by Lora Leigh
She forced herself to take nice slow easy breaths. “Decreased the bleeding, promoted clotting, and when push came to shove, the only thing I had to discourage bacteria.”
The scalpel’s penetrating cut had left a fairly deep gash, ripe for anaerobic bacteria. In this hot, steamy climate even a small open wound was a concern. “How did you know about the cut?”
“I was watching. That was a hell of a brave thing you did. Letting that asshole cut you like that.”
“It didn’t stop his boss from demanding I do the surgery anyway. Besides, I’m left-handed.”
“Yeah. I know. That wasn’t the point; it must hurt like hell.”
“Less painful than that guy cutting my throat. I shocked him just enough to make him nervous about trying to cut me again. What are you doing in Africa?”
It was the last place she would’ve imagined running into anyone she knew. Especially Sam Pelton.
A teacher in a war-torn, third-world country in the middle of a jungle. Sam appeared to be an intelligent man, but she couldn’t imagine what the hell he was going to do to protect the two of them from gun-toting soldiers or a rain forest alive with four-legged predators.
Apparently God had a sense of humor.
“Sam, what kind of teacher ar—”
“Later,” he told her, still speaking so softly she could barely hear him. “Hurry.”
She was all for hurrying. “They brought me in by Jeep. I think I can find my way back to where it’s parked—”
“We’re walking out. Through the jungle, then down-river. I have a chopper waiting to fly us out of Huren.”
The chopper sounded good. “That’s crazy. Why walk when there are perfectly good vehicles—”
“I pushed one of their Jeeps a mile down the road, then hid it. The rest are disabled. When they discover you’ve left, they’ll assume you drove out. They’ll spend time fixing their vehicles so they can give chase. By the time they get around to doing that, you’ll be well on your way home.”
He sounded like he knew what he was talking about. From what she’d seen when they’d brought her here, Thadiwe’s compound was surrounded by impenetrable jungle. The narrow dirt road had been heavily guarded when she’d been brought in. Elizabeth had no reason to presume that it was any different now. “How did you even manage to ge—” Get past the guards? Get into my room? Those were just the more immediate questions. She’d leave the biggies—like how he’d known where to find her—for later.
He silenced her with two fingers pressed against her lips. She nodded. His fingers lingered a second or two, then withdrew.
“Really, Sam, I think we should—”
He took her hand unerringly in the dark. “I can’t wait to hear what you think. Later.” He led her across the small room to the window. She tugged at his hand, trying to turn him toward the door instead of the practically hermetically sealed window. “Bars.”
She’d been examining them when the lights had gone out.
“Not anymore.” A trace of amusement laced his quiet voice.
She wasn’t sure which shocked her more, the satisfied laughter she heard in his voice, or the fact that he’d removed the entire window. She’d never seen Sam smile in all the months she’d known him. Not once. And he was the least likely handyman she’d ever met. But there’d been three strong, one-inch thick vertical metal bars on the small window, and also an insect screen bolted to the outside of the frame. She knew. She’d inspected every inch.
She tried to imagine Sam yanking out the window … It didn’t compute. Yet somehow he’d done it, because as they approached the opening she could smell the fetid greenness of the jungle and feel the thick, hot, syrupy air against her skin. She shivered.
“Insect repellent. Close your eyes,” he said before applying a liberal dose to her face, neck, and hands.
She could’ve put the stuff on herself, but she enjoyed the sensation of Sam’s big hands running gently over her face and neck. “Thanks.” Mosquitoes could give one anything from an annoying bite to parasitic sleeping sickness. She was in enough trouble as it was.
Taking her hand, Sam’s fingers tightened around hers, his hand cool and dry against her damp palm. “I’ll go first then help you down.”
Bracing one hand against the wall to orientate herself, Elizabeth listened to the rustle of animals in the undergrowth and the susurrus of leaves moving in their passage. To say that she didn’t want to venture into the jungle, in the dark, was an understatement.
But it was the lesser of two evils. Still, she had the terrifying feeling that she was jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
“Climb out,” Sam’s voice was pitched so low she felt rather than heard it. “I’ll catch you.”
