by Olivia Gates
And now she was joining that mission, an enigma in person and purpose, the danger she posed to him was far greater. He’d known how to dodge the blows of craving when he’d had her figured out. Now he didn’t know anything any more.
Perfect. Just great. Twenty-four hours back in her influence and he no longer knew what to think or where he was…
“There you are.”
Javier closed his eyes. Here it came. Alonso!
He turned on him. “What?”
Alonso raised his hands like a boxer blocking punches. “Easy! That ‘What?’ hit me right between the eyes.”
“You’re inviting something more solid between the eyes, Alonso.”
“Can you blame a man for being within an inch of death by curiosity? We’re all dying here, amigo. In the interests of keeping this mission alive, you should put us out of our misery, tell us about the ‘sort of’ the ravishing Dr. Richardson so breathlessly talked about!”
Shutting Alonso up with a punch wasn’t an option. Avoiding him was short term at best. Ordering him to shut up was liable to exacerbate his obnoxiousness. That was what he got for having his childhood friend working for him! He couldn’t be an effective boss with him. Not enough mystique, no convincing awe—no respect!
“C’mon, Jav! You’ll tell me soon, so tell me now. How come you never told me about the ‘sort of’ you had with her? If the catching up is any indication, it must have been world-shattering. I mean…” Alonso gave a resounding wolf whistle. “Heavy stuff you had going there, amigo! Hope there’ll be plenty more ‘sorts-ofs’ during the mission. And here I thought this was going to be grueling and dull!”
Alonso’s words twisted in Javier’s guts. How tidy and deceptive things could look from the outside! He exhaled. “I see you’re bent on making this as upsetting as possible, Alonso. Your insensitivity never ceases to amaze me. You do know you’ve become an expert at alienating people, especially those who love you, don’t you?”
Javier wasn’t ready for the twinge of distress that lowered Alonso’s eyes. Was he pulling his leg?
Alonso raised hurt eyes again and Javier had no doubt any more. He’d managed to jab him where it hurt.
“I didn’t mean to upset you, Javier,” Alonso muttered. “I really thought you had good news and I was just eager to hear it. I’m sorry if I’ve put my foot in it.”
“Por Dios, don’t apologize! Listen, about me and Savannah…” Javier drew in a measured breath, let it out, then went on to describe the main points of their relationship, her attack, their liaison, glossing over what it had been, and how it had ended. “Now she’s here to work and will be gone in two months—less. But she’s a…demonstrative person and what you witnessed was echoes of the old attraction, the beginning and the end of it all. So just don’t start dropping lewd hints and innuendoes.”
Alonso’s eyes looked blacker than ever, serious, agitated. Had he made a botched job of sounding nonchalant?
“Madre de Dios, Javier. I’m so sorry—on all counts.”
Yeah, he hadn’t fooled him. And he’d really rather take jokes over this contrite, wounded look! “Alonso, it’s OK, really. You had no idea it would be a sore spot with me. I sure wasn’t acting as if having Savannah here is the worst thing that could happen right now.”
“Oh, Jav! I don’t know what to say. If anyone deserves a break and a good woman’s love, it’s you, and I thought—Oh, man!”
Alonso gave a helpless shrug, then turned and walked away, his shoulders drooping, the limp of his polio-stunted leg more pronounced.
Hot regret surged inside Javier. Dios, what a mess! Could this mission have started off any worse?
He exhaled, started walking back, Alonso’s words sinking deeper.
A good woman’s love. Yeah, sure. What woman was crazy enough to love him, share him with his obsessions and his chaotic life? Surely not Savannah.
Anyone but Savannah.
And “good” woman? Was “good” any way to describe her? No. Nothing so run-of-the-mill.
The first look at her exclusive clothes and jewelry, her neighborhood and penthouse, had told him she inhabited a realm light years from his. Whatever access he’d gotten or wanted into that realm had been temporary and only to be with her.
And to be with her, he’d put up with her people’s condescension, disgust and pity. You do know what you are to her, don’t you? Her current sex fix.
Colleagues had been kinder in intention, but just as brutal in frankness. Are you out of your mind? Savannah? Do you know who her father is? Or her ex-husband, who’s working hard to remove that “ex” from the word?
But he’d been determined not to be a reverse snob. So he’d looked past her wrappings and at her. It had been even worse when he had.
She was day to his night, pampered to the bone, committed to nothing. She had only become a doctor because it had been easy for her, because it had been expected—more, demanded. Living for the moment and existing on the surface had been her religion. Yet he’d been unable to take enough, to give enough. Not when she’d been there every day for that precious hour when their worlds had coincided, feverish, writhing under him, weeping in ecstasy. Not when six months had been all he’d have before he spiraled out of her orbit.
When he had, he’d prayed it would end there, that he’d get peace and closure.
He hadn’t. He’d struggled to wash her taste from his memory, her touch from his insides. Unable to do it and suffering withdrawal continuously, he’d sought news of her, just to indulge his obsession. He’d found her constantly with her ex, at work, at social functions. And he’d had to admit he had been hoping she’d change her mind. Change, period. To what end, when nothing would have made a difference to the impossibility of it all, he’d been unable to think.
