“But we can’t take that chance, can we?” she asked in a low voice.
The smile faded from his face. “No, we can’t. So let’s go.”
Three hours later they staggered to a stop and threw themselves onto the ground between the buttresses at the base of a huge tree. Lexie glanced over at Caine, who for once looked as tired as she felt. “Thank you for stopping,” she said, reaching into the shawl to remove Ana. “I wasn’t looking forward to feeding her while we walked.”
“We’ve come a long way in three hours.” He spoke without opening his eyes. “And there’s been no sign of anyone looking for us. I think we’re safe for now.”
Lexie opened her shirt and began to nurse Ana, glad that Caine’s eyes were still closed and telling herself that she was being ridiculous for feeling that way. After what had happened between them the night before, she certainly had no physical secrets from him.
Except that last night they couldn’t see anything. All the knowledge they had about each other had been gained only through touching, smelling and tasting. Her cheeks warmed as she thought about all the exploring she’d done. Her fingertips knew every part of him intimately, and she knew that his fingers held the same knowledge of her. But it wasn’t the same as sitting in front of him half-naked in the light of day.
He would avoid looking at her if he could, a tiny, bitter voice reminded her. He always did while she was nursing Ana. Lexie looked at the small head covered with red down and felt the pain well up again—pain that she had managed to banish from her mind during those hours with Caine. It didn’t matter that she had found something rare and wonderful last night with him. If he couldn’t accept Ana, and love her unconditionally, they had no future.
“I’m going to fix breakfast,” he said, breaking into her thoughts.
“Can we afford to take the time?” She glanced around nervously. “Wouldn’t it be better if we kept going?”
“Probably. But we both need to eat to do that. And we’re getting to the hottest part of the day. We might as well stop now.”
“I didn’t know there was a hottest part of the day in here,” she muttered, buttoning her shirt. Laying Ana on her shawl on the ground, she stood, trying to find even à slight breeze.
“I figured you’d be used to the jungle by now.” Caine looked up from the tiny fire he’d started, a small grin on his face. “After ten months of San Rafael, I thought you’d be as adapted as a native San Rafaelite.”
“I didn’t live down here in the swamps,” she retorted. “It never got this hot up in the mountains.”
“Surely you must have visited the rain forest, though.” He stopped working on the fire and turned to look at her. “At least you had to pass through it to get up into the mountains.”
“I passed through what the tourists see. I visited the national parks, where all the buildings that give you information about the rain forest are air-conditioned. Then I drove down paved roads, in my air-conditioned car, to look at the sights. That was it.”
He rocked back on his heels and stared at her. “Come on, Lexie. Are you telling me that once you got to Santa Ysabel you never left?”
Shrugging, she sat back down next to Ana. “Once I got there, I was too sick to go anywhere for a while. And when I started feeling better, I was too busy working.”
He continued to stare at her, then to her surprise he left the pan of water heating on the fire and came over to sit next to her. “You were sick because you were pregnant, weren’t you?”
Slowly she looked at him. “Yes.”
“Tell me what it was like, being pregnant.”
Shocked by his request, she stared at him. Finally she said, “Are you sure you want to know? Up until now, you’ve been doing your best to avoid knowing anything.”
He nodded. “If it happened to you, I want to know,” he said simply.
Looking down at Ana, who was wide-awake and watching her, she chose her words carefully. “I was pretty sick for the first three months. I couldn’t eat anything except rice for a long time.” She stared down at Ana, remembering those frightening days. Forcing herself to smile, she continued, “Fortunately, there was no shortage of rice in Santa Ysabel.”
“Why did you stay in that primitive village, Lexie? You can afford the best medical care in the world.”
It sounded as if the words were torn out of him, and she looked at him in surprise. “All a doctor would have done is pat my hand and tell me it was all in my head. There’s nothing anyone can do for morning sickness except get through it. At least Maria and Angelita understood what was wrong.” She watched him for a moment. “Why are you so upset about it, Caine? It’s a normal part of pregnancy.”
“You shouldn’t have had to suffer through it alone,” he muttered. “You should have had friends around you, people who cared about you.”
“I did,” she answered gently. “Angelita and Maria are the best friends I’ve ever had.”
“I should have been there, dammit.” The words were almost whispered, and his voice was filled with anguish.
For just a moment she opened her mouth to agree with him, to tell him that all she’d dreamed about during those frightening months had been his return. Then she slowly closed her mouth, biting her lip. He had been the one to leave without a word to her. Just because he felt guilty now, after hearing about the first miserable months she’d spent in Santa Ysabel, didn’t change anything. She didn’t want his guilt. She wanted—
She stopped, shocked. She’d been about to say she wanted his love, but that wasn’t possible. Caine was exactly the kind of man she’d been trying to escape her whole life—a man like her father. It had taken her twenty-six years to break free of him, and she wasn’t about to hand control of her life over to another man who was cast from the same mold. She had to make that clear.
“But you weren’t there, Caine.” A niggling inner voice told her that she was being unfair. He hadn’t known about her pregnancy because she hadn’t told him. But then, she thought sadly, she wouldn’t have been able to tell him even if she’d wanted to. She’d had no idea where he was.
