by Janzen, Tara
“Get down,” he ordered. “Cardena got his truck going. He followed us.”
Uttering a choice phrase in Spanish, Nikki flattened herself into the dirt.
He snorted in disgust. “You still swear like a drunken sailor.”
She threw him an irritated glance. It was a little late for him to start policing her mouth.
“You should have outgrown that kind of language by now,” he added.
Her irritation gave way to disbelief. “You haven’t.”
He lowered the binoculars a fraction of an inch and leveled flinty blue eyes at her. “We’re not discussing me.”
“Now, there’s an idea,” she shot back. “When did you decide to take my advice and finally learn Spanish?”
Turning away from her, he settled the binoculars back over his eyes. “A couple of years ago.”
“Why?”
“I got tired of Washington.”
“And you couldn’t make it back here without me,” she finished for him. She stated the truth bluntly, without a trace of satisfaction or the triumph she’d sworn on a long-ago night would be hers. His tense silence prompted her to continue. “I never did understand how you grew up on the Rio Grande without knowing at least conversational Spanish. What did your parents do, Josh? Keep you locked up?”
“They did what they thought was right,” he said, biting off the words.
“What do you—”
“Lord, Nikki!” he interrupted, dropping the binoculars to his chest. “Didn’t you ever look at me? Joshua Rios! Black hair, dark skin, and blue eyes?”
“Of course I’ve looked at you!” she blustered in self-defense. “I spent a year of my life looking at you!”
“And you still don’t get it?”
“Get what?”
“Prejudice.” He spat the word out, as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. “My maternal and paternal grandparents have never been in the same room together. Not for my mom and dad’s wedding, not for my christening or for any of my brothers’ or sisters’ christenings.” He put the binoculars back to his face, effectively hiding any emotion his memories might have caused.
“So you put cotton in your ears to make your mom’s folks happy?” His explanation had quite a few holes in it as far as she could tell, unless his parents really had locked him up and put blinders on him.
“I didn’t have to. There was enough insulating cotton in our very exclusive neighborhood and in my very exclusive private schools to keep the taint of the barrio off me. Nobody ever mistook me for a wetback . . . except once.”
The edge in his voice caused her glance to go directly to the pale scar tracing his hairline. “They don’t teach knife-fighting in private schools, do they?”
“No. They don’t.” His tone said “Let it drop,” but she’d been too curious, too concerned, about that thin white line to back off when she was this close.
“Did it hurt?”
“Not at the time.” He let out a labored sigh. “I was too damn scared. I thought they were going to cut my throat.”
“How many were there?”
“Three. One to hold my legs, one to hold my arms, and one to slice me up. They weren’t much older than I was, just a group of teenagers from the barrio with no place to go but down. They thought I was a Mexican putting on airs in my fancy clothes, hanging around with a bunch of white kids.”
“I’m sorry, Josh,” she whispered, wanting to reach out and touch him, to comfort the boy he no longer was.
“As I recall, you weren’t there.” The binoculars came down to reveal a wry grin. “If you had been, I’m sure you wouldn’t have gone running off like my prep-school buddies.”
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than the truth struck him like a lightning bolt. Nikki wouldn’t have run off and left him alone. She’d have fought them tooth and nail, verbally abused them into shame, kicked and clawed. She never would have left him alone in that alley with three boys who were bigger than both of them.
The anger he’d been nurturing with every lie she fed him slowly melted away, leaving him open to all the better memories and stronger feelings she inspired.
“You’re the best friend I ever had,” he admitted softly. And the only woman I want. What am I going to do, Nikki?
She read everything in the shadowed depths of his eyes, the honesty of what he’d said, and the pain of what he hadn’t said. Sometimes it hurt to know someone so well. She tore her gaze away. She didn’t know where they would go from there, except to Sulaco and betrayal.
“Is he coming this way?” She lifted her head to look in the direction of the road.
