What would have happened to them without Lucas? She shivered thinking of how close she'd come to being alone with her child out here.
She still couldn't believe he was actually with her, an amazing gift that stole the humid air from her lungs. Theirs hadn't been the tearful reunion she may have once dreamed of on days she dared allow herself to believe he might be alive after all. But they were running for their lives.
Lucas had barely spoken more than a handful of words to her, each one about making their way to safety. She needed his strength more than sappy words. How ironic that all her reasons for turning down his proposals before made for the very traits that would save her and her child now.
She might not need romantic words, but she did need to hear the familiar sound of his voice after so long without him. "Lucas, are you able to talk, or does your arm hurt too much?"
Without breaking stride, he checked the setting sun, then his watch. "Arm's fine, so feel free to ask whatever you need," his bass rumbled low and soft.
He'd never been one to shout, or even raise his voice, yet somehow she could easily hear him over the constant cacophony of bugs and shrieking monkeys, the periodic bursts of gunfire quieting the farther they trekked from the compound. How did he manage that little trick?
She settled for a safer question, and one close to her heart. "Tell me about Tomas."
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything, of course. He's my brother. I would do anything for him."
Of course Lucas would know that firsthand since she'd married him for her brother. Five years ago, after the embassy attack, she'd seen the disillusionment, even flash of anger in his eyes when he'd realized why she'd finally accepted his proposal. His pain had stabbed through her with far more force than any rebel bullets.
"He's attending college at the University of North Carolina studying psychology. He plans to use it as a cop."
Her baby brother a police officer someday? She'd missed so much with him. But Lucas had missed even more with Lucia. At least they were all alive. "He's happy with his life and choices?"
He frowned as if she were speaking another language, but then even the old Lucas would have winced at discussing emotions. "He's successful. Dean's list grades and he runs cross-country."
"Thank you for his new life, for taking such good care of him."
"I'm sure there are things that you would have done better. But I did my best."
"I knew you would when I asked." Their final minutes together came roaring back, then the horrifying time span after she woke. "I thought I'd caused your death by asking you to take him. That the delay while you went to retrieve him cost you precious time."
She stared at her feet trekking across mushy foliage, waiting for him to give the obvious answer she'd probably been subconsciously fishing for. But nothing. He stayed silent, the noise from sweeping aside fronds her only answer.
Whack.
Whack
Whack.
Sara attacked the spiky plants with extra force. "Aren't you going to tell me it wasn't my fault?"
"Would it make any difference?"
Practical Lucas. She welcomed that familiar response even as he left her to find her own absolution.
"Not really." Her brain skipped to a thought so obvious she should have considered it right away. "It's not your fault, either, that Lucia and I were left behind."
He glanced at her with that almost-smile of his.
Would he feel guiltier learning how she'd been held? Or would he even believe her?
His jaw flexed, any hint of a smile long gone.
They needed to put that subject on hold until Lucia was better settled for the night, rather than now when she could wake at any second. Her daughter had never known their life was anything other than normal.
Which brought new concerns about the transition to a real life on the outside. If they lived long enough.
"Sometimes I let myself imagine that Ramon lied to me and that you and Tomas made it out safely, but mostly—" she shrugged "—I feared I believed it because I desperately wanted it to be true."
"After the doc told me you'd died, we left in an outgoing helicopter. We were in the States by sunrise."
"You thought I was dead that soon? I always assumed you just grew to accept it over time when you didn't hear from me."
"You can't have thought I abandoned you,"
"I told you to take Tomas."
He stopped, pivoted, the steely determination shining from his eyes in a matching shade of the silver threading his temples. "I would have made sure he was on that helicopter out of here, but I wouldn't have left without you. They showed me your body. They told me you were dead."
She couldn't miss the pain in his voice, the proof that he had cared. She'd hurt him, used him, and he'd deserved so much better from her. At that time in her selfish little world, she'd justified holding back from him because he wasn't giving his all. She now wondered if—for him—he'd given so much more.
Lucas looked away, up at the sky, sunset splashing tequila hues through tiny holes in the jungle canopy. Fading light and the seclusion fuzzed out the rest of the world until she could only see the strong column of his neck she'd once taken delight in kissing in a path to his surprisingly and wonderfully full bottom lip.
She had no business thinking about her heart or tender reunions. Hadn't she sworn to herself she was a more practical woman now?
Shifting his attention back to her, he reached behind to secure groggy Lucia and extended his other hand.Toward her.
The hard planes of his handsome face went tight, as close to hurting as a man like him would ever show. She held her breath. He plucked something from her hair, a flower, orange spiky leaves drifting to the ground as he flicked it aside without moving away. In spite of wiser intentions, she waited.
Wanted.
"Lucas?" Was that shaky voice really hers?
His throat moved in a long, slow swallow that begged her to taste his neck again. "Time to stop for the night."
Ramon Chavez had survived for fifty-two years by knowing when to abandon ship. And this was one of those times.
Taking cover in the dusky shadows of sunset, he crouched low, sprinting around sprays of palms toward the outer wall of the compound. Gunfire stuttered behind him, screams, explosions that blasted away everything he'd built.
