by Cindy Dees
“Uhh, John, what am I supposed to do with this?”
“Eat it.”
She recoiled in horror. A handwarmer, yes, but a meal? No way! She took a cautious sniff. “What is it?”
“Freeze-dried chili mac,” he replied cheerily enough to rouse her suspicions. He waved his steaming pouch. “Or you can have my beanie weenies if you like…but they give most people gas like crazy.”
She answered dryly, “Thanks, but I think I’ll pass on the beans.” She poked her plastic spoon at the glop in her bag. Bracing herself, she blew on a bit of it and gingerly put it in her mouth. It wasn’t bad in a better-than-nothing way, but gourmet fare it was not. However, she needed the calories if today’s hike was going to be anything like last night’s marathon from hell. Of course, she didn’t have any right to complain if he dragged her up and down the mountainsides; after all, he was doing this at her request to save her family.
She finished choking down the chili mac. By about halfway through the freeze-dried meal, it actually started to taste decent. She cringed to imagine how many taste buds she’d killed to arrive at this state of culinary acceptance.
John efficiently collected their trash and stowed it in his pack. He pointed the way for her to walk up the hill, while he walked backward behind her, fussing periodically. Finally, she stopped and turned around to face him. “What are you doing?”
“Erasing our trail.”
“You don’t plan to make the rest of this trek backward, do you?” she asked in surprise.
He laughed. “No. I’m just making it hard for an amateur to follow us. We don’t have time for me to completely counter-track our passage.”
“Counter-track?”
He nodded. “That’s where I erase our trail so that even a professional tracker can’t follow us.”
“Why are you messing with our trail at all? Don’t the bad guys already know we’re coming?”
“Our bad guys aren’t necessarily the only fish in the pond out here.”
“Oh, good Lord. Are you saying we may have to fight off other bandits before we reach our own personal bandits?”
He grinned widely at that one. “Something like that. I’m hoping that the very act of halfway hiding our trail will deter the casual bandit from fooling with us. There are some truly serious bad guys out here, and I expect the local yokels will want to avoid tangling with the big sharks.”
“So you’re basically trying to make our trail look like a…a big shark’s.”
“Exactly.” He beamed at her.
“You live in a very strange universe, John Hollister.”
His grin widened as he dragged a bundle of twigs across a patch of dirt. “Welcome to my world, darlin’.”
Geez. No wonder the guy was a mess. Except he didn’t strike her as the type to fall apart. Most of the time he was so strong and centered and mature, like he solidly knew who and what he was and why he existed. But then she’d catch a glimpse of that shadow in his eyes, a vast, empty place of pain and loss. Something really terrible had happened to him. She almost would rather not know what could have rattled a man like him so badly. She was by no means qualified to take on his demons, but unfortunately, she might be all John had. She wouldn’t presume to consider herself his soul mate or the love of his life, but she was his lover for now. Hopefully, that would count for something. Like it or not, it was up to her alone to throw the guy a lifeline.
She waited until they’d hiked all day and half the night and had crawled once more into a tiny pup-tent affair that John had rigged up. It was drizzling on and off outside, but he’d managed to find them a dry spot to lie down and had rigged the tarp to keep the rain off them. Clever man. Handy to have around.
To his credit and to her encouragement, he lay down first and then stretched an arm out to her, offering his shoulder for her to sleep on. Given the sharp bite to the air tonight, she was all over cuddling up to his big, warm body.
Once she had her arm and a leg tossed across him, trapping him in place, she launched her first life line at him.
She murmured casually, “How did you get shot, John?”
He turned to stone beneath her. Right there, a full-body transformation to granite. Cold and hard and unyielding. His silence was deafening.
“You need to tell someone. And hey, you’ve already shared your body and soul with me.” She added winningly, “I know about your guilt problem and I haven’t run away.”
“You can’t run away,” he bit out.
“Maybe. But I could also have pretended not to notice it, or I could have blown it off as no big deal. But I called it what it is and I still don’t hate you.”
The tension humming through him was terrible. Yup. She’d put her finger exactly on the heart of the issue. As she’d suspected. Whatever incident had injured his back was also the source of his emotional wounds. He’d linked the two together. Physical pain and emotional pain all in one big messy jumble in his noggin.
He let out a long, shuddering sigh. It wasn’t an answer, but it was a good sign that the granite had thawed to, oh, brick.
“Talk to me, John. Tell me whatever you want to about your back, about how you hurt it, or how it feels now, something. But you’ve got to start talking. If you bottle this up inside you forever, it’ll eat you alive.” She propped herself up on his chest and stared down in the darkness at the indistinct shadow that was his face. He was giving nothing away.
She reached up and ran her fingers lightly through his hair, caressing his broad forehead, and murmured, “I care far too much about you to let that happen without putting up a fight.” She repeated herself for emphasis. “I’m going to fight it, John. You can help me or you can get in my way, but I’m not letting this thing get the best of you without doing my damnedest to stop it.”
“The shrinks say it’s normal to spend a period of time not wanting to talk about a trauma.”
