“All righty, then,” he said and made himself comfortable atop her until she was ready to do this again.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SINCE THEY HAD no way of knowing how many people would be on the train, Mags and Finn arrived at the station early the following morning. Neither of them had thought to ask the stationmaster last night. Vacating their room was fine with her. She had been filled with gratitude, in fact, for the bustle of gathering their belongings because she honestly hadn’t known quite how to handle waking up in Finn’s arms.
She’d like to lay that entirely on him. It would let her keep the sense of comfort and security that being all wrapped up in him, skin to skin, had given her—which, Lord love her, had been even better than she’d imagined it would be—with none of the accountability. But she’d awakened to find one of her arms flung diagonally across his chest and her hand curled around his strong neck. Plus she’d been draped half on top of him, her right leg tangled intimately between his from calf to crotch.
Not that there was anything wrong with that. Still, she wasn’t a stay-the-night kind of woman, so this was new territory for her. And she didn’t actually sleep around much these days. Discounting her showerhead, it had probably been two or three years since she’d gotten any sat-is-fact-shun. God knew she’d participated in her share of indiscriminate sex as a teen. She’d surrendered her virginity way too young and had slept with far too many boys who, once they’d gotten theirs, hadn’t even pretended to give a flying flick about her.
And who could blame them? It wasn’t as if she’d made them work for it. If you didn’t respect yourself, you could hardly kick when nobody else did, either.
She cast a glance at Finn as they walked down the outdoor platform to the first of the three cars attached to an engine that looked as though it’d rolled off the factory floor during Grover Cleveland’s administration. He climbed the metal two-step connecting the platform to the car, twisting to look inside.
Only to promptly step off again. “Full.”
“Holy crap.” She met his gaze. “It’s a good thing we decided to get here early.”
He nodded his agreement. “Let’s hope not everyone else decided the same thing and got here even earlier.”
They lucked out toward the back of the second car. It was definitely filling up, but there was still an available wooden high-backed bench on the right. Mags put her tote on the floor under the window while Finn swung his backpack onto the rickety overhead rack.
If trains came with rafters, their car would have been packed to them by the time the engine rumbled to life. More people crowded the benches than the benches were designed to hold, chickens in crates were stacked up in the aisle-three seats and a goat bleated behind them. Finn stood his ground when a family of five tried to crowd onto their bench built for four and already occupied by the two of them, sitting solidly between her and their attempt to shove him over. Glaring at him in disgust, they crowded onto someone else’s bench and she and Finn ended up with a beefy twentysomething man and a boy of about six.
It came as no surprise that the car wasn’t air-conditioned, but the good news was the windows opened. Mags enjoyed the almost cool breeze on her face as they chugged out of the station. The only thing she enjoyed maybe even more were the myriad conversations she eavesdropped on. The more entertaining ones, she translated for Finn.
And she felt...happy.
Several hours later, the bloom was off her pleasure. Her butt felt numb, she was hungry and her bladder was near to bursting, but she’d been in the bathroom once already and the longer she could put off revisiting that particular horror show, the happier she would be. She managed not to squirm in her seat, but her stomach felt no compunction about emitting a low growl in protest over its emptiness.
Their train wasn’t exactly a bastion of quiet, but Finn, who had pulled the bill of his baseball cap low over his eyes and slid onto his tailbone to doze, once again demonstrated his bat-like hearing when he turned his head against the back of the seat and said, “Y’hungry, darlin’?”
“Starved.”
“Sorry. I really slept like the dead for a while there.” Yawning, he pulled himself upright on the hard bench and stretched with enough vigor to make cracking/popping sounds in his joints. “I’ll get the backpack down.” He looked at her. “You need to use the can?”
“Oh, God, I really do. But, Finn, that room is a disgusting pit.”
“What’s worse, though, doing your biz real quick in crappy—you’ll pardon the pun—conditions, or trying to hold your bladder, only to have it scream at you forever?”
