by Dana Marton
“So the urge to rescue runs deep in the blood.”
Was he teasing her? The deadpan comment seemed so out of character, she was unsure how to respond.
“I had a boyfriend in high school who died of a drug overdose. I didn’t even know he was using. He was class valedictorian. I got involved in every anti-drug support program after that. Things just progressed from there, I suppose.”
She fidgeted on the bed.
“Know of a good twelve-step program for recovering washed-out POWs?” His voice was hard again, not a trace of lightness left in it.
She wanted desperately to say something that would help him, something that went beyond the usual you’re-in-control-of-your-future platitude. In a sense, he was similar to the men and women she dealt with at work every day. Their lives were robbed from them by the substances they abused, just as the guerillas had stolen years from Brian. And yet in many other ways, he was profoundly different.
“Good night,” he said, closing the conversation before she could form a response.
She was up long after his breathing evened, startled by a call or shriek of some wild animal every time she began to doze off. Small noises came from above, insects and God knows what else dropping on the palm leaf roof Brian had thrown together after he had coaxed the fire to life.
Her mind was restless, going to Nicky over and over again, wondering how she was doing, if her sister was still alive. Her clothes were damp and she was cold, wishing back the cave where they’d spent the previous night. Amazing what a difference dry clothes made.
Brian mumbled something.
“What?”
He spoke again, in another language. She could hear him kicking at the leaves that she’d piled onto the bamboo platform for comfort. Maybe he was having a nightmare. He probably had enough bad memories to fill a lifetime of scary dreams. She had only spent a day with the guerillas. He had been their prisoner for four years. She couldn’t begin to comprehend what he had gone through.
The thought brought a slew of uncomfortable questions. What right did she have to ask him to go back? He had already suffered more than most people she knew did in a lifetime. He needed rest and sufficient food, and medical care for his bad leg.
She was prepared to risk everything to save her sister, even her life. But she had no right to ask him to do the same.
He kicked again, wildly, and must have hit one of the supports because the shelter rattled. She reached out and her fingers brushed against his face, registering how cold his wet skin was a split second before his hand closed around her wrist—tight enough to hurt.
Fear slammed into her. They couldn’t see each other. He could snap her neck before he woke enough to remember her. “Brian?” She scrambled away from him as far as she could.
He eased his grip and a second later let her go.
“Sorry,” he said after a while, his voice raspy from sleep.
“You had a bad dream.” She rubbed her wrist, staying back.
Silence followed her words.
“Look,” she said after a few minutes. “You don’t have to come with me. If you could just take me close enough so I can get to them without getting lost.” That would be enough. She would show the bank statement, and after that things should resolve quickly.
“I wouldn’t hurt you,” he said over his shoulder, misunderstanding her. “I said you could trust me.”
“It’s not that I don’t. I do. But don’t you think you’ve had enough? I’m grateful that you saved my life. But it’s not your job to watch over me. You don’t owe me anything.” She said the words awfully bravely, even though she didn’t feel very brave at the moment.
“We’ll get your sister.”
She wanted to protest and pretend that she wasn’t melting in relief, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She did need him, want him with her. He was offering. She wasn’t stupid enough to fight him on this.
A steady drizzle came from above, some of it dripping through the makeshift roof. She pulled in her neck and wrapped her arms around herself. Under her brand-new shirt, she had on a cotton T-shirt and a thin cotton tanktop with a built-in bra under that—three layers of clothing and she was still shivering. Brian’s shirt was torn in a couple of places, worn thin with use.
She scooted closer to him until she was touching his back.
He pulled away.
Chapter Four
Brian stared into the forest that glistened in the rising dawn, and planned their route. They’d cross the Baram and go upriver on land instead of on the water. He didn’t want to run into anyone who used the river. Omar wouldn’t be looking for them in that direction, but he didn’t want to be seen by anyone at all. News of strangers in the jungle had a way of spreading.
At least they didn’t have to worry about food—fruit shouldn’t be hard to find this time of the year. And he could hunt, too, although only if they came across easy prey—he couldn’t afford to waste time.
He listened as unseen animals called to each other in the distance. The jungle didn’t scare him. It was merely an obstacle they had to overcome.
Audrey’s warm body pressed against his back—drawing him into a territory a hell of a lot more dangerous than the wild forest.
Her proximity was comforting and arousing at the same time. She’d rolled against him in her sleep at one point during the night, and he hadn’t been able to find the strength to move away again.
The first substantial nonmalicious human contact he’d had in years. It left him weak in the knees. Damn, he was a sap. Pitiful. He had spent the night fighting the urge to turn to her, unable to sleep since she’d woken him.
He didn’t know what he wanted from her—not all of him, anyway. His body had no doubts, but he tried to force his mind to run along more civilized lines. He wasn’t sure what was right, what was realistic.
She was his responsibility, but she was all his fantasies come true, too. And she had earned his respect in the past twenty-four hours they’d spent together.
