Dangerous to Hold (11 page)

Jack rolled his eyes, then led the way out of camp.

 

When Sarah saw the small pool, she gasped in surprised delight. Until this moment, she'd never realized that the jungle could be so incredibly beautiful and seductive.

A ribbon of water tumbled down one of the steep hills that surrounded the camp and collected at the bottom to form a silvery, glistening basin. Feathery ferns the height of small trees formed a lush green backdrop for the pool. A single beam of sunshine sliced through the dense canopy overhead, illuminating the brilliant scarlet and yellow trumpet flowers that basked in its light.

“The pool's shallow enough for the kids to wade in,” Jack said, drawing her wide-eyed gaze away from the delightful scene.

“What about snakes and such? Is it safe?”

“A safe as anything is in the jungle,” he replied with a shrug, “but I'll check it out for you.”

He slid his machete from the leather scabbard and spoke a
few words to the rebel, who nodded and moved toward the far side of the pool.

“While Xavier and I are gone,” Jake said in a quick undertone, “Eduard will stand guard. Just to make sure no one else has decided to follow along and drop in on your little party uninvited.”

Sarah bit her lip and glanced down at the eight-year-old. Eduard needed to bathe, as well, but she knew he would resist if she tried to coax him in. He was such a quiet, contained little boy. He didn't seem to want cuddling or attention, as the younger ones did, and he shied away from allowing Sarah to help him with any personal needs.

“We men will take a turn later, when you're done,” Jack said deliberately.

Eduard sent him a grateful man-to-man look.

“But…”

“Don't worry, I won't let his arm get wet. I've spent enough time in the jungle to know as much about blood flukes as you do.”

He knew a whole lot more than she did, Sarah thought ruefully as she watched him walk toward the pool. About blood flukes—whatever those were—and about the jungle and young boys. In his own quiet way, Eduard seemed to have developed a severe case of hero worship. More of that male bonding, Sarah supposed.

She shook her head, wondering at the contradictions in the man. Over the past few days, she had found herself by turns disgusted by him and grateful to him. She'd laid awake at night, aware of his uncompromising masculinity but unwilling to acknowledge its effect on her. He cold-bloodedly dealt in death, and yet…

And yet he'd provided her what safety he could in this precarious situation. Moreover, he was so kind to the children, in his brusque way. Teresa preened like a little banty rooster in her bright dress whenever she caught his eyes. She refused to go to sleep unless the root he'd carved for her was tucked
into the hammock with her. Little Ricci followed him about with the eagerness of a happy puppy.

Sarah frowned as she watched the object of her thoughts hunker down on a flat rock and slap the water gently with a stick to see what creatures, if any, he disturbed. Why should it surprise her that she couldn't reconcile the complexities in his nature? For all her much-touted charm and skill at playing the Washington social game, she'd failed miserably to understand what drove the one other man who'd swept into her life with such devastating impact.

Now there was a contrast, Sarah thought dryly. André, with his impeccable manners and skilled lovemaking. And this…this soldier of fortune, with his hard gray eyes and his soiled khaki shirt stretched across his broad back. The rolled-up sleeves displayed the tanned, muscled arms that had wrapped around her with such lack of gentleness last night. Sarah shivered, remembering the feel of his body pressed against hers.

“Sarita! Can we go in now?”

“Can I make the pee-pee in the water, Sarita?”

Sarah glanced down at the two children dancing around her, one thin and wiry, the other stubby and plump. “Why don't you make the pee-pee before you get in the pool?” she suggested with a smile.

“Can we go in now? It is safe,” Teresa insisted, tugging on her sleeve.

The mercenary rose, confirming Teresa's opinion. “The water's clean. Just don't leave the clearing. Xavier and I will be close enough to hear you if you scream, but far enough to give you privacy. Thirty minutes long enough?”

“Thirty minutes is fine.”

He tipped two fingers to the floppy brim of his hat, then started back around the pool to join Xavier.

“Now, Sarita? Now?” Both children tugged on her sleeves now as they hopped from one foot to the other in their eagerness.