Reluctantly he followed her lead out of the dangerous emotional ground. Whatever happened between them wasn’t going to happen on that rocky hilltop.
The binoculars framed the patch of road below them where her Chevy and Cardena’s truck were parked. Or rather, where Cardena’s truck had been parked. Josh swung the binoculars up the road and caught a dust plume arcing up behind the rapidly moving vehicle. The rancher was driving as he had earlier, like a man with someone hot on his tail.
Josh refocused on the Chevy just as a convoy of jeeps pulled up in a cloud of flying dirt and skidding tires. The peaceful quiet of the mountain made an eerie backdrop for the commotion he witnessed. Men scrambled out of the vehicles, guns at the ready. One man directed them all with flailing arms and barked orders. Brazia.
A sick feeling worked its way up from the pit of his stomach when he saw what the men were doing to Nikki’s car. “Is your insurance paid up on the Chevy?”
“Yes,” she said warily.
“Well, get ready for a helluva show.” He slipped the strap over his head and packed the binoculars away in his satchel.
“What do you mean?”
In answer, he nodded toward the road.
Nikki waited, her anxiety increasing with each passing minute. A tickling stream of sweat ran down the side of her face. She brushed her cheek and kept staring at the line of trees bordering the road.
“I’ve changed my mind about the border, Nikki. We’re going to need more than a political boundary to discourage Brazia. Even the artillery in Sulaco might not be enough. The man is overly enthusiastic.”
“Brazia’s down there?”
“Frothing at the mouth,” he added, alluding to the man’s “mad dog” reputation. “Just to satisfy my curiosity”—he paused for a moment, his voice unsure—“will you tell me what you did to get so many people so damn mad at you?”
There it was, her chance to come clean, and she wasn’t quite ready for it. “I don’t think Cardena is mad at me,” she hedged.
“Sure, Nikki. He was shooting at us because we skipped out on breakfast.”
“Maybe he just wanted us to stop running.”
“A couple of bullets in the back would have accomplished that real successfully,” he said dryly.
“What I mean is, if he’s involved with the rebels, if the phone call was to Delgado, then he might have wanted to escort us.”
“That’s a lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘mights’ to be hanging your life on. You won’t mind if I don’t buy them all, will you?”
No, she didn’t mind, but she’d been doing some thinking, and—
“Carlos Delgado?” he interrupted her train of thought, his abrupt tone telling her there was more than curiosity behind the question.
“Yes. He’s the one trying to unite all the different—”
“He’s your boyfriend,” he cut her off again, the sparks of anger returning to his eyes. “For crying out loud, Nikki, the man’s old enough to be your father! Your grandfather! What in the hell is the attraction? What has he got that—” His mouth snapped shut.
“He’s not my—” Her words were lost, drowned out by a massive explosion on the road. Her mouth agape, she stared in amazement at the fireball climbing into the sky. Pieces of metal and rubber floated in the air, held weightless for an instant by the force propelling them off the ground.
“The man’s got a real serious streak of mayhem in him,” Josh said softly, watching with equal amazement
“He blew up my car,” she gasped. “He blew up my car!”
“And wishes you were in it. Come on.” He stood up, pulling her with him. “We’ve got to find a place to hide before dark.”
Dazed by Brazia’s single-minded viciousness, Nikki stumbled after Josh, glancing back every now and then to watch the smoky remains of the explosion trail across the sky and become lost in the clouds. The man was insane. If he caught up with them before they reached Sulaco, he’d kill them whether they surrendered or not. The cold realization put strength into tired muscles and a tight cramp into her stomach.
Josh kept to the Sulaco side of the ridge until the increasing steepness forced them up on top. Nikki didn’t question his avoidance of the forest. She didn’t want to go back into the sweltering sauna of biting insects and thorny bushes either, and they were making much better time on the cliffs.