She snorted. “Not when you’re destroying yourself over it.” She laid her palm against his stubbly cheek and spoke softly. “You’ve turned whatever happened inward against yourself. It’s long past time you talked about it.”
Beneath her hand he shook his head.
“Last night you forced me to talk to you, to tell you my deepest, darkest secret. And I have to admit, John, I feel better having it off my chest. I’m not big enough to physically make you talk, and I can’t threaten to abandon you out here like you did me. But John, don’t you owe me the same honesty you forced out of me?”
John stared at Melina in thinly disguised panic. The sky was falling, the trees closing in on him. He couldn’t do this! Not here. Not now. He couldn’t face his demons, not in the middle of an op. Special Forces missions were hard enough without additional dragons to slay. And no doubt about it, this had turned into a full-blown op. Problem was, he was out here solo with a civilian, and what he really needed was a twelve-or sixteen-man team and a whole lot of firepower.
Was she right? Was she all he had? Was he so far down the road to self-destruction that he had to do this now or kill them both? Hell, he didn’t know. He didn’t know anything anymore. Melina had turned everything he thought he knew about himself and his life on its head.
But to talk about the ambush…to tear back all the careful layers of insulation he’d built over that wound, to relive the agony…terror shuddered through him at the mere thought of it.
“Melina. What you’re saying may make sense. But you don’t understand what you’re asking of me.”
She gazed gently at him. “I think maybe I do understand. You’re possibly the strongest man I’ve ever known-and I’m not talking physically. If something happened that even you can’t handle, it scares me to death to imagine what that might be. We can’t fix whatever happened, and I don’t have the training to begin to help you come to terms with it. But I think we have to face it at least a little-enough to make sure you can hold it together well enough to get through whatever lies ahead of us.”
He swore under his
breath. Like it or not, his gut was telling him the same thing. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. It didn’t help the sudden and pounding headache he had.
“You don’t have to be all macho to show off for me, you know,” she murmured. She added coyly, “You already got the girl.”
He grinned lopsidedly at her. “I still have a reputation to maintain, you know.”
“Okay. Well, you do your muscle flexing and Neanderthal grunting or whatever it is you do, and I’ll try to remember to act suitably impressed. But don’t suffer needlessly, okay? Your guilt is accomplishing nothing.”
A moment of clarity burst behind his eyelids. But he did need to suffer. Deserved to suffer. Was that was this was all about? An elaborate form of self-punishment?
He fell asleep without finding any answers. But when he woke up, squinting into the bright morning light, he actually felt a little better. It was probably just a matter of having gotten a few hours of decent shut-eye. He had to give her credit, though. His rest was entirely her doing. He hadn’t slept for squat since the ambush…not until Melina had come into his bed and into his arms.
They went through the now familiar routine of eating breakfast and packing up camp in silence. He was eternally grateful that she didn’t feel a need to continuously and mercilessly pick at his emotional scabs.
In a contemplative frame of mind, he hefted the big backpack of gear. He waited while she picked up the small, light rucksack he’d prepared for her, and then he turned to face the trail. “Once we top this ridge, we’ll descend into a long valley and hike along its length for the rest of today and most of tomorrow.”
Melina nodded, a smile of relief on her face.
“Don’t look so happy. The forest is thicker down there and it’ll be tough going.”
Her face fell. “So we either get no oxygen or no trail?”
“That pretty much sums it up. The good news for you is I’ll go first and make a trail.”
“Three cheers for macho he-men!”
He grinned over his shoulder at her.
In point of fact, the walk down into the valley was pretty easy, and for several hours, they hiked along in companionable silence. He actually enjoyed losing himself in the simple rhythms of movement. The exercise felt good. It had been a long time since he’d done anything like this. Most of his rehab had been done in sterile, impersonal clinics or gyms. But to get outside, smell the green air, feel the wind on his skin…it was a good thing. Yet another simple gift Melina had brought back into his life.
They had about an hour of light left when they hit the tree line and entered the primeval forest of the remote Andes. Its gloom was mysterious and magical, and under other circumstances, he’d have richly enjoyed the opportunity to pass within its hallowed depths. But as it was, Melina was breathing heavily behind him and they were getting low on water. Should he press on and put a little more distance behind them, or should he go ahead and start looking for a campsite and a stream?
A small sound caught his attention. A twig snapping. Not an odd sound in the woods, but for some reason, it stood the hackles on the back of his neck straight up. He turned sharply to Melina and pressed a cautionary finger against his lips. She froze. He gestured with his hands palm down, pressing down toward the forest floor and then he sank down himself. Thankfully, Mel got the idea and sank down beside him.
She threw him a questioning gaze that needed no hand signals to translate.
He leaned close to her and breathed, “I heard something.”
Apparently, she understood that he meant he’d heard something not of these woods, something that didn’t belong out there. The two of them listened intently for many long minutes. Nada. No more noises even remotely similar to that snapping twig. And frankly, that worried him more than several more twig cracks would have. If there had been a steady pattern of snaps, he’d know some wild creature was nearby. But no beast of the forest had this much patience.