She was loyal, ready to give her life for family and brave, if a little misguided. Coming to look for the guerillas had been a less than well-thought-out plan, but he could understand her desperation.
He felt her stir then pull away, and rolled onto his back. He got lost looking at her mussed hair and sleep-heavy eyes.
“What?”
“You look beautiful.” He hadn’t meant to say that. The words came out choppy, like a rusty reflex. It had been a while since he’d last paid a compliment to a woman.
A rueful smile tugged up her tempting lips. “Thanks. But I’m going to have to take into consideration that you haven’t been surrounded by women lately.” She hesitated for a moment, then added, “You’re not half as scary without the beard.”
That was a start. She was obviously warming up to him. It was the first attempt she’d made at a joke since they’d met.
“We better get going before the rain starts again.” He slid off the platform and stood, for a second just enjoying the luxury of being able to stand tall whenever he wanted.
Something else was standing tall, too. Just a morning thing. She didn’t control his body. Right.
“We’ll get breakfast where we find it. You can go to the bathroom over there.” He nodded to a wide-trunked palm to his left. “I’ll be behind those trees. Keep your knife handy.”
He picked up her semidry socks and boots and handed them to her, then got his own.
When they were both back, he bent a large, slightly cone-shaped leaf that was filled with rainwater, so she could wash her hands and face, and another so she could drink.
She had a slim, long neck—plenty of landing space for a platoon of kisses. He watched her swallow until he was getting hot and bothered again and decided it was best not to look.
After she was done and he had his fill as well, he broke off the leaf, dried it on his pants and folded it into a pouch. He collected his hair from the ground and packed it in, tying the leaf-bag t
o his belt with a piece of vine when he was done. “Tinder,” he said before making another pouch and filling that one with ashes. He looped the rope around his shoulder, tucked away the needle. They started out as soon as he was done.
“Shouldn’t we cover up all this?” She glanced back toward their makeshift camp.
He liked it that she was always thinking. It had been a long time since anyone had his back.
“We’re far enough now. We shouldn’t have to worry about Omar’s men.” Not that they were safe from the guerillas altogether. Different groups controlled the various areas of the mountain. But enough of the locals from the villages came into the jungle for hunting trips so that leftovers of a small camp wouldn’t raise any suspicions if a couple of fighters came across it.
They moved at a good pace, as good as his bad leg allowed. The pain in his muscles, not used to exertion, was nothing compared to the pain in his bones. For as long as he could remember, the one thing he was always able to count on was the strength of his own body. He struggled to deal with this new handicap.
After about three hours of walking, he was forced to accept that they would have to stop to rest.
The rain hadn’t started up again yet. That was good. But they hadn’t come across any edible fruits all morning, and he was getting hungry. Audrey probably felt the same.
“We’ll stop here to eat,” he said, and laid his gun against a tree before lowering himself to a fallen log.
She sat next to him with a puzzled expression.
She wasn’t going to go for this. Not in a million years. But he didn’t have the strength or the time to go off on a hunt. And considering what had happened when he’d left her alone the last time, it was probably a good idea to stick as close to her as possible.
He gave Audrey a reassuring smile, reached for a thick, broken-off branch that lay next to them and lifted it, revealing a scampering jumble of grubs. He picked them quickly, as many as he could before the rest disappeared under the decomposing leaves.
“They have more nutrition in them per pound than vegetables,” he said, holding his palm out between them, wishing he could have done better for her.
She stared at the wriggling mess, reached out a tentative hand and pinched a fat white one between her thumb and forefinger, lifted it to her mouth and swallowed it whole, then cleared her throat.
His jaw went slack from surprise.
“You’ve missed a couple of reality shows since you’ve been gone.” She grinned. “People eat stuff like this on TV now almost every night to win prizes.” She went for another grub and sent it after the first.
THE BUGS FREAKED HER OUT, but she wasn’t about to show it.
If he could put up with it, and the pain that must have been just about crippling him all morning, then she sure wasn’t going to whine. She had seen how he walked, how his limp had gotten more and more pronounced through the morning, the muscles in his face growing tighter and tighter. He was doing this for her, for Nicky, whom he’d never even met. She wasn’t going to make his job harder by being difficult. She wasn’t going to fuss over a couple of bugs.
The next one had a little dirt on it. Audrey blew off the leaf dust before she put the thing into her mouth. The grub wriggled all the way down but stopped once it reached her stomach.
He waited until she had her fill before he took any, as he had with the meat the night before and the bananas before that. She made sure she didn’t take more than her share. With this latest course, it wasn’t too difficult.
“Do you think we’ll get there in time?” She watched him as he ate methodically, obviously not thinking of the food.
“It’ll be close, but if all goes well, yes.”
He looked remarkably different without the caveman do, and much younger. With the dreadlocks gone, a lot of the grays disappeared in the short, light brown mess she’d made of his hair. He was nowhere near fifty as she’d thought before—around his mid-thirties perhaps. He had great lips. Her attention lingered on the strong masculine line of his jaw. The skin that had been until now hidden behind the bushy beard was a shade lighter than the rest, giving the odd impression that he was wearing a mask.
