Cindy Gerard - [Bodyguards 05]

by Under the Wire

  He lifted a shoulder in a negligent shrug. “I choose to fight. It is still my choice.”

  “But that choice stole your childhood.”

  His eyes grew dark. “Poveda and his kind took care of that.”

  She looked away.

  “I was a Boy Scout. Does that help?”

  She pushed out a humorless laugh at his attempt to lighten the mood. “Something tells me that for you, Scouts wasn’t a club where you got to go on weekend campouts.”

  Again he shrugged, as if it were of no consequence. “Yes, that is true. The Scouts were a means to an end. I learn survival there. I learn to make the knots that my life would someday depend on, to forage for food and water in the jungle that would one day keep me alive.

  “And I learn that I like to meet the challenge of the jungle and know I can survive nights in the rain, days in the heat, even a fall from a cliff because my knot held.”

  She dragged the hair back from her face, expelled a heavy breath. “And did you learn how to be a spy there, too?”

  Regardless that she was being sarcastic, a certain pride tinged his smile. “Yes, mi amor. I learned cunning and skill. When I joined the Sandinista army I was ready to do what was asked of me. If it means intercepting tactical information and feeding it to guerrillas, then that is what I do. I fight them by becoming one of them.”

  And he could die, she thought as a heavy sadness weighed on her heart. This beautiful young man whom she did not dare fall in love with could die tomorrow. Or next week. Or next year.

  Her team would leave Nicaragua in less than a month and she would never see him again. Never know what happened to him. Never know so many things about him.

  She could not fall in love.

  And yet her heart melted every time she looked at him.

  She was in so much trouble here.

  “Come, Liliana. No more talk of fighting.”

  He held out his hand. She rose and rounded the table. With his dark eyes watchful, he opened her robe, pushed it off her shoulders, and let it fall to the floor. As naked as he, she straddled his lap. Offered him her breast, let her head fall back as he took her in his mouth with a swift and greedy possession.

  Then she gave. Everything he’d given her, she gave back.

  And knew it would never be enough.

  “I’ve never met anyone like you,” Lily whispered into the dark later that night.

  Naked as the day she was born, she lay stretched out over the length of an equally naked Manny.

  “That is a good thing, yes?” His voice was heavy with sleep, and yet that smug satisfaction she’d grown to love colored his words.

  “Yes, Manolo.” Grinning, she lifted her head, crossed her hands on his chest, and rested her chin there. “That is a very good thing.”

  A big, caressing hand slid over her bare hip. Drowsy and content, she hooked her pinkie around the chain that held his St. Christopher medal.

  “So…these men who were once in your life—they were stupid? Lousy lovers? Unappreciative of the most amazing woman in the world?”

  Deliriously sated, she grinned at him. “All of the above.”

  He made a sound of disgust. “American men. They are fools.” He filled his palms with her buttocks and squeezed possessively. “My good luck.

  “What?” he asked when she continued to watch him. “What are you thinking about so hard?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just these past few days…you’ve made me realize some things,” she began, hoping she could get this out right.

  “That you love making love with me?”

  His absolute absence of guile was refreshing. “That, too.”

  “And what else, mi amor? What else is on your mind tonight?”

  He waited while she formed her thoughts. “I guess I’ve finally realized some things about myself.”

  “Such as?”

  She played with the silver medal he was never without. “Such as it occurs to me that all my life I’ve—I’ve never felt I measured up. To expectations. To my potential.”

  “You are an amazing woman. How could you think such things?”

  Because she was a constant disappointment to the family she’d wanted to please most. She didn’t tell him that. She didn’t want to dwell on it. “No matter, the end result was that I settled, you know? Settled for what I thought I deserved.”

  “You speak of your fool of an ex-husband?” he asked after a moment.

  “Yeah. Him, too, I guess. But in general, I’ve settled for what I needed, but just barely.”

