The Mercenary

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  He snapped around just in time to see a piece of cowling fly from the nose. Fury followed hard on the heels of disbelief at the sight of his plane damaged. Wounded.

  Under his hands, the stick jittered. His adrenaline shot through the roof as he struggled to maintain his heading. “Come on, baby,” he whispered. “Keep it together for me.” He raised his voice. “Get up here,” he ordered.

  Marisa was already slipping into the right seat, fastening the harness. “Take those binoculars, there,” he ordered.

  She immediately reached for the leather case. “What am I looking for?”

  “Anything,” he said flatly. It took some doing, and the execution was hardly textbook, but he turned the plane, changed headings. Coaxed some precious altitude from the reluctant controls. Keeping one eye on the instruments, he looked out the window. “He’s probably got a truck. A Jeep, maybe.”

  “He?”

  “Whoever shot at us.”

  “Shot!” She swallowed audibly. Holding the small, powerful lenses to her eyes, she peered out the side window. “Dios. All I see are trees!”

  At least she wasn’t screaming in hysterics.

  She wasn’t screaming in hysterics.

  Tyler grabbed her arm and yanked her around. The binoculars tumbled out of her hand and bounced with a clank off the instrument panel to fall on the floor near her feet.

  She stared at him like he was mad. “What is wrong with you?”

  “Who’d you talk to?”

  “What?”

  “Come on, princess, spill.”

  Realization dawned. Marisa’s fingers curled against her palms, wishing that they were clawing out his eyes, and the strength of that desire horrified her to her soul. “You think I had something to do with this?” She yanked against his grip, but he merely tightened his fingers. “Let me go!”

  “Tell me, Marisa. You know so much about la Fortuna. Maybe you’re already one of the El Jefe whores. They’d consider you expendable to keep me from getting to Westin.”

  She saw red. Literally saw a haze of it come over her vision. Gerald had called her a whore. He’d been wrong, too. “You are vile,” she snapped, and yanked again at her arm. She succeeded in breaking from his hold only because he suddenly turned back and had both hands on the stick as he crooned—there was no other word for it but crooned—to the plane.

  It chugged, it jerked, it shuddered.

  Then all was silent.

  The wicked-looking prop slowed until it turned lackadaisically, like some exotic wind decoration.

  Her heartbeat sounded loud in her ears.

  She could hear Tyler’s breath.

  She stared at the prop, wishing with everything inside her that it would turn, whip into the revolutions that were so fast, they seemed invisible. Wishing she was once again near deafened by the hum of the engine that could be felt all around them.

  But nothing.

  She swallowed, not daring to look at Tyler, because if she did, this would all seem too real, too desperate.

  Then she realized it wasn’t really all that silent, after all. And she did look across at Tyler.

  The ominous sound of wind rushing outside the plane grew to a roar as the plane bulleted through the sky with no power and only a grim-faced Tyler at the controls.

  She stared again out the nose of the plane, seeing the damage, feeling dizzy. “We’re going to crash,” she said faintly. All she’d wanted was to undo the damage that had been set into motion by her leaving Mezcaya. Was this, then, to be her final punishment?

  “We’re not going to crash,” Tyler gritted beside her, as if by willpower alone he could prevent that from happening.

  She looked at him, saw the tendons in his arms stand out as he struggled with the controls, the sheen of sweat on his face. “I didn’t do this to us,” she whispered.

  “You better hope to hell I don’t find out differently, or I’ll finish off the job that shooter didn’t.”

  She believed him.

  Tyler didn’t have time to worry about Marisa’s pale face or the way she was staring out the window. There was no mistaking the abject terror in her face, whether she knew about the attack beforehand, or not.

  He needed a place to land and he needed it yesterday. Had El Jefe somehow tracked them? Or was this an act by one of the natives, the ones who were determined to protect their way of life even if that meant shooting at a suspicious plane circling over their territory?

  They were losing altitude. He’d been heading back toward the river, and he could just spot it in the distance. If he could just coax a few more…

  “Brace yourself,” he ordered.

