Night Rescuer

by Cindy Dees

  His willing body leaped to attention with surprising alacrity.

  “Mmm. That’s more like it,” she murmured.

  “The woman is a wildcat. What have I gotten myself into?”

  “You have no idea,” she replied, abruptly serious. “I’ll do my best to keep you out of it, though. I promise.”

  He rolled over, pinning her beneath him. “You’ll do no such thing. I’m involved with you now, whether you like it or not.” They’d looked into each other’s souls, for crying out loud. They were most definitely in this together. Whatever this was.

  Chapter 4

  Melina woke up to bright sunlight the next morning, and the oddest sensation under her faintly aching head. Her ear rested on something warm and resilient and suspiciously like a…

  She sat bolt upright. Her suspicion had been correct. It was a muscular, and very male, shoulder. And it belonged to John Hollister. It hadn’t been a dream. A wonderful, incredible, spectacular dream. A perfect night.

  Well, at least she’d managed one perfect night before she checked out of the ol’ mortal coil. She supposed that was something to be pleased about. John shifted beside her and she glanced down. She was startled to see gray eyes gazing steadily back at her, clear and fully alert. No hangover for him, no sir.

  “How’re you feeling this morning?” he asked with a distinct note of caution in his voice.

  She smiled down at him. “A little dehydration headache, but nothing a couple aspirin and some water won’t take care of.”

  “I have some good painkillers if the aspirin doesn’t work,” he mentioned as he sat up, pooling the sheet in his lap. My, my, my. The man had acres of muscles her anatomy textbooks couldn’t have rendered any better.

  She shrugged. “I never do anything stronger than aspirin.”

  “Lucky you. In my line of work, I end up taking all kinds of stuff to keep going. Or at least I used to.”

  And what line of work would that be, exactly? It occurred to her that he’d drawn quite a bit of information out of her last night but had failed to reciprocate with even the sketchiest details of his life. The sum total of what she knew about him was that he worked for a private courier company, he knew where to pick up a weapon in Peru, and he was positively unbelievable in bed. She’d never been with a man even remotely like him. He made the rest of them seem like adolescent boys fumbling their way through the act.

  He swung his feet out of the bed and strolled, gloriously and unconcernedly naked, into the bathroom. Now that was a view a girl could get used to.

  “Wanna shower first?” he called out to her.

  A slow smile spread across her face. In for a penny, in for a pound. She got out of bed and strolled equally as naked to the bathroom. “How ’bout we share the hot water?”

  As she rounded the corner, he looked up from a handful of pills, startled. “Uhh, okay. Lemme get these down.”

  She stepped forward, curious. “What are those?”

  “Carisoprodol.”

  “A high-powered muscle relaxant? For what?” she asked.

  Now, he looked really surprised. “How do you know what carisoprodol does?”

  “I work for a pharmaceutical firm, remember?”

  “Doing what?”

  “Research, mostly.”

  “What kind of research?”

  The kind she emphatically didn’t want to talk about. She replied lightly, “The medical kind, mostly.” She stepped over to the shower’s water spigot. “Do you like it cool or screaming hot?”

  He stepped up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. He murmured in her ear, “The more screaming, the better, darlin’.”

  Laughing she stepped into the shower with him and forgot all about carisoprodol. That was until she moved around behind him to soap up his back. The circular, puckered scar just to the left of his L-4 lumbar vertebra was impossible to miss. Still red, the scar was obviously less than a year old. And was just as obviously a bullet wound.

  “Your last girlfriend shot you, huh?” she remarked as she sudsed up the scar.

  He started like he’d forgotten it was back there. His back muscles bunched into rock hard ridges of…of what? Embarrassment? Stress? Denial? She couldn’t read him at all. A need to comfort him surprised her. She wasn’t usually the maternal kind, and John didn’t strike her as the kind of man who needed or appreciated being mothered. He was an adult in charge of his own life all the way.