Twilight spread across the eastern sky, reaching out to meet them. The moon hung above the savanna before beginning its nightly climb over the mountains. Nikki focused all of her attention on the pale silver disk, praying she could keep going as long as Josh asked her to.
But her body reached a point of no return, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
“Josh,” she hissed, doubling over, her arms wrapped around her waist.
He heard the distress in her voice and immediately came back for her. He didn’t need to ask what the problem was. “We’re almost to the river. Can you make it?”
“No.”
He accepted the statement for what it was, her bottom line. He put his arms around her and helped her to the ground. “I’m going to find a place with better cover. Eat something while I’m gone, something besides antacid tablets.”
“Sure,” she groaned, pulling her legs close to her chest.
“And don’t ball up.” He stretched her legs out. “Breathe deep. Concentrate. Relax.”
“Yes, Dr. Rios.”
“And keep your wisecracks to yourself.” He finished untying the sleeping bag from her duffel and stuffed it behind her back. “I won’t be gone long. If you hear anybody coming, disappear.” He gave her a quick, perfunctory kiss on the top of her head—which she could no sooner explain than anything else about the last twenty-four hours—and melted into the night, a shadow of dark clothes and light steps.
Nikki propped herself more securely against a boulder with the sleeping bag for a cushion. Sounds she hadn’t noticed while running rose softly from the forest, wind rustling the leaves, the intermittent squawks of birds settling in, and if she cocked her head just right, the flowing rhythm of the river far below her perch.
Behind her, she heard nothing. Forcing a deep breath from her lungs, she concentrated on relaxing her body, knowing her mind was doomed to remain in a tangle of tension and readiness until . . . A mental image flickered across her mind, drawing down the corners of her mouth. Until the meeting in Sulaco, until Josh really did walk out of her life, never to reappear.
Travinas had put her in a no-win situation, but she was the one who had decided to rely on the expediency of lies. The truth wouldn’t have changed anything. Brazia had been more in control of the sequence of events than either she or Josh. They’d been reacting, scrambling to stay one step ahead of him. But she knew why and Josh didn’t.
She lowered her head into her hands. She should have told him. No, she reconsidered immediately. There was no telling what direction he would have taken off in if he’d known Brazia was searching for him. He certainly wouldn’t have chosen to go to Sulaco, where she needed him to be.
Lost in her own guilty thoughts, she didn’t hear the stealthy footsteps creeping up behind her. And by the time she saw the Kalashnikov leveled at her face, it was far too late.
Eleven
Overkill, Nikki thought, working up her anger to hold back the fear pushing at her from every corner of her mind. Her captors had bound, gagged, and blindfolded her before dragging her off the mountain and throwing her in the back of a jeep. She strained against the cords tying her wrists and tried not to imagine what it was she tasted on the rag crammed into her mouth. Oil or axle grease, maybe. Unsanitary, definitely.
The careening vehicle swayed into a turn, and she braced her feet to hold herself upright on the backseat. Pinpricks of dust and fine gravel stung her face and arms. The curses she couldn’t speak caught in her throat.
They wouldn’t kill her, she kept telling herself. Travinas wanted Joshua Rios, not Nikki Kydd, and Josh was long gone, probably halfway to Sulaco by now. He was probably worried sick, or thanking his lucky stars he’d gotten rid of her. She should have told him; she should have told him everything. She bit down on the rag and strained again, rubbing her wrists up and down. If Brazia caught up with him, Josh wouldn’t have a chance. Damn these ropes! She grunted, giving it everything she had, then slumped back into the seat, the ropes still securely tied.
They might try using her for bait, to draw Josh out. What an ironic twist that would be. She’d baited her trap with him but ended up catching herself a whole bunch of trouble. Suddenly the cord slipped a little lower on her wrists, giving her hope and fear at the same time. Even if she worked herself free, she’d be helpless against so many.
They might kill me.