  He lifted a lock of her hair, wound it around his finger. “How so, Lily?”

  She met his eyes in the dark bedroom and finally came up with a comparison. “Okay. Let’s try this. If my life were a metaphor, it would be…water. Water is good. It’s necessary. It’s everything I need, but…it’s not wine.”

  She kissed the medal, then touched it to his lips. He caught her fingertip with his teeth and she felt that special thrill he generated when his mouth opened and drew it inside. “Until you, Manolo, I never really tasted wine.”

  She searched his eyes in the dark, kissed him. Soft. Slow. Lingering. “You are wine to me, Manny. Delicious, intoxicating, unique. I want to thank you for giving me that.”

  The hand caressing her thigh traveled the length of her spine, scooped under the hair at her nape. With his thumbs beneath her jaw, he tipped her face up to his. “I love being your wine, querida.” He touched his mouth to hers, whispered against her parted lips, “I love that you think of me that way.”

  A sudden sadness washed over her. They were running out of time. “I have to go back to the States soon.”

  He bussed his lips across hers. Cradled her face in his hands, then kissed her fiercely. “That does not have to be. Stay with me. Ti amo. Ti amo, Lily. You know that I love you.”

  It would be so easy to believe him. And so easy to return those words. Ti amo. I love you. But a summer fling—and she kept telling herself that’s all this was—in an exotic country with an even more exotic young man did not a relationship make. Beautiful as he was, attentive as he was, they had no future. He couldn’t leave his country and she couldn’t stay.

  And then there was the age issue.

  “How old are you?” she’d asked before. He’d always danced around answering her. “Tell me this time. No dodging.”

  When he told her, she groaned.

  Eighteen. Eighteen, for God’s sake.

  On some level, she’d suspected. But she’d hoped…God, she’d hoped she’d been wrong.

  She couldn’t stop a laugh. Dropped her forehead to his chest and shook her head. “I could get arrested back in the States for what we’ve done together.”

  “Then you have stupid laws in your country—just like in your country, that may be young. Not in mine.”

  On that he may be right. A boy grew to a man quickly in this part of the world, where life to those in power was not sacred and circumstances sent boys to war. But eighteen.

  “I know my heart, Liliana,” he said defensively, and she realized then that she’d hurt him.

  “You have your whole life ahead of you.” She pressed her fingertips to his lips, silencing him when he would argue. “I know you think you love me. And I know you care for me deeply, just as I care for you. But love—you have many years to figure out what love is.”

  She was making it worse. That she would doubt his conviction, that she would not tell him she loved him, too, made it worse. His eyes were dull with hurt.

  “You cannot know what I am capable of feeling. You cannot know the things I have done, the things I have lived through. You cannot presume to know.”

  He was right. But so was she. She lowered her head. Kissed him. “Let’s not talk of this anymore. We’re here now. We’re together now. Make love to me.”

  She felt him go hard between her legs, knew then that they were well on their way to a pleasurable distraction. When he gave up the fight and smiled for her,
she slid down his body and sipped at his skin. Slid lower and took him into her mouth.

  His hands knotted in her hair and soon they were lost. Lost, Lily thought breathlessly as her love play turned to serious business and they found release in each other.

  Manny was in love. Deep in his soul, in love. More in love than he’d thought possible. Perhaps foolishly so.

  He had always adored women. And women, he’d learned early in life, adored him. Had been adoring him since he’d been born the only boy to a house full of soft hands, warm smiles, and unqualified love from his mother and his sister, who had fussed over his onyx black eyes, played with his dark curly hair, sighed over his handsome features and caramel gold skin.

  Whether it was the women in his family cuddling him close and singing in his ear, his nanny slipping him special treats, or his mother’s model friend seducing him, at sixteen, with that first electric taste of physical love, Manny had been surrounded by, loved by, and idolized by the fairer sex.

  In turn, he welcomed every opportunity to give back all the adoration that had been lavished on him. Sometimes, to his regret. But with Lily…he regretted nothing.

