“A call?” Ari said. “From who?”
Morgan clenched his fists and said, “From Rafe. What you didn’t know is that he had been assigned to protect you while you were down in Manaus. A bodyguard of sorts. Rafe wasn’t going to do it until I told him your life could be in danger. It was then that he took the assignment.”
“You knew this?” Ari looked at her father, stunned, and then at Morgan.
Worthington cleared his throat. “I asked Morgan to provide you with someone who could not only help you in fulfilling your dream, Ari, but who could protect you. Rafe Antonio works undercover with Perseus, an organization Morgan owns.”
She stared at them. The silence was oppressive until she found her voice. “Rafe…was…working for you? To guard me?” Why hadn’t he told her that? Her mind spun. Her heart tumbled.
“Rafe ordinarily would never have taken the assignment,” Morgan told her gently. “The only reason why he did is that I impressed upon him the possibility that your life could be in danger if you went into the Amazon looking for orchids with drug dealers around. He agreed on that premise alone, to protect you.”
“I—see…” Helplessly, Ari opened her hands, she said, “Well…why are you here, then? Is it about Rafe?”
“Yes,” Morgan said heavily, “the satcom call I received was from Rafe, reporting that his camp was under heavy attack by the Valentino Brothers, local drug lords in that region.” Apologetically, Morgan reached out and took her hand. “I hate breaking in here and telling you this, but I know Rafe means something to you. I just received a call from the police department in Manaus. They helicoptered down to his camp and found him wounded and unconscious.”
Gasping, Ari jerked her hand away. “What? How is he? What else do you know?” She fought back a scream of denial as terror sizzled through her.
Morgan looked grave. “I don’t know yet. I came over here as soon as I found out. The last transmission we received reported that Rafe was being flown back to Manaus, and a surgical team was on standby.”
Ben studied Morgan in the shattering silence. “Wait a minute. How could you know where Ari was? If I didn’t know, how would you?”
“Rafe, as part of his after-action report on the mission to protect Ari, told us she was going to New York City. She wrote him several letters since then, and we had her address.” Morgan looked over at her. “We—I—had been keeping tabs on Ari’s whereabouts because Rafe wanted to know how she was doing. He was worried about her being alone in New York, without money or support.”
Ben cursed softly. “Dammit, Morgan, why didn’t you tell me where she was? I’ve been sitting for five months, eating my guts out, wondering how I could locate her. My own daughter, dammit!”
Morgan said, “Ben, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were out of touch or I’d have certainly told you where she was.”
Ari pressed her hand to her mouth. “I’ve got to get on the first plane to Manaus. Mr. Trayhern…thank you for helping…” She reached over, and grabbed the galley proofs. Inside she was shaking. Ari wanted to shriek to the heavens that this was all a bad joke, that Rafe couldn’t be injured. But she knew only too well the danger he lived in down there and she knew the Valentino Brothers had a price on his head.
“Wait,” Morgan pleaded. “I’m getting the jet refueled right now. You can fly down with us, Ms. Worthington, if you want. Whenever one of my people gets wounded, I try to be there for them. Would you like to fly down with me?”
“Yes…yes, I would.” Ari looked at her father. “I have to go, Father. Rafe means a lot to me…I told you that.” She saw the anguish in her father’s eyes. He opened his mouth to protest, raised his hand and then dropped it, as if defeated.
“Yes,” her father rasped, “go with Morgan.”
Morgan reached over, his hand extended. “I’m sorry to rain on your parade, Ben. I wish I was coming here with better news for both of you.”
Ben shook his hand and released it. He gazed forlornly in Ari’s direction. “Will you be coming home?”
Choking back a sob, Ari whispered, “I’m sure I will. I just don’t know when. I care for Rafe, Father. Deeply. He’s hurt. He might be dying. All I want to do right now is get down there and be at his side. He took care of me in so many ways when I needed someone to lean on. And now, I want to be there for him.”
Morgan looked at his watch. “If we take off in the next hour, refuel in Mexico City, we should be down there in about six hours.”