The thought she’d been fighting crept in softly ahead of her anger, chilling her despite the sultriness of the night. They’d caught her within shouting distance of Sulaco. Travinas wasn’t stupid. He’d probably already put the pieces together: Delgado slipping through his fingers in the nick of time, Josh showing up at her apartment, the two of them heading north. Sweat broke out on her upper lip, and she tried to wipe it off with her shoulder. How long had they been driving? Half an hour? Longer?
She wished they hadn’t blindfolded her. It was too dramatic, too scary, too reminiscent of firing squads and last requests.
The jeep took another turn and slowed down. Nikki’s heart started pounding faster. Reckoning time.
When they stopped, someone hauled her out of the jeep, using the nape of her neck and the waistband of her pants for handholds. She landed on her knees, and the same someone immediately picked her up again, half dragging, half carrying her forward.
She stumbled along until he jerked her to a stop and pulled the blindfold down around her neck. The first thing she saw, the only thing she saw, was Brazia, standing in the glare of the headlights, his black gaze raking her with satisfied contempt.
“Journalists are such fools. And you, Nikki Kydd, are the biggest fool of all.” His lips curled around the words. A riding crop twitched in his hand. “I told Travinas to get rid of you a long time ago. Now I’ll get rid of you myself. He can thank me later. Lock her up.” He dismissed the soldier by cracking the tiny whip against his thigh.
Her protests died in the greasy rag over her mouth. She gave in to panic and struggled against the hands gripping her arms, propelling her toward a shack at the edge of the forest. She kicked the soldier in the shin, and he twisted her arms up between her shoulder blades. She groaned at the pain. Then she was on her face in the dirt inside the shack. The door slammed shut behind her. A bolt slid into place.
Her breath came hard between sobs of agony and fear. Using her shoulder for leverage, she inched her knees under her. She had to get out of there, before Brazia—
A scuffling sound from the other side of the shack froze her in a crouch. “Nikki?”
Josh!
He came out of the corner, a looming shadow against the barred window. “Dammit! Just a second.” He twisted his shoulders, muscles straining against his bonds. With a grunt he broke free, shaking the rope from his hands. He dropped to his knees and untied the gag from her mouth.
“How did you do that?” she asked, working the kinks out of her jaw, relief flooding her veins. Josh was there. They’d think of something. They had to or they’d both be dead.
<
br /> “I didn’t give the guy who tied me up a chance to do it right,” he muttered, scooting behind her and unraveling the knot at her wrists.
In a minute she was free. She threw her arms around him and held on for dear life, burying her head in the crook of his neck. “Oh, Josh . . . Josh.” All of her love came out in the breathless whisper of his name.
“Nikki, Nikki,” he parodied, roughly pulling her arms away and setting her back on her heels. “I’ll be damned if I let you get around me again, so save the theatrics.”
“Wh-what?”
Not quite,” he growled. “Try ‘why.’ As in why do you want me dead? Three years is a helluva long time to carry a grudge.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Brazia. He congratulated me on having stayed a step ahead of him since Colombia. He told me about your deal with Travinas, and he promised me neither of us would see the light of day. Interesting story, except the ending needs a little work.” He finished with a disgusted sound and pushed himself up, slapping the dust off his pants. He walked as far away from her as the small building allowed. “So what do you think, Nikki? Will your boyfriend come to the rescue? Or have you lied and cheated your way out of his affections, too?”
Stunned, Nikki sat in the dirt, her mind a complete blank.
“Is that a yes?” He half turned and looked at her over his shoulder, one eyebrow lifted in a sardonic curve. “You should have been smarter, Nikki. Old men are a lot harder to fool than young men. They like their little girls all sweet and compliant.” He laughed softly and shook his head, his gaze raking her body before he met her eyes with a bitter look.
“Ah, you’re sweet, Nikki. Plenty sweet. But compliance has never been your strong point. . . . Damn you.” The last disappeared in a harsh whisper as he turned back to the window. He grabbed the iron bars and gave them a mighty shake.