  The least she could do was distract him from his scar since she was the one who brought it up. She slid around in front of him, rubbing her slippery, soapy body against his as she went. “Mmm. Nice,” she murmured, smiling up at him.

  “You’re a beautiful woman, Melina Montez,” he murmured back. He slicked her hair back from her face, studying her seriously. “Not that many women look this good with their hair wet and no makeup.”

  “You obviously are blinded by the soap in your eyes,” she replied, laughing.

  “I may be blinded, baby, but it isn’t soap doing the job.”

  How could a girl resist a compliment like that? She melted against him, savoring the unbearably sensual slide of soapy skin on skin. She stood on tiptoe and wrapped her right leg around his hips in blatant invitation. With the hot water pounding down on them both, he stared down at her, abruptly serious.

  “I don’t deserve you,” he said.

  She barely heard him over the sound of the water. “You don’t deserve me?” she echoed. “I think you’ve got that backward. I don’t deserve you.”

  “Ahh, honey, you have no idea. The things I’ve done-”

  The back of her calf rubbed against that telltale scar on his back as she blinked up at him through the shower’s spray. “We’re both adults. Everyone who hasn’t lived in a cocoon has baggage of some kind. I won’t hold the skeletons in your closet against you if you won’t hold mine against me.”

  Doubt flickered in his gaze and his eyes glazed with distant thoughts. Was he skeptical of her past or his?

  She leaned into him, forcing him to acknowledge her presence. “We’re here together now. No past. No future. Just this moment.”

  He didn’t quite come back to her, his eyes were still dark and haunted.

  “Come back to me, John,” she murmured. She reached down with her hand to guide him into her throbbing heat. Oh, yeah. That did it. Awareness of her roared back into his eyes, and he aggressively took charge of the moment. Wrapping one arm around her waist, he picked her up and backed her against the cool, tile wall of the shower. With his other hand braced by her head, he drove into her until all thought fled her mind. There was nothing at all except the moment and the two of them, the pounding water and steam, and the rhythm of their bodies slapping into one another as they drove away their demons.

  They ordered room service and ate in, lazily watching the morning fog burn off the city skyline below. As hard as she tried to ignore it, the moment came when she could no longer delay the inevitable. She had to make that phone call. So much for her fantasy tryst before she handed herself over to the jackals. Her mouth set grimly, she dug in her purse and fished out the piece of paper with the phone number she’d been given to call when she got here. She reached for the telephone.

  A big hand landed gently on top of hers, stopping her from lifting the handset. “I’ll make the call, Melina.”

  “They won’t talk to you. They’re expecting me!”

  His gaze narrowed far too intelligently. “Who’s they?”

  “The people I’m supposed to call,” she replied with desperate calm. He mustn’t mess this up! Her family’s lives rode on it. Huayar had been clear. Any deviation at all from her instructions, and her family would be tortured and possibly killed.

  “I’m sorry, honey. I need you to be more specific than that.”

  “John, let me make the call. Please just stay out of this.”

  He turned at that, capturing both of her hands in his and drawing her away from the phone entirely. He le
d her across the room and gently forced her down into one of the armchairs. Alarmingly, he continued to stand, looming over her with his arms crossed.

  “With all due respect, sweetheart, what the hell’s going on? I already told you that you can tell me anything. And I meant it. But I need to know what I’m up against, here.”

  “You’re not up against anything. I hired you to deliver me and nothing more.”

  He replied dryly, “As I recall, you fired me last night.”

  She glanced up at him, startled. Humor danced in his silver gaze. “That’s not fighting fair to throw that in my face now.”

  “I never said I fight fair.”

  She sighed. “John.”

  “Melina.”

  “I can’t tell you, okay? There’s more going on here than meets the eye. But you don’t need to know the details. In fact, you’ll be safer if you don’t know anything.”

  She scooted backward as he leaned toward her, planting his hands on the arms of the chair and forcing her to arch back to look at him. His expression went blacker than sin. He gritted out words slowly, enunciating clearly. “Whether you like it or not, and whether you cooperate or not, my job is to deliver you to your family safe and sound. If you won’t tell me what I’m up against to make that happen, then we’re not leaving this hotel room.”

