by Anna Lowe
He took off, trotting up the mountainside.
Forty-eight hours ago, he’d been teaching beginner surfers off an endless sandy beach on Panama’s Pacific coast. Now, he was sweating buckets and making like a soldier on some kind of marathon forced march. A Swiss soldier in an overgrown tropical version of the goddamn Alps. That’s what it felt like after the first hour.
And the second, and the third. By which time he wasn’t trotting, but trudging along. He might as well have poured the contents of the water bottle over his shirt for all that he was sweating now.
Sweating and swearing and slogging along. How the hell did Cara get to a place like this? Why? An image of her socked him so hard, he nearly stumbled. The first time they’d met, her coal-black eyes and long black hair made him think of a Roman goddess. The last time he saw her… Well, he’d rather not think about that.
Ahead, the trail narrowed to a footpath with solid walls of jungle on either side that were alive with a thousand unidentified squeaks, squawks, and screams. A monkey hooted. An angry bird fluttered right over his head. A giant purple-winged butterfly danced through a single shaft of daylight.
It was like a movie. Right up to the part when the bushes rustled. A swarm of brown shapes separated themselves from the shadows and surrounded him with a chorus of grunts.
Five compact, bronze men that barely came up to his shoulders. Five pairs of fierce eyes underscored by thick black paint lines. Bare chests, bare feet. Nearly bare everything, except for the loincloths.
That’s not where he focused, though. The sight of five blowguns aimed his way was far more compelling. He gulped, picturing the poison-tipped darts inside, and stuck his hands up high.
“Um… Hola?”
Chapter Three
Cara stuck on a smile and wandered down the village path.
Maybe this time they wouldn’t notice. Maybe this time she could get away.
Chickens scattered before her feet, and if she didn’t raise her eyes too high, it might seem like any other village in any other Central American town — all familiar to her since accepting the job transfer to Panama two months ago. Barefoot children, pecking chickens, a dirt path. The quiet chatter of voices, the sound of women pounding grain over stone mortars. The mangy dogs, snoring in the afternoon shadows.
The minute she lifted her chin, though, everything changed. This wasn’t like any other village she’d ever been, even in Panama. More like a photo spread in a National Geographic magazine, from the painted faces of the inhabitants to the thatched huts and thick jungle all around. The village was a tiny clearing in a vast carpet of living, breathing greenery. It might have been beautiful if she’d chosen to spend the last six days here.
But that hadn’t been the plan. Not the plan at all. It was supposed to be a quick in-and-out visit — an afternoon of convincing an aging village chief to sign on the dotted line for a business deal he had no reason to turn down.
Except it hadn’t gone that way. The meeting dragged on and on, and no matter what she tried, no one seemed willing to follow her script. Minutes stretched into hours, and when she finally emerged from the meeting house, shadows stretched over the ground and the guide who’d led her into this backwater had packed up and left.
“He what?” she’d yelped, first in English, then in Spanish, trying to keep her fiery Italian temper under control. “How am I supposed to get out?”
“Don’t worry.” Rodrigo, the chief’s nephew, had just waved an indifferent hand. “We’ll get you a new guide.” He cleared his throat and mumbled. “Eventually.”
Eventually?
She’d looked around for someone else to guide her out, but there was no one. Only the scowling French anthropologist who lived in the village, but he’d stomped away the minute she mentioned her company. No help there.
She’d really started to worry when a woman showed her to the cluster of tiny huts where the villagers put up ecotourists on the rare occasions someone wandered far enough off the beaten track to visit. Bird watchers. Butterfly enthusiasts or scientists of some kind.
But that night, it had been just her. The hut held a bed with a mosquito-net canopy, a basin and bowl for water, and not much else.
“Buenas noches, señorita.” The woman set a plate of food on the rough-hewn table, and then let herself out.
Buenas noches? Since when was she spending the night here?
Since five nights ago.
The jungle rose around the village like the walls of a prison, and the only way out was the road. She strolled down the village path, aiming her camera this way and that, trying to look like a tourist and not a jail-breaker as she edged toward the road. Or what passed for a road in this part of the world.
She’d made it as far as the second bend on the second day. Far enough for one bar to light up under the antenna symbol of her phone if she held it high in the air.
“Come on, come on.” She’d coaxed the cell phone along. “Please, one more bar…”
The display flickered to two bars for an instant, then went back to none.
“God, please, just one message. Let me send one message. One little message.…”
The signal had popped in and out, and she hit send each time, desperate to contact the outside world.
But then a gang of women had come along, clucking like a flock of hens and herding her back to the village. By the next day, it was obvious the villagers weren’t just stalling, but downright refusing to let her leave. Every time she made a move for the road, they’d block her way. She even got up in the middle of the night and made a break for it, but the jungle noises had spooked her back into the village. The only thing she’d accomplished was getting out a backup message to her sister, if it went out at all.
She paused at a bush and pretended to sniff the pink blossoms, hiding her darting eyes behind the curtain of her long black hair. She sidestepped toward the road. Maybe today she’d make it far enough to get a signal, possibly receive a reply. Maybe she’d make it far enough to—
“Going somewhere, señorita?”
