by Cherry Adair
“Help or shut the hell up,” she snapped. She didn’t make eye contact—with any of them—as she swung the business end of the Uzi from man to man. At this range she couldn’t miss, and they knew it.
Suddenly someone grabbed both bare breasts from behind. Hauled off her feet, she was slammed against the wall face-first. The Uzi went flying, clattering to the floor across the room as the man pressed his entire body weight against her and pinned her to the wall.
Sound was obliterated by the hard drumbeat of her own terrified blood racing through her veins and the ringing in her ears. Face smashed against the wall, Acadia’s vision darkened around the edges. Don’t faint don’t faint don’t faint.
Choking on her tears and the black rage pouring through her, Acadia reached behind her, digging her short nails into the man’s hand, which was wedged between them.
Nothing was going to stop what was about to happen. She knew that. And yet she kept fighting, finding more hidden strength when she was sure she couldn’t find one more drop.
Somewhere, over the din of her own fear, she heard shouts, but they were meaningless. Her survival instinct filled every atom of consciousness.
The loud crack of a gunshot, from very close range, made her world stand still.
The hot, sweaty weight of the man slid in grotesque slow motion down her bare back; then he crumpled to the floor behind her with a heavy thud. Acadia couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. But her internal organs shrank as something warm, wet, and too horrific for her brain to identify dripped slowly down her naked back.
Afraid to turn around and see what had just happened, Acadia was relieved by what had not happened.
“Porqué está desnuda esa puta?” (Why is the whore naked?) an authoritative gravelly voice ground out in rapid-fire Spanish.
TWO
Acadia had no idea who he was, but whether it was the newcomer or Zak who’d … gotten rid of … the soldier, she was profoundly grateful. She knew she had to turn around and face whatever was about to happen. But God—she couldn’t move. She was aware of scuffling, of thumps and groans, but it was as if someone had hit the Mute button.
She needed a moment—a lifetime, or an all-inclusive therapy session—to center herself. It took everything she had to lever her shell-shocked, blood-splattered body off the wall. Feeling a thousand years old and as fragile as glass, Acadia turned around and numbly observed that the room now contained more armed men than there’d been moments before.
A tall, skinny guy in cargo fatigues lowered his gun to his side as he surveyed the room with clear displeasure. “Porqué lleva tanto tiempo?” No, not a man at all. A woman, with a low, rough voice that rang through the small room and stopped everyone in their tracks more effectively than the last gunshot had.
After a brief pause, all the men started talking at once, their voices tumbling over one another in an unintelligible babble. The woman stopped that by firing a round into the ceiling. The other half of the ceiling rained down on their heads. Everyone shut up.
Acadia’s gaze found Zak. He was sprawled facedown on the floor, hands behind his head, a soldier’s booted foot on his bare, straining back.
“Let her—”
The woman strode across the room to deliver a vicious kick to his ribs. She hefted her gun like a club. “Hombre,” she said, “she’s the least of your problems.”
Acadia winced as the butt of the woman’s gun connected with Zak’s head with a dull, painful-sounding thump.
“Get them dressed, and in the truck.” She spoke heavily accented English. “¡Apúrate!” She paused, eyes flashing as she surveyed her men. “The next man to touch her dies like Santos, ¿vale?”
Acadia leaped to grab a T-shirt first, cheeks burning as the men watched her scramble to yank it over her head and over her bare breasts. No one stopped her. She quickly shrugged into a sleeveless vest, schooling herself not to betray how heavy the garment really was. The vest had a million hidden pockets. If Acadia managed nothing else, she’d be taken with her stuff. She wriggled into the matching, multipocketed cargo pants, unable to keep from blushing fiercely as a man whistled mockingly as she yanked them over her bare bottom.
A guerrilla threw her boots at her. She bit back a cry as a heavy hiking boot ricocheted off her instep.
“Be quick,” snarled the man she’d hit with the same boot earlier. Acadia was gratified to see that his nose appeared to be broken, and that he was already sporting two black eyes. Good, she thought with relish, as she hurriedly finished dressing.
