In this case, I still think you’re overreacting. The man you saw at Maria’s inn was probably just another guest, and the man you thought was watching my house was probably just waiting to meet his lover. In the morning we’ll see that this has all been unnecessary.”

  “Maybe so, maybe not. I hope you’re right, but I don’t think so. Either way, we’ll find out in the morning.” Spotting the mosquito netting, he sat up and reached for it. “Let me put this up, then we can go to sleep.” He glanced over at her, dimly illuminated in the cramped space. “Unless you have other ideas how to spend the night.”

  It was hard to tell, but he thought her face turned a dull red. Ignoring his comment, she looked into the darkness for a moment, then turned back to him, licking her lips. “I, ah, need to step outside for a moment.”

  It took him a second to understand what she was saying. “Oh. Well, then, take the flashlight, and don’t go very far.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” she muttered. Rising to her knees, she clutched the baby awkwardly and began to crawl toward the opening.

  “Wouldn’t it be easier if you left the kid here?”

  She stopped and looked over at him. “I’m sure it would, but I have no intention of laying her on the ground. God only knows what’s down there.”

  “Give her to me,” he heard himself say. “I’ll hold her until you get back.”

  She went perfectly still and stared at him for a long time. Finally she untied the scarf and eased the sleeping baby away from her. Her hands trembled.

  “Here.” She laid the soft bundle in his arms, stared at them for a moment, then disappeared into the blackness. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he’d seen a glittery wetness in her eyes just before she turned away.

  He looked down at the tiny, still figure in his arms. He couldn’t see a thing, but a sweet fragrance drifted up to him. It smelled like innocence and love, and he closed his eyes against the pain that filled him. He’d always known he wasn’t father material and had sworn he wouldn’t do to another kid what had been done to him, but it hadn’t made any difference in the end. It had happened anyway, and now this bundle in his arms mocked him, taunting him with the things he would never have.

  Maybe Lexie had been right, after all, to keep this baby a secret from him. Maybe somehow she’d known about the empty places inside him—the places that could never be brought back to life. Maybe it would have been better if he’d been able to refuse James’s request, if he’d never come down to San Rafael at all.

  The child stirred in his rigid clasp, and he stared down at it with a brief rush of panic. Where was Lexie? What if the kid started screaming? What was he supposed to do then?

  The beam of light from the flashlight bounced off the trees and Lexie appeared in front of the vines. Crawling into their hiding place, she reached out and took the baby from him.

  “Thank you for holding her, Caine.”

  “You’re welcome.” His voice was gruff, and he turned his back to her to rearrange the vines in front of the opening. “I think she’s getting hungry or something.”

  “There’s no ‘or something’ about it.” He heard her scoot back so she was leaning against the wood. “She’s nothing but a little eating machine.” Her words were murmured in a low, loving voice, and he glanced over in time to see her bend down and brush a kiss through the baby’s hair. When she reached for the buttons on her blouse, he turned away abruptly and switched off the flashlight.

  It seemed as if all the creatures of the night were suddenly silent. All he could hear was the faint suckling sounds of the baby nursing. He listened for a minute, then turned blindly toward the opening in the tree.

  “I’ll be right back.” He stumbled into the darkness of the jungle, away from the tree that hid Lexie and the baby. Then he leaned against the smooth, cool bark of another tree and wondered how long it would take her to feed the kid.

  Lexie listened to Caine moving outside, and bent her head to nuzzle her daughter’s cheek. She had no idea why he wasn’t interested in his child, but each time he shoved her away it felt as if her heart would break. “Don’t worry,” she whispered fiercely into the darkness as Ana nursed contentedly. “He may not want you, but I want you at least twice as much as I ever thought possible. We’ll have each other, and we won’t need anyone else.”

  Ana finished eating, and Lexie laid a blanket on the floor of dead leaves and dirt and changed her diaper. Then, wrapping the baby in another blanket, she cradled her in her arms and lay down on the dirt floor.

  She wouldn’t think about Caine, she told herself firmly, but all she could see was him rushing outside, fleeing from the sight of her feeding his child. The pain went deep and gnawed at her soul, mocking all her futile dreams about their being a family someday. She didn’t ne
ed him, she told herself again. She and Ana would do just fine by themselves.

  They would go back to Santa Ysabel in the morning and find that all this melodrama had been for nothing. Then he would go away and they could live in peace again.