  Unless…sometimes, he talked too much. He’d confided in her that he was a clandestine operator, often worked with the U.S. government as well as his Contra brethren intent on overthrowing the Sandinista regime. He told her all of this. He put his life in her hands. A dangerous and risky thing to do, as he’d just found out.

  Waiting for her back at the apartment, he leaned against the kitchen counter, his arms crossed over his chest, his mind reeling with fear of her, of betrayal.

  His chest tightened when the kitchen door finally opened and she walked inside, her arms full of flowers and a bottle of wine.

  “Hey, you,” she said brightly as she unloaded her things on the counter, pecked him on the cheek, then opened a cupboard door. “I thought you were picking me up today.”

  “What was Poveda doing at the clinic?”

  “Hm?” She glanced at Manny over her shoulder, then resumed her hunt for a vase for the flowers.

  He caught her by the arm, spun her around. “Poveda. He was at the clinic when I came for you. I saw you talking with him.”

  She looked shocked, then confused. “Oh. Oh, right. He was there. But what you saw was him attempting to talk to me, not me talking to him. Manny? You’re hurting me.”

  Only then did he realize there was pain mixed with her confusion. He let her go, felt a sick knot in his gut when he saw the imprint of his fingers on her arm.

  “Manny? What’s going on?”

  “You cannot speak to Poveda of me.”

  She blinked. Shook her head. “You think I would talk to Poveda about you?”

  She looked so hurt, so perplexed, that a fist of self-loathing punched him in the chest.

  “I did, yes,” he confessed, and knew by the look on her face how wrong he’d been to doubt her. Relief was almost as potent as regret.

  “I was wrong to do so. I’m sorry, Lily.” Folding her into his arms, he held her tight against him. “It is just that he is already upset with me—because I took you home from his party. I cannot afford to become someone he concerns himself about.”

  She stiffened in his arms. “What you mean is, you’re not certain you can trust me with your secrets.”

  He expelled a breath heavy with regret. Yes. That is what he’d meant. He wasn’t proud of it, but it was true. As his father so often pointed out, for all Manny had experienced, he was not yet fully a man. He had a man’s body, a man’s appetites, and a man’s appreciation for a beautiful, heartbroken woman, but sometimes he led with a boy’s heart instead of a man’s head.

  Lily was the proof of that.

  He’d placed himself in jeopardy.

  Because he was in love.

  “I am so sorry, Liliana. I should not have doubted you. It is just…Poveda. He wants you. I saw it in his eyes that night at his house. Not only that. In my country, one never knows who is friend. Who is foe. It is hard to trust. Old habits—they are hard to break.”

  The tension in her body softened as he held her. “I would never betray you, Manny,” she whispered against his chest.

  “I know, mi amor. I know. Forgive me?”

  She pulled away far enough so he could see her smile. “Of course.”

  “Bueno. Está bien.” Good. It’s all right. He breathed his first full breath of relief since he’d seen her at the clinic with Poveda hovering near. She understood. All was forgiven. Now Manny would make certain that all was forgotten. “We will not speak of this again, okay?”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  “So…” He lifted a brow and the bottle of wine. “Should we make use of this beautiful wine you brought?”

  She grinned. “Make use of? I thought we’d just drink it.”

  “Sí. We will drink it. I’ll get you a glass.”

  “What about you?”

  “My wine,” he said, methodically opening the buttons on her blouse, “I will drink from you.”

  He would drink from her forever, if she would just let him.

  They were sound asleep when Lily received a page from the clinic. It was the middle of the night when she slipped quietly out of Manny’s bed so as not to wake him. After scribbling a note of explanation and propping it against a vase of flowers on the kitchen table, she went to help with the emergency.

