Emily turned away. He certainly didn’t look like a man who would be happy picking up the kids at pre-school and living a mundane, boring life back in Colorado Springs. He looked like this was his life now—this dark and dangerous jungle. Who was Peter Vance, anyway? Because this man striding down the road in front of her bore no resemblance to her ex-husband.
She trudged after them, looking left, then right, peering into the dense foliage, trying not to think about the multitudes of beady eyes staring out at her from the dark green leaves. What if they didn’t make it to the lab by nightfall? Where would they sleep? The tents burned up in the Jeep with everything else. She couldn’t survive a night in the jungle without a tent. Without shelter. Without water or bug spray or anything.
Hysteria swelled within her.
“Come on, Dr. Armstrong,” Rosalia said, taking her arm. “It will be okay. Trust my brother. He grew up in this jungle. He won’t let anything happen to us.”
Emily turned to her, surprised by her determination, and equally surprised by how hot and clammy her skin was. “Rosalia, are you okay? You feel like you’re running a fever.”
“A slight one. It will be okay.”
Admiration filled her as she watched Rosalia walk down the uneven road with her child. She knew every step was painful for her, yet the woman showed no sign of weakness or distress. “You’re right. We’re going to be just fine.” As soon as we get you both to a hospital where you belong, Emily thought silently.
Chapter Twelve
After an hour of walking through the heat, they were blessed with a rainstorm. At least Emily thought it was a blessing as the sudden downpour washed the dust and the muck off of her skin. But once the rain stopped, the moisture seemed to evaporate, leaving the air thick and heavy. She couldn’t breathe, and to top it off, she was sloshing through mud.
“Please,” she groaned. “Isn’t there somewhere, anywhere that Rosalia and I can stay? I don’t think Rosalia can take much more of this,” Emily said, then cringed as she stepped into a particularly deep puddle and felt a painful jarring in her back as muddy water sloshed into her socks. “Or me for that matter.”
The men, trudging quite a ways ahead of her, kept going. Her arms itched and stung. She swiped her hand down her skin and wiped off fifty or so mosquitoes taking a drink. She didn’t think she was going to make it. Not another step. She glanced down and saw…blood.
She stopped, staring at the blood seeping through her wet, muddy sock. “Oh, no!” she cried. She clawed at her sock, pulling it out from against her skin, and stared at a leech stuck to her foot. A horrified scream ripped from her insides and echoed through the jungle.
She dropped to the muddy ground and ripped her shoes and socks off, trying to get it off her skin. Tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. Then Peter was in front of her, bending down, prying the giant black slug-looking thing off of her. A large wound bled copiously. Emily stared at her foot in shocked disbelief.
“It was only a leech,” Peter said casually, as if it were nothing at all. As if leeches were a normal part of everyday life. Not her life! “Be thankful it wasn’t a tick. Those little buggers are nasty.”
And these aren’t? Emily ground her teeth. She couldn’t trust herself to speak. If she did, she would most likely come unglued and start screaming hysterically before it died down to an incoherent babble.
“You’ll be fine. It will just itch like crazy for a few days.”
Emily stared at him. Every inch of her body was aching and swollen and he acted like it was no big deal—just a little itch. What about the trauma? The nightmares she was sure to suffer? Because she was certain she would never be able to close her eyes again without seeing that thing attached to her.
“Em?”
She opened her mouth to respond, but her voice was gone, her will was gone, and suddenly she wondered how she would be able to make it the rest of the way when all she wanted to do was sit there and cry and wait for someone to come rescue her. She couldn’t take any more. She had reached her limit.
He stood and held out his hand to her. She stared at it, but she wouldn’t take it. She wasn’t moving. She turned away from him. He would have to send a helicopter back for her and Rosalia because she refused to take another step.
“Emily, it’s not a good idea to sit in the mud, unless you want a leech down your pants.”
She shot up, and started swatting at her bottom and running her hands inside the waistband of her jeans, tears of frustration once again welling in her eyes. “I can’t do this. I can’t take any more.”
“Sure you can. You’re tougher than you think.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.” He placed his arm around her shoulder and led her forward to meet up with Rosalia and Snake. “You can do anything you set your mind to, Dr. Armstrong.”
She had always believed that, even after her parents died and she had to force herself to go to class, to turn in her assignments, to graduate. Until now. She leaned against him and closed her eyes, letting him lead her, not wanting to see the endless jungle in front of and surrounding her. She’d been such a fool to come to Venezuela. She cursed the day she ever decided to leave her nice apartment with her comfortable bed and hot shower. She thought of that shower now, imagined the hot spray of water and the lavender scent of her favorite exfoliating soap. What she wouldn’t give to be back home now.
“Dr. Armstrong,” Snake called.
Reluctantly, Emily opened her eyes. Snake was holding Rosalia to keep her from collapsing. “Oh, no!” She ran toward them, feeling guilty for her self-pitying tirade, when Rosalia was in real trouble, serious trouble.
