by Rachel Lee
She wrestled with the top to the plastic bottle of disinfectant powder. The blasted thing was childproof, of course. She finally got it open, then set the cap back on loosely while she dabbed at the seeping blood with the damp briefs. To her untutored eyes, the edges of the wound gaped hideously, exposing a layer of glistening muscle underneath. She pressed the edges together with trembling fingers, holding them with one hand while she dusted the whole area with the other.
Blood welled sluggishly through her spread fingers, smearing the power. Jaws tight, Sarah wiped it away, clamped the wound together again, then sprinkled more dust. Sweat beaded on her brow and trickled down her cheek. Sarah leaned back, afraid it might drip into the wound, yet kept her tight hold on Eduard’s arm. The awkward position made her back strain.
It seemed like hours before the gringo returned.
“Where have you been?” Sarah snapped.
“The only needle in the entire camp is so rusty I wouldn’t use it on my boot.” He flashed her a sardonic look. “Of course, you have different standards when it comes to the care and maintenance of boots.”
Sarah started to tell him indignantly that this was no time to start with his selfish possessiveness again, but he forestalled her.
“You’ll have to do it the native way.”
“What native way?”
He lifted his hand, and for the first time Sarah noticed the short length of bamboolike stalk he held. Both ends were stuffed tight with leaves.
“You’ll have to use ants.”
“Ants? Are you crazy?”
His eyes narrowed. “How long have you been down here, anyway?”
“Not…not long.”
“Not long enough, obviously. When you’ve spent as much time in the jungle as I have, you’ll learn not to dismiss native customs with such contempt.”
“But…ants?”
“The Maya used soldier ants more than two thousand years ago to close wounds. Lots of folks around here still follow their example. A buddy of mine says African tribes do the same with driver ants. Now, do you think you can set aside your modern medical prejudices long enough to hold the edges of the skin together while I work?”
Sarah shot him a venomous look, forgetting her decision of a few moments before to confess all and throw herself on this man’s mercy. It appeared that her lack of medical knowledge was totally irrelevant, anyway.
“There’s no need for sarcasm.” She bit the words out, her hands still clamped around the boy’s arm. “My concern is for Eduard. I have been down here long enough to know that those ants you’re talking about sting. Badly. They can kill small animals, and even the occasional human.”
His gray eyes slanted toward the silent boy. “Eduard’s man enough to handle the sting. Aren’t you?”
The boy met his steady look and nodded slowly.
What was this? Sarah wondered, astounded. Some kind of macho male bonding? Since she didn’t have any better option to offer, however, she kept her mouth shut and watched the tall, sweaty, shirtless man next to her.
He pulled the leafy plug out of one end of the tube and tapped it on his palm. Sarah’s eyes widened at the sight of the huge ant that fell out. It was as big as one of her native North Carolina’s crickets. And far more fearsome.
“Here, plug this back up.” He shoved the tube into Teresa’s hands and turned to Eduard. “Ready?”
The boy nodded once more.
Grasping the ant between his thumb and forefinger, the gringo held its head against Eduard’s flesh, on either side of the cut. The big, sickle-shaped mandibles bit into the skin. When the jaws clamped shut, they drew the flesh together. Eduard jerked, but made no sound.
Leaving the head in place, the mercenary pinched off the ant’s body and tossed it aside. He reached for the tube once more and swiftly, competently, repeated the procedure. Sarah moved her hands up Eduard’s arm as he worked, clamping the skin together while man and insect closed it. Within moments, a neat track of black “sutures” traced up Eduard’s wound.
Sarah straightened her aching back. She stared down at the wan, sweating boy, her heart aching for him. She’d been bitten by a soldier ant only once since her arrival in Cartoza, but she remembered how long and how fiercely it had stung.
“When the bleeding stops completely, we’ll pat mud around the bites to draw out some of the sting.”
Sarah looked up at the man beside her. “More ancient Mayan remedies?”