Smiling at their antics, Sarah glanced up and caught Elean
ora's eye. For a brief, unguarded moment, the other woman shared her enjoyment of the youngsters' unrestrained eagerness. Almost as quickly as it had appeared, however, the flash of awareness in Eleanora's eyes faded and her features took on their habitual vacant flatness.

“Okay, okay,” Sarah said, laughing. “Let me get changed, then Eleanora and I will take you in.”

She edged behind a screen of ferns to shed her black robe and the panties she intended to wash. As she pulled on the baggy blouse, she pondered what she now guessed was a deliberate shield erected by Eleanora. Sarah bit her lip, imagining what it was that the older woman retreated from behind that dull passivity. Jack's warning that she had enough problems of her own without adding Eleanora's to them sounded in Sarah's mind. She wanted to heed his warning. She
needed
to heed it. But when she knelt beside the older woman to undress the wiggling, squirming children, Sarah knew the warning had come too late. Just what she could do about Eleanora's plight eluded her at this precise moment. But she would have to think of something.

The children waded into the pool, shrieking at the cold and jumping up and down. Their small hands beat the water and sent silvery spray flying everywhere. Laughing, Sarah sat down on the flat rock beside Eleanora. She rucked the hem of the long blouse up over her knees, dangled her feet in the water and let the children splash and play. Within seconds, the two women were almost as soaked as the youngsters.

The cool water felt wonderful. Sarah longed to slip off the rock and join the kids. Her fingers clenched around the soap. Maybe after they'd cleansed the children, she'd slip into the pool, blouse and all, and wash her hair.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah caught a blur of khaki. She looked up to see Jack emerge from the jungle on the far side of the pool. He stopped abruptly, his body slowly tensing as he stared at her. Even from this distance, Sarah could see how his skin stretched tight across his cheekbones and his eyes devoured her.

Her heart slamming up against her ribs, she glanced down and saw how the wet blouse clung to her breasts and thighs. The soaked cotton molded her, shaped her, revealed her.

Sarah's first instinct was as old as time. A feminine response to the danger she sensed in the man stripping her with his eyes. She lifted her arms, intending to shield herself. Then a second urge—as old as, and even more powerful than, the first—gripped her. The woman in her responded to his hunger, and an answering need shivered down her spine.

She'd been ashamed for so long. Of her complicity in another woman's tragic attempt to end her life. Of her inability to deal with the relentless media in Washington, who'd hounded her every move. Of her own ineptness during these weeks in Cartoza. Jack's hot male look stripped away her shame and doubt and fear. What was left was basic. Elemental. Cleansing in its raw power. Whatever else she might or might not be, whatever strengths or inadequacies she possessed, Sarah Chandler was a woman.

Her arms dropped to her sides. Slowly she straightened her shoulders.

Jake held himself rigidly still. A bead of sweat rolled down his cheek. Hard and aching, he fought the urge to stalk around the pool, haul her up, and carry her into the jungle. More than he'd ever wanted anything in his life, Jake wanted to see her on a bed of green springy ferns, her white legs spread and a woman's smile of welcome in her luminous blue-green eyes. He ached to lose himself in the damp valley between her thighs.

She couldn't know, he thought savagely. She couldn't know how that wet shirt clung to her skin. She couldn't know what the sight of her beautiful body did to a man. She couldn't have any idea of the searing lust that blazed in his belly.

Or could she?

The vague, unspecified tension that had kept him awake most of the night sharpened into a sudden, gut-wrenching doubt. He stared at Sarah a moment longer, then forced him
self to turn away. He moved slowly, as if the smallest step pained him—which it did.

“Here,” he said brusquely, handing Eduard the canteen he'd forgotten to leave with him earlier. “The pool water is probably safe, but there's no need to take chances.”

He left the clearing without looking at Sarah again. He didn't have to. Her image hovered in front of him as he retraced his steps down the trail and rejoined Xavier. With each step, suspicion curled in Jake's mind like a damp, pervasive mist. Just what exactly did he know about Sister Sarah Josepha?

Suppressing the aching male need that had gripped him the moment he saw her wrapped in that wet blouse, Jake forced himself to step back and assess the situation. Methodically, ruthlessly, he reviewed every moment since he'd parted those damn palmettos and seen her white, terrified face staring back at him. Had he missed something vital, something he should have seen?

