The Mercenary

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  “Only with you, apparently,” she managed to say between giggles. “You’re blessed.”

  He fought a laugh, thinking she must be contagious. She sure as hell was a confounding creature.

  He’d wiped as much mud from the daypack as he could, but the only thing that would get it remotely clean would be the river. He flipped it open. The map was toast, but that didn’t concern him as much as the contents of the small case at the bottom of the pack. The small supply of explosives he was carrying was extremely stable, but the transmitter was another matter.

  “Of course, now it stops raining. I feel as if I have mud in places I didn’t know I had,” Marisa admitted, as she sat on the edge of the water and stuck her feet right in, shoes, socks and all.

  Thinking about any place on her body was a stupid activity. Telling himself so didn’t prevent him from doing just that, though. While she was leaning forward to wash off her hands, he forced his attention back to his equipment, rapidly checking through it before tucking it away in the pack once more.

  And she’d been right about the rain. The clouds were moving on, leaving them with a steady breeze that would probably have been more than a little chilly if not for the insulation of mud covering them.

  “I don’t think the gear is too far from here. Once we get there, I’ll get a fire going for some water and you can wash up.”

  She looked up at him. “What about you?”

  He needed a cold dousing in the middle of the river, but he didn’t intend to tell her that. Once a woman knew she made you hot with a single look, she’d inevitably use it against you to her full advantage. “Afraid you’re gonna have to be married to the Texas Mudman?”

  “Better that than the British Madman,” she countered as she stood.

  She was still smiling, but Tyler knew instinctively that she was no longer amused. If anything, he thought she looked disconcerted, as if she didn’t believe what she’d said.

  He took her arm, helping her climb over a large boulder in their path. “Was he mad?”

  “Most considered him to be a great statesman. He was the epitome of tall, powerful and charismatic.” She stopped, looking back at him, the width of the hard stone between them. “Rather like you, actually. Though he would have never tolerated any sort of mud bath.”

  “And you? What did you consider him?”

  Her lips twisted. “Once the bloom wore off, you mean?” She moved away from the rock, giving Tyler room to climb over. “Insane.”

  His eyes narrowed, not liking the implication. “I’m not insane, M.”

  “I don’t care what you are,” she replied flatly. “As long as we get into la Fortuna.”

  God help him, he had to remind himself that he didn’t trust her. “Why is it so important to you?”

  She tilted her head a little, as if measuring her words. “You want to help Westin because you owe him for saving your life,” she eventually said. “I need to help him in order to get my life back.” Then she turned on her very wet heel and headed down the riverbank.

  Tyler watched her for a long while before following. Her hair, weighted with water and pale brown mud, nearly reached her waist, which seemed even narrower because of the way the soaked cotton pants and the water-heavy T-shirt clung to her lush curves.

  He wasn’t sure what distracted him more—her words or the view of her swaying hips.

  What life was it that she wanted back? One that involved El Jefe, or one that didn’t?

  He wasn’t sure he could wait much longer before knowing for certain.

  Five

  It was taking too long for the water to heat. And once it was hot, it would be nowhere enough to help Marisa feel clean again. The capacity of the pan from the mess kit Tyler had produced when they’d made it back to where he’d hidden the boat wasn’t enough.

  The fire was dancing, and the sun was rapidly heading down. If she were going to go in the river, the way Tyler had said he was doing before he’d disappeared a ways up the riverbank, she’d better do it while she could still see.

  He’d left out another T-shirt for her to wear; he seemed to have a never-ending supply of the things. This one was dark blue and she carefully carried it, along with the pair of sweatpants he’d also left for her, over to a rock, being careful not to get any mud on either. Then she took the small cake of soap he’d left near the fire over to the water’s edge.

  A glance over her shoulder told her that Tyler was still nowhere in sight, and reminding herself of the number of times she’d bathed in the creek as a child before her parents let her go away for schooling in Belize, she peeled out of the filthy clothes and waded into the water.

  It was colder than she’d expected, and the rocks beneath her bare feet were slippery, which meant that she didn’t linger over the task. And after she finished washing out her hair using the hand soap, she feared that she would have to cut off her hair if only to get the tangles out of it.

  The water was almost up to her shoulders and the current, though smooth, was swift. She hadn’t realized she’d gone quite so far out into the river. The memory of white rapids was a little too close to the surface, and she swam toward the shore where she could stand a bit more steadily. She continued threading her fingers through her hair, trying to get the worst of the knots free. She looked up, caught by the vivid red and gold of the sunset. The colors shifted, deepened even as she watched. The goose pimples covering her arms and legs reminded her to pay attention, however, and she quickly rinsed her hair one last time, then rose from the water.

  And then she saw him. Tyler.

  Doing much the same thing as she, rising up from the water. He was far enough down the river that it was no wonder she hadn’t seen him before he stood.

  Transfixed, she could do nothing but stare. He was…beautiful. Despite the distance, she could see the sinew roping his shoulders, the muscles defining his powerful legs. As she watched in that last light of day, he crossed one arm across his rib cage and leaned back one more time in the water, seeming to float for a moment, before he submerged himself, and came out with one sharp flick of his head that sent water flying from him in a sharp arch of diamond glitter.