She didn’t need help climbing out of a window three feet off the ground. What she needed was—daylight. A tank that could cut a swath through jungle. A bazooka, or some other weapon that would—
What she had was a teacher. Had Sam brought a gun with him? Did he even know how to use the damn thing if he had? But even if he did have a weapon, it wouldn’t be much help out here where the least dangerous animals were panthers, lions, and other carnivores. Thadiwe’s men were heavily armed, and more dangerous and determined than any of the denizens of the jungle.
Thadiwe hadn’t gone to all that trouble to kidnap and transport her to give her up without a fight. He’d send his men after her the second he realized she was gone. Beth considered and reconsidered the rock and the hard place. Either or. If she went with Sam, she had no doubt whatsoever that they’d be caught. And Thadiwe’s retaliation would be swift and violent.
The dangers of being recaptured would mean sure death. Not only for herself, but for Sam as well. And she was damned sure that Thadiwe would make their deaths slow and excruciatingly painful. If she stayed, there was a chance that Sam would return in time to prevent her death. Yet staying meant she’d be forced at gunpoint to perform a surgical procedure she wasn’t qualified to do. After which, she was pretty damn sure, they’d kill her anyway.
Either way, the end result would mean her death.
Damn it. She didn’t have the luxury of time to debate the pros and cons of how quickly she was going to die.
Stay or go?
How were they going to find their way out of the jungle without help? Beth had no doubt that her captors knew every tree and leaf in this jungle. She and Sam wouldn’t get very far before they were caught and forcibly returned to the compound. How much better off was she now than she’d been five minutes ago? Two of them, against God only knew how many armed soldiers.
“Stop overanalyzing,” he said, his voice pitched so she could hear him. “Trust me.”
She did trust him—and his ability to lead her out of this mess. Teachers were leaders, weren’t they? A little. Maybe? Hopefully. Yes. He’d managed to track her to the middle of who-knows-where. Might as well go with his misguided but appreciated need to be a hero. Sam had no idea what he’d let himself in for. Knowing that squeezed her heart inside her chest.
Having him here, while it was terrific not being alone, was just going to get them both killed. “Go and find help,” she whispered. It made sense for Sam to go and get reinforcements. One of them had to be practical. “I’ll stall Thadiwe again in the morning.” Practicality had its dangers, and now that she knew rescue was at hand, she wanted to get away from here so badly she shook with it. But it made more sense to lull Thadiwe and his men into believing that she was getting ready to do what they wanted.
Sam just had to return fast.
“Get your pretty ass out here, Doctor. Now.”
She hesitated. Unlike her sister, Kess, who made split-second decisions, and was rash to the point of foolishness, Elizabeth spent a lot of time weighing her options. She was a Libra, after all.
“Do it, Beth.” It wasn’t a request.
Fatalistic, she threw her legs over the sill, then slid into Sam’s waiting arms. The footing was unsteady, and she realized s
he was standing on the barred window, frame and all.
His hands closed around her waist. “I’ve got you.”
Blindly reaching out, she grabbed onto Sam’s forearms to steady herself. He didn’t feel skinny, or flabby, at all, she thought, surprised when his rock-hard muscles flexed under her fingers as she teetered. She tried to picture those muscles beneath one of his gray suits, and couldn’t.
“Good girl,” he murmured, as he slid his arms around her waist. “There’s just one more thing before we go.”
Oh, God. “What?”
“This.”
He’d kissed her twice. Once a few moments ago, when she’d had no idea who the hell he was, and once, in broad daylight, in her office at the clinic. A mind-blowing, knocked-her-socks-off, fabulous kiss, and then—he left for a month with no word. Kess had told her to stop mooning over a schoolteacher and go find a cowboy. Or a bronco rider with great hip movement. Or an astronaut whose kisses would take her to the moon. Kess wouldn’t wait for a guy to make the first move. But Beth wasn’t her sister.