And maybe he was. He had told her very little about himself. She opened her mouth to ask, but changed her mind. If he didn’t want to talk about his past, she could respect that. He was helping her save Nicky. That was all she needed to know.
He examined the vegetation around them, got up, broke an eight-inch twig off a tree, brought it over and snapped it in half, offering one of the pieces to her.
“Toothbrush,” he said, and started to chew at the end of his.
She followed his example. The bark was bitter but the inner fibers had a mild spicy taste.
“It’s good to keep everything as clean as you can.” He chucked his stick after a couple of minutes.
They rinsed their mouths, drank and moved on. When the sun reached its highest point in the sky and she noticed he was limping too hard again, she asked if they could stop to rest.
“Right over there.” He pointed, and she followed him to a tree with yellow, podlike fruit hanging from it. “I’ve been hoping we would come across something to eat.”
He grabbed a long stick and beat them down, and she picked them up.
“Looks like starfruit.” Only smaller. She’d seen those in the grocery store but never had one.
“It is.” He sat next to her on the ground and watched her as she took a tentative bite.
“Sweet.” With just a hint of sourness in the juicy flesh. She gobbled the rest of the fruit, then grew embarrassed when she realized he was smiling at her fervor.
“Better than the grubs?” The starfruit juice glistened on his lips. A few drops ran down his chin, and he wiped them off with the back of his hand.
She swallowed. “Anything has to be better than grubs.”
His mouth tugged up at one corner. “You’d be surprised.”
She was about to ask him what he meant, but he tensed and put a finger to his lips.
What? She strained her ears but didn’t hear a thing.
He motioned to her to stand and follow him as he examined the trees around them, selecting one that had branches starting low to the ground. He stepped up quickly and pulled her after him, higher and higher, until they could no longer see the ground from the leaves.
He lay on his stomach on the jumble of branches and she did the same, hanging on for dear life. He was watching something, then she spotted the opening in the foliage that gave them a view of what was going on below. A guerilla fighter passed under them, heading straight for the fruit on the ground. He picked up a couple, calling out to others who appeared soon. They gathered the starfruits and took potshots at the ones that remained on the tree.
She was holding on to the branches so tightly she was getting a muscle cramp in her arm, but she didn’t dare move. Her blood pounded loudly enough in her ears to drown out half the voices below. She waited, as still as she could. Then a small movement caught her eye a few feet up the branch she was laying on. A spider. Not just any spider, this was the prototype, the mother and father of all spiders, as big as her palm with fingers outstretched. And it was coming toward her.
She had quarter-inch goose bumps, every hair on her body standing on end. She clenched her teeth and watched the beast move closer and closer. It would reach her face first. If she let go of the branch to try to shoo it away, she would fall.
She blew at it gently as it got within a few feet and stopped. It didn’t seem to notice. She blew harder.
The fighters were still talking down below. Never a better time to take a break, for heaven’s sake. The beast meandered forward a few inches as if trying to figure out what she was.
Eating grubs was one thing, but if Gargantua came another spidy step closer, she was going to get seriously freaked out. No way could she take it if the spider crawled on her face. She needed to think of something else. No matter what happened, she couldn’t make a sound,
couldn’t let go of the branch.
Then she saw Brian’s arm come into her field of vision and she looked up just in time to see him scoop up the beast. He placed it gently on a cross branch a good distance from her, and gave it a gentle shove in the opposite direction. Gargantua obeyed.
She was weak from relief, a wet noodle draped over the branch. She owed him. She owed him big.
Then finally the guerillas moved on. Brian waited a couple of minutes before starting to climb down, helping her descend after him. The job required patience, since her knees were still shaking. Her heartbeat was as labored as a marathon runner’s.
He slid to the lowest branch with ease. As difficult as walking seemed for him, up in the canopy he moved like the lord of the jungle, having enough upper body strength to spare, allowing him to pull himself up, or lower himself from branch to branch with ease.
He held his hands out, and she thumped down next to him, right in the circle of his arms. She put one hand on his shoulder to steady herself, aware the instant they touched of the muscles beneath her palm, his darkening gaze on her face, his lips a few inches from hers. His eyes really were extraordinary. Fire leapt in them, but she didn’t pull away.
She kissed him.
BRIAN FROZE.
Her soft, warm lips pressed against his and short-circuited his brain, sending an electric charge through his body that had sparks buzzing over the surface of his skin. He wanted more, he wanted all of her, with an urgency that stole his breath, but he also recognized the kiss for what it was—a gesture of gratitude and relief. And he would have had to be the worst kind of bastard to take advantage of it.
He pulled back and saw surprise flicker in her eyes before he looked away. Surprise at her own spontaneous gesture, or at his reaction? It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going there. He couldn’t.