She whipped around so fast, her camera nearly clipped the man on the chin.
“Rodrigo.” She narrowed her eyes on the proudest five foot four inches of tribal warrior she’d ever seen.
“A beautiful day in the village, no?” The chief’s nephew stepped into her path, blocking the road.
The American English he’d picked up while studying abroad always caught her off guard, given his native garb. He spoke perfect English and Spanish, as well as the chirpy native language used here. The chief’s nephew was a bridge between two worlds — one of those rare backwoods types who’d made it out into the big bad world before coming home to his roots. Cara could picture him picketing for indigenous rights in front of a courthouse, giving reporters catchy sound bites for the evening news.
She stuck her hands on her hips. “I was thinking it must be a beautiful day back in Panama City.”
He scowled. “The city is never beautiful. No cities are. I’ve been there. I know. New York, Washington, Panama City: they’re all the same.” He shook his head. “It is only in the jungle that a person can truly breathe.” His bare chest rose on a long inhale as if to illustrate his point.
“Rodrigo, I have to get back to work. Why don’t you let me go?”
“Don’t worry, señorita. On Sunday, you can go.”
“Sunday is too late!” She had to present the plan to the national telecommunications authority on Friday at three. Without their okay, her company’s plan was toast. Her job was toast.
“Señorita, enjoy the village. The beautiful rain forest. What they say in New York: kick back and relax.”
She’d worked in New York for four years and had never met anyone who kicked back and relaxed.
“If I wanted to relax, I would have brought a change of clothes. A book. My diary.” The one full of business deals gone right and personal things gone wrong. Badly wrong. “Rodrigo, why won’t you let me leave?”
Rodrigo made a little sound that told her nothing. “Enjoy the village, señorita,” he said and wandered away.
She plopped down on a log that served as a bench, kicked at the dirt, and spent the next quarter-hour contemplating her fate. She’d gotten one brief text out to work, but that was outside office hours. If the wrong person got to the messages first — like that skunk, Enrique, who’d been gunning for her job all along — well, who knew what he might be capable of. Such as conveniently hitting delete.
Somehow she had to get out, and soon. She had forty-eight hours to bust her way out of the back of beyond.
But how? She had a pair of sandals, a dying cell phone, and half a bottle of insect repellent. No Swiss Army Knife, no compass, no clue. She hadn’t come to Tucumba for jungle adventures; she’d come to seal a deal. And Friday was only three days away!
A chicken pecked the dirt next to her foot. A rooster crowed for the fifth time in three minutes. He’d been going for most of last night, too, but she’d long since moved past fantasies of wringing his neck. She took an imaginary photo with her eyes for her mental album and scribbled a caption in: The end of my career.
The distant sound of voices filtered into her mind. They grew steadily louder — louder even than the constant background music of a thousand jungle insects chirping away. The excited chatter of half a dozen children filled the clearing, and she looked up. Someone was coming up the mountainside.
Two heads bobbed over the rise: one, a wiry old man who made the return trip every other day, and the other, his irritable counterpart, a mule loaded high with supplies.
Then a few more figures appeared behind them — a veritable crowd in this neck of the woods. A clutch of village men accompanied the old man, along with someone else. Someone taller, paler. The kids jumped down, blocking her view. It had to be an outsider, because who else could incite such a stir?
She stood up for a better look at the newcomer, trying not to hope too much. Maybe her company had finally sent someone for her! Maybe this was it — she could finally get out!
The minute she caught a glimpse of him, though, her knees wobbled and she sat down hard enough for her tailbone to cry in protest. But that was nothing compared to the wail coming from her heart.
Not him. Not now. Not here. This couldn’t be happening.
“Gringo! Gringo!” The kids surrounded him like the messiah, and she could hear his good-natured reply.
“Hola! Hola!”
There was a happy lilt to his voice, which figured, because Tobin was kind and sunny and a kid at heart. Her girl parts were already fluttering in a Pavlovian reaction because they knew that voice, too. Intimately. It had been a long time since they’d last made love, but she could still feel him whispering into her lips, humming naughty promises in her ear.
The kids parted like the water in front of Moses, and there was Tobin, smiling and laughing like today was just another great day. Striding toward her like…like an Olympian stepping up to the podium to get his prize — and the look on his face said she was the prize.
Every signal in her brain scrambled; all her nerves fired at once. God, he was just the same. Same wave of thick brown hair that said he didn’t give a damn how he looked — guaranteeing that he always, always looked like a girl’s best fantasy. Same chiseled build, same sparkling eyes that said life was a champagne he could get drunk on, every morning and every night.
Six years and Tobin hadn’t changed a bit. The blue of his irises danced, hinting at some joke he couldn’t wait to share.
And yet he was different, too. Something about him was too bouncy, like he had to convince himself he was having a great time. The way his eyes cast around — not for an easy flirt, but for a friend.
She snorted. Lonely was not a word that fit in the same sentence as Tobin Cooper. The man drew women like grain drew geese, all of them squawking and preening and pecking one another the hell out of the way.