“Well, when you put it like that,” she said grumpily, which made him laugh and reach over to scrub the crown of her head with his knuckles as if she were a twelve-year-old kid. He added insult to injury by pretending not to notice when she sulkily jerked her head out of reach.
“C’mon,” he said, rising to his feet. “I’ll clear the way for us, then get some stuff out for lunch while you use the pit.”
She had to admit she felt much cheerier when she got back, and even better still once they’d eaten a portion of the provisions they’d bought at the bodega the night before. As Finn returned the pack to the overhead rack, she noticed the young boy straining to see out of her window from his position two seats away. Leaning forward, she invited him to sit by the window for a while.
He eagerly accepted. His name, she learned, was Maximilliano and for quite some time he knelt with his arms braced on the narrow sill and his head out the window like a puppy on a joyride.
But he didn’t believe in enjoying the view in silence. Instead, he kept turning to her with a smile that showcased a big new front tooth alongside an empty gap to point out some species of wildlife—or anything else of interest he spotted, be it the colors of a patch of flowers, a particularly brilliant bird or a sinuous emerald boa with a white dorsal line that he spotted as it looped back and forth on itself while settling on one of the tree branches.
She hadn’t spent much time around kids and even as she enjoyed his enthusiasm, she found his nonstop chatter kind of exhausting.
Apparently, it was even more tiring for him, for he began to yawn. At one point, he actually laid his head down, resting his right cheek atop his arms on the sill. His eyes slid closed and stayed that way for a couple seconds before he forced them open again. Mags had the feeling he’d fight sleep to the bitter end and, remembering the chocolate bar she’d bought last night, something she’d totally forgotten until this moment, she pulled her tote up onto her lap and dug through her stuff until she located it.
Maximilliano watched with big eyes as she ripped open the paper and split the bar into three pieces. She offered the largest one to him with the suggestion that he sit down to eat it, then gave the second to Finn and kept the last piece for herself. She enjoyed watching the boy’s absorbed delight as he slowly savored the treat. She hadn’t realized how much she’d come to take for granted after years spent living in America.
When the candy bar was gone, Maximilliano circled his tongue around his lips, paying special attention to the corners, then carefully licked each finger until he’d removed every vestige of melted chocolate.
Leaning around Finn, the boy’s father instructed Maximilliano to thank the senor and senora for sharing their window seat and their candy and to come sit with him now. Mags didn’t bother to correct her marital status; she simply returned a gentle “De nada” when the child followed his instructions.
When she looked over a few moments later, Maximilliano was slumped against his father’s side, sound asleep. She turned away with a smile to look out the window once more.
She couldn’t say how much time had passed when she suddenly sat forward in her seat.
Finn, who had been dozing next to her again—how on earth did he do that on this uncomfortable bench?—jerked and turned to look at her, fully alert. “What is it?”
Unexpected tears rose to her eyes, but she did her best to blink t
hem back. “Home,” she said, turning to him with a tremulous smile. “At least...it’s starting to look like the area where I spent the most time back when I still lived here.”
“Yeah?” His face alight with interest, he leaned around her to peer out the window, his shoulder and side a warm, hard brand against hers. Almost as quickly he shook his head and straightened back up to give her a puzzled look. “I don’t get it. It looks exactly like it did the last time I looked at the scenery.”
She whipped around to stare out the window again herself and saw that he was correct. It took a moment to straighten things out in her own mind, but she finally turned back and said, “We’re entering the top of the Amazon basin and the lines of demarcation weren’t drawn with a ruler. So we’ll go in and out of it for a while. But that shouldn’t last long—pretty soon, now, we’ll be fully in the rain forest.”
“Are you nervous?”
“I probably should be, considering I’ve spent far more years away than I ever spent living here—and you and I will likely have to make our way on foot, perhaps from as soon as we reach our station.” She laughed, however, and thought wryly that if her expression were anywhere in the neighborhood of matching the way she felt at this moment, she must be lit up like a Texas stadium on game night.
