by Lois Greiman
She glanced back at him.
“We don’t want to risk our gear,” he said and tried not to groan as he dropped his pack on the ground. “You stay here while I check the depth.”
She didn’t argue.
There was no point in trying to cross on the rocks. A single slip could cause disaster. Besides, he was wet anyway. Still, as the water soaked into his boots, he shivered. It was mid-winter cold and probably crawling with creepy things. He didn’t like creepy things. But overall, the news was good. The water never rose above his knees. The stream wasn’t more than thirty feet wide, and no one seemed to be waiting on the far side to shoot them dead. Turning carefully, he returned to Edwards and retrieved his pack.
“There are potholes off to the right,” he said, bouncing a little to settle his straps against the blisters on his shoulders. “But if we inch a little closer to the edge, the bottom’s relatively smooth and the water’s not too deep.”
She nodded.
“Stay behind me,” he added.
The current tugged at his pant legs, but he kept his footing and she followed behind.
“It shouldn’t be more than two—” she began and then there was a splash.
Durrand spun toward her, but she was already falling. Lunging forward, he caught her by the sleeve and dragged her close. She flailed, trying to get her footing. It seemed to take a lifetime for her to rise again, but finally she stood.
“You okay?” His voice was raspy.
Hers sounded atypically subdued. “Yeah,” she said but she looked small and frail in the moonlight. “I’m fine.”
He stared down at her and squelched the despicable desire to lift her into his arms. “Hang on,” he said.
“What?”
“Hang on to my pack.”
He didn’t know if he should be alarmed that she didn’t argue. But he turned away and felt her grip the strap up high near his shoulder. They plodded through the water in unison until they finally stood on the opposite shore. The bank sloped up from the river.
A sliver of relief sliced through him. “All right. Let’s find somewhere fairly level to catch some –” he began but suddenly his feet slid out from under him. He crashed into her. She was down in an instant and gathering speed as she shot toward the falls. For a second, her face was a perfect oval in the moonlight and then she was gone, torpedoing over the edge and into the black void beyond.
Chapter 33
“How do you feel, my friend?” The words were spoken in accented English.
Shep opened his eyes slowly, assessing. His right leg throbbed. His head felt tight, and his left hand was immobilized, but overall, the pain had receded to a dull hum. He glanced to the side.
The speaker was a small man. He wore loose, clay-toned trousers and a vest with a half dozen oversized pockets, as if he were ready to return to fly fishing at any given moment.
Pieces of the past fell slowly together in Shep’s uncertain brain.
“Like I’ve been run over by a draft horse. But I think I owe ya my thanks, Mr….”
The little man smiled. His eyeglasses were wire-rimmed, his mustache sparse. He shrugged. “My name, it is difficult for Americans. You may simply call me Doc.”
“Doc…” Shep settled his head gingerly back against the pillows. “Where am I?”
“You are on my rancho.”
“I’m on a ranch?”
He smiled modestly. “It is a grand word for a little plot of land. Not so impressive as the spectacular spread you are accustomed to, I am certain, Mr. Cherokee.”
Shep frowned, and Doc smiled.
“You talk in your sleep,” he explained.
Apparently, I also lie in my sleep, Shep thought and groggily wondered if it was worth setting the record straight. An alias had come in handy on a hundred occasions…as often in love as in war.
He glanced to the right where an IV bag was suspended from a metal stand. A tube was attached to the fluids and inserted into his hand.
“You were badly dehydrated. Indeed, it will take some time for you to return to full health. I am sorry for the welcome you received at the hands of my countrymen.”
“Ya don’t have nothin’ to apologize for,” Shep assured him. “My corpse would probably be rottin’ in the jungle if ya hadn’t come along when ya did.”
“I must remember that sometimes difficulties are blessings in disguise.”
Shep blinked. The movement felt slow, lethargic. His body was getting heavier. “What?”
“Daphne disappeared. We were looking for her when we stumbled upon you.”
