She sucked in a breath.
“Does that hurt?”
“It hurts in a good way.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” He circled his thumbs against her smooth skin as her hair tickled the backs of his hands. “Once we get clear of this jungle, I should get some cell reception and someone can pick us up.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
As he kneaded the knots in her neck, a soft sigh escaped her lips. At least he could bring her some relief before the interrogation started. Not that Prospero would be shining a bright light in her eyes. Randi would sit down with a psychiatrist first and maybe undergo hypnosis.
If he played his cards right, he could get her on their side. If he treated her more like a victim than a suspect, she might give them valuable information on Zendaris.
“That’s better.” Randi rolled her shoulders. “Should we get going?”
“I think we have enough light now.” He dragged his bag out of the back of the chopper and dug through it. “More water?”
She accepted the bottle and chugged half of it before replacing the cap. “Do you have anything to eat in there?”
“No, but we might get lucky and find some fruit on our hike through the jungle—mangoes, bananas, papayas.”
“Sounds good to me.”
She licked her lips, and he had to drag his gaze away from the sight of the tip of her pink tongue darting from her mouth.
The sooner he delivered her to the CIA facility in Panama, the better. He didn’t need the complication of an insane attraction to one of Zendaris’s mistresses. Especially since he realized his interest in Randi stemmed in large part from the fact that she didn’t know him or his family. How could she? She had no memory at all.
While he stashed the water bottles in his backpack, she slipped from the helicopter without his help. That’s another thing he liked about this woman—despite her vulnerability, she seemed to do a lot without his help. Every other woman he’d dated seemed to want something from him, his family name and money.
“Give me the backpack.” She held out her hand, cupping her fingers. “I’ll leave the big, black duffel with all its spy equipment to you, but I can handle the backpack.”
“Turn around.”
She presented her back to him for the second time that morning, and he slipped the straps of the pack over her shoulders. “Let me know if it gets too heavy for you.”
Adjusting the straps, she tilted her chin toward the tangle of branches ahead of them. “How far?”
“Maybe six or seven miles. You need to let me know if you feel dizzy or nauseous, and you need to keep taking those antibiotics.”
She saluted. “After you.”
They slogged through the lush growth of tropical plants and snagged a couple of mangoes and papayas on their way without breaking stride. Gage wanted to put some distance between them and the helicopter in case someone discovered it.
After thirty minutes of hiking, Gage pointed to the carpeted floor of the jungle. “Let’s take a break and eat.”
Randi slid off the backpack and wedged a shoulder against a tree.
“Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine, but I’ve been dreaming about that fruit ever since we picked it.”
“It’ll taste better if we sit down and eat it instead of eating it on the move.” Gage shook out a tarp and laid it out on the ground. “Sit.”
Randi sank to her knees and folded her legs beneath her. She pulled one papaya and one mango from the backpack. “Breakfast is served.”
He pulled the knife from its holster on his belt and sliced through the skin of the papaya. He offered Randi a slice on the edge of the knife.
She picked it up with her fingertips and sucked the orange fruit into her mouth. Closing her eyes, she murmured, “Mmm.”
“Sweet?”
She swallowed and dabbed at a droplet of juice at the corner of her mouth. “Yummy.”
Was she trying to drive him crazy?
He busied himself slicing the rest of the fruit and handing her every other piece from his knife. The tangy sweetness of the papaya and the tartness of the mango mingled in his mouth. The simple breakfast tasted better than any meal he’d eaten at a five-star restaurant.
Or maybe it was the company.
“I must’ve been starving because that tasted great.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.” He wiped off his knife with a handkerchief and slid it back in its holster.
Randi tipped a trickle of water in her palm and rinsed off her hands. “What’s going to happen when we get to Panama?”
“That depends.” Cupping his hands, he held them out to her, and she splashed some water into his palms. “If you still have amnesia, we’ll have you sit down with the psychiatrist. Maybe she’ll use hypnosis.”
“If I still have amnesia?”
He jerked his head up. “Have you remembered anything?”
“No.”
“Nothing at all?”
“I remember—” she spread her arms “—this country. Does that make sense? The smells and the feel of the air on my skin—I know this country.”
She brought a fist to her chest and thumped once. “I feel it here.”
“Makes sense to me.” Did Randi come from Colombia? She didn’t speak English with an accent, but that didn’t mean much. He’d gone to boarding school with a few wealthy South Americans, and by the time they’d graduated from high school and hit the Ivy Leagues, they didn’t have a trace of a Spanish accent.
Maybe that’s how she’d met Zendaris—her family had dealings with him.
The anger that flared in his gut every time he thought about her and Zendaris had him hopping to his feet and kicking his bag off the tarp.
Randi joined him in an instant and placed her hand on his arm. Her light touch whispered along his flesh.
“Gage, d-do you think those kids could be mine?”
He shrugged, the anger burning more fiercely in the pit of his stomach. “Do you sense you’re a mother? Since you feel such an affinity for this country, you’d think you’d feel a similar attachment to those missing children.”