And she admitted easily, “But I’m not—not even a little. I’m excited. God, just so completely excited. I loved it here as a kid and to finally be here...well, I’m more thrilled than I can say.” The light shining through the windows suddenly dimmed and she whipped around.
“There!” she said, reaching back to grasp his hand without taking her attention off the view. She ended up latching on to his wrist instead, but she simply worked her hand down his until she could thread their fingers together. And gave them a squeeze. “That’s what I’m talking about, Finn—that’s Amazonia. The canopy sucks up most of the light, which is why it’s greenish down here on the floor and, as you can see, dim and murkyish.
“What I don’t know,” she admitted, reluctantly prying her attention away from the addictive rain forest and swiveling around to face him again, “is whether goons will be waiting for us at the station. Joaquin didn’t strike me as the smartest guy in town, but we’ve been steadily heading in the direction of Munoz’s drug farm, so he has to have at least considered we’ll try to break Nancy and Brian out of it. And if he’s bright enough to figure that out he must realize the station we’re heading toward is one of Amazonia’s likely entry points.” Lowering her chin, she rubbed the furrow she felt gathering between her brows as all the potential problems started edging out her momentary euphoria.
“One of being the important part to remember,” Finn said matter-of-factly. “It’s one of the possibilities, Mags. It’s by no means the only one.”
Moving just her eyes, she looked up at him. “I wish I’d tried harder to find some hair dye. Problem is, everyone in this country already has dark hair and apparently even women going gray don’t use it because the few boxes I saw were blond and red. The latter of which,” she added, “I should have gotten. Guys can be very literal at times. If they were instructed to look for a blonde, they might have overlooked a redhead.”
“Quit beating yourself up,” he said in that no-nonsense voice of his that smoothed out the budding hysteria sending out threatening feelers. “We both know how good you are at disguise by makeup—so get cookin’ on that.”
She straightened her shoulders. “You’re right. And we both need to change into long pants, long-sleeved T-shirts and closed-toe shoes. Which—ugh—means a longer time in the loo, but there’s no help for it. A bazillion more insects inhabit the Amazon than we’ve run into so far.” She loosened her hold on his hand and dragged her tote up onto her lap. “I’ve got bug spray in here somewhere—we’ll put some on when we reach our destination.
“Crap.” She blinked at him as consternation pleated her brows. “That’s if we even reach it while the sun’s still up. I didn’t think to ask the stationmaster how long this trip would take.”
“No sense borrowing trouble at this point,” Finn said in that easy way he had of dealing with the negative possibilities they bumped up against, as if nothing—nothing—was insurmountable. “Let’s just assume, if we get in late, that they’ll have a hotel or hostel or whatever to accommodate travelers. And if they don’t—” He shrugged. “Hey, we’ve always got the tent. We’ll figure out a way to make things work.”
She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, rubbing her smooth cheek against his harder one. Bristles were already displacing the close shave he’d given it. Pulling back, she smacked a kiss on his lips, then pressed her face forehead-to-forehead, nose-to-nose, with his. That brought him so close his face was a blur, but she didn’t care. “Have I told you how grateful I am that you threw in your lot with me? I honestly don’t know how I would have handled all this on my own.”
“You kidding me?” Leaning back a little, he grinned down at her. “You would have figured it out just fine. You’re smart, you’re resourceful and you’re brilliant with makeup. Face it, you’ve gotten us away from the goons more often through the use of your makeup kit and costumes than because of anything I’ve done.”
“I don’t think that’s necessarily true, but thanks for saying so, anyhow.”
“It damn well is, but you’re welcome.” He cupped her face in his hands and pulled back enough so they could see each other without going cross-eyed in the attempt. He kissed her gently, then dropped his hands to his lap. “Now get busy. Paint yourself up to look like a senorita.”