  Telling herself that was what she wanted, she brought Ana closer and willed herself to relax. The fear she’d felt as they were slipping out of Santa Ysabel, even the pain that clutched her heart every time she thought about Caine, couldn’t keep her awake. Ana would awaken in a few hours, needing to be fed again, so Lexie closed her eyes and forced herself to sleep.

  She woke, disoriented, to utter blackness. Her breasts were heavy and throbbing with milk, and Ana was sputtering beside her. When she reached out, her hand encountered dirt, and suddenly she remembered everything.

  She and Ana were in the hollowed-out trunk of a tree, somewhere in the jungle, hiding because Caine thought someone would come for her during the night. He was invisible in the darkness, but she heard Caine’s deep, even breathing over the sounds coming from the dark forest just outside their hiding place.

  Sitting up, she reached for Ana and had just picked her up when suddenly she felt Caine looming over her.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked in a low voice.

  “Nothing. She needs to eat again.”

  Even though she knew he couldn’t see her, she still hesitated before opening her blouse. He was too close. Finally he settled back onto the floor. She thought he’d fallen asleep again when his quiet voice said, “How come she never cries?”

  Bringing Ana to her breast, she waited until the baby was nursing before she answered. “She has a scream that could pierce metal at thirty feet. Since I didn’t think you wanted to advertise where we were, I’ve been trying to anticipate her and feed or change her before she can start.”

  There was a long silence, then she heard Caine shift on the floor. “Lucky kid,” she thought she heard him mutter under his breath. After another tense silence, he asked, “Do you need anything?”

  Vaguely surprised and touched that he would ask, she licked her dry lips and murmured, “I could use a drink of water.”

  He switched on the flashlight and she looked away, squinting against the too-bright whiteness. When he knelt next to her and handed her a canteen, she took it without looking at him. She couldn’t bear to see the distance that crept into his eyes whenever he was close to Ana.

  She handed the canteen back to him with a quiet, “Thank you,” then looked down at Ana and realized the baby was asleep again. Laying the child across her lap, she rebuttoned her blouse and lay back down on the floor. Caine switched the flashlight off and settled into his spot on the other side of the makeshift shelter.

  Lexie’s eyes fluttered closed as her body cried out for sleep. She had almost drifted off again when she heard Caine moving around.

  “It’s almost dawn,” he said, his voice abrupt. “I’m going to take a look around. Go back to sleep.”

  The vines at the entrance to their hiding place rubbed together with a crackling whisper, then he was gone. Even though it was as black as the depths of the sea inside the tree trunk, Lexie knew as surely as her heart beat that he wasn’t with her anymore. Rising up on one elbow, she listened intently, trying to figure out where he was. The only sounds she heard were the mysterious nighttime murmurs of the jungle.

  She lay back down slowly and pulled Ana closer. She had dated Caine for a month, had conceived a child with him, but she’d told him the truth earlier: she had never really known him. These skills of his, honed over the years in the covert world in which he lived, were completely alien to her—and more than a little frightening.

  They made her wonder exactly what he did, in his so-secret work for her father. And they made her wonder what parts of himself had died while he was learning them.

  Curling her body around her daughter’s, she closed her eyes and willed herself to sleep. But she woke frequently, startled by a vague and disturbing shadow in her mind. When she finally fell into a dreamless sleep, light was beginning to seep into her hiding place.

  Caine hurried back to the hollow tree, grimly examining and discarding options. Creeping through Santa Ysabel in the predawn darkness, he’d gotten his answers. Now he just had to convince Lexie to accept them.

  By the time he reached the wall of vines, the faint light of dawn was filtering down to the forest floor. He paused before he entered, afraid of disturbing Lexie in the middle of some intimate task. But no sounds came from behind the vines.

  Pushing them aside, he crouched in the opening and looked in at Lexie and the baby, both sound asleep. Something clutched at his gut at the sight of Lexie curled so protectively around her child. He wanted to sit and watch them for a while, and when he realized it, he cleared his throat and let the vines rustle closed.

  She sat up abruptly, looking around almost wildly before she spotted him. “Oh, it’s you.” She exhaled. “You startled me.”

  “Sorry,” he said gruffly. “But it’s time to get moving.” He nodded at the baby lying next to her. “Can you keep her quiet for another hour or so?”

