She smeared something cool on his arm, then covered it with a bandage. “You’re all set,” she said, in that same cool, even voice.
“Great. I’ll clean up from lunch while you get ready to leave. Do you think you can start walking again?”
“I’m fine,” she said briefly. “Completely back to normal. It’s amazing what a little food will do.”
“Then, let’s go.”
Chapter 9
Lexie stopped to take another drink from her canteen and wipe her face one more time. As she started walking again, she folded back the edges of the shawl and checked the sleeping Ana carefully. It was getting hotter and hotter, and even though Ana wore nothing more than a diaper, Lexie worried that she would get overheated in the shawl.
“You and the kid ready to take a break?” Caine called back to her.
“We will be soon,” she answered, looking down at the baby again. “I’m fine, and she’s still asleep. We might as well wait until she wakes up.”
“You don’t need anything to eat?” Caine persisted.
“No, thank you.” She reined in the sharp reply that was prompted by the heat and her weariness and forced herself to voice a civil answer to the question he’d asked too many times that afternoon. “I’ve been eating the trail mix.”
Caine stopped and turned around to face her. “I have to be able to trust you to tell me when you need a break, Lexie. It’s going to be harder going from here on in. We’re getting to the lower altitudes, and the undergrowth in the forest is going to be a lot thicker. It’s also going to be hotter and more humid than it was yesterday and today.” He glanced toward her canteen. “Do you need more water?”
“Not yet. How much farther do we have to go?”
“Far enough.” He didn’t stop walking, but he did turn around and give her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, we’re doing fine. To be honest, I never expected that we’d get this far this quickly. If everything goes well, we should be in Limores in two days.”
“Then what?”
“We’ll worry about that when we get there.”
He kept walking steadily, maintaining a pace that wasn’t too taxing for her. She watched him for a while as he strode in front of her, completely contained and self-reliant. He seemed to be isolated in a cocoon of his own making. The walls around him were clearly posted with a Do Not Disturb sign. She thought whimsically that there should also be a sign that said, Enter at Your Own Risk. Anyone who tried to get close to Caine O’Roarke was asking for heartbreak.
Two massive tree trunks lay across the path in front of them, and he waited to help her scramble over them. She looked up into the blue sky, squinting at the sudden brightness. The tightly interwoven canopy of massive trees usually shaded the floor of the jungle so completely that little direct sunlight reached it. The two trees that had fallen gave her an unexpected view of the sky and she lingered for a moment, enjoying the sight.
“Come on,” he said impatiently. “It’s too hot to stand out here in the sun.”
“Don’t you have any romance in your soul?” she demanded. “We haven’t seen the sun for days. I want to appreciate it for a minute.”
“I appreciate how hot it’s making me to stand here,” he said. “Let’s go, Lexie.”
As she moved to follow him, he froze and she almost bumped into him. “What is it?” she asked.
“Shh.”
She stood still, straining to listen, but couldn’t hear a thing. Then, suddenly, she heard a faint noise in the distance, so faint she wasn’t sure it was really there.
Apparently Caine was sure. “Come on,” he said, urgency in his voice. Taking her arm, he pulled her with him as he hurried toward the cover of the jungle. By the time they were hidden under the canopy again, the sound was much closer.
She looked over at him. “Is that what I think it is?”
“It’s a helicopter.” His voice was terse as he looked around. “And it sounds too low.”
“Do you think it’s someone looking for us?”
“I don’t know, but we’re not going to take any chances.” He looked her over quickly. “Take the kid out of the shawl and give it to me. The material is too bright. I don’t want to risk someone spotting us down here.”
Her hands shook as she untied the knot that held the shawl in place. Holding Ana with one hand, she handed him the shawl with the other. Quickly he shoved it under his shirt where it was hidden from view, then he looked at her again.
“Your shirt,” he said flatly. “It’s too red. Take it off.”
Without a word she pulled the red blouse over her head and handed it to him, and he tucked it under his shirt with her shawl. His gaze flickered over her again, impersonal and frighteningly calculating. “You should be all right now. Everything else will blend in with the dirt and the leaves.”
She felt vulnerable and exposed, sitting so close to Caine wearing only a bra. He didn’t even seem to notice. He was too busy scanning the skies for signs of the helicopter.
The noise was coming closer and closer. It sounded as if the aircraft was almost skimming the tops of the trees, and suddenly she was frightened. They were crouched in a thick clump of bushes at the base of an enormous tree, but she was sure whoever was in the helicopter would spot them easily. Holding Ana more tightly, she tensed to get up and run, knowing there had to be someplace else to hide where they would be more protected.
Caine gripped her arm, holding her still. “Don’t!” he shouted over the whop-whop of the helicopter’s rotors. “They’ll see you in a second if you move. Just hide your face and hold still.”
The sound of the helicopter drowned out all other noises, and she could feel the air stir around her as the aircraft passed over their heads. Covering Ana’s ears with her hands, Lexie kept her face pressed between her knees and waited for the helicopter to pass.
She didn’t move until the sound of the rotors beating had faded far into the distance. When she could barely hear the helicopter, she raised her head and looked over at Caine. He crouched, perfectly still, and scanned the surrounding jungle, his eyes constantly moving.