  And then they were tearing through the trees, heavy branches crashing against them, toppling over beneath them. He barely had time to cover his own face with his arms after they cleared the rest of the trees and headed straight into the river.

  Marisa screamed.

  Water splashed up and over the nose of the plane.

  Eerie moans filled the air and metal screamed as its momentum was abruptly stopped.

  Marisa and Tyler, strapped in their safety harnesses, bounced around like rag dolls in the grip of a rambunctious, cartwheeling child.

  Cargo broke free, tumbling, bouncing, breaking.

  Then all motion ceased, jerked to a cruel, bone-bruising stop as the plane settled, tilting crazily against some immovable force.

  Dazed, Tyler gingerly shook his head. He realized water was lapping higher and higher against the side of the plane. He ripped off his harness and leaned toward Marisa, gently tipping back her limp head. She’d struck something when they’d hit. Her forehead was bleeding. But she was breathing. And when he said her name, her mouth moved in reply.

  Then her eyes opened slowly and stared, glassy, at him. “You’re bleeding,” she murmured.

  Later, he might wonder over the relief he felt. But for now he didn’t have time. “So are you,” he said, and pushed himself painfully out of the cockpit. “We’ve gotta get out of here before the plane floods.” He kicked her briefcase out of the way as he made his way to the passenger door. It was buckled, and no amount of muscle would get it open.

  He headed through the mess of supplies for the cargo door toward the rear of the plane. That opened, but it also let in a wave of cold water. He swore. “Marisa!”

  Marisa had stumbled out of the cockpit behind him. “Tell me what to do.” She still looked unsteady.

  “Get that duffel there. The black one. Grab anything you can carry from the box underneath it.”

  He stepped into the swirling water, and rapidly inflated the Zodiac. They’d hit a sandbar. It was both a blessing and a curse, because, though it gave them a bit of dry ground to work with, it had also torn off the right wing of his plane.

  Marisa, arms full, followed him, and he helped her from the plane, onto the bar, holding the cargo high, out of the water. “Stay there.”

  She nodded, looking ill. He wasn’t surprised when her legs gave out, and he caught her before she fell back into the swirling river. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, her hand pressed to her forehead. “I’m so dizzy.”

  He grabbed the duffel and stuffed it behind her. “Lean against that. And don’t let go. Can you swim?”

  Marisa nodded weakly and sincerely hoped she wouldn’t be called upon to actually do so. Every movement made her head swim. She curled her fingers into the black canvas of the bag with a death grip and drew her legs up the sandy surface, out of the water.

  They’d crashed.

  But they weren’t dead.

  She closed her eyes, aware of Tyler’s rapid movements as he went back and forth between the boat he’d inflated and the plane.

  Then he was talking to her, telling her to get in the small boat. She moved, feeling clumsy, and he ended up just lifting her over the side, tossing the duffel in after her.

  She was shivering. The air felt colder than it ought to have for February. If she could just get warm…

  Her
fingers closed on the duffel and she fumbled for the zipper. He probably had clothes inside—

  “What the hell are you doing?” He jerked the bag out of her hands and she’d have pitched forward onto her nose if he hadn’t planted a hard hand on her shoulder first. “Stay out of there.” He shoved the duffel as far away from her as it could go. Which wasn’t far.

  She didn’t want to cry. She wouldn’t cry. Not in front of him. “I’m cold.”

  “You’re soaking wet. We both are. That, plus a little shock.” He shook his head and pulled a thin, silvery film from a small package. With a flick, he opened it out like a blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. Then he tilted her head back and looked at her forehead. “I’ll get that cut taken care of in a minute,” he said.

  And Marisa’s eyes flooded simply because his voice had been so gentle.

  She was glad when he rolled out of the boat and headed back to the plane. She ducked her head and wiped her eyes. The nausea was subsiding. By the time he returned to the boat, she was sitting up, more or less steadily. He pushed the boat off the bar, walking alongside it until he was practically swimming. Then, with a slick motion, he slid over the side and flipped a small outboard into place. A moment later the motor was running with a reassuring sound.