His cheeks creased. “No, this one’s from Field Manual 90-5. The army’s handy-dandy guide to jungle operations.”
Sarah glanced over at the crates stenciled with U.S. markings. “How convenient. The weapons you and your friends steal come complete with a set of manuals.”
She regretted the tart words almost as soon as they were out. They sounded petty after what he’d just done for Eduard. Then she reminded herself that Eduard wouldn’t be here in the first place if it wasn’t for this steel-eyed mercenary. She had to remember that the man frowning down at her sold his technical knowledge for cold cash to murdering rebels. Lifting her chin, she returned his scowl.
Jake fought the urge to tell her that he wouldn’t need to steal the manual. He knew it by heart. Every word. Hell, he’d written most of it. He used to teach it, along with his hard-earned survival skills, at the army’s special forces school. A lifetime ago. Before he’d lost his wife to his career, then his career to his own impatience with the inflexibility of a peacetime army. Before OMEGA had lured him into the dark, dangerous, lonely world of clandestine operations.
Did he dare trust her? Should he tell her now that he wasn’t the man she thought he was? Jake opened his mouth, then clamped it shut. No, it was safer for her, for the children, for all of them, if he didn’t. Not yet.
Jake knew he couldn’t keep her confined in this little hut much longer. She needed out—for her own health, if not that of the men who grumbled about their various aches and pains. He’d have enough on his hands trying to minimize Sister Sarah’s impact on the gorillas out there without worrying whether she might inadvertently let slip that Jake wasn’t the man they thought he was.
When he’d confirmed the date of the drop and set up the extraction, Jake would tell her what to expect. Until then, he’d just have to put up with her scorn, even if it did sting every bit as bad as any ant bite he’d ever experienced. The sister needed to go back to the convent and get a few more lessons in forgiveness for her fellow man, he thought.
And she damn well needed to get back in that black habit.
Jake’s jaw tightened as his gaze dropped to the swell of creamy flesh showing above the loosened neckline of her blouse. The image that had greeted him when he carried Eduard into the hut flashed into his mind.
Sister Sarah, with her arms raised to hold the fall of blond hair off her neck.
Her neck arched, as if in invitation.
Her blouse molded around high, firm breasts that Jake had no business noticing.
Sweat popped out on his brow. He edged past her, grabbed one of the tin plates and stalked toward the door.
“I’ll go get the mud.”
Chapter 6
By midmorning, the primitive sutures and soothing mud had done their job. The swelling from the ant stings had disappeared, the cut remained closed, and Sarah felt competent enough to wrap Eduard’s arm in a strip of light gauze bandage she’d found in the bountiful knapsack.
When the boy fell into a light doze, the gringo tugged on his wrinkled spare shirt and left the little hut—to check on the status of his so-called business activities, Sarah supposed.
By noon, Eduard showed little effect from his injury, other than his bandaged arm. The younger children, who’d remained quiet and subdued until now, began to get restive. Sarah tried her best to divide her attention between the three of them, but found herself running out of stories and energy and patience. When the gringo returned some time later to check on them, she greeted him with something very close to relief.
“Your patient, you mean,” she said with a small, frazzled smile. “He’s doing fine.”
“Good enough for me to take him outside?”
“Sí.”
They both swung around at the soft affirmative, startled to hear Eduard speak.
He didn’t say anything more. He just swung his thin legs over the edge of the hammock and sat up, his injured arm cradled in the makeshift sling Sarah had fashioned from a strip torn from the mosquito netting. Sarah started to protest, but Eduard looked at her with a silent plea.
“He has to make the pee-pee,” Ricci informed them, with a three-year-old’s utter lack of reticence.
The gringo laughed and strode over to help the boy out of the hammock. “Then maybe we’d better take a trip before lunch. Come on, Squirt. You too.”
Sarah bit her lip, marveling at the careful yet assured way he handled Eduard. Ricci trailed happily out the door after them.