  She didn’t even like the man! Yet there she was, staring at him like some silly, smitten teenager over a movie star.

  Disgusted with herself, she hurried out of the water, drying off furiously fast before yanking the shirt over her bare skin. The last thing she wanted was for him to make it back to their little camp and find her still floundering around in the water, too distracted by the sight of him to do anything but breathe. Still moving rapidly, she used the soap to wash out her bra and panties. They’d once been pristine ivory, but now were tinted a permanent coffee color, courtesy of the mud that had stained every inch of fabric she’d been wearing.

  Tyler may seem to possess an endless supply of T-shirts, but he didn’t come equipped with women’s lingerie, so, discolored or not, they’d have to do. She draped them over a branch, and went back to stoke the fire. Now that she was out of the cold river, the evening felt temperate and she tossed the sweatpants under the shelter. She’d save them for later when the night grew colder.

  She had no way of knowing if Tyler would be one minute longer, or ten. Calling upon skills she’d long ago left behind, she rummaged through some of his supplies, then went to the river’s edge and tossed out the line. While she was waiting on that, she found several suitable branches and whittled off the ends with one of his knives.

  By the time Tyler did return, she wished she’d had a camera to capture the priceless look on his face. Stunned didn’t come close to it as he eyed the two fish sizzling on the spit over the fire. The pleasure of that was even greater than knowing she hadn’t forgotten everything that she’d once learned at her mother’s knees, and it went a long way toward helping her not think about the way he’d looked, rising like some Neptune god from the diamond-bright river.

  He walked over to the fire and seemed to study the setup. It was
n’t quite as perfect as what he’d done the day before—it had been a long time since she’d been at her mother’s knee, after all—but Marisa was nevertheless pleased with her efforts.

  But all he said was, “You’ve been in my stuff.”

  The world screeched to a halt as her pleasure whooshed out of her as abruptly as a pinpricked balloon. Since it was obvious that she had, indeed, been in “his stuff,” she declined to comment. She turned the fish one last time, then pulled the skewers away from the flame and propped them to cool against the circle of rocks around the fire.

  She waited for him to say something more, to castigate her, to put her in her place. He did none of those things. After a moment, she nudged the fragrant trout onto the plate from his mess kit, broke the skewer in half and dropped the slender pieces of wood into the flame. Then she took the other fish, and sat, a little away from the heat of the fire, tucking her T-shirt and her legs carefully beneath her.

  She was aware of him watching her as she gingerly picked the hot fish right off the skewer with her fingers and ate. He spread out his cammies on a stumpy palm far away from the one where she’d hung her underwear, as if he didn’t want even his wet clothes to come within touching distance of her things. She felt like a fool for being hurt.

  What she should have been was relieved that he didn’t make some stupid, lewd comment about her bra and panties.

  The small black duffel that went everywhere with him—including bath time, apparently—he zipped up inside a larger one. He went to the boat and fiddled with the outboard, before turning toward the fire.

  Something went tight and uncomfortable inside her stomach.

  She’d left a small pile of figs piled on the rocks and he picked one up as he sat down on the ground across the circle of the fire from her and cut it into quarters with his pocketknife.

  He didn’t touch the fish.

  “What’s the matter, Murdoch?” she finally asked. “Afraid I drugged your fish?”

  He didn’t answer and disbelief swept through her. She’d been speaking facetiously! “Eat that, then.” She flung her skewer and the partially eaten fish at him.

  He smoothly caught the skewer before it could bean him on the head, and set it on the rocks. With barely a hitch in his movements, he continued eating the fig.

  “Why aren’t you afraid to eat the fruit?” Her voice rose and she struggled to contain it. “Maybe it’s tainted, too.”

  “With what?”

  She was practically vibrating with fury as she stood. “Whatever my evil self put into your fish!”

  “Calm down.”

  “I won’t!”

  As if he hadn’t just accused her of God knew what, he held up a slice of fig between his knife and thumb in offering.

  She recoiled. “You are odious.”

  He shrugged and ate the last quarter of the fruit. “Suit yourself.”

  “What on earth would I have to gain by hurting you?”

  “Maybe nothing,” he drawled agreeably. “Maybe everything. Why don’t you tell me?”

  “I wouldn’t tell you the time of day, even if I still had my watch.” She wanted to storm off in an annoyed huff. But where was there to storm to? It was far too early to lie down in the shelter; she’d never go to sleep as wound up as she was.

  So she paced. She had to do something with the energy bubbling in her veins. But as she rounded the close confines of their small camp, passing by the boat that he’d dragged well up the shore, her anger increased. “What were you doing with the motor a little while ago, anyway? Putting back some little piece that you’d removed to disable it while you washed in the river?”

  “Yes.”

  She blinked, unable to believe that she could be even more stung by his actions. Yet she was. “Well, fine.” She turned on her heel, ready to go to the shelter, no matter how early it was, no matter how wound up she was, because being in his presence was absolutely more than she could stand.