Relief skittered through her. “Good,” Ari whispered brokenly. “Can we go, Mr. Trayhern?” She wanted to tear out of the office and run down the highly polished corridor. Rafe was wounded. How badly? Now Ari was filled with remorse. She’d never told Rafe she loved him. She’d never spoken of what lay in her heart because she’d been afraid. Was it too late?
Chapter Eleven
Ari tried to stifle a cry as she was admitted to the ICU of La Paloma Hospital in Manaus. Rafe lay amid instruments that beeped and sighed on either side of his bed, which was slightly raised. Her gaze flew to his face. She saw dark bruises and lacerations marring his handsome features. He was in a coma. His skin, once a vibrant color, was leached and pale. IVs were taped to both arms, the transparent plastic tubing dangling like limp spaghetti around him. Her hands went icy cold as the nurse closed the door behind her. The room was small and glass enclosed so that the nurses manning the station nearby could keep a watchful eye on all their patients who hovered in the wings of death. Gulping back tears, Ari walked unsteadily to Rafe’s bedside. Her trembling fingers closed over his hand, which lay limply at his side, and she felt the coolness of his flesh. “Oh, no…” she moaned. Gripping his fingers, Ari leaned over and gently slid her other hand across his dark, mussed hair. How alive Rafe had been. Now it was as if his body was here, but his spirit was gone. Leaning over, Ari gently pressed her lips to his forehead and kissed him tenderly. His flesh was cool and damp. The doctors had told her and Morgan that Rafe had been shot in the back, and his liver was in shreds. Why he hadn’t died on the helicopter ride back to Manaus, no one knew. The amount of blood he’d lost was significant. They did not hold much hope of Rafe coming out of the coma and surviving. According to the doctors, it was only a matter of time until he quietly slipped away into the waiting arms of death.
Tears leaked out of her tightly closed eyes as Ari rested her brow against his. Reeling with exhaustion, with fear, Ari whispered, “Rafe? It’s me, Ari. I’m here, darling. I’m here for you. I’m so sorry you’re so hurt, but I know you can beat this. Please…please…I love you.” She halted, tears falling from her eyes. Tightening her grip on his listless fingers, she sobbed, “I love you. Do you hear me? I was afraid to say it when I was here before. I wasn’t sure what love was at that time, Rafe. But I do now. Leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. My time in New York taught me what I didn’t know.” She pressed kiss after kiss across his unmarred brow. “Darling, I love you. I’d do anything to have you come back to me….”
Ari straightened up, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and continued to touch Rafe’s dark hair. He was a mere shadow of the vital man that he’d been before. Her knight…Was life going to rob her of him? Sniffing, Ari looked around and found a box of tissues on the bedstand. She reluctantly released Rafe’s hand and blew her nose several times. Something told her to stay with Rafe. Morgan had asked the doctors to waive the five-minute limit. He’d told them that Ari was engaged to be married to Rafe. It was a white lie, Ari knew, but Morgan had his ways of getting around rules and regulations when necessary, and she was grateful he was here with them.
“Rafe?” she whispered as she came and stood by his bed again. The bars on either side prevented her from sitting down on the edge of the mattress. How badly Ari wanted to slide in on his left side, put her arms around him and just hold him. Hold him and give him her love, her warmth and her undying care.
Unable to do that, Ari gripped his fingers and placed her other hand on his shoulde
r. She began to pray for his life. Without Rafe’s magnificent, vibrant presence, she felt as if someone had torn her heart out of her chest, leaving a gaping, bleeding hole in its place. Trying not to cry, but finding it impossible, Ari bent her head and began to pray in earnest. She knew prayer worked. How often had she seen Inca go to the villages, hold a little baby and by bowing her head and praying, make that baby well again? There was too much evidence, even among the scientists who often scoffed at such things, to show that prayer always helped an ailing person.
Ari had no idea how long she stood leaning against Rafe’s bed praying. She was so deep into her state of compassion and love for Rafe that noises barely intruded into her consciousness. Only when she heard the door open, and the alarmed voices of several nurses did Ari realize something was going on.
“You can’t go in there!” one nurse cried. “You’re armed! We don’t allow anyone with a weapon in this hospital! Maria, call security!”
Blinking, dazed, Ari twisted her head toward the commotion at the door. Her eyes widened.