Sam spread his large hand across her lower back, bringing the other up to cup her face. As he brushed his mouth over hers, she eagerly parted her lips. He touched his tongue to hers, and Elizabeth’s heart thudded hard as he sucked it into the hot, wet cavern of his mouth. God. This is crazy … She stood on tiptoes to wrap her arms about his neck and draw his body flush against hers. The thin fabric of whatever they were wearing was almost no barrier at all. His abs pressed hard against her aching breasts, and the ridge of his erection nudged tantalizingly against her mons. Elizabeth’s breath hitched.
Blank. Her mind went completely blank. She couldn’t even think as she blocked out everything but Sam, and kissing him the way she’d imagined kissing him for months. A sigh of pure pleasure escaped, as Sam tasted the inside of her cheek, then ran his teeth along the edge of her teeth before sucking on her tongue and making her almost sob with the pleasure of it.
A bird screeched, and Elizabeth flinched out of the sensual spell. There were a dozen different kinds of birds perched in the trees surrounding them. There were snakes, and wild pigs, and other animals just waiting to have them for a midnight snack. And here they were—
His warm, wet tongue slid along the length of hers, bringing Elizabeth to heart-somersaulting attention again. He kissed her with slow, deliberate care. Hot and deep, taking her from zero to sixty between one heartbeat and the next. She tightened her arms around his neck and rose higher on her toes to bring their bodies flush at all the right places. Sam angled her head and kissed her like he’d die if he didn’t. Hotter than the kiss he’d planted on her six months ago. Of course after that one he’d hauled ass and disappeared for a month.
Her husband had preferred closed-mouth kisses, if he kissed her at all. The kiss Sam had given her at the clinic had revved her engines and made her want more. A lot more. But that kiss was tame compared to this. That had been banked. This was Sam unleashed.
The stubble on his jaw was rough against her smooth skin, and a surprise. She’d never seen him anything but immaculately smooth-shaven. She’d never seen him anything other than controlled. As he made love to her mouth, his hand slipped lower to stroke her behind through the thin material. Elizabeth felt surrounded by him, engulfed in his taste. A shudder of raw desire spiraled through her, bone deep and primitive. His tongue mimicked the sex act, making her throb and ache and pant, and crave the feel of his hands on her naked body.
She went hot all over as he dragged her hips back and forth against the solid ridge of his erection. Her brain short-circuited as his tongue raked across her teeth before plunging inside again.
Somehow she’d known it would be this way. That she would fall, all or nothing. She’d spent months protecting her heart. What a waste of time.
Nothing existed beyond the two of them. Not the danger, not the past. She wanted him to lay her down right there and then, unzip her from this climate-controlled suit, and take her right there on the muddy jungle floor.
Too soon Sam placed his hands gently on her arms and pulled them free from his neck. “Hold that thought. Gotta get going.”
Hold that thought? Her brain was filled with images of them rolling around on clean white sheets in a dimly lit room, and her heart battered at her rib cage like a wild beast trying to tear through. Hold that thought?!
The sounds of the jungle once again intruded.
“Okay?” At her nod, he said softly, “Let’s put some distance between them and us. I need both my hands free. Grab onto my belt and hang on.” He guided her fingers to the small of his back, and she latched into his wide utility belt, his body heat making her own temperature spike.
“We’re going to haul ass on three. All you have to do is hang on and keep up with me. Save your questions and trust me, okay?”
Trust him?
Who was he?
THREE
THE JUNGLE NEVER SLEPT.
Nocturnal animals, reptiles, and birds growled, slithered or chirped as they were disturbed in the darkness. Thanks to the glowing visibility of his NVGs, Sam avoided stepping on a puff adder slithering across his path. Hissing, it inflated its body in warning. Sam stamped his booted feet to hurry it on its way. The adder was highly poisonous, and while it moved sluggishly, it could turn around and strike with lightning speed.
“Why are we stopping?” Beth whispered against his left shoulder blade.