Even now, thinking about it was like having someone thrust a knife into her heart. Refusing to give in to the pain, she looked over to where the water was just beginning to boil. She had other things to worry about right now, anyway. Like staying alive long enough to have the luxury to think about the kind of man Caine was.
“Shouldn’t we be cooking the food?” She couldn’t believe how calm and cool her voice sounded. She’d been afraid all her inner turmoil would be reflected in the words she spoke.
Caine looked over at the small fire, then leaned over and grabbed two pouches of dehydrated food. “Yeah. As much as I’d like to let you rest for a while, I think we’d be better off covering more ground this afternoon.”
He didn’t sound like a man who was agonizing over the fact that he’d abandoned the woman who was pregnant with his child, she told herself brutally. And she wasn’t about to agonize over him, either. Glancing at Ana one more time and seeing that she was still content on the shawl, Lexie reached into his pack and brought out the aluminum pans and silverware. She could be as casual about this as he was.
By the time they’d finished their quick meal, sweat poured down her back and matted her hair to her head. Eating warm food hadn’t helped her body adjust to the hot, humid conditions in the rain forest. Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she watched Caine destroy the evidence of their small fire and wondered where she was going to get the energy to keep walking.
She stood, struggling to tie the shawl around her neck, and she felt Caine’s hands on her shoulders. “Turn around,” he said. “I’ll do it for you.”
“You don’t have to,” she replied, her voice stiff. “I can get it.”
“I know you can, Lexie, but you don’t have to. I can do it for you.” He sounded infinitely patient, as if he’d read her mind and was determined to convince her that he hadn’t dismissed her from his thoughts.
“I can manage on my own, Caine.” Her words were hard and brittle, and his hands stilled for a moment as they tied a knot in the shawl at the back of her neck. Then, with what felt like a lingering caress, he stepped back and slid her pack onto her shoulders.
“I know you can manage on your own, Lexie.” As she turned to face him, she saw the pain in his eyes that he hid a fraction of a second too late. “You’ve managed a lot of things on your own lately that you shouldn’t have had to. But the rest of this trip isn’t going to be a picnic, and we’ll need each other to make it. You’ll need me, and I’ll need you.”
He glanced at Ana, once again resting in the shawl, and his eyes were unreadable. “In fact, why don’t you let me take her for a while?”
She shook her head too quickly. “She’s fine.” When she saw the hurt momentarily flash in his eyes, guilt stabbed at her. “All right,” she said, her voice abrupt. “I guess it would help if you carried her.”
Lexie watched as he rearranged the packs on his back, then took Ana from her and tied the shawl around his neck. Before he started forward, he looked over his shoulder at her. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “We can’t afford for either of us to get too tired.” As he spoke, she saw his hand linger over Ana, lying against his chest. Without another word he headed into the jungle again.
She stared after him for a moment, her heart twisting in her chest. How had they gotten to this, after the magic of the previous night? What had happened to open up this chasm between them?
She was as much to blame as he was, she admitted, following behind him. More, probably. She was the one who couldn’t let go of the past, who couldn’t forget her fear and terror when she’d found out that she was going to have a baby, alone, in a foreign country. His questions about her pregnancy had stirred all those old fears.
Caine was right. If they were going to survive this trek through the jungle and the cat-and-mouse game they were playing with El Cuchillo and his men, she was going to have to forget about the past—at least temporarily. And she could do it.
She looked ahead at Ana, swaying gently against Caine’s chest. She had the best reason in the world right in front of her.
They didn’t stop again until the sun hung low in the sky and Lexie was almost dizzy from the heat and hunger. Every inch of her clothing was soaked with sweat, and the pack and Ana’s shawl were beginning to chafe her skin. She had taken Ana back the first time she had to be nursed, letting the baby eat as they walked. She’d nursed her twice more without stopping and changed her diaper three times, stumbling along each time until Caine had waited for the minute it had taken to get the baby clean and dry again.
When he stopped in front of her now, she almost walked right into him. She had passed tired long ago, and was almost beyond exhaustion. Reaching out to steady her, he looked down at her with unreadable eyes.
“There’s another river coming up, a big one, and I think we should stop here for the night. We need to eat something before it gets any darker, and I don’t think we’re up to getting across that river right now.”
She licked her lips, which felt dry in spite of the humidity that hung in the air. “Are you sure it’s safe? Are you sure we’ve gone far enough?”
His eyes softened. “We’ve walked a long way today. If I’m reading this map correctly, we should get to Limores sometime tomorrow.”
She closed her eyes as relief flooded her. “Thank goodness. I’m not sure how much farther I can walk.”
“You can walk as far as you have to, Lexie.”
At the odd note in his voice she opened her eyes. The way he was looking at her made the color creep up her neck, and she knew it wasn’t from the heat that surrounded them.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she whispered.
He never took his eyes off her. “How am I looking at you?”
“Like...like...” She shrugged and turned away. “Like I’ve done something special, or something.”