Shep tried to lift his head, but it hardly seemed worth the effort. “Daphne?”
“My best milking goat. We searched for many hours.”
The pain was ebbing quietly away. He was dry and sheltered, safe and warm. He felt his shoulders drop. “With AK-47s?” he asked.
“I beg your pardon?”
He rolled his head against the pillow to glance at his host again. “Do ya usually carry assault rifles when roundin’ up your…” It was becoming harder to speak. “…livestock?”
Doc sighed. “I fear my country is not always so peaceful. Indeed, it is, perhaps, more like the wild west of your past. Which makes me curious; why did you leave your own fine rancho to come here at the start?”
Shep’s mind stuttered slowly. Memories crowded in: his mother’s smile, Durrand’s low chuckle, a slow-winding creek through long, rolling hills. But he wasn’t quite sure how to separate one image from another. He saw himself on a tall sorrel. Its mane was flaxen, its socks white and evenly matched. “Doc Bar Jones,” he said.
The little man scowled. “Your pardon?”
“Orneriest horse I ever rode.” He was beginning to slur his consonants. His tongue had grown thick.
“Why are you here?” the doctor asked.
Light flashed in Shep’s mind. He jerked with remembered pain. Someone screamed. Another man moaned.
“Go the hell to sleep,” Durrand ordered from Shep’s mixed up psyche.
And for once Linus Shepherd was not too stubborn to obey.
Chapter 34
“Eddy!” Gabe yelled and reached for her, but she was already gone, snatched into the nothingness.
Grabbing an overhanging branch, he lurched toward the edge.
“Edwards!” He skimmed the darkness with frantic eyes. “Edwards!”
A squeak of noise reached him. He glanced down, and she was there. Wasn’t she? Somehow suspended a couple dozen feet above the river?
“Hang on! Edwards, can you hear me?”
He thought she answered, but the words were washed away by the rush of the falls. Straddling a submerged log, he hooked a foot behind a slippery branch and peeled off his pack. It was all but impossible to find the coil of rope stashed away inside. His fingers felt numb, his heart rapped like a hammer against his ribs.
“I’m coming,” he yelled, but if she heard him, there was no discernible response. He fell trying to tie the rope around the log. Water splashed, cold as death in his face. He didn’t attempt to stand again but crawled through the rushing river toward the edge. “Edwards?” He thought he saw her lift her face toward him, a pale oval in the darkness. “I’m throwing you a rope,” he said and hooked the toe of his boot between two submerged rocks closer to the edge.
There was no response from below. Holy shit, was that even her? It was as dark as death in the shadow of the cliff.
“Edwards!”
“Durrand?”
His lungs burst back into action at the sound of her voice. He fed the nylon through fingers clumsy with cold and fear. “Can you see it? Can you see the rope?”
“No. I… Wait! There it is! It’s there! But I can’t…I don’t think I can reach it.”
Lying flat against the bedrock, water sweeping over his back, he squinted into the darkness. Moonlight shone off her outstretched hand, but it was several inches from the rope.
She teetered toward the wall and gasped i
n panic.
“Don’t!” he yelled.
She drew back, grappling for purchase on the slick timber where she’d landed.
“Don’t try to get it,” he ordered. Twisting around, he searched the darkness overhead. A bare branch shot into the sky not five feet away. Scrambling toward it, he broke it off, then shimmied back to the edge and glanced down, squinting through the cold spray. “Edwards!” For an endless second, he thought she was gone, but then she stirred. His heart bumped back to life. “I’m going to push the rope out toward you.”
Maybe she nodded. Catching the rope in the fork of the branch, he prodded it forward. His foot slipped on the rocks between which it was wedged and he was swept toward the brink. He rolled frantically. His right knee struck something immoveable, shaking him to the core, but he snagged an unseen log with his right hand and hauled himself away from the edge. Jamming his boot back into a rocky crevice, he caught the rope with the branch and prodded it forward once more.
“Do you see it?” His voice sounded empty and lost in the rush of the waves. Hers was almost unheard.