“Me, also,” Teresa chirped. Red skirts swirling, she jumped up and ran out before Sarah could stop her.
Oh, well, let him handle her for a while. He certainly seemed capable of it, Sarah thought wearily. Sinking down on the handy crate, she stared at her grubby hands. Although she’d washed as best she could, mud rimmed her nails. She flipped her hands over once or twice, examining them. The long, polished tips she used to spend so much time and money on were gone, as was the smooth, tanned skin. A spasm of regret for her former life shot through her. Sarah clenched her hands into fists.
She leaned her head back against the wall of the hut and closed her eyes, wishing herself away from this place, away from the children who were more responsibility than she’d ever dreamed they could be. Away from the man who overnight seemed to have become the center of her universe.
He was unlike any of the men she’d ever known, Sarah thought resentfully. So different from the suave, urbane men she’d charmed and flirted with. And he was a universe away from the laughing Frenchman she’d fallen in love with.
Eyes closed, Sarah waited for the familiar pain that came with any memory of André. A ripple of hurt eddied through her, but it lacked the intensity of the waves that had swamped her in past weeks. And André’s image seemed less sharp, less vivid, than before.
Instead, a different image imprinted itself in precise detail on the inside of Sarah’s lids. Hard-eyed. Lean-hipped. Broad chest bare under the unbuttoned edges of the wrinkled khaki shirt. In her mind’s eye, Sarah noted the swirls of black hair scattered lightly across the gringo’s pectorals. It narrowed to a thin line as it angled down his chest and traced its way over a flat stomach, then disappeared into his waistband. A sudden, insidious desire to run her fingertip along that line of dark hair snaked through Sarah.
When she realized where her thoughts and her mental image had taken her, Sarah’s eyes flew open. Startled, she sat bolt upright on the crate. Good Lord! She had to be more stressed than she realized. She couldn’t feel anything remotely resembling physical attraction for a man like him. This liquid heat curling low in her stomach had nothing to do with him. Nothing! She was just tired. Just stressed by all she’d been through. Or maybe she was feeling something like the hostage dependency syndrome that formed a frequent topic of conversation at the dinner parties she’d hosted or attended. Among the Washington elite, international terrorism and diplomatic kidnappings were a very real concern. The State Department even offered courses on dealing with captors to senior officials traveling abroad.
That was all that was between her and this mercenary, she reasoned, a sort of sick dependency relationship. Circumstance had thrown her into his company. Some lingering shreds of conscience had led him to offer what protection he could to a fellow countryman. But Sarah couldn’t let herself forget why he was here. She couldn’t let herself become emotionally dependent on him. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, allow herself to feel any attraction for him.
She didn’t even like him! He was scruffy, and unshaven, and as dangerous as any of the men he associated with, and…and she had no idea what his life was like outside this jungle. For all she knew, he had a wife and a houseful of kids tucked away in New Jersey. Which might explain why he was so good with Teresa and Ricci and Eduard.
The thought sent a rush of mingled pain and determination through Sarah. She’d made a fool of herself once, and hurt a lot of people in the process, herself included. She wouldn’t do it again.
Nor, she decided with a rush of determination as she glanced around the hut, would she sit here any longer like some weak, gutless wimp, totally dependent on a man she couldn’t allow herself to trust. She was Sarah Chandler, she reminded herself. Daughter of one of the most powerful men in Washington. A personality of some force in her own right for many years. Her reputation might be a bit tarnished these days, and her self-esteem a little dented, but, dammit, she wasn’t stupid, and she wasn’t going to wallow in her misery any longer. She’d done that once, with disastrous results. Once she’d tried to find an antidote to her shame and hurt in alcohol. Once she’d lost control of herself to the point that she’d plowed her Mercedes into the side of a D.C. metro transit bus. Not again. Never again.