His tense watchfulness, the readiness she sensed in him, frightened her almost as much as the helicopter had. “What is it?” she asked. Her voice sounded as if it was stuck in her throat.
“Nothing, yet. I just want to make sure.” He didn’t look at her, just kept watching the jungle.
“Sure of what?” She swallowed hard.
“I want to be sure that the helicopter wasn’t a smoke screen. I don’t want to start walking again and step right into a trap. I want to be sure that whoever sent that helicopter over our heads doesn’t also have someone planted in the jungle ahead of us who’s just waiting for us to assume that since the helicopter’s gone, everything’s safe.”
She stared at him, amazed. “Isn’t that awfully convoluted? Is El Cuchillo really that clever?”
“You tell me. I just got to this country a few days ago, and I’m not the one he’s looking for. Judging by the number of men and weapons he had waiting for you on the road, I’d say he was at least that desperate.”
A chill crept up her spine and she shivered in the steamy heat. “What do we do now, then?”
“We wait here for a while.” He turned and looked at her, and his face was expressionless except for the hard glitter in his eyes. “I’m real good at waiting. I hope you are, too.”
She shivered again. “Can I at least have my blouse back?”
He looked at her again, and this time he seemed to notice that she wasn’t wearing anything except her white cotton bra. For just a moment, awareness flared in his eyes and an answering warmth unfurled inside her. Then he looked away, and without a word he pulled her shirt out from under his and handed it to her.
As she tugged the blouse over her head his scent surrounded her. Musky and potent, it wrapped around her senses like a silken rope, drawing tighter with every breath she took. Inhaling deeply, she looked toward him, feeling her
head spin.
He was still motionless, staring out into the jungle with an unnerving intensity. As far as she could tell, everything was back to normal in the green sea in front of her. The birds squawked in the canopy above them, the monkeys screeched and the hundreds of different insects hummed and droned around them. It didn’t sound any different than it had for the past two days; but still, Caine didn’t move.
She was stiff from sitting motionless by the time he turned to her once more. “I don’t see or hear anything unusual. We can start walking again.”
Gathering Ana closer, she slowly stood, stretching protesting joints. “What if the helicopter comes back?”
“If it had seen anything, it would have been back before this. I think we can assume it didn’t spot us.” He swung his large pack on his back with ease, then turned to help her with her tiny one. “On the other hand, if it was El Cuchillo looking for us, he’s not about to give up. From now on, no fires at night. We’ll have to stop earlier in the day to cook the food, and we’ll have to be ready to start walking again at first light. And no more standing in the open, enjoying the sun.”
“Don’t worry,” she muttered, reaching for the shawl he held out. “I don’t want to see the sky again for a long time.”
Knotting the shawl around her neck, she tried to ignore the fact that it, too, smelled like Caine. She didn’t even want to think about the fact that she was carrying his daughter—the child he didn’t want to acknowledge—in a scarf that was permeated with his scent. It was too bitter an irony.
Caine moved faster now, and she had to push herself to keep up. He hadn’t had to use the machete yet to cut their way through the increasingly dense undergrowth, but vines and trailing branches reached out and grabbed at her with every step. When Caine stopped and pulled the map out of his pocket, she found she was almost panting from the heat and the effort to keep up.
“Another mile or so and we’re going to stop for the night,” he said abruptly. “Can you keep up this pace for another mile?”
“Of course,” she answered immediately. Fear, she’d found, was a powerful inducement. All she wanted was the safety and anonymity of Limores, where she could hide in the tangle of narrow streets and busy lives. If she had to exhaust herself racing through the jungle to get there, so be it. “I’ll keep going for as long as we have to.”
His eyes softened with admiration, then he nodded. “With any luck, we’ll reach a decent-size river in another mile or so. That’s where we’ll stop for the night.”
Eating another handful of the trail mix he’d found in the bottom of his pack, she nodded. “I’m fine, Caine. Go ahead.”
He paused, then said too quickly, “Why don’t you let me take the kid? You look like you could use a break.”
Her heart leaped in her chest, but she ignored it. He wasn’t offering because he wanted to spend time with Ana. It was merely because he thought they would move faster. “Thanks, but you might need your hands free to use your machete. I’ll be fine since we’re stopping soon.”
Caine pushed ahead through the bushes, shoving the vines to one side and ignoring the ache around his heart. Lexie was right. It was foolish of him to think about carrying the kid. He couldn’t hold on to her and use his machete at the same time, and right now he should be worrying only about getting to Limores. His gut told him they didn’t have any time to spare.
The helicopter worried him. If it was El Cuchillo, it meant the rebel leader wanted Lexie far too much. If he was desperate enough to send a helicopter searching the jungle when he must know the chances of finding her that way were slim at best, it meant he had one hell of a reason for capturing her. And whatever that reason, it was going to make getting out of San Rafael a tough job.
He glanced back over his shoulder and found Lexie close behind him. The baby was apparently still asleep, and he forced himself to look away from the bundle that bounced gently against Lexie’s chest and concentrate on Lexie. She stumbled once as he watched, then caught herself and hurried to catch up to him.