ACADIA WAS TREMBLING, HER heart pounding so hard she was afraid she’d throw up any second. Sweaty and ice-cold at the same time, she braced her hands beside her hips to counter the motion of the swiftly moving vehicle. The ancient, windowless—some kind of delivery van, she suspected—stank of sweat and cigarettes. The van had no shocks, and each bump and turn made itself felt as they bounced over pockmarked roads at suicidal speeds.
She and the unconscious Zak had been unceremoniously tossed into the back of the vehicle with another man about fifteen minutes before. The doors had been slammed shut and locked; then they’d taken off with a screech of bald tires as if the hounds of hell were after them. The second guy had a large, painful-looking bump on his temple in almost the same location as Zak’s.
She studied the men in the dim light, noticing their similar coloring and builds. The second man’s long, dark hair was tangled around his face and shoulders; Zak’s was a bit shorter, brushing his collar. Even unconscious, the two men looked unkempt and vaguely dangerous. Zak’s bad-boy looks had been appealing the night before, but seeing him now, Acadia wondered if she’d lost her mind and all her good sense in taking the guy back to her room. Kidnapping could’ve been the least of her problems.
She pushed those thoughts out of her head. He hadn’t killed her, or worse. Her aches and pains proved she was alive, and unfortunately, she couldn’t blame him for their kidnapping either. But what if her kidnapping had nothing to do with her lottery winnings? Acadia’s brain went a little manic when she considered the ramifications of her—their—kidnapping.
The three of them could be held for ransom. She had money in a savings account, which she’d happily hand over in exchange for her freedom and that of the two men.
Or they could be killed.
Or they could all three be sold into slavery. Not as far-fetched as she’d like to think—it was a very real possibility. She’d read all about the sex slave trade. Women weren’t the only victims, and both Zak and the other man were strong and fit, and fairly good-looking.
There was nothing for her to hold on to in the bare metal box. No way to see where they were being taken, and no way to escape. The ceiling was high enough for her to stand, and she’d tried pulling, kicking, and screaming at the doors, which were locked from the outside. The most she’d done was to make a dent in the metal with her boot heel. She sat back against the hot wall, the van jarring every bone in her body as it lurched along its trajectory.
She’d always felt a faint disdain for women who needed a man to rescue them, but she’d be freaking ecstatic if either of the men sprawled on the rusted floor would wake the hell up and do something. Anything.
They were not going to be happy when they discovered they’d been kidnapped because of her. But when she gave them all the kidnapping statistics, they’d see that even without her lottery winnings, there was an excellent chance that they would’ve suffered the same fate. Still, she was going to have to talk fast—presuming they’d have a chance to talk once they arrived at their destination. She shivered despite the heat building up inside the tin can on wheels.
After the next pothole almost put her spine through the top of her head, she rearranged her clothing to give herself more padding between her behind and the unyielding metal of the floor, then dug a small box of mints out of one of the hidden pockets in her brandnew SCOTTeVEST gear. Dressed from head to toe in khaki, she looked ready for a safari—or a trek throug
h the jungle. When she’d bought the vest and pants, the twenty-eight hidden pockets they boasted had amused her. Now, she mentally patted herself on the back for having splurged on the outfit.
She shook out two of the tiny mints and popped them in her mouth. “Ha. That’s living on the wild side.”
Hearing her own voice was small comfort. This sustained terror was a freaky thing. Having someone else to share her concerns with “would be nice,” she finished out loud as she stuck the small plastic container back into the same pocket as the Swiss Army Knife and a small first-aid kit. She’d considered trying her Army knife on the doors, but the tools were so small they wouldn’t make a dent. The soldiers had taken her watch, her St. Christopher medal, and her bag, but they hadn’t bothered to pat her down as they’d done with Zak.
Lucky her. Because she’d spent considerable time the day before carefully packing all of the hidden pockets in her breathable cotton SCOTTeVEST and pants with everything she could think of in preparation for her five-day jungle adventure. The extra eighteen pounds had seemed overly cautious yesterday, even for her, but now she was grateful she’d had the foresight to be so prepared.