“Because you have,” he whispered again. “I’ve worked with men who were trained to do this who couldn’t have kept up the pace you did today. You’re all heart, Lex. All heart and courage, and I’ll die myself before I let anyone capture you.”
Slowly she turned to face him. The sun shone low through the trees, and one beam of sunlight surrounded his head. His dark blond hair, matted to his head with sweat, seemed to pulse with life. The light softened the hard features of his face, and for a moment his eyes glowed with an emotion that made her breath catch in her chest.
Then the shutters came down again, and he turned abruptly away. “Why don’t you rest for a while and I’ll find something to eat.” Without waiting for her answer, he slipped past some trailing liana vines and disappeared.
Sliding the pack off her back, she looked around. They had stopped in another small clearing, this one scarcely bigger than a closet. Towering trees soared above her, the canopy of their leaves so dense that even at high noon no sunlight would penetrate to this small patch of ground. That was good, she told herself. That meant that no one in a helicopter would be able to see them, either.
Quickly she woke Ana and nursed her before Caine returned. She told herself it was so she would be free to help him fix dinner, but she knew the real reason was his continuing reluctance to show any interest in Ana. It was just too painful to see him try to look anywhere but at the baby while she was nursing.
By the time he returned carrying another agouti and some small red fruits, she had finished feeding Ana and changed her diaper. Ana was once again content to lie on her shawl and watch the trees above them, and Lexie said a prayer of thanks for her baby’s easygoing disposition the last few days. Easygoing as long as she was fed on time, she corrected herself, looking over at her daughter and feeling herself smiling. Ana always seemed to do that to her.
“I didn’t start a fire,” Lexie apologized, looking over at Caine. “I fed Ana instead.”
“Just as well.” He laid the agouti and the fruits on the ground, and began to gather what he needed. “I don’t want to make any more sounds than we have to.”
“Why don’t I go and fill the canteens and clean her diapers before we eat? She’ll be fine there for a while.”
“All right.” He didn’t look up from the fire he was coaxing to life from a small pile of dead leaves and branches. “Take the water purifier, though, and purify the water before you put it in the canteen.”
“Uh, do you want to show me how to do that?”
He looked at her and gave her a rueful smile. “I forgot you don’t know how a lot of this works.” Reaching into his pack, he pulled out a long narrow tube and handed it to her. “Fill up a pan with water first, then pour it into this tube. Let it run from the tube into the canteen. That’s all there is to it.”
He flashed her a quick grin that took her breath away. “And purify the water before you clean the diapers.”
“Aye, aye, captain,” she said, saluting, but she did it with a grin. The smile slowly left his face and his eyes turned dark and smoky as she stood. She could feel his gaze on her as she left the clearing and walked toward the river, following his careful directions.
When she reached the bank of the river she stopped, awestruck. Sunlight shimmered off the water, reflecting back into her face, and she shaded her eyes as she looked out over the broad expanse of the river. The wide ribbon of brown seemed to be moving sluggishly, and she thought longingly of how good the water would feel against her hot, sticky skin. But it would be stupid to go in without Caine nearby, so she squatted down at the river’s edge with a sigh. If they finished dinner before it got dark, maybe she could take a bath later.
Setting the diapers wrapped in the huge, rubbery green leaves carefully on a rock, she bent over and dipped out a panful of water. She poured it into the purification tube, and watched as it ran down through the layers of what looked like dirt and grit and began to trickle out the bottom. Holding the canteen to the bottom of the tube, she listened wi
th satisfaction as she heard the water pinging against the bottom of the canteen.
It took two pans of water to fill one canteen. She’d filled two of them and was working on the third when she bent over the river to dip out another pan of water. Just as she was leaning out over the water, her arm extended, something screeched in her ear.
Startled, she looked around in time to see a flash of blue and yellow as a macaw swooped past her. The sudden movement threw her off-balance, and as she struggled to right herself she felt herself falling toward the water. The next instant she felt herself go under, and as she kicked frantically to reach the surface, something grabbed her leg. Then the current caught her, and she was sucked below the surface of the muddy, brown water.
Chapter 12
Just when her lungs felt as if they would burst, her head broke free of the water. Gasping for breath, she tugged at whatever had caught her leg, but it wouldn’t give. She tried to reach for one of the bushes at the edge of the river, but the current was frighteningly strong. It pulled her inexorably away from the bank, and only the grip on her leg kept her from being swept down river.
“Caine,” she called, but she knew her voice was too weak to reach him. Coughing and sputtering as the current pulled her under again, she sucked in a deep breath as soon as she surfaced and shouted desperately, “Caine!”
The current swung her around suddenly and slammed her into a rock hidden beneath the surface of the river. A scream was torn from her throat, and she barely got her mouth closed in time as she was sucked underwater once more. She smashed into the rock again as she struggled to reach the surface. When her head broke free she saw their canteens and the water-purification tube sitting peacefully on the rock where she’d left them just moments ago, but there was no sign of Caine. Battling the panic and the water, she was fighting to stay afloat when she was pulled under again.
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