She’d changed her mind all right—about her ex, her perfect match. Javier had only been her fling on the rebound.
Was she on the rebound again?
Harsh coldness gripped him as he reached the MSU. Then he entered the vestibule and saw her and a soft, warm wave rose through him. He paused against his will, absorbing her exquisiteness and the way she sat beside a sleeping Caridad, reading a Spanish magazine, unconscious grace and sensuality in her every line…
Wait a minute! A Spanish magazine? She’d known a dozen Spanish words before. If that. So what was she doing now—looking at the pictures?
She noticed his entry and her jump from her chair followed a more eager leap in her eyes. Everything inside him lurched in response. Dios!
Her lilting voice broke over him, hushed and gentle. “Caridad’s vitals are all fine now, so’s her temperature. I think she’s over this. Before she went back to sleep I asked her if she’d rather go home and she insisted she wouldn’t.”
He moved, getting out of range of her maddening scent. “Great! And we still have enough light to reach our first destination.”
“Shall I alert the troops that we’re on our way?”
“Being co-leader already?”
“No time like the present.”
“Then go ahead. In which car will you ride?”
“With you, of course!”
His mind emptied. Later, he’d find something he should have said, like a simple “No”. Now the thought of being with her stalled his mind. He wanted her near, jackass that he was. Wanted her near for as long as possible.
Two, three—four days, tops. He’d give her that. It couldn’t be longer than that. Then she’d run screaming.
All he had to do was survive those days.
Ten minutes later, she was helping him load his Jeep with supplies and camping stuff, filling the trunk and back seats to bursting.
Her heaven-colored eyes smiled at him when he made the mistake of looking her way, an unknown vulnerability tingeing their expression, wounding their beauty. They scalded through him as usual, but there was something else, too. Something he hadn’t felt towards her, not since that night he’d defended her, contained her trembling
body and nursed her wounds. Tenderness. It swept him, reactivated the fever that lay inside him, ready to leap into a conflagration at her slightest memory.
She wasn’t a memory any more. She was a reality. If only for a few days.
Maybe surviving those days wasn’t even a possibility.
“You think we can actually get out of Bogotá before night?”
Rhetorical question, Savannah thought. Answered, no doubt, by no!
Colombia’s capital was, what she’d seen of it, a maze of contrasts, a city of futuristic architecture, colonial churches and incredible museums side by side with an appalling abundance of waifs, beggars and shanty towns. From her advance readings she’d known all that, had been told she’d be shocked at the amazing mixture of prosperity and poverty, Maseratis and mules, in one of the world’s most chaotic, fascinating and aggressive cities.
And shocked she was. More with every meter as they tried to inch their way out of the city. The one thing no one had described enough was the traffic jams.
“We will.”
Ah, an answer! She’d almost forgotten she’d asked a question in the first place. And two whole words. An improvement over the monosyllabic answers Javier had been lavishing on her for the past two hours.
“And here I was wondering what you meant when you said we had enough daylight to make it to our destination. I mean, Cundinamarca isn’t far from the Bogotá suburbs. But now I know!”
Javier didn’t make a sound this time, his stare remaining fixed ahead.
Surely he could take his eyes off the road! He hadn’t put the Jeep into gear for over fifteen minutes now, and the endless queue of blaring vehicles ahead of them extended as far as she could see.
No answers, no small talk, nothing to do but go back to watching the avalanche of busetas on the opposite road, which for some reason was flowing. That got dizzying fast, and she turned her head to the other side, looking across Javier at the extravagant stores and roadside stalls. She’d memorized every item in the shop windows already. The giant-screen TVs, the multitude of mouthwatering bakeries, the amazing collection of tropical plants and fruits and that lilac evening dress…Hmm. Amazing flaring skirt, sheerest organza, and she could swear it was all hand-embroidered. It would be a nice addition to her wardrobe…And it would cost a fortune. She no longer did that.
In five more minutes she’d given up, was back to studying what really interested her—Javier’s profile. She wondered which of his ancestors had been a native American shaman and which a Spanish marauder. He was an amalgam of everything these two people had to offer, enhanced in every way…
“What?”
She jumped, nearly banging her head on the Jeep’s roof.
Her hand pressed to her chest, trying to curb her ferocious heartbeats. “Why did you explode like that?”
“Why are you watching me like that? If I have something on my nose, just tell me!”
She stared at his scowling face, her shock subsiding and her smile surfacing.
He wiped an angry hand over his face, yanking the rearview mirror round to search his face for the source of her fascination and mirth.
“Bet you won’t see it.”
“See what, por Dios?”
“What fascinates me so much.” Her hand crept out to show her meaning, fingers following his dominant bones and skimming his taut, polished skin. “What always fascinated me.”
Her hand snagged on his lower lip, glided across the velvet moistness, along the sharp white teeth…
He moved explosively, catching her hand in his, her finger in his teeth, his huge body driving her back against the door. They lay there, upper bodies and eyes mating, breathing each other’s breath as his tongue did to her finger what his eyes confessed he wanted to do to her mouth, to the rest of her. Her core wept, remembering, reliving, ready.