  But he didn’t head up the river as she expected. Instead, after several yards, he let off on the throttle, leaving them to drift with the current. He was looking back at the crash, holding something in his hand. “Cover your ears.”

  Unthinkingly Marisa did as he bade. And then nearly jumped out of her skin at the short, sharp crack that blasted through the air when he pointed the small device and pressed a button.

  She looked back. The front of the plane was engulfed in flames.

  The front of the plane where the radio and all that wonderful, high-tech equipment was. She whirled on him. “How could you do that? What if they can’t find us?”

  “Who?”

  Her teeth chattered with chills. “Whoever is g-going to rescue us!”

  He’d opened the throttle of the outboard, and now they were moving fast down the river. “We are the ones doing the rescue. This is just a temporary hitch in the plans.”

  Marisa looked up at the afternoon sky. It seemed like hours had passed since the moment the plane had begun its tumble from the sky. But her logic told her it couldn’t have been long at all. “I still don’t see why you had to completely destroy the plane.”

  “Would you prefer the shooter to know that we got out alive? Or would you prefer him to find completely burned wreckage?”

  She felt dread slice through her. How silly of her not to realize the person who’d shot at the plane might not be finished with them. “Why does El Jefe hate this Westin so badly?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  She raked back the pieces of hair that had come loose from her chignon. “What do I have to do to convince you that I am not in league with El Jefe!” She realized she was yelling, and closed her mouth with a snap.

  “I’ll let you know.”

  She shook her head, wincing at the pain in her face. At least her swimming head had cleared. And being wrapped like a hot dog in tin foil had done the trick of settling her chills. “You’d have been right in style with the witch trials,” she told him.

  For some reason, he found that amusing. His lip curled in an entirely unexpected and terribly brief grin.

  Marisa looked away.

  The river had narrowed from where they’d crashed to only about fifteen, perhaps twenty feet. The banks were steep, congested with heavy root growth from the trees that towered over them, nearly blocking out the sky above. As the small, tough boat skimmed steadily along the surface, Marisa couldn’t help the feeling that she’d been left all alone in this world with a man whose smile could transform his face.

  But a man who hated her, nonetheless.

  She’d fallen asleep.

  If she had a concussion, that wasn’t a good thing. But Tyler was equally concerned about putting as much distance between them and the crash site as possible.

  Still, he let off on the throttle. When she didn’t stir, he reached for the black duffel bag and unzipped it. Inside were several other smaller containers, some locked closed, and he methodically checked each one, keeping an eye out for Marisa to stir. She didn’t. And when he was satisfied that all of the contents had come through undamaged, he pulled out the first-aid kit and closed the bag once again.

  Then he knelt beside her, freezing for a moment at the pain that seized his ribs. He waited, mentally counting off the seconds until he could breathe again. And when he could, he carefully pulled the loosened hair away from her forehead where she’d taken that gash.

  The hair that had come free from her bun had dried into unruly waves and the slick black strands curled around his callused fingers with a gentle caress. He pulled away as if he’d been burned, and had to count off another few seconds until the pain eased. Then he just sat there, staring at her upturned face, while he called himself ten kinds of a fool.

  Her lashes were long, thick. If she’d had any of that black stuff that women wore on them, it would have long worn off. Which meant they were naturally that soft and dark.

  Her forehead was already turning a vivid shade of purple, but the cut wasn’t as large as he’d first thought. More like the skin had simply split when she’d smacked her head against something during the impact.

  He slowly unwrapped an antiseptic wipe as he studied her. Could she really be as innocent as her sleeping face suggested?

  Without difficulty, he conjured a memory of Sonya. Even after he’d had his hands on evidence damning her for all eternity, she’d stared up at him, blue eyes wide as a child’s.

  He crumpled the foil wrapping from the moist wipe and tossed it onto the pile of stuff he’d salvaged from the plane. Dammit. He hated working with women.