“Yes! It’s there.”
“Can you reach it?”
There was an interminable wait. “Edwards—”
“I got it.”
He closed his eyes in relief. “Tie it around your body. Under your arms.”
Another age passed, but finally she spoke again. “It’s not long enough. I’d have to…” Her voice broke. “I’ll have to stand up.”
“Don’t! God dammit. Don’t stand up. We’ll think of another way.” He glanced frantically about but nothing came to his stumbling mind.
“No time.”
“What?” He jerked his attention back to her. Had she risen? Was she crouched on the log? He swore again but silently now, scared to disturb her. Terrified that she’d topple into the long darkness.
He waited, fear gnawing at his nerves as he strained to see into the blackness below him but finally she spoke, voice breathy, barely audible.
“Okay.”
“You’re ready?”
“I think so. Yeah.”
“All right.” He wrapped his fingers in the nylon. Pain seared his hand, but he gritted his teeth against it, challenging it. “I’m going to pull you up.” How? His demons demanded. How the hell was he going to do that with a wounded hand and compromised strength? “You’re going to swing into the waterfall.” If his hand didn’t give out. If the rope didn’t slip. If she didn’t fall to her death because of him. “And then the cliff. You’ll hit the rock with your body if you’re not ready for it. Bend your knees as soon as your feet leave the log.”
Silence.
“Edwards. Can you hear me?”
“Yes. I’ve got it. I’m ready.”
But was he? “All right,” he said and pulled. The rope tightened. His shoulder popped. She swung toward him, nearly yanking the rope from his fingers. He gritted his teeth against the agony. Fire burned his upper arms. He reached out with his left hand, drawing her up by inches. Then feet. He could see her now, but his foot was slipping. He paused, trying to wedge his boot back into the crevice.
“Durrand?”
“Yeah. Just a minute. I’m almost—”
“The knot’s slipping.”
Dammit! “Hold on tight. Don’t let go. No matter what. Don’t let go. You hear me?”
Her body was nothing more than a black mass, but her eyes were visible now, wide with terror, bright with the fragility of life.
“I’m going to pull again.”
“Hurry!” Her voice was raspy. From pain or lack of oxygen or nerves. It was impossible to tell.
He hauled her up. The rock edge peeled skin from his arm. Only a few feet separated them now, but suddenly her body jerked as the knot loosened.
“Durrand!” she rasped.
Straining to hold the rope in fingers that were perfectly numb, he reached past the edge.
“Grab my hand.”
“I can’t!”
“Do it!”
The rope gave away again. She shrieked as she dropped another inch. Her knuckles were white as bone against the nylon. “Durrand–”
“Now!” he barked.
Her hand shot up. Their fingers met, wet on wet, slippery as seals, but they caught. He hauled her up then seized her arm with his left hand and pulled until she finally lay beside him on her belly. Water washed over them, between them, around them.
“You okay?” He could barely force out the words.
“Yeah. I think… Yeah.”
He closed his eyes, trying to catch his breath, trying to quiet the gallop of his heart. She was safe now. He hadn’t failed again. Not yet.
“I lost my pack.” She paused, breath still coming hard, eyes bright in the moonlight.
“The GPS?”
“Gone.”
He nodded, practical matters marching inexorably through his well-trained brain. “The Light Fifty?”
“All my weapons.” Her voice sounded shaky, like she might cry. She was sitting in the river with her legs curled under herself like a goddamn water imp. The urge to pull her into his arms, to soothe her, was almost more than he could resist. Instead, he spoke, voice as soothing as a jackhammer.
“Nothing we can do about it now. Let’s get humping,” he said and pushed himself to his feet. Or rather, he tried, but for a second his legs, numb from the icy water and bitching strain, refused to do his bidding. He remained in a crouching position as she stood.
“Are you okay?” Her voice was very small, making him want to cuddle her against his chest, but instead, he forced himself to rise, to turn, to retrieve his pack. His legs shook but whether from fatigue or the residue of terror, it was impossible to tell.