He'd shrugged off her stumbling Spanish with the explanation that she was new to the area, not long in country. That made sense. The dialect used here in the mountains was difficult even for Cartoza's coastal city dwellers to understand, let alone outsiders.

He'd understood when she gritted her teeth and treated the minor ills of the men in the camp with a superficial skill. They'd murdered her friends, after all. He didn't expect her to show a tender, caring bedside manner.

He'd ascribed her sometimes gentle, sometimes exasperated care of the children to the natural stress of their situation. She'd cleansed them, fed them, heard their prayers with a determination he could only call dedication.

No, Sister Sarah hadn't given Jake any reason to think she wasn't the frightened nun he thought her to be.

Until last night. Last night, when she'd blazed with fury and challenged him, woman to man.

And today, when her eyes had met his across the silvery green surface of the pool. When she had responded to the raw
hunger that must have shown on his face by straightening her shoulders.

At the vivid image of Sarah's small, rounded breasts thrusting up against the wet cotton, the ruthless agent and the fierce, hungry male in Jake merged once more, painfully. Swearing viciously, he concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other.

A hundred meters down the trail, he stopped in his tracks.

Ahead of him, Xavier froze and dropped into a crouch. “What is it, gringo?” he whispered, pivoting on the balls of his feet.

“I thought I heard something,” Jake answered quietly. He jerked his chin toward the left. “In there.”

Xavier swung the barrel of his weapon toward the area Jake had indicated.

“Don't fire!” Jake ordered. “You'll detonate the charges.”

The man's thin shoulders slumped even more as he swallowed and stared, wide-eyed, at the dense undergrowth.

“Do you want me to check it,” Jake asked, “or will you do it yourself?”

Xavier glanced from Jake to the jungle, then back to Jake. “You do it, gringo. I will cover you.”

Jake eased his machete out of its scabbard. “Give me ten minutes. If I'm not back by then, get the woman and children back to camp, pronto.”

The rebel's fingers tightened on his weapon.
“Sí!”

Ten minutes was all Jake needed. It would take him two minutes to reach the huge strangler fig where he'd stashed his backup transceiver. Even less to update his OMEGA control on the operation. And that would leave him plenty of time to pump Maggie for details about Sister Sarah Josepha.

Jake knew Maggie wouldn't have wasted these past few days. By now, she would've uncovered every existing detail about the nun's life. How much Sarah had weighed at birth. The exact date she'd had her wisdom teeth extracted. And, Jake was sure, she'd have an explanation for why a woman
with Sarah's delicate beauty and plucky courage had chosen to become a nun. Jake wanted to hear the explanation. Badly.

Jaws clenched, he reached into the dark cavity formed by the roots put down by the strangler fig from its perch on a high branch of the host tree.

“OMEGA control, this is Jaguar.”

“Howdy, Jaguar. This is Cowboy. Good to hear from you, pal.”

Jake's brow furrowed. He'd recognized Cowboy's distinctive Wyoming twang even before the agent identified himself. Tall, rangy, and seemingly easygoing, Cowboy disguised a razor-sharp mind with a sleepy smile and tanned, weathered skin. Jake had worked with the former air force fighter jock on a couple of operations and thoroughly respected him. Still, it was disconcerting to change controls in midoperation.

“Where's Chameleon?”

“She's on-scene, close enough to spit. Stand by while I patch you through.”

Maggie was here? In Cartoza? The knowledge that she would lead the extraction team to pick up Sarah and the children sent a shaft of relief shooting through Jake.

“Chameleon here. Glad you finally decided to check in, Jaguar. What took you so long?”

“My transmitter experienced a slight…technical malfunction. I had to wait a few days until it was safe to recover the backup unit.”

“Anything you want me to relay to the lab?” Cowboy inquired. “They'll go nuts when they hear their equipment failed.”

As Jake recapped the problem with the boot, Maggie's laughter echoed Cowboy's.

“They're going to love that,” she said, still chuckling. “Now they'll have to come up with a seal that's waterproof and piddleproof. I'm glad to have confirmation that the children are with you, though. The Cartozan authorities only had a sketchy ID on the kids and weren't sure they were with the
woman when she was taken. How's she holding up, by the way?”