  “Why?” She looked at him suspiciously. “It won’t take that long to get back to Santa Ysabel.”

  “We’re not going back there.” He reached for one of the packs and slung it over his back. “I just came from the village, and someone was definitely looking for you last night. I hid the Jeep in the brush and we’re going to leave right now, before anyone organizes a search.”

  She stared at him, her eyes huge. Even in the dim light he could see the fear. “What do you mean, someone was looking for me last night? How do you know?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

  He stopped gathering their belongings and looked down at her. “Because whoever searched your house wasn’t careful. They left plenty of signs. If we go back there now, we’ll be walking into a trap.”

  “I can’t just leave. I need more things.”

  She was close to panic, and he longed to scoop her up and comfort her. Thrusting that unwanted thought away, he squatted down next to her. “What things, Lexie? What’s more important than your life, and hers?” He looked at the baby, still asleep.

  “Nothing, I guess,” she answered reluctantly. “But I have only one change of clothes for her. I’ll need more than that. And I’ll need more diapers, too.”

  Caine rocked back on his heels, calculating quickly. She was probably going to have to feed the baby again before they left. The kid seemed to have an appetite like a lumberjack’s. It was early enough that most of the people in the village would still be asleep, so it probably wouldn’t be that big a deal to go back and get what she needed. And God knew, he was supposed to be an expert at gliding in and out of places unseen and unsuspected.

  “All right. You tell me what you need and I’ll go back and get it. Do whatever it is you need to do in the mornings with her, but be ready to leave when I get back.”

  She looked at him, startled. Was she that surprised that he would give in so easily? “I figure it’s easier to go back than spend the next half hour arguing with you.” He told himself that it was better if she thought he was a jerk. It would be a lot less complicated.

  “Thank you, Caine.” Her low voice seemed to resonate inside the hollow tree trunk. Quickly she told him where to find more clothes and blankets for the baby, and more diapers. “And my emergency medical kit. It’s on top of the chest in the bedroom.” He nodded and turned to go.

  “Caine?” The word was hesitant, and he turned around slowly.

  “What?”

  “There’s one more thing.”

  When she didn’t continue, he said impatiently, “Tell me, Lexie.”

  “An envelope of pictures.” She looked down at the baby, lying on the ground. “Pictures of the village when I first got here, of my friends here.” She paused, but he knew she wasn’t finished. Finally she swallowed and whispered, “Pictures of Ana when she was first born.” She looked back up at him, pain in her
eyes. “I can’t leave them here. They’re the only ones I’ll ever have.”

  “Where are they?” He had to be nuts, he told himself. While someone searched for her and her kid, he was going to be looking for a bunch of damned pictures.

  “They’re at the bottom of the trunk of clothes in the bedroom. In a manila envelope.” As she looked up at him and smiled softly, he could see the tension easing out of her. “Thank you, Caine. You’re being very understanding, especially since I know you think I’m being a pain in the rear.”

  “You have no idea what I think of you.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wanted to bite them back. The last thing he wanted to do was issue an invitation for a personal conversation. Turning away, he grabbed his backpack and shoved aside the vines that hung in front of the opening. “Stay here until I get back.”

  Lexie watched the vines rustle back into place in the weak sunlight. He was right, she thought slowly. She had never been able to tell what he was thinking, or read him in any way. Caine O’Roarke had been an enigma to her from the first day she’d met him. That, however, hadn’t stopped her from wanting him.

  Which only proved that she’d had a lot of growing up to do when she met him a year ago. Thank goodness the past eleven months had forced her to come to her senses. Becoming a mother had a way of doing that, of focusing a woman’s thoughts and narrowing her vision until everything but the essentials was stripped away. Coming to Santa Ysabel and having Ana had taught her how useless her life had been.

  Not anymore. Stiffly she got to her feet and laid Ana over her shoulder. Maybe it wasn’t possible to stay in Santa Ysabel any longer, but she wasn’t about to pack up her things and follow Caine home like a docile little mouse. For the first time in her life she’d found something she was good at, something that made her feel good. And she wasn’t about to give it up without a fight.

  Gathering the things she’d used during the night, she stuffed everything into her backpack, then pushed aside the curtain of vines and stepped into the jungle. Even during the day it wasn’t a welcoming place, but it didn’t make shivers run up her spine the way it had during the night. And at least it wasn’t dark.