  “But I have to go…I can’t stay here…”

  “I’m bigger than you, Melina, and trust me, I’m meaner than you are. We go nowhere until you spill your guts.”

  She closed her eyes in frustration. And everything had been going so well, marching along exactly according to plan-to Huayar’s plan. Maybe John had a point. Maybe taking a modicum of control of this process wouldn’t be a bad thing for her. If nothing else, it might alleviate a little of her sense of being a lamb toddling along docilely to her own slaughter.

  “Fine,” she huffed. “I’m not going to meet my family exactly. It’s a work related thing. I’m going to meet some people…to…exchange some information.”

  “In the remotest region of Peru? What the hell kind of information requires that sort of meeting place?”

  She folded her arms stubbornly. “I’m not saying any more. I’ve already said too much.”

  He studied her speculatively for long enough that she developed a nearly uncontrollable urge to squirm. Finally, he commented, “I can think of about two innocent reasons for you to be heading deep into the Andes and about ninety-five reasons that are anything but innocent. Which is it?”

  They’d made love until the wee hours of the morning last night, had bared their bodies and their souls to one another. He’d looked into the face of her desperation and naked despair and he hadn’t flinched. And he didn’t strike her as the judgmental type. He gave off a vibe of having done enough things he wouldn’t want others to judge, so he wouldn’t be the first one to cast stones. Still, she couldn’t tell him the truth. And yet, she couldn’t bring herself to lie to him, either. That would be too easy, the coward’s way out. She pressed her lips firmly together.

  He sighed. “Give me the phone number. I’ll make the call.”

  “I already said you can’t.”

  “And I already said you’re not doing it. That leaves only me to make the call. End of discussion.”

  She glared up at him. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a stubborn, unreasonable man?”

  “They usually say I’m pigheaded and arrogant, too. But I’ll give you a few days to get there. In the meantime, please hand over the phone number nicely, or I may have to take it by force.”

  “You wouldn’t!” she gasped, aghast.

  He raised a sardonic eyebrow and merely stared at her. His expression gave away absolutely nothing. Did she believe him, or should she call his bluff? She studied him for a moment more. Nope. He wasn’t bluffing. Calm readiness radiated from him. He was fully prepared to mug her for the phone number. Man. She could see where the pigheaded and arrogant accusations came from. Disgruntled, she passed over the slip of paper.

  “Thank you,” he said with quiet dignity.

  Damn him. He would have to go and be a gracious winner, too. That made it harder to stay mad at him. She sat back in her chair with a huff.

  He dialed the number quickly.

  His end of the conversation was painfully brief and in brisk Spanish. He jotted down something on the pad of paper beside the phone, and then, without asking any questions, got off the phone.

  “What did they say?” she cried. “Where are we going? When do we have to be there? Is…everything…okay?”

  “Whoa, there, Mel. Slow down.”

  She reeled back, stunned. Her father was the only person who’d ever called her Mel. Her sweet, absentminded father, whose life hung in the balance. Tears stung her eyelids and she blinked them away rapidly. All of a sudden, John was there, his strong arms wrapping around her and pulling her close. His hand pushed her head down gently onto his shoulder. She drew a sobbing breath. Another. And then she pulled herself together by main force. As much as she wanted to let it all go, she didn’t have the luxury. Not yet. Precious lives rode on her keeping her act together. Just a little longer, and then she could lose it.

  He leaned away from her, studying her without turning her loose.

  “What?” she mumbled.

  “You’re a strong woman, I’ll grant you that. But you’re not strong enough to do this alone. You need someone. Let me help you.”

  “I am letting you help-whether I want to or not,” she replied a little peevishly. “You stole the phone number and talked to my contacts, and now you know where to go and I don’t.”