  Marisa jerked and gave a fretful moan as he dabbed her wound. When he smeared some ointment over it and pressed the adhesive bandage into place, she opened her eyes.

  He was glad that they looked clear, steady. Her pupils were the same size, contracting equally against the lengthening sunlight.

  He held up his hand. “How many fingers?”

  “That’s pretty rude.” She pushed away his hand and the age-old one-fingered salute. “And remarkably unimaginative.” She ran her fingertips over the square bandage on her forehead. “I’m surprised you didn’t leave it open to fester. Maybe I’d be taken with infection and then you could leave me to rot in the jungle.”

  He sat back, sitting on the only plank of a seat the boat possessed. “Who needs imagination? You’ve got more than enough for both of us.”

  Marisa eyed him warily. He looked surprisingly at ease as he sat there, leaning over slightly, his arms resting on his wide-spread thighs, fingers loosely linked together. But then, he was part of some secret military group, so for all she knew, this was just a typical day on the job for him.

  He possessed his share of scrapes, as well, mostly on his arms. One sleeve of his T-shirt was torn, baring the hard thrust of his shoulder, and he had smudges of what looked like grease down his chest.

  She decided his arms were a safer focus than his chest. There were four or five thin scrapes down his right arm. A particularly nasty one circled down around his wrist. “You should clean up your own cuts,” she murmured.

  Of course, being the big, macho military giant that he was, he made no move to do so. Rolling her eyes, she picked up the first-aid kit that was sitting by her feet and plucked through the contents until she found an antiseptic wipe. She tore it open and reached for his hand.

  She didn’t think too much about it, just swabbed the cloth firmly, rapidly, over the slash along his wrist. She turned his hand over and continued cleansing the cut. She knew the wipe had to sting furiously, yet he didn’t so much as twitch.

  His hands were remarkably graceful for such a large man. She’d have thought he’d have big, meaty palms
and square fingers. But no. Sinew defined his tanned forearms, his wrists were well-shaped and his fingers long.

  A vision of a well-manicured hand raised in anger accosted her and she stared, hard, at the hand she was tending, forcing the memory from her thoughts. Tyler’s nails were clipped short, and calluses roughened his palms, as if he were more used to wielding a sword than a pen. If this man had ever subjected himself to a manicure, she’d eat her hat.

  If she had a hat.

  She suddenly pushed the wipe into his palm and sat back on her heels. Touching him hadn’t been a good idea. He could finish cleaning his own scrapes.

  Her clothes were no longer dripping water, but were distinctly damp and definitely uncomfortable. The items they’d taken from the plane were jumbled together beside her at the front of the boat. “Where’s my suitcase?”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Suitcase heaven?”

  Her jaw dropped and she forgot all about the feel of his hands. “You managed to get all this.” She shoved at the pile and something encased in a slick nylon bag slid off the top and landed by his boot. “But not my suitcase?”

  “You’ll live.”

  She wanted to hit him. So deep was the impulse, in fact, that she had to tuck her hands under her thighs to keep from doing so.

  “Don’t look so stricken,” he drawled. “You’re supposed to be a poor Mezcayan native. That doesn’t extend to makeup and suits from Saks.”

  T-shirts and jeans for her sister and toys for the children. Books for her father and entertainment magazines for her mother. So many things that she’d collected to take into Mezcaya where she could talk Franco into delivering them for her to their family. She didn’t like thinking of the items as a peace offering, though that may have been part of it. Mostly she had simply thought how much they might enjoy the items that they didn’t ordinarily have. Things they couldn’t obtain, or couldn’t afford.

  And now they were all gone. If they weren’t destroyed by the water flooding the plane, they surely had been finished off by the charge that Tyler had set.

  She hated the tears that burned behind her eyes and resolutely turned so that she didn’t have to look at him. “Mezcayans don’t arrive at la Fortuna wearing ruined linen suits, either,” she said. His cammies wouldn’t necessarily be out of place, but she’d stick out like a sore thumb.