The escape tunnel inside his casa had collapsed, which meant someone had sold him out. With luck— Dios he could use some—the camouflaged bunker with a Jeep and supplies remained a secret.
Padilla's men had the place surrounded, outnumbering Chavez's troops two to one. A few months ago with the help of his cousin Aliesandro Aragon, he could have fought off the bastard.
But not now that the idealists in the Cartinian government had taken out Aliesandro, a pampered mama's boy who couldn't hold on to what his father had built with strength, blood and sweat.
There was sweat and blood to spare now, caked to the camouflage he'd donned for battle. His sweat. His men's blood.
Why couldn't the officials in place see the value of his brand of leadership steeped in generations of tradition? Like an iron fist in a velvet glove, he nurtured and protected his people from Padilla's cruelty, as well as from the rampant anarchy his government wanted to institute.
Or he had.
Bitter defeat threatened to slow his steps. He could simply let the rat, tat, tat of the battle cut him in half. His children and his grandchildren were gone, dead in the collapse of the exit tunnels. He'd told his troops to scatter. Some listened, some suicidal fools refused to surrender, their to-the-death resistance echoing futilely as the sun sank.
He was beyond grief. Beyond rage or desperation. Numb and focused on only one goal, one reason to live.
Where were Sarafina and Lucia?
Finding them was the only thing that had kept him from eating the Uzi slung over his shoulder. He couldn't leave them to Padilla's beasts. He eyed the crumbled stone boundary, a heap of rubble from grenade attacks.
One last dash from tree to tree took him to the far western wall, the last place Sarafina and Lucia had been seen on surveillance tapes. Hopefully he would find footprints, anything to give him a clue before troops trampled through. He could hide out in the nearby bunker until the gunfire waned, then slip away in the hidden Jeep to track them.
Darting behind the piled chunks of wall, he paused. A wicker handle poked from the crushed stone and mortar. It couldn't be. He tore through the rubble, shards slicing his hands until finally he uncovered a mangled picnic basket. Sarafina's.
But no bodies, and no time for relief. Where were they?
He stepped over the low remaining barrier, inspected the ground, resurrecting skills that had kept him alive during his guerrilla days. The soft, mulchy earth bore three sets of footprints—child size, another size up and finally a large set deeply pressed.
An adult male.
Padilla's men had gotten to her first.
All the tamped-down emotions threatened to boil. Sarafina was as much his daughter as his own, little Lucia a granddaughter. His hands shook with a burning drive for revenge—slow, painful vengeance.
A rustling sounded from the bushes.
Hope kicked hard inside his chest. Still, he couldn't be certain. Anyone could be lurking back there. He eased his gun from his shoulder, aiming it toward the shifting spray of red-and-orange orchids
He wasn't the twenty-year-old freedom fighter anymore. Now he spent more time ruling from his office than a tent in the jungle. But his reflexes were sharp, thanks to hours with his trainer and a determination not to go soft.
"Agotarse." Come out, he ordered, his voice hoarse from shouting when he watched helplessly as his quarters exploded, his family trapped inside the tunnels.
The palms parted to reveal...
A woman's face. Not Sarafina, too pale and tall. He suppressed a roar of frustration as he aimed at the young woman around thirty, with short blond hair and wary eyes.
"Help me," she pleaded in flawless English. "Please don't let Hector Padilla take me again."
Chapter 4
Sara broke off another waxy palm leaf that Lucas swore he could somehow weave into a shelter for the night. Sleep with Lucas again?
The sun was sinking faster than her boundaries.
Of course she'd known since the bridge blew that they would spend the night in the jungle, probably more than one. But looking at that tiny lean-to framed with three large branches resting in the crook of a tree, she realized she would rest curled up against him.
She could swear her stomach was full of those bubbles she used to love blowing.
Not that anything could actually happen since they had Lucia to look after, even if their daughter was already curled up snoozing on a mossy bed with her head on the backpack, an abandoned banana peel next to her. The darkness held too many dangers in the jungle to be anything but alert to the threat of spiders, snakes, dart frogs. All poisonous.
So since they wouldn't be having sex, and since she was fairly certain she wouldn't be able to sleep, they would have nothing to do but talk about subjects they'd avoided all day. Their relationship, or lack thereof.
And Lucia. That would make for a big enough discussion to eclipse the rest.
Silently, Lucas draped the mosquito netting from her backpack over the branches before gathering a stack of the palm leaves. Starting at ground level, he lined them along the bottom in a row, then lined up the next layer, and the next. He'd told her that by beginning low and building up, water from any surprise rain showers would sheet off, rather than in.
Echoing in the distance, gunfire popped from the continued battle, reminding her of mortality. She couldn't ignore the possibility that they may not make it through the night to finish their discussions and find the answers she craved.
First and foremost, were her feelings for Lucas still there, nestled deep somewhere in her bruised soul? Certainly the attraction thrived as strong as ever. But beyond the physical, she yearned for some sign of tenderness from him after so long alone, a fanciful notion when she should focus on getting out of the jungle and out of the country alive.