The female soldier who’d shot the man attacking her hadn’t voiced her reasons for ordering the men to keep their hands off Acadia. The tires bounced over a series of violent bumps that made her bite her tongue, twice. She winced sympathetically as the men’s heads thumped on the ribbed metal floor.
“At the risk of being politically incorrect,” she muttered, crawling between them on her hands and knees, “aren’t you the ones supposed to be saving me?” She carefully lifted Zak’s head, then maneuvered her body so that his head and neck were supported by her thigh. He wore the same lightweight khaki pants and pale blue dress shirt he’d tossed on the floor before ravishing her … and a spectacular and noteworthy ravish it had been. Acadia blushed at the vivid memory, then bit her lip because there was blood on his shirt from his head wound and this was no time to relive the pornographic memories.
She wasn’t strong enough to drag the other man closer, so she spread her legs out and, with a lot of huffing and puffing in the heat, she was able to get his head off the floor and braced on her opposite thigh.
If her friends could see her now, she thought as she stretched her back. Safe and cautious Acadia Gray trapped in the back of a speeding van driven by kidnappers with not just one good-looking man sprawled all over her, but two.
She inspected Zak’s stubbled jaw and closed eyes as she undid the Velcro on the pocket over her left breast and took out a sealed pack of antiseptic wipes. She had to clean the blood from his face so she could assess his injuries. It was stifling inside the van, and she had to stop what she was doing to catch her breath. Since she was hardly qualified to treat any injury more severe than a splinter, his unconscious state was for the best, she thought as she gently wiped around the gash.
Qualified—ha! Being the only conscious person in the back of the van practically made her a doctor.
Cupping Zak’s bristly jaw in her palm, she inspected him at close quarters in the sliver of hot white sunlight seeping through the doors. Most people looked vulnerable when they slept. Not this guy. He looked tougher. Edgier. What in God’s name had she been thinking last night? He was no tame house cat to pet, he was a wild exotic jungle animal.
Strong, stubborn jaw, blade of a nose. All those scars. … A fighter. Because she couldn’t help herself, Acadia traced a gentle finger across the wide expanse of his chest, through his thin blue cotton shirt. Internal muscles she’d only recently discovered contracted in response.
“What’s your last name, soldier?” she whispered, tracing his hard, thin slash of a mouth, which was set firmly, as if he were fighting even in his dreams. Maybe he was. Given the way he’d handled himself in the hotel room, maybe he was all too used to brawling with strangers in dangerous places.
Acadia had a Technicolor memory of kissing and licking her way down the crisp hair on his chest and following the arrow all the way down to … Her cheeks turned fiery hot.
So much for her prediction that he’d leave her room while she slept, after they’d made love. So much for her certainty that she’d never, never see him again. Wasn’t that what one-night-stand guys did?
There was that whole be-careful-what-you-wish-for thing that she’d never appreciated the irony of until now. She carefully wiped around the bump and worked carefully at the crusted blood on his temple with the pungent wipe. The bleeding had stopped. That was a good thing. But he was still unconscious after all this time—a bad thing.
“Dirt roads, armed men, jungle,” she said briskly. What she wanted was the magic button she could press to reanimate these guys. “They are not taking us to a fiesta, boys, so can you please wake up sooner than later and help me figure out what we’re going to do when we finally stop? I would really, really like to have a plan.”
Acadia did not like chaos or uncertainty. Life went much more smoothly when things were anticipated and planned for. She made lists of her lists; she anticipated, strategized, and planned ahead. Boring, her friends insisted. But Acadia knew that the way she did things left no room for horrible surprises.
The smorgasbord of current possible “surprises” made her heart pound. She tried to keep track of when they turned and when they went straight. Hard to do without visual clues. She made a mental note of the condition of the roads they traveled, which kept her mind occupied and her dwindling hopes up as her mind filled with “ifs”: if they could escape; if they could make it to a road; if they were actually able to walk and able to backtrack.