She dropped her eyes and brushed nonexistent debris from her pants. “I’m not experiencing some aching sense of loss, but then I’ve never had amnesia before so I don’t know the protocol.”
He lifted one eyebrow and shook out the tarp. “How do you know you’ve never had amnesia before?”
She snorted and the tension that had been building in the air between them dissolved. “If I have those odds, I’d better go to Vegas.”
As they continued their trek toward civilization, the trees started thinning.
Randi tapped him on the back. “How long since you tried your phone?”
“About forty minutes.” He dropped his bag on the ground and dug his cell phone from his front pocket. He punched a button, holding his phone in the air, his head tilted back. “Nothing yet.”
He pointed ahead to where the grasses and underbrush had been flattened into some semblance of a path. “But we’re getting close.”
Walking was easier on the trail, but Gage still initiated frequent breaks so Randi could rest and drink water. She needed to see a doctor for both her physical and mental ailments.
He wanted to find out what she knew about Zendaris, but he almost dreaded the knowledge. Once she recovered her memories he’d still do everything in his power to protect her from Zendaris. But if she’d aided and abetted him in his crimes, he couldn’t do much to save her from the power of the U.S. government.
And he wouldn’t want to.
“Look!” Randi waved her hands in front of her. “I didn’t think we’d ever get out of this jungle.”
A slash of black asphalt sliced through the green foliage that they’d been hacking through for the past few hours.
Gage tried his phone again, but the signal still didn’t work. Maybe it never would out here.
“Okay, listen.�
�� He tugged on the strap of her backpack to slow down her scramble for the road. “We’re tourists. We were staying in Barranquilla. We went hiking and got lost. Got it?”
“Sounds simple enough.” She pushed dark hair from her face, and a trickle of sweat rolled to her jawline. “Where are we headed?”
“The nearest town.” He resettled his bag across his body. “We’ll probably have to do a little more walking along the road before we run into someone. This isn’t exactly Grand Central Station.” Her shoulders slumped and he instinctively reached out to squeeze them. “Or we can sit by the side of the road and wait.”
She straightened her spine. “Let’s keep moving.”
Randi’s never-say-die attitude must’ve served her well as part of Zendaris’s entourage...up until the moment he tried to kill her.
They clambered through the last of the underbrush and hit the road. Gage squinted down the shimmering asphalt and said, “The nearest town is in this direction.”
Randi fell into step beside him. “What’s going to happen to me if and when I regain my memory?”
“That depends.”
“On how much I reveal or how much I was enmeshed with Zendaris?”
“Both.”
“Then I’m safe.”
“Because you don’t intend to reveal as much as you know?”
“Because I’m not in league with Zendaris.”
“If you were his mistress...”
“I’m not. I wasn’t.”
He stopped and grabbed her arm. “Do you remember?”
“No, but I was thinking about it on our hike. I know I wouldn’t have been involved with someone like that. I just know it. I feel it.”
Gage scooped in a breath of soggy air and dropped her arm. “I don’t know if amnesia works that way—on feelings.”
“Memories and feelings are linked, aren’t they? A memory can make you feel a certain way, and those emotions stay with you. If my lover, the father of my children, had left me for dead, don’t you think I’d feel that betrayal on some level of consciousness?”
“Depends again.”
They’d started walking again, their wet shoes slapping against the hot asphalt.
“On what?”
“Your true feelings. Maybe you were using Zendaris as much as he was using you. He’s a wealthy man and powerful—in some circles. Maybe that’s why his betrayal of you doesn’t resonate.”
He had firsthand knowledge of women who thirsted for wealthy, powerful men. Randi wouldn’t be the first.
She whirled on him and jabbed him in the chest with her finger. “You have a low opinion of me, don’t you?”
“I don’t even know you.” He raised his hands, palms out. “I have to make certain assumptions based on your presence at the compound, your appearance, that scarf that matches the one in the photo.”
“My appearance?” The finger drilled into his chest.
His gaze raked her long, lean form, the swell of her breasts peeking from the neckline of her blouse, and settled on her face with its high cheekbones, dark cat eyes and patrician nose, nostrils flaring.
She didn’t exactly look like Zendaris’s housekeeper or abuela.
Her flashing eyes narrowed to slits. “What’s wrong with my appearance?”
Wrong? There was everything right with her appearance—too damned right. He’d never been attracted to the enemy before, and he didn’t like it.
He snorted. “Are you trying to wring a compliment out of me? You saw yourself in the mirror. You could be one of those models on a magazine cover—just Zendaris’s type.”
Her cheeks flamed, and she turned back toward the road. “Well, he’s not my type...and I know it even if you don’t.”
Blowing out a breath, he fell in beside her. Maybe she’d played him for a fool and just furthered the ruse. Maybe she planned to deny any connection with Zendaris, or maybe she’d just conveniently never regain her memory.
The CIA had ways of dealing with that, and that’s what worried him. She did not belong to Prospero, his agency, alone. Others would want a piece of her.
After twenty minutes of walking and not much talking, Gage stopped and tilted his head. “Do you hear that?”
“It’s a car.”