Something was out there, watching and waiting. Or rather someone.
Chapter 10
Melina’s gaze darted left and right, frantically seeking their follower. They were so exposed out here! She wanted to crawl over to John and creep inside his shirt, to hide her head until the danger went away and let him take care of everything. Except this whole mess was her problem, not his. He’d already gone above and beyond the call of duty to keep her safe.
After an eternity, John leaned toward her and murmured, “Whoever was out there has gone away or gone to ground.”
“Which means what, exactly?”
“We can talk and move again. Whoever’s out there isn’t going to show himself.”
“Now what do we do?”
He shrugged. “Now we press on. We still have to get to the next set of coordinates by tomorrow night.”
“Look, John, if this is too much for you, it’s okay if you just leave me a map and get out of here.”
He snorted heartily. Whether that was indignation or amusement, she couldn’t tell. But it was a definite sound of dismissal of that idea. Color her relieved, but she had to make the offer. She couldn’t, in good conscience, guilt him into staying out here with her. He was already laboring under guilt aplenty. Speaking of maps, he pulled out one of his and spread it on the ground between them.
“For the record, we’re right here.” He pointed out a spot on the map with a felt-tipped pen and made a little black dot on its laminated surface. “This is where we’re headed.” He stabbed at a red dot already marked on the map. “If something happens to me, take this map and walk out of here. Do not proceed to the rendezvous alone. Go back to Pirate Pete’s and get more help.”
She shrugged noncommittally.
He made a sound of exasperation. “If I’m out of the picture, you’re planning to continue without me, aren’t you? I’m tellin’ you, Mel, if you walk into that camp by yourself, I guarantee you and your family are all dead.”
“And I’m telling you, John, they won’t kill me right away. They want that drug formula from me. And I’ll refuse to give it to them unless they set my family free.”
“What if they start torturing your folks in front of you? Can you stand the sound of your parents’ screams for hours or days on end? How long are you gonna hold out on them when they start cutting your brother’s fingers off?”
She grimaced at the grisly images his words evoked.
“How about when they start cutting your fingers off?”
“Enough! I get your point!” she exclaimed, horrified.
“Promise me, Melina. If something happens to me, you’ll go get help and not try to finish this thing alone.”
Her lips pressed tightly together.
He grabbed her by both shoulders. “Look. I can barely hold it together as it is. On top of everything else, don’t add the worry that you’ll kill yourself if anything happens to me. I can’t handle the idea. I care too much about you, dammit.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. For that matter, his did too.
“I came out here knowing full well I was on my way to die. Why can’t you wrap your brain around that?” she asked in frustration.
He retorted, “Because I came out here knowing full well that I was going to see you through this thing safe and in one piece. Why can’t you wrap your brain around that?”
“It’s my choice to make and not yours. My life. My family. My choice.”
He stared at her in open exasperation.
“With all due respect,” she said gently, “you’re not exactly the person to criticize me about self-destructive behavior.”
The life, the very color, drained out of his eyes until they were black and bleak. Okay, that had been a low blow to hit him with. But darn it, he had to understand how committed she was to going through with this.
His gaze fell away from hers. He spoke quietly. “I suppose I deserved that.” A pause. “We make a hell of a pair, don’t we? I’m out here wishing to die and vowing to stay alive long enough to s
ee you through this, and you’re out here desperate to stay alive, but determined to throw yourself upon your sword anyway.”
She gazed into the mirror of his hopeless gaze and flinched at what she saw of herself reflected back at her. Is that what he saw when he looked into her eyes? It wasn’t a pretty sight.
She said quietly. “If it’s that important to you, I promise I won’t try to finish this thing alone. But John, don’t let anything happen to you. I care too much about you, too.”
He shrugged and started to turn away, but she grabbed his arm and forced him to look at her. “Why do you want to die? Nothing is worth throwing your life away for except maybe saving someone else’s life.”
His voice was low, charged. “And when you fail to save someone else’s life? Then what?”
She stared at him a long time. So that was it. Someone he’d been responsible for had died on his watch, and he was consumed by guilt. That certainly explained a lot.
She chose her words carefully. “You grieve their loss. You acknowledge that we all have a time to live and a time to die. And then you go on with your own life. It’s the least you owe the person who died. Nobody wants anyone else to stop living on their account.”
“Persons who died. Plural,” he bit out.
She didn’t want to know the answer, but she had to ask anyway. “How many?”
“Eight. My men. Three of them had wives and kids, for God’s sake.”
Oh, God. Pain for him was a fist in her stomach that she could barely breathe around. And he’d been carrying that around inside him all this time? Reaching deep for strength for his sake, she asked gently, “Did you force them to do their jobs?”
His hand slashed through the air, cutting her off. “I’ve been through all that logic crap with the shrinks. The fact remains that they’re dead and I’m not. And I’m the one who should be dead, not them.”
The agony in his voice was almost more than she could bear. “Promise me something, John.”
He glanced up at her, surprised.