  The immovable tree root that caught her toe, however, had other things in mind. She pitched forward, yelping as she caught herself from falling, snatching up her foot to rub the toe that felt as if it had been shoved straight back toward her heel.

  Tyler was beside her before she was even aware of him moving. “Were you bit? What?”

  She jerked her shoulder away from him and hobbled over to sit by the fire. “I stubbed my toe,” she muttered. She got just what she deserved for stomping around barefoot in the dark like an ill-tempered child.

  He crouched down at her feet. “Let me see.”

  She tried to draw her leg back, but he’d wrapped his long fingers around her ankle and all of her bottled tension suddenly focused its considerable force on the feel of his touch.

  She was glad it was as dark as it was, that the fire had simmered down to little more than a red glow.

  “This one?”

  She nearly jerked out of her skin when he smoothed his thumb over her big toe. It infuriated her, absolutely infuriated her, that her libido would decide—with this man who was ten parts obnoxious and one miserly little part not—to reawaken after being so dormant that she’d wondered if she’d ever feel an interest in a man again.

  “Well?” He was waiting.

  “Yes, that one,” she agreed hurriedly. “It’s fine. Really. Just a stub.”

  But he merely lifted her foot closer to the glow of the fire, so he could see better, she presumed, as she hurriedly grabbed the hem of the T-shirt and held it down against her thighs where it belonged.

  “At least it’s not bleeding.”

  “Um, no.” She pulled back again, to no avail. “Tyler, really—”

  “You’ve got blisters on your heels.”

  How she could have forgotten, she didn’t know. “I know. My shoes—”

  “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “And what?” She dragged the T-shirt hem an inch closer to her knees. If she could have, she’d have pulled it right down to her ankles. “You’d have stopped? Let me wait on the side of the mountain until you’d done your thing up at the top? I doubt it. You couldn’t even go bathe in the river without making certain I couldn’t do something to foil your plans.”

  “We could have put some stuff on your heels to keep them from getting this bad.”

  His utterly reasonable tone set her teeth on edge just as much as his refusal to deny his distrust of her. When he went to one of his precious bags and came back with some type of ointment and adhesive pads, she snatched them from him. “I will do it.”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  It wasn’t easy. She had to keep the hem of the T-shirt pulled down to a reasonably modest length, while still being able to reach her heels. After she’d dropped one of the adhesives in the dirt, Tyler muttered under his breath and pried the bandages out of her fingers.

  “We don’t have enough to waste,” he said flatly. “Give me your foot.”

  “No!”

  He looked a little less than patient. “For God’s sake, M., does everything have to be a battle with you?”

  “You are the one who drew the battle lines. From the minute we met, you’ve been horrible to me. Why would I want your help any more than you’ve made it abundantly clear you don’t want mine?”

  “You needed my help plenty when I was breathing air into you and pumping water out of your lungs.”

  “I—” She broke off. He’d given her CPR? She had no way to be certain he wasn’t manipulating her even now, with his words. But the truth was, she didn’t know what all he’d done when he’d pulled her out of the river. All she remembered was thinking she was going to die there in the river, so close to her family, but as far away as ever.

  And then she’d been lying on the bank with him leaning over her.

  “You might just as well have left me there to drown,” she said thickly, “despite my future usefulness.”

  “Shut up and give me your feet. We’ll be lucky if those heels don’t get infected at this rate. You should ha
ve said something sooner.”

  He reached for her feet and she inched away. “And have you accuse me of deliberately slowing us up? No thanks.”

  “What do you think is going to happen if you get an infection?” Again, he reached and she backed away. Even in the faint light she could see the way his face hardened. “Marisa, I am seriously getting pissed off here. Give me your damned feet.”

  “Well, if you’re going to be angry, then so be it. I’m angry, too.” Not caring whether she displayed a complete lack of dignity or not, she scrambled away from him and stood, yanking the T-shirt well down her thighs. “You can’t accuse me of being in league with El Jefe one minute, insult me, and then turn around being all…all nice,” she spat the word, “the next minute.”

  “When did I insult you?”

  “You wouldn’t even touch the fish!”

  “I don’t like fish, all right?” He shoved his fingers through his hair, making the short, thick strands stand on end. “It’ll keep us from starving, but if I don’t have to eat the stuff, I’m not going to.”

  “Then you could have just said that! Instead of implying that I’d done something to it.”

  “You’re the one who suggested it.”

  “I was being facetious! I didn’t think you really thought that, until you just sat there, stone-faced.” Her shoulders drooped and she lifted her hands slightly. “I don’t understand why you can’t trust in me, Tyler. I just don’t get it. All I want is to get this mission over with.”

  “So you can get your life back.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re hiding something.”

  “I am not!” She turned her back on her niggling conscience. Franco had nothing to do with his mission. Nothing at all.

  His lips twisted. “I can see it in your face, M. In your eyes. You’re hiding something, and until I know what it is…” He left the rest hanging.

  “Then I’ll remain outside of the cozy twosome of people you do trust,” she finished.

  “It’s better that way.”

  “For whom?” she asked bitterly. “Only you, Murdoch. Only you.”