He turned and took a couple of backward steps, eyeing the road that dipped in waves behind them. A small, blue sedan appeared on one of the rises before disappearing again.
“Looks like we’ve got company.”
“Since I’m apparently such a femme fatale, should I roll up my pants and show some leg to get him to pull over?”
“I think we can just wave him down this time— unless he doesn’t slow down. Then you can show him some leg.”
The car rattled as it came down the hill toward them, a solo driver silhouetted in the windshield.
Gage stepped into the road, waving his arms above his head.
The car slowed on its descent and veered toward the side of the road. It puttered to a stop, emitting a gust of exhaust as the driver killed the engine.
Gage said, “Wait here for a minute.”
He jogged to the driver’s side of the car where the window was already open. “Gracias. Necesitamos ayuda.”
The middle-aged man in the car flicked his eyes from Gage to Randi, waiting by the side of the road. “Ayuda? You need help?”
“You speak English?”
“A little. What help?”
“We went on a hike and got lost. We’d appreciate a ride into town.” He slid a few bills from his pocket and held them between his fingers.
“Ahh, you went to see the Agualinda Falls?”
Had there been a waterfall on the map? Best not to commit to anything specific. “Just trying to enjoy nature. Stupid, really. Can you give me and my wife a ride?”
“Sí. To the next town.” The man snatched the bills and stuffed them into his front pocket.
“Gracias.” Gage waved to Randi.
She slid the backpack from her shoulder and joined him at the car.
He steered her to the passenger door in the back. “I’ll ride up front.”
Gage settled in the front seat, one end of his bag on the floor, the other between his legs. He gave up on the seat belt that dangled next to his shoulder.
“Broken.” The driver looked in his rearview mirror and touched the side of his head. “Your wife hurt?”
“She tripped over some roots and hit her head on a rock. She’s okay.”
Except for the small fact that she can’t remember a thing about her life.
“The jungle is dangerous. Muy peligrosa.”
“We won’t try that again without a guide, will we, sweetheart?”
“Uh, no.”
Gage stuck out his hand. “I’m Gary and my wife is Renee.”
The man ran his tongue along his sweating upper lip. “Mucho gusto. Soy Marco.”
Was Marco lying just like they were? He seemed more nervous than he should be, picking up a couple of American tourists. Or maybe he didn’t believe Gage’s story.
The car jostled over the bumps in the road, and it was almost too loud to make conversation. Gage and Marco exchanged comments, but Marco didn’t ask any questions and neither did Gage.
After an hour of rattling over the road, Marco pointed to the dusty windshield. “Gasolina.”
“I’ll pay for that. Yo pago.”
“Gracias.”
Marco pulled the car off the road and rolled up to the single pump.
They all crawled out of the car and while Marco began fueling up, Randi sidled next to Gage. “Does your phone work yet?”
“Nope.” He twisted his head over his shoulder to take in Marco pumping gas. “Don’t you like the transportation?”
“Doesn’t Marco seem a little jumpy to you?”
“Maybe he doesn’t believe our story.”
She puffed at a strand of hair that had floated across her face in the mild breeze. “You’d think he’d be used to us by now. Look at him.
”
Gage slid another gaze Marco’s way. He hopped from one foot to another, his head turned toward the road.
Shrugging, Gage said, “Maybe he’s just anxious to be on his way.”
Randi matched his shrug. “I’m parched. I don’t suppose there’s anything to drink in that little shack.”
“I saw a soda machine on the other side of the building. I’ll see if it’s working.”
“I’ll come with you.” She turned to Marco and asked him in perfect Spanish if he wanted a soda from the machine.
Marco nodded and waved.
Gage whispered in her ear. “At least you didn’t forget Spanish. What other languages do you know?”
“I have no idea.” She covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes wide.
The soda machine turned out not to be a machine at all—just a refrigerated container for some colas in small, glass bottles. They grabbed three bottles and returned to Marco, pulling the hose from the car.
Gage tapped the scratched display of the pump. “I’ll pay up for the gas and the drinks. Here’s your soda.”
Marco took it from him and leaned against the car, crossing one booted foot over his ankle.
Randi followed Gage back to the little shack where the proprietor hovered by the door.
“Gasolina y sodas?”
“Sí. Cuánto cuesta?”
The man told him the price, and Gage peeled off some bills to pay him. They sauntered back to their ride.
He had to get reception once they reached the town or got close. Randi had no passport. The border agents wouldn’t allow her to cross into Panama without it. He needed the assistance of the CIA on this one.
Gage slapped at a mosquito and then jerked his head up at the sound of a whining engine.
Marco pushed off the car and took two steps toward the road.
A small, dark car hurtled across the asphalt toward the gas station. Marco dropped his bottle. It bounced once and cracked, the soda fizzing onto the hot ground.
Adrenaline shot through Gage’s body. He dropped his own bottle and crouched over, heading for Marco’s car and his duffel bag stuffed in the front seat.
“Randi, get down!”
The approaching car slowed down and Marco swore. Gage yanked his bag from the car.
Trap, Secure: Navy SEAL Security Page 5