Rosalia’s eyes were closed, and her skin was clammy and pale. “Rosalia?”
A soft moan escaped her parted lips.
Emily felt her head. “She needs antibiotics,” she said, but they all knew she needed so much more. Snake opened Rosalia’s shirt and removed Manuel from the sling they’d fashioned, then handed Emily the baby. Peter unbuttoned his shirt and slid it over her shoulders. He buttoned up the baby in the fabric so he was completely covered. Snake lifted his sister into his arms, whispering to her in Spanish, and continued walking through the jungle.
“We have to get her to a hospital immediately,” Emily whispered to Peter. “If we don’t…”
He turned to her and nodded his head, his expression stopping her from saying the words. He knew how serious it was. It was clear what would happen to all of them if they didn’t get out of Venezuela soon. Unfortunately they still had miles and miles of jungle to trek through.
Emily shuddered as despair wracked her. She stared at the exposed wound on Peter’s shoulder. The wound that needed stitches, the wound that could easily become infected, too. Especially since they were walking though a cesspool of foreign and deadly bacteria.
“I don’t think finding this lab is a good idea, Peter. I think our top priority needs to be finding a hospital.”
He nodded. “To do that, we need to get to the lab.”
“Peter, who knows what we’d be walking into? You and Rosalia can’t take any more chances.”
“Emily, I need to fulfill my mission. That’s why I’m here.”
A dark cloud surrounded her. Who was this man? How could he put some stupid mission above their safety? Why did the “mission” always come first? “What is wrong with you? Don’t you see how desperate our situation has become? Can’t you see what’s at stake here?”
He stopped and turned to her. “I would never have been able to survive in this jungle for the last three years if I didn’t keep my eye on the ball. We will find the lab, we will find a phone, we will find a Jeep and water, food and medical supplies, and then we will get all of us to a hospital. You have to learn to trust me, Emily.”
He was right. “All right,” she relented. “I trust you. I do,” she insisted. But the look in his eyes told her he didn’t believe her. And she supposed on some level he was right.
He looked up at her and his big brown eyes filled her with tenderness. “Hi,” she whispered, and smiled. “How you doing in there?” She looked up and caught Peter staring at her, but it wasn’t a warm, loving look. It was cold and wary. Then, like a wave of sadness washing over her body, the certain knowledge that they would never have a child together hit her. It was as clear as the regret shining in his eyes.
She turned away from him. As they walked, Snake and Peter took turns carrying Rosalia. At one point they stopped to rest, Peter and Snake needing it as much as she did. While Rosalia fed her baby, Emily noticed the blood seeping through Peter’s bandage. As thin and small as she was, Rosalia’s weight was too much for his injured shoulder. She thought of the other woman’s open wound and the infection raging through her body.
And if the same thing happened to Peter?
She couldn’t think on it, there was nothing she could do, no one she could turn to except for God. She closed her eyes and prayed, the heartfelt motion coming easily to her, as if it hadn’t been such a struggle for her during the three years before she came to Venezuela.
Dear God, please look out for us. Please let us all make it to the hospital safely, and whatever You do, please don’t let Peter get sick.
Without saying a word, she leaned forward and applied pressure to Peter’s wound until the bleeding stopped. She didn’t know how she would find the strength to fight her way out of Venezuela if Peter got sick. The fear came rushing back, the way it always had every time he’d walked out their front door. In the end, she hadn’t been able to deal with it. She’d forgotten how strong it was, how forceful that fear could be.
She’d actually thought she’d be able to live with it again. That if she could just get him to forgive her and come back things would be different this time, but she’d been wrong. Maybe that was why God had put her on this path. Maybe she needed to see the truth before she could move on. The Lord knew she hadn’t been able to move on, because she hadn’t been able to let Peter go.
Is that it, God? Is that why we’re going through this nightmare? So that I can finally see that this is where Peter belongs? This is his life, and I can never be a part of it? Wouldn’t a two-by-four across the side of the head have been easier?
She was such an idiot.
All right, God, I’ve learned my lesson. I get it. There’s no future for Peter and me, no chance for a happily-ever-after, for a child. She looked down at baby Manuel and swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth. There was no chance they could be a family again. The force of unfulfilled and lost dreams hit her. She had to let Peter go. She had to move on. She tried not to look at him, and tried even harder not to cry.
They all rose and started walking again, but Rosalia was growing significantly worse, and Emily feared if they didn’t get to a hospital soon, the young mother wouldn’t make it.
“Please,” she said to Snake and Peter. “This isn’t working. You two can move faster without us. At this point, Rosalia needs to save her strength.”
Snake shook his head. “There is too much danger for you if you stop moving. We must stay together. Our only hope is to make it to the lab and find a Jeep there. Then we can cross the border and find a hospital in Colombia.”