“Hurry up,” he said and managed to step toward shore. “It’s almost daylight.”
“Durrand?”
He swung back toward her. Her face was picture perfect in the moonlight. Her eyes lipid and stunning and haunting.
“I’m sorry.”
Chapter 35
She was sorry.
The thought exploded in Gabe’s mind, burning a little deeper with every jarring step he took. He had fucked up…again. Made mistakes that nearly cost both their lives. And she was sorry. The idea was damn near hilarious. But he wasn’t laughing. Instead, he trudged on, watching her as she moved ahead of him through the receding darkness.
They didn’t hike far before finding a little haven a couple hundred yards from the river. Sheltered on the south by an overhanging bluff, from the east and west by almost impenetrable vines, it was relatively dry and utterly hidden.
“We’ll rest here for a while,” he said.
She nodded but remained silent.
He didn’t ask if she was all right, didn’t offer platitudes, didn’t coddle her. She’d volunteered for this mission, he reminded himself again. She was a trained agent, for God’s sake, not some half drowned fairy goddess, no matter how she looked. “I’ll see what I can find for kindling.”
“I’m fine,” she said.
He glanced over his shoulder at her. She lifted her chin a little. “I don’t need a fire,” she added but didn’t quite manage to suppress the full body shudder that shook her.
Holy shit. “Well, I do,” he said and stepped back into the elements. But in the end, he had to admit defeat. Every inch of jungle was as wet as a first kiss.
He turned toward the cave in defeat, a little more tired, a little more angry, a little more fucked up.
And she was sorry.
It took him a few minutes to get his bearings after turning back, but he finally ducked through the wall of vines to find her digging through his pack. He stopped. Had there really been a time when he resented others touching his gear? It seemed unlikely, since the sight of her pale, delicate fingers against his bag made him feel strangely… He didn’t have a word for how he felt. Nostalgic maybe. Or homesick.
She glanced up. “I’m sorry. I can’t find the matches. They were in your
pack, weren’t they?” Her voice was hopeful, but her lips were blue.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I couldn’t find any dry wood.”
“Oh.” Though she tried to hold on, the hope had slipped from her voice.
“Take your shirt off,” he said.
She blinked.
“Hurry up,” he ordered.
She rose reluctantly to her feet, skin ashen, as if she’d rather face a firing squad.
He scowled at her. It wasn’t like he was the devil or something. There were women who actually found him attractive. None he could name right off the top of his head, but oh…fuck, she was taking off her shirt.
He dropped his attention to his pack with a concerted effort and fumbled with the ties that held their one remaining sleeping bag. Rising, he prepared to hand it over, but she was just pulling her bra over her head and suddenly his mouth couldn’t quite remember how to formulate articulate speech.
He blinked at her, heart pounding. Who would have guessed her breasts looked like…well, like that! “Pants, too,” he managed.
She stared at him as if unsure whether he had spoken. But, hell yeah, he wasn’t a complete moron.
“What?” she asked.
“Listen…” He tried to keep his tone deadpan, but while his heart was doing some kind of weird happy dance in his dumb-ass chest, his head was reminding him that it was hard enough making it through the jungle with a healing shoulder, an achy hand and a bitching leg wound. A full-blown hard-on wasn’t going to make things any easier. “You don’t need to worry. I don’t have enough energy to bother you anyway.”
“I’m not…worried,” she said.
“Then get out of those pants before you catch your death.” Catch your death? Holy crap, he sounded like some antiquated school marm. He might as well have said she was going to catch the ague. What was the hell was the ague anyway? Something the super-hot women in historical novels always seemed in danger of contracting.
“I’m fine. Really,” she said, but just as the words left her mouth, she shuddered.
“You’re not fine,” he said. “You’re freezing. Take off your pants. We’ll get you as dry as we can.”
She pursed her lips and bent to untie her boots. But her fingers were sluggish.