Surging to her feet, Sarah marched over to the stack of clothing, hers and Teresa’s, folded neatly atop one of the crates. Within moments, she’d shed her borrowed clothes and the suffocating black robe enfolded her from head to toe. She tied the limp strings of the wimple at the base of her neck, making sure no tendrils of hair escaped it or the black veil. Drawing in a deep breath, she headed for the door.
The reminder that the men outside would expect her to exercise her supposed medical skills made her pause with one hand on the warped wooden door. After her near panic with Eduard, however, Sarah had had time to reflect. She realized that there couldn’t be any serious injuries or maladies awaiting her treatment in the camp. If there were, she would have been forced to attend to them before now. Two weeks with Maria had taught her how to administer penicillin, if necessary, and treat minor jungle ills. Assuming that they even had any medical supplies in camp. After the fiasco with the needle, Sarah wondered.
As soon as she stepped outside, she felt an immediate sense of relief. Air marginally cooler than that inside the hut swirled through the clearing. The camouflage net strung across the camp like some huge, rippling parachute provided a measure of shade. She waited while her vision adjusted after the dimness of the shack, then peered around the littered clearing. Debris from the abandoned, tumbledown huts lay interspersed with empty tins and crates the rebels had discarded. The packhorses cropped desultorily beside the stream. Sarah caught a flash of red in the bright, dappled sunlight and lifted her skirts to head for Teresa.
The black-robed figure was halfway across the clearing before Jake saw her. Surprised and furious that she would disobey his order to stay inside, he jumped up and strode to meet her. Before she could get a word out of her mouth, he grasped her arm and spun her around.
“What do you think you’re doing? Get back in the hut.”
She pulled her arm free. “No.”
“No?” He stared at her, clearly taken aback. “What do you mean, no?”
“No.”
“Look here, Sister Sarah—”
“No, you look. I’m tired of not being able to breathe in that stifling shack. I’m tired of being afraid to face these men. And I’m particularly tired of the way you say that.”
Jake reared back, astounded at the sudden attack. “The way I say what?”
“The way you say ‘Sister Sarah.’ In that half-mocking, half-patronizing tone.”
He glanced from Sarah to the hut and back to Sarah again, trying to figure out just what the hell had happened in the fifteen minutes or so since he’d left her alone.
“I can’t stay inside any longer,” she told him, her eyes luminous in their inten
sity. “I have to get out. I have to move around. I won’t allow myself to be more of a prisoner than I am.”
“Let’s just review our options here,” Jake growled. “I could damn well drag you back to the hut.” In fact, he thought, it would give him a good deal of satisfaction at this moment to pick little Sister Sarah up, carry her back inside, and dump her on her keister.
“You could,” she acknowledged, her gaze locked with his.
He jerked his chin toward the children squatting by the stream. “Or I suppose you think I could just stand guard over you and the kids, like some medieval knight protecting his lady.”
One delicately arched brow told him just how little she considered him a knight in shining armor.
“Or I could let you live with the consequences of your sudden spurt of independence, which is…” Out of the corner of one eye, Jake caught sight of the beefy, pig-faced lieutenant strolling across the clearing toward them. “Which is what I’ll have to do. We just ran out of options, lady.”
Jake slanted her a quick look, relieved to see that she at least had the sense to wipe the determined expression from her face and dull the impact of her vivid eyes.
The man called Enrique stopped beside them. Hooking his hands in his belt, he rocked back on his heels and gave the sister a narrow, appraising glance. “So, gringo, your little religiosa has decided to make an appearance?”
“The heat in the shack grew too much for her,” Jake replied with a shrug. “She needs air.”
“Or perhaps occupation for her hands, eh?”
Jake saw her swallow quickly, then firm her lips. “Perhaps,” he agreed, accepting the inevitable.
The lieutenant lifted a hand to scratch his chest. “When the men get back from patrol, I will tell them to bring their complaints to her. Myself, I’m healthy as a horse. Although…” His big paw stilled its absent movement. “Maybe I’ll find a pain somewhere that needs attention, eh?”