Her heart skittered as the bald tires of the van bumped off a paved road and turned left onto something rougher and a lot more ominous. God … a dirt road could go anywhere. Be anywhere.
She finished thoroughly cleaning Zak’s head wound, then used a clean edge to wash several smudges off his face. He still looked dangerous. She whipped out another wipe and went to work on the other guy. Good-looking, with shoulder-length dark hair. Not as interesting a face as her lover’s, but nice enough. “At least you don’t have to listen to me talking to myself,” she told them as she finished up the triage. “I tend to get overly chatty when I’m nervous. And this situation is tying my stomach in knots.”
She did something else when she was extremely nervous: she lied through her teeth. She knew she was doing it, but couldn’t seem to stop herself. Staff Sergeant Dad used to warn her that her fibbing would get her into serious trouble one day. Last night had clearly been that day.
She’d fibbed to Zak about being a dancer—when the least of it was, she had two left feet—the exotic, erotic kind was implied when he’d approached her in the dimly lit, very loud cantina the night before. As fibs went, it was pretty much a white one. The whole evening had been a surreal, exciting, out-of-body experience. The small … untruth had enhanced her first one-night stand.
Talk about Murphy’s Law. Her first one-night stand couldn’t have turned into a worse nightmare. She wasn’t used to standing around bare-ass naked and surrounded by burglars, or felons of some sort, being … eye-fucked. Oh God. That was the very first time she’d ever used that word, even in her head, but there wasn’t really any other way to put it.
Apparently she wasn’t cut out for adventure. She shouldn’t have come to Venezuela a day earlier than her friends to get acclimatized. She sure as hell shouldn’t have picked up a dangerous stranger, should not have brought him to her room, should not have had wild monkey sex with him, and should not be traveling at the speed of fright to an undisclosed second location.
The Lover She Never Wanted to See Again was supposed to have gone off this morning at dawn for his Angel Falls BASE jump. She, to do a river trip to see those falls. Which pretty much highlighted their different life views as far as she was concerned. He was a doer. She was a watcher.
The reason the sex had been so incredible—so mind-bendingly amazing—was because she’d believed it was a one-time-only deal,
so she’d checked her inhibitions at the door. A one-night stand, she thought, annoyed, should be just that. One damned night.
Her entire body blushed with mortification. She’d done things, had things done to her, that she couldn’t even think about in the daylight. She’d never done anything remotely like what they’d done the night before.
Acadia wiped the sweat dripping down her temples on the shoulder of her T-shirt. She couldn’t imagine looking into the eyes of the short-term lover who knew what she’d done the night before. He had been a hot, sweaty adventure that she’d never forget. She didn’t need the knowledge in his eyes to remind her of just how adventurous she’d been. She let out a little moan of embarrassment. All she’d damn well wanted was an adventure before her thirtieth birthday. To live a little. To step outside her small box in Junction City, Kansas, and experience what she’d only read about. She’d wanted to taste a hot arepa fresh from the oven, pick a sun-warmed passion fruit straight off the vine, feel the tropical sun on her face and the splash of the Akanan River against her skin as she and her friends went on their crazy adventure to see Angel Falls.
She’d wanted a fun-filled vacation before she packed up her neat little life and took her first steps into a brandnew world; wanted to say good-bye to her friends in style, give herself memories to savor when she moved away to start her new education in a new city.
Had that been too much to ask? Clearly, yes. The universe, not known for its sense of humor, had granted her wish. Her father, retired army staff sergeant Corey Gray, had frequently warned her to be careful what she wished for. Maybe she’d wished too big, Acadia thought, as the van slewed around a corner and threw her back against the hot metal wall once more. The guys’ heads rolled, and she anchored them with a hand on each forehead.
She’d wanted to live, and instead could very well die in the jungle where no one would ever find her.
ZAK CAME TO WITH a blinding headache, his head pillowed on the woman’s leg, the smell of antiseptic and hot female overpowering the unwashed stink of the van. Tuning in to his brother’s steady breaths, Zak asked, “You awake?”