  He nodded slowly. “Good point. And I think I’m going to keep it that way, too. I’m sorry, honey, but I don’t entirely trust you not to dump me once we get up in the mountains. I don’t know what you’re tangled up in, but I damned well know you’re in way over your head.”

  She stared at him, her jaw hanging open. He wasn’t going to tell her where they were going? But it was her trip. He was just along to act as a guide and travel companion!

  “When do you want to leave?” he asked casually.

  “Oh, now you’re asking for my opinion?” she retorted with light sarcasm.

  He smiled serenely at her. “No need to get bitchy. This arrangement is for the best and you know it. You’re grown-up enough to admit it.”

  His bland comment stopped her in her tracks. He was exactly right. She was an adult. She wasn’t going to lose her cool. She’d traveled thousands of miles and was only days from making a deal with one of the deadliest snakes on the planet. She had bigger fish to fry. As much as she’d enjoy drinking more cognac and hiding from reality with him for a few more days, duty-and her family-called.

  She sighed. “I want to leave right away.”

  He nodded. “Okay, then. Let’s dump that ridiculous stuff you packed and then hit the road. We can drive the first part of the trip, but as you suggested, the last part of it’s going to have to happen on foot.”

  She lifted her eyebrows. “Which part of my clothing last night did you find ridiculous? The slinky black dress you couldn’t take your eyes off of all the way through supper, or the sexy shoes that made you think naughty thoughts while you were sipping your cognac, or maybe my purple lace bra? Oh, I know. It was that thong you couldn’t wait to peel off of me.”

  He threw up his hands in surrender. “Uncle, uncle! You can take your sexy clothes with you. Let’s have a look at what else you’ve got in your bags and we’ll see what we can lose to lighten the load.”

  As it turned out, most of her non-clothing items-things she’d thought would be vital on a mountain trek-John deemed worthless. It was depressing that she was so unprepared for what lay ahead. But by the same token, he seemed to know precisely what he was doing. Gratitude for his competent presence flooded her yet again…even if he was a bully.

  It took them nearly an hour to sort through her luggage and box up the stuff she wouldn’t need. John carried it dow
n to the concierge, who promised to mail it to her home in Mexico City. She didn’t have the heart to tell John that she wouldn’t be needing any of it again. Ever. What he didn’t know truly wouldn’t hurt him.

  She waited impatiently in their room until he secured a vehicle-a banged up Land Rover that might once have been white, but was now permanently stained a dusty beige. She was startled when he hustled her out to a loading dock behind the hotel where he’d parked the vehicle, but she had faith he had a reason for his caution.

  She said nothing as he efficiently guided the Land Rover through the squalor and urban sprawl of Lima’s suburbs. Eventually, he turned the vehicle onto a two-lane, potholed road that apparently passed for a highway in this part of the world. Lima fell behind, and verdant farmland stretched out around them, terraced up the hillsides.

  “What did the guy on the phone say?” she finally broke down and asked John.

  “Not much. Just that you were to proceed to a set of coordinates and await further instructions.”

  “That’s all? No…other messages?”

  “What sort of message?” he asked smoothly.

  “Never mind.”

  They drove on in silence for a while.

  Out of the blue, John said, “He said everyone’s fine, so far.”

  She sagged in her seat, so relieved she felt like crying. The only thought that went through her head, over and over and over was, Thank God my family’s safe. For now.

  And then John asked grimly, “So, tell me. Why would some guy feel compelled to let you know someone is fine? This someone wouldn’t be fine why?”

  She winced. That was the question of the hour, wasn’t it? Bucking up her courage, she looked him in the eye and shook her head regretfully. His eyelids flickered in reluctant acknowledgement. It wasn’t a surrender, but it was a declaration of a momentary truce. She’d take it.

  She would not…could not…answer his questions. She hadn’t the slightest doubt that to do so would spell a death sentence for her parents and her brother. Even if refusing to answer John’s questions spelled the end between the two of them, she wouldn’t sacrifice her family’s safety for her own personal gratification. Ever.