“Cross traffic.” He waited until the tail of the adder disappeared. He smelled lemon-scented Beth, and sex. Wishful thinking. After kissing her it had taken a while for the cockstand to go down. He was always in an uncomfortable state of semi-arousal when she was close. Touching her, kissing her, had almost put him over the edge “All clear.” He resuming walking.
The dense canopy of deciduous trees overhead made the swampy ground of the understory relatively easy to navigate. Still, the few small trees, man-high ferns, bushes, and snaking vines and roots made progress slow and treacherous.
So far he’d barely used the machete. Ignoring the tug at his waist, he balanced the HK MP5 fully automatic submachine gun with a laser sight in his right hand. He’d picked up the smaller pack and was loaded for anything that threatened them, from an aardvark to a zebra, two-legged mammals to everything else. Sam had absolutely no illusions about needing every bit of firepower he carried.
It was fortunate for him that currently there was a skirmish on the border between Huren and Mallaruza. The typical bands of rebels and soldiers from both sides, and soldiers for hire, were absent this far away. Usually they roamed the country, destroying everything and everyone in their path like human locusts. Looking for trouble and always finding it. And if not, making it.
Unless Thadiwe called in reinforcements, the odds were currently in Sam’s favor.
Thadiwe expected his surgeon to report to his operating room at 0700. At 0701 he’d have his men fanning out to find her.
“We should go and get the Jeep you hid. We’d make better time,” Beth whispered half an hour later, fingers still tucked in his waistband. Her steps didn’t falter in the sultry darkness, although her quiet voice did.
“I have a boat waiting.” Sam got a quick whiff of the lemon-scented soap she favored. Unlikely beneath the DEET, but imaginary or not, the lemon fragrance brought to mind every aching memory he had of Dr. Elizabeth Goodall. He’d seen her serious and professional in her crisp white lab coat at her small clinic back home. Pale red hair twirled up on top of her head in some smooth intricate roll that looked as though one tug would bring the entire mass tumbling down her back.
He’d salivated seeing her—long-legged and sexy, in jeans and a sky-blue T-shirt, that shiny red-gold hair flowing over her shoulders as she’d walked beside him to go to a movie. Then in that yellow sundress that cupped her small breasts and bared her pretty shoulders when he’d seen her with a girlfriend at that little Italian place she liked.
Jesus. She was so fucking out of her element it was surreal. Y
et somehow she still managed to maintain that air of unflappability that her patients were used to seeing.
She was so delicate, so earnest. He’d spent a year and a half pussy-footing around her, biding his time. He was ready for Beth. She wasn’t ready for him. Not then. She was as beautiful and fragile as a jungle orchid. It had been love at first sight for Sam. He’d decided she should be surrounded by children; he’d pictured her, a baby—his—at her naked breast. He’d never felt this alien blend of lust, love, tenderness and fear for any woman in his life. He wanted her with an intensity he’d never felt for any woman. Ever.
It was damned unsettling, he thought, shoving aside a six-foot-long palm frond. He’d gone way past unsettled by the unexpected mixture of emotions he’d felt for this woman from the start and directly into determination and a strange kind of peace.
A loud croaking sound, followed by a guttural rurr, rurr, rurr, sounded several feet to the left.
“What do you think that is?”
“Colobus monkey. He’s been following us for a while.” Sam could see the little guy’s bright, inquisitive eyes as he swung by his tail from a nearby branch, waiting for them to move on.
“As long as it isn’t a damn bird,” Beth muttered under her breath, making Sam grin.
While a portion of his mind was aware of every small movement in the foliage around them, and his ears engaged in IDing every noise, a small compartment of his brain was reserved for flashing memories of Beth.
According to her patients she was an excellent GP. And sweet. And inordinately kind. And compassionate. And attentive. Everyone in the small Montana town adored Dr. Beth.
Sam had taken one look at sweet Dr. Beth’s marmalade-colored hair, creamy freckled skin, and big brown eyes and fallen for her like the proverbial ton of bricks. He’d wanted to strip her and count every freckle. Unfortunately, five minutes after meeting her he’d discovered she was married. Fifteen minutes after that he’d gotten an earful from Traci at the diner about the idiot she was married to.