Once again, admiration surged through him for the woman who followed him. He’d kept up a killing pace, but not once had she complained or told him to go slower. Her pinched face and the black circles under her eyes spoke eloquently of her exhaustion from the brutal trek, but instead of railing at him she just kept stubbornly on. His Lexie was turning out to be one hell of a woman.
The thought jolted him. She wasn’t “his” Lexie anymore. Hell, she never had been. In order to give yourself to someone, you had to know who you were in the first place. And by her own admission, Lexie hadn’t discovered that until she’d landed in Santa Ysabel.
No, he and Lexie had had nothing between them but a powerful physical attraction. Maybe that was still there, but now there was something even more powerful standing between them. The baby might be small and helpless, but she represented an insurmountable barrier.
He stole a look over his shoulder at the exact moment when Lexie smoothed the shawl away from the baby’s face. The kid’s tiny mouth was pursed and moving in a sucking motion, and Caine felt a treacherous warmth encircle his heart. The next moment Lexie eased the shawl back into place, hiding the baby again, and he looked away feeling that something precious had been taken from him.
Don’t be a sentimental fool, he told himself savagely. He didn’t want to be able to see the kid’s face. He didn’t want to look at the fuzz of her red hair and wonder if it would be curly or straight. He couldn’t bear the pain of knowing that he had no idea how to be a father, of knowing that he didn’t dare try to learn.
“Caine?”
Lexie sounded worried, and he spun around immediately. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, but I’m going to need to stop and feed Ana soon.” She surveyed the solid wall of green that surrounded them and licked her lips once. “This doesn’t look like the kind of place you’d want to stop.”
“It isn’t.” He looked around himself and compressed his lips. “Can you wait for another fifteen minutes?”
“I’ll try.” From the tone of her voice she wasn’t hopeful, but he turned and started forward again.
“We’ll go for as long as we can, then we’ll stop. I’d rather be delayed while you feed her than have her screaming. We still don’t know if there’s anyone else around.”
“I know,” she said in a small voice. “I won’t let her cry.”
He glanced back at her worried face. “I know you won’t, Lexie.” His voice was soft. “You’re doing a great job. Don’t worry if we have to stop. It’ll be all right.”
A few minutes later he heard a grunt from behind them, but no hungry screams followed and he assumed that Lexie had been able to soothe the kid to sleep again. Finally, after another ten minutes, he spotted the glint of water ahead of them. Closing his eyes in a prayer of relief, he turned around to tell Lexie.
She had fallen several steps behind him again, and he immediately saw why. She was feeding the baby as she walked, just as she’d done the day before.
It took only a few strides to reach her. “I told you we could stop,” he said, more roughly than he’d intended. “Why are you doing that?”
She looked up, and he could see the strain of fear in her eyes. “Fifteen minutes might make a difference,” she whispered. “We don’t know what’s going to happen. Why take a chance on stopping?”
He stared at her for a long time, then slowly shook his head. “You’re something else, Lexie. Where was all this steel when you were living in Washington?”
“In Washington I didn’t need it,” she retorted. “In fact, it would have made life with my father intolerable.”
“Then why didn’t you move out?”
She shrugged her shoulders and looked away. “Because it was easier not to. It was easier to go along with him than stand up for myself. And whenever he talked me out of doing something I wanted to do, he made it sound like the only reasonable or sensible thing to do.”
Caine th
ought of the man who had been his boss and his mentor for more years than he cared to count, and understood what she meant. James Hollister had a way of wearing down even the most determined person. It was what made him so powerful, and so successful. As his own child, she must have found it almost impossible to fight.
Lexie rebuttoned her shirt and straightened the shawl, and as he watched her he said abruptly, “Give me the kid. Your back must be uncomfortable after feeding her while you were walking.”
She glanced up at him, surprised. “How do you know that?”
“I’ve watched you when you feed her. You’re always careful to lean up against a tree or a stump, and you always use your pack to support your arm. Both your back and your arm must be aching by now.”
Slowly she reached into her shawl and handed him the baby. “It’s almost frightening how observant you are. Do you always notice everything?”
He shrugged, trying to concentrate on her question and not on the sweet weight of the child lying in the crook of his arm. “I have to. Noticing everything around me can mean the difference between living and dying.”
He began to walk again. “Caine,” she called out to him.
She sounded hesitant. “What?”
“She needs to be burped. Why don’t you let me do that, then you can carry her.”
He saw the way her arms were trembling slightly as they hung at her sides, and he shook his head. “I’ll do it. Just tell me how.”
She gave him an uncertain smile, as if she didn’t believe he was serious. “Hold her up against your shoulder and pat her on the back. When she burps, you’re all set.”
He looked down at the baby in his arms. To his surprise, she wasn’t sleeping. She returned his gaze with a serious stare of her own. She appeared to be examining him, and he wondered for a moment what her verdict would be.
The next instant he felt as if he’d been poleaxed. She smiled up at him, her whole body wriggling with joy. He couldn’t have moved if his life depended on it. All he could do was stand there, his heart turning over in his chest, as the baby grinned up at him.
To Save His Child Page 14