“Inca!”
Inca smiled grimly, her willow-green eyes glittering. “Ho, little sister.” She turned and glared down at the nurse. “This is my brother, señorita. Do not call security. I am not here to hurt anyone.”
The second nurse, Maria, rushed toward the older, heavier nurse, who had a grip on Inca’s arm and was trying to drag her out of the room.
“Juanita! This is the jaguar goddess! Let her go! She can help!”
Juanita instantly released Inca as if her hand had been burned. She gasped. “The jaguar goddess?”
Maria gripped her companion and pulled her farther away from the woman who stood in military garb, her rifle slung over her left shoulder, two bandoleers across her chest. “Aiee, yes! Don’t call anyone! She is powerful. No one can hurt her. She is here to help. Don’t you see that?”
Inca lifted her chin to an imperious position and looked at Maria. “You are right, señorita. Leave us undisturbed, eh? I come to help my brother and his fiancée.” Turning, Inca closed the door and looked over at Ari. “I am glad you came back, little sister. Rafe has been waiting for you.”
Stunned, Ari stared at Inca, who had clearly come to Rafe’s side straight from the jungle. The boots she wore were muddy, and there was mud splattered up the sides of her camouflage trousers. “You heard? Rafe got ambushed at his camp?” Her voice quavered. “They say he’ll die, Inca.” And she sobbed and pressed her hand against her mouth.
Snorting softly, Inca quickly divested herself of the rifle by propping it against the wall. Ridding herself of the bandoleers, she straightened, threw back her proud shoulders and moved to the opposite side of the bed from where Ari stood.
“Not if I can help it,” she muttered, defiance in her low, growling tone.
Ari started to release Rafe’s hand.
“No, keep your hand upon him while I examine him,” Inca ordered. She frowned and rubbed her hands together rapidly. She then opened them and moved them outwards. Mouth tightening, she cupped her open palms about six inches above Rafe’s head.
“What I am doing now, little sister, is feeling the energy from him. My hands become like radar, picking up information,” she told her softly as she ran her palms in a circular motion above his head, as if searching for something. Then she moved one hand down the midline of his body. “I know you have come back to tell him of your love. He has been terribly lonely without you. I have watched his spirit flicker a little each day without you being there. He loves you with his being, and that,” she said huskily as she looked up and pinned Ari with her gaze, “is what I am hoping will bring him back to us. Now he has a reason to return from the tunnel of light. He has you here, with him.”
Ari watched, mesmerized, as Inca outlined every part of Rafe’s body, beginning with his head and moving down to the bottom of his blanketed feet. The power throbbing around Inca was palpable.
“You feel so different than before,” Ari whispered unsteadily.
Inca smirked, lifted her hands away from Rafe and flung collected energy off them. “That is because, little sister, I am no longer shielding myself, my energy, from you. This is how I normally feel.”
“Shielding?” Ari queried. “I don’t understand….” She watched as Inca moved her hands with obvious certainty above Rafe’s right side, where his liver was badly damaged.
“Yes. Just as you would turn down the volume of a radio that was playing too loudly because it could hurt your hearing, I shield myself, my energy, who I am, from others because it is unsettling to them.”
Inca looked up and withdrew her hands from Rafe’s side. “I no longer have to do that with you. I see you have grown quickly and strongly.” She flashed her a smile. “You took me at my word and lived your walk and talk. That is good. Rafe will be very pleasantly surprised by you, by what you have become.”
Ari heard another commotion at the door. She twisted around. All five nurses and two doctors, dressed in white uniforms, were pressing against the window to watch what Inca was doing.
“You have an audience.”
Snorting, Inca didn’t even bother to look up. “Little sister, I want you to very gently place your left hand on Rafe’s wound. Put your other hand over his heart. I want you to bend your knees slightly. Keep your feet comfortably apart so that as you stand, you are balanced. When I invoke and ask for my jaguar guide to send his energy through to Rafe, you must be strong. Whatever you feel, whatever you hear or see, do not become frightened and jerk your hands away from him.” Inca drilled her with a narrowed look. “This is very important, Ari. I need your love, your commitment to Rafe, in order to talk him into coming back to us. If you jerk your hand away, the connection I and my guide forge will be broken and lost forever. We have only one chance, my sister. One chance…”
Gulping, her heart beating wildly in her chest, Ari did as Inca told her. “I won’t let go, Inca. I swear I won’t. I love him too much…I want him back…. Please, anything you or your helpers can do…I’d be so grateful….”