  The sky was breaking to a pearly lavender dawn when she finally returned to the apartment. Puzzled but too exhausted to give it much thought when she found Manny gone, she fell into bed and dropped instantly to sleep. It wasn’t until she woke late in the morning and Manny hadn’t returned that she began to worry.

  “The young Lieutenant Ortega?” A sour-faced representative of General Poveda looked up from his desk at the general’s office compound three days later. “Please be seated. I will see what I can find out for you.”

  Three days. Lily had searched for Manny for three days and hadn’t found out one thing. Desperate, she finally had gone to Poveda.

  A door opened to her right. She glanced over and saw Poveda himself walk into the reception area.

  “Senorita Campora.”

  Lily stood as he drew her to her feet and kissed the back of her hand. She endured the attention with stoic silence.

  “You are asking about Manolo Ortega?”

  She nodded, unwilling to elaborate and give the general a reason to question her further.

  “You and the young lieutenant are friends?”

  Again she nodded, second-guessing the wisdom of coming here.

  “Then I am sorry to tell you—Lieutenant Ortega has died in action, I’m afraid. A terrible tragedy, to be sure. He was a fine young officer.”

  Lily didn’t remember much of anything else Poveda said. She barely remembered walking out of the general’s office. Wasn’t even certain how she made her way back to the apartment.

  She sank down on the bed where she and Manny had made love and had laughed and she’d had her heart stolen by the boy who was so much a man.

  And now he was dead.

  Terrible tragedy.

  Snippets of Poveda’s words rang through her mind as she lay back on the sheets that smelled of Manny. She hugged a pillow to her breast and rocked back and forth, tears spilling down her cheeks.

  Terrible tragedy.

  Manny was dead.

  And something inside of her died, too.

  CHAPTER 5

  July 10, 10:00 A.M.

  When Manny came to, he was lying on his back on the riverbank, covered in dried mud and blood and bugs. He’d been steeped so deeply in dreams of Lily, it took a moment to realize where he was, what had happened.

  It came back to him slowly, painfully, like a dull, rusty knife slicing straight through his heart.

  Lily had betrayed him.

  And now he had to figure out how to stay alive long enough not only to deal with the pain of it but also to deal with her.

  The fir
st thing he became physically aware of was the diamond-bright glare of sunlight stabbing him in the eyes. The second was an odor more vile than vomit.

  He rolled to his side. Groaned when his body reminded him of what it had been through—then stiffened when he realized his nose was level with a pair of scarred, worn boots not six inches from his face.

  “So, look at the ugly fish the river puked out, eh?”

  Manny squinted through raw, gritty eyes, twisted painfully to his back again, and followed the length of the legs disappearing into the boots. For the second time in twelve hours, he found a Soviet-made rifle pointed dead center at his chest.

  “What’s your name, fish?”

  Manny’s head felt as thick as the mud he’d crawled out of and he drifted toward unconsciousness again—then jerked awake with a groan when a boot connected sharply with his ribs.

  “Your name, or I will gut you like the bottom-feeder you are.”

  He fought to focus as the scream of a howler monkey grated through his brain and a slow-moving cloud covered the blinding sun. Finally, he pulled his swimming vision together and stared at his new tormentor.

  Bandoleers filled with ammunition crisscrossed a scrawny, bare chest. A Makarov pistol hung from a canvas belt, the holster tied to a bowed right leg. A steel-handled knife hung from a scarred leather scabbard strapped to his left calf.

  Manny’s new captor wore the dirt-stained camouflage pants of a jungle fighter. Beneath the brim of a battered bush hat was a face that would break a cupboard full of plates. The man’s right eye bugged out like a frosted-glass marble. His left was open only a slit. A thick, jagged scar cut a half-moon from the outside of that eye down to the corner of his mouth and hooked it up into a perpetual sneer. What teeth he had were the color of hemp and as jagged as a rusted saw blade.

  Diablo. The devil has found me.

  Manny heard a raspy laugh. Only realized it was coming from himself when pain sliced through his ribs.