“Hi, Cara.” His voice was even, but his chest heaved.
She opened her mouth but couldn’t get anything out.
The chief’s nephew broke in, jabbering at the men who’d brought Tobin in. He spoke in the local indigenous language, but the message was pretty clear. What were you thinking, bringing this stranger here? How could you trust him?
Tobin flashed Rodrigo a winning smile. “Argentina dos, Brazil uno.”
She blinked. Was that some kind of code?
A ripple of recognition swept through the crowd, and a few even cheered. Soccer results? Sure, soccer was king in Latin America, and the smaller countries cheered Spanish-speaking Argentina over Brazil every time. But she hadn’t expected these villagers to care.
“Who is this?” Rodrigo pointed an accusing finger as high as he could reach on Tobin’s chest, which was at about the level of his pecs.
The flat, hard pecs she used to lay her head against before she fell asleep.
She gave herself a mental slap and forced her mind back into gear.
How Tobin had gotten here, and why — she couldn’t figure out. But right now, he was her only hope.
Jesus Christ.
A crazy impulse of an idea rocketed through her mind and she sprang to her feet.
“Mi marido!” she squeaked, and only half that sound was faked. A second later, she threw herself at Tobin and smacked him with an openmouthed kiss.
“Marido! Marido!” The word went through the gathering villagers like a hum.
Electricity coursed through her as Tobin’s hands cupped her waist. His lips twitched against hers, then pushed closer. She could taste the surprise there, along with the barest whisper of hope.
“Marido?” Rodrigo echoed, his voice dripping suspicion.
“Marido?” Tobin mumbled once she’d come up for air, gasping like a fish.
It wasn’t often you caught a guy like Tobin off guard, and the look on his face was priceless. Except her words had caught her as off guard as they did him, and she was finding it hard to breathe.
“Marido.” She nodded. “My husband.”
Chapter Four
Tobin figured it would hurt to see Cara again, but it didn’t. It just made his body sing.
His heart hammered from more than just the uphill climb. And the minute he spotted her, a whole chorus broke out in his soul, singing “Hallelujah” and “Crazy Love” and “Girl Be Mine.” Every step in her direction was a step out of a dream — the one where she called to say she’d made a terrible mistake and begged him to come back.
Cara. The first person he’d ever met who made him want to do everything right instead of proving everything he could do wrong. The last woman he’d ever promised anything to. The only woman who made him want tomorrow as much as today.
“How’d you get here?” she hissed.
He shrugged. “The international language of brothership. Sports. Soccer.” One minute they were aiming blowguns at him; the next, they were slapping his back and cheering. Crazy place, Panama.
“But what about the bridge?”
“What about it?”
“How did you get across the bridge?”
“Um…” He hesitated. It didn’t seem like the best time to elaborate. “The usual way?”
He looked around. The men down at the bridge had walkie-talkies and machine guns. Up here they were small, bare-chested guys with loincloths and blow darts. Climbing that mountain trail seemed to have stripped centuries away.
But time didn’t matter, not when it came to him and Cara.
“Husband, huh?” he managed once the roar in his ears settled down.
“Run with it, hotshot,” she grunted in his ear.
His lips curled into a grin so wide, it hurt. She’d called him that on their very first night together, which came a couple of hours after they’d met for the very first time. Him, the ski instructor, thinking it was just going to be another frigid day in Vermont; her, the client, on a pair of skis for the very first time.
That day had been a dream, and that n
ight… Wow. A prelude to what he was sure was destiny. The best thing that had ever happened to him: having her in his life. Preferably, forever.
She wanted him to run with the husband thing? He’d run with it, all right.
He closed his teeth over her right ear and gave it a tiny nip, just the way she loved. “Missed you, honey.”
Which wasn’t a lie. Not in the least.
Cara let out a tiny hint of a moan that put his cock on high alert, then and there. She shoved him away with a glare.
She was beautiful as ever, of course, with long black curls straight out of a portrait of an Italian princess, locked in a tower high on a hill. Coal-black eyes that glittered and shone, even in the slanting light of this mountaintop. Thirty years looked even better on her than twenty-four, and he couldn’t keep from snuggling closer to her neck.
She stiffened. “Don’t overdo it.”
“It’s true! I did miss you.” Every day. Every night. He hid his nose in her hair for a minute, not to play the image up, but to hide. Because crap, it was totally true, and the truth made his eyes sting. It took a good dozen hard blinks before he could come up for fresh air.
She shot him a look before taking his hand and leading him away from the crowd. “I’ll just show my husband where we’re staying.”
“Staying?” he whispered, making sure his lips got a good taste of her ear. “I thought you wanted to get out of here.”
She looked at him, doe-eyed in wonder. “Is that why you’re here? To help me?”
He picked his words carefully, because Cara didn’t like to need help. “Meredith told me you were stuck out here. And so I came.”
“From where?”
He wished he could say he’d dropped everything at his high-powered corporate job to jet down to Central America just for her, but hell, driving fifteen hours across the length of Panama had to be worth something, too. “Santa Catalina,” he said. “On the Pacific coast.”