Inca settled her right hand over the top of Rafe’s head. She placed her left hand over Ari’s, which was pressing upon his chest over his heart. “I know you love him. I knew that from the beginning.” She smiled a wolfish smile, her eyes glittering as she held Ari’s tear-filled ones. “Allow all your love, all your hopes and dreams, to flow into him now. When a spirit hovers in the tunnel between life and death, many times they have to make a choice to stay or go—and it is their choice, not ours. If you see Rafe, talk to him. Talk to him as if he were awake and here with us. Do you understand?”
Caught within the throbbing, swirling power that she felt building around Inca, Ari nodded, her mouth dry. “Yes. I won’t run, Inca. I swear it.”
Taking a deep breath into her body, Inca closed her eyes. “Then let us begin, little sister. We are going to ask for his life, for his spirit, to return to us, to stay. To love you as I know he does…Close your eyes, take a deep breath. Do not open your eyes until I tell you to.”
Inca’s low, growling words were lost in a jolt of electricity that surged through Ari. Shocked by the wild, powerful tingling now racing through her hands and up her arms, she instantly felt fear. Following Inca’s instructions, Ari closed her eyes. Her breath was ragged with fear, with anticipation. She felt a deep burning sensation where Inca’s hand rested on hers. Ari almost wanted to jerk her hand from beneath Inca’s, but she knew better. Her hand was throbbing as if it were red-hot. That energy quickly raced up both her arms to her head, and she suddenly felt dizzy. With her feet planted apart, her knees bent, she was able to maintain her stance. If she hadn’t been prepared for it, Ari would have fallen to the right, as if suffering from a severe case of vertigo.
The electrical energy suddenly left her head and she felt her body explode with a burning, tingling sensation. In moments, Ari had lost all touch with the outer world. All sounds disappeared. Was this what infants and children and the elderly experience
d when Inca laid her hands on them? Ari had heard the villagers try to describe what Inca had done to them and they often compared the experience to that of lightning from the sky. Well, it was true, Ari thought.
She tried to hold on to her center, to her emotions, to the fact that she loved Rafe.
Yes, Inca told her, narrow your focus, your life, your breathing, to your heart, to how you feel about him. Do not waiver. Do not lose that focus. Hold it…That is good.
Inca’s voice rolled inside her head. Ari was so shaken she nearly opened her eyes, but didn’t. She remembered Rafe telling her that Inca had the capacity to use mental telepathy. Before, Inca had never unveiled her abilities to Ari like this. Probably because Ari would have run off like a screaming, frightened child. She was no longer a child, she was an adult. Ari realized in those blistering, heated seconds, as the temperature soared through her body, out her hands and into Rafe’s quiet form, that she had grown from being a girl into a woman those months in Amazonia with Rafe. He had allowed her the beauty of becoming her own woman. As Ari stood there, she felt herself begin to rock slightly back and forth in sync with the energy that was moving in hot, undulating waves through her and into Rafe.
Suddenly white, bursting light exploded inside of Ari’s head. She gasped audibly, but she was so gripped by what she saw, she did not hear the sound she made. Suddenly, somehow, she was standing in a huge, lighted tunnel. Ahead of her was Rafe. The emotions she felt were not hers, but his. Trying to adjust to the situation, Ari felt herself running forward, her arms open, crying out his name. He was standing on the threshold, and she saw several figures made of light hovering nearby, on the other side of that golden line that was like a demarcation between this world and the other. Ari had no idea how she knew that, only that she did.
As she cried out his name, Rafe turned. He was dressed in his usual khaki trousers and short-sleeved shirt. Startled, Ari realized he wasn’t wounded at all. He was his normal, vibrant, handsome self. As she ran toward him, her arms open wide, she saw the sadness on his face disappear.
Man of Passion Page 16