With one last compulsive rub against her and a last convulsive suckling of her finger he let her go, sagged back in his seat and threw his head back, his eyelids squeezing shut, his breath shuddering in and out.
She lay where he’d left her, crumpled, quivering, echoing his struggle to come down.
The traffic moved and he grabbed for the steering wheel, put the Jeep in motion and drove on. And on. In silence. Thick and musky and trembling with pent-up craving.
A hypercharged hour later, the suburbs were finally thinning, the roads worsening, their destination nearing.
A makeshift checkpoint came suddenly into sight. Savannah knew it was too dangerous for civilians to attempt crossing those. The various armed groups running rampant in the country were a paranoid lot, and civilians were often suspected of supporting other factions or smuggling weapons or drugs. Local medical personnel were subjected to threats that made it difficult for them to organize medical teams to reach the isolated communities. They could be turned back at checkpoints too. And here was one.
A gunman stepped forward and Javier pulled to a careful stop, his double flasher signaling the rest of the convoy to stop too.
The guerrilla came over to Javier’s side, his salute one hard ram on the window with his semi-machine gun. Javier’s jaw clenched.
Savannah’s hand clutched his thigh, desperate to prevent any rash reaction he might make.
“Don’t move, and don’t open your mouth. And for God’s sake, sit up straight!”
His hiss jerked her up as he wound down his window and blocked the guerrilla’s view of her with his massive body. She heard the smile in his rapid Spanish, no doubt part of a seamless act to win over the man who could ruin everything if he so chose.
In answer, the guerrilla called a few more of his comrades and they all stood laughing and chattering with Javier, ending up patting him on the back and waving them onward.
“So we’ll expect those guys among our patients, huh?”
His surprised glance was almost funny.
She turned to him with a smug purr. “Sí, entendí cada palabra!”
This time it was his lips that opened wider. Gotcha! It felt so good, surprising him this way. “OK, so I didn’t understand every word, but enough to know you charmed those thugs and promised them they could have the best medical attention whenever they want as long as we’re here.”
“Been learning Spanish, huh?”
“It’s a lovely language.”
“So you also understood that they find you lovely?” His growl cut through her pleasure. “You do understand how this can turn ugly?”
He took a violent turn into a horrendous road.
“Oh, for God’s sake! We have other women with us and they’re all lovely. Caridad is gorgeous!”
“Caridad doesn’t have moonbeams for hair.” He spat every word out. “And summer skies for eyes!”
Oh. Oh!
He reached for her, hauled her half over his hot muscled body. “Caridad doesn’t look at a man and teach him how to lose his mind, show him how ecstatic it will be when he does.” His hand squeezed her buttock, delved between her thighs. “Caridad doesn’t touch a man and turn him into a raving lunatic!”
He pushed her away, an explosive sound of disgust echoing in his chest. “This is never going to work.”
Savannah lay plastered to her door where he’d pushed her. As he’d pushed her over the edge of her doubts and reticence.
She had to do this. She had to be with him again.
This had to work.
CHAPTER FOUR
“TO WORK, people. We’ll set up camp here.”
“Here?” Savannah turned to Javier as everyone went about carrying out his orders at once. They were only within sight of Soacha, Cundinamarca, one of the huge slum belts known as invasiones. Perched on the edges of big urban centers, they were hellholes lacking in any infrastructure or services, where people were rounded up, isolated and forgotten. Cundinamarca boasted the name of city, if the sprawl of shacks and shanties littering the eroded hillside and harboring almost four hundred thousand people could ever be called that. They were spending the nex
t two weeks working there. “We’re not camping in the invasione itself? On its outskirts even?”
“No.”
“And are you going to elaborate on that no?”
“If you think camping there would be safer or more comfortable, think again.”
“I think no such thing! I think it would be more convenient for our patients!”
“Camping out here will mean that only those in real need will come to us. It’s regrettable, but our time is limited and if we’re too convenient, everyone—and I mean everyone—will drop by for a check-up.”
“And is that a bad thing? Those people haven’t seen even a primary care doctor in over five years. In the conditions they live in, they must all need a check-up!”
“And that will be the MMU’s job: the mobile medical unit, which is being readied as we speak. They will provide the primary health care those people need. There are programs being put together for nutritional follow-up, prenatal check-ups, family planning and mother-and-child health care. Others for mental health care, prevention of diseases such as malaria and dengue fever, even ones for improving water and sanitation facilities. We are here for surgery.”
“You mean we’ll ignore medical cases, no matter how serious? We’ll just leave them behind for the MMU that, pardon my skepticism, may or may never come?”
His forceful exhalation stressed his exasperation. “Why are you being difficult about this? I thought you’d been told the mission specs. GAO did brief you, didn’t they?”
A twinge shot through her. Why did his annoyance shake her so? And just why was she so surprised that it did? The only time she’d been exposed to his anger she’d been devastated. And now more than ever, she had every reason to get along, to approach him, to get to know him. To let him get to know her—the new her.
The need to dispel his displeasure melted her tense lips into an appeasing smile. “The last thing I want to be is difficult, Javier. It’s just that we’re here for people in need and I need to know we’ll be flexible, whether they’re medical or surgical cases.”