* * *
IT WAS GROWING late when Joaquin’s cell phone rang its person-specific ring. “This had better be good news, Palmer,” he said the instant he thumbed it on. But hope scratched for entrance in his brain. Because maybe finally—finally!—he could call Munoz to tell him he had the Deluca woman.
“I’m sorry, Boss,” Palmer said. “I broke my leg on the trip down the river.”
“You told me you knew rivers!”
“I know the Mississippi River, but that ain’t got no motherfucking rapids—something nobody bothered to warn me this one had before I started down it! I’m lucky I got out alive. As it is, I swallowed half the river. The boat broke up on the rocks and it was only because another boat came along that I got off with just the broken leg—it coulda easily been my neck.”
Works for me, Joaquin thought viciously, but didn’t say so out loud. The mercenary had at least been actively trying to capture the Deluca woman. And to be fair—something Joaquin was having a difficult time doing at the moment—he’d been injured in the commission of that attempt.
So Joaquin would have to...what did the Americans call it? Suck it up? Yes. He took several deep breaths to get this rage in his blood under control, then sucked it up and inquired, “Where are you?”
“Those people who fished me out of the river and pumped the water outta my lungs brought me to Rio de Villanueva, where a doc set my leg. It’s the same town we figured Deluca and her muscle were headed. So, as soon as my pain pill kicks in I’ll see if anyone remembers them. She’s a damn blonde—you can’t tell me she didn’t stick out in this dark-haired burgh like a lap dancer in church. Soon’s I getcha some information, you can at least send someone else after her.”
“That would be good. Call me back the minute you know something.”
They disconnected and Joaquin paced his office. This was not good. ¡Dios mío! Not good at all. That bitch Deluca kept giving his men the slip and he’d had to come up with creative ways to avoid telling Munoz.
The drug czar was losing patience, however—that became increasingly clear with every telephone conversation they’d had. And no one needed to tell Joaquin twice that an impatient Munoz could be very, very detrimental to his health.
He’d said it before, but at this point it simply couldn’t be said enough. His future wasn’t looking bright.
And maybe, just maybe, it was time he started considering an exit str
ategy.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE SUN’S TRAJECTORY was in a flaming free fall toward the horizon when Finn and Mags’s train chugged into their station. Finn was ambivalent about finally reaching it. The past half hour hadn’t been a whole lotta fun, since he and Mags had spent it debating whether or not they should leave the train separately.
He suppressed a snort. Hell, why pretty it up? They’d spent it arguing, a word a helluva lot more accurate than debating.
Because Finn was nowhere near as pumped at the idea of splitting up as Magdalene seemed to be. He got that as diversionary tactics went, this was a good one. The men sent to hunt them would be on the lookout for a blonde woman accompanied by a man. Joaquin had to know by now that she was damn good at, the very least, covering up her hair. But damn few people mistook him for anything other than the American he was—even though his coloring reflected that of the general population of El Tigre, he stood out. It didn’t mean he liked the idea of not being right there if she ran into trouble.
Because, no two ways about it, he didn’t like it. Not one damn bit.
He felt a little less stressed about it, however, when he saw her fall in step with Maximilliano and his dad just as they reached the exit vestibule between this car and the last one. She’d wanted Finn to stay a good ten feet away from her, but the best he could do was slouch along behind her with maybe three feet between them. Four, max. Still, he was relieved she’d latched on to the kid’s father. Because the guy was big. Not merely tall, but built with massive shoulders, thighs the size of tree trunks and muscular arms that looked like they had a nice long reach. Finn wouldn’t hesitate to bet on most people thinking twice before messing with him.
Even goons with guns, who had likely been instructed not to use them in well-populated situations.
Plus, as she chatted with Maximilliano’s father—to whom she was no doubt spinning some amusing tale to explain her sudden impulse to cover up her blond hair and darken her skin with cosmetics—the child tugged Mags’s hand for attention on her other side.
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