Emily shook her head in defeat. She knew Snake loved his sister, and if he thought that was their only course of action, then she’d have to trust that he was right, and trust that God wouldn’t let them perish in this horrible jungle.
But most of all, she’d have to hope that Baltasar wasn’t waiting for them at the lab when they got there.
Peter slowed as Emily trailed farther behind them. He knew how frustrating it must be for her to watch her patient grow worse and worse, and not be able to do anything to help. He only hoped they were right, and that they would find a vehicle or at least a phone at Baltasar’s lab.
The baby started to cry. He watched Emily try to calm it. It pained him to see how good she looked with a baby in her arms. She would make a wonderful mother. He wished he could be a part of that picture, but even if they could get past all their problems and issues with the past, he could never impose his lifestyle on a child. His father had done that and it had been hard on all of them, never knowing where his dad was or when he’d come home. The all-too-frequent business trips and the loneliness they saw in their mother’s eyes was too much.
Once he and Emily divorced, he’d become an undercover operative. It had been his choice, and one he wouldn’t go back on. He was good at what he did. He was needed. It was his life now.
A wide muddy river came into view ahead of them. They stopped at the edge of the road and stared at the bridge that had collapsed into the water. Peter’s stomach dropped. He fought the despair that suddenly everything was going wrong. That he kept missing the mark.
First he botched the mission at the estate, then he botched Emily’s rescue by not demanding that she come with him and Dr. Fletcher, and they almost got themselves blown up because Baltasar obviously knew right where they were heading. And now someone had destroyed the bridge they needed to cross to get to the lab. It was as if Baltasar was one step ahead of their every move.
Peter glanced at Snake. Was he leading them into a trap? Was Rosalia really his sister? Why hadn’t that man shot at the Jeep while they were still in it? It was almost as if he hadn’t wanted them dead. It was almost as if Baltasar wanted them wounded and struggling, but alive.
Peter didn’t like the road his thoughts were taking. He watched Snake, trying to get a handle on the man who seemed to have no allegiances. Why hadn’t Snake questioned him about why Emily kept calling him Peter, and how it was they apparently knew each other so well? Did he already know Peter was CIA? Did he already know their history?
Something wasn’t right.
“What happened to the bridge?” Emily cried.
“Rain could have washed it away,” Snake offered.
“Or Baltasar,” Peter said, and tried to read Snake’s expression as he turned back to him.
“We’ll go around,” Snake said.
“To where?” Emily questioned. “This river looks like it goes on for miles.”
“To the next bridge.”
“How far is that?” she demanded.
Peter smiled inwardly. She was beginning to lose her temper, and he had a feeling that would work best for their position at the moment. He’d been too quick to give control to Snake. He’d put their lives in this man’s hands, a man they knew nothing about. It was time to take back the reins of his mission.
“How far are we from the lab now?” Peter asked casually.
“Two miles, if we could cross the bridge here.”
“How many more if we walk up to the next bridge?” Emily demanded.
“Another five on top of that.”
“No,” she insisted. “There is no way I’m walking another five miles. For one thing it will be dark before we get there, and you’re not going to get me to walk around in the dark. For another thing, Rosalia—” she started and looked at Peter as if by the will of that look alone she could force him to do whatever she demanded. He tried not to smile. “Those extra miles would be too much for her.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Snake asked, his eyes narrowing, but his question had opened the door wide open.
“I say we swim,” Emily responded. “How deep is it?”
“With the baby?” Snake sputtered.
“Well…how deep is it?” she demanded.
“I have no idea.”
“We don’t have to swim far, just to the bridge. If we can climb up onto the bridge, we can walk the rest of the way.”
Snake stared at the bridge. “It’s impossible to tell how stable that bridge is. It could collapse beneath us, then what would we do? We’d be carried downstream and Rosalia and he
r baby will die. I’m not going to chance it.”
“Fine. You walk up to the nearest bridge. I’m crossing here,” she stated.
“No, you’re not.”
“Stop me.” She stepped into the water. Peter gently took her hand and pulled her back. “Snake, she might have a point.”
Snake looked at him incredulously. “She has open, bleeding wounds on her feet. You have one on your shoulder, and Rosalia…well, she has one, too.”
Peter knew what Snake was getting at, and had to commend the man for not saying what he feared most out loud. “Emily’s right. We don’t have enough daylight left to walk five miles to the next bridge. Baltasar wants us in the jungle at night. He has something planned for us, and I for one don’t want to find out what it is.”
Snake looked thoughtful. And a touch irritated?
“I tell you what,” Peter said. “I’ll walk out to the bridge, just up to here—” he gestured to his chest “—and judge how deep the water is.”
Snake shrugged his shoulders. “It’s your call.”
Peter walked into the water. He hadn’t made it more than two feet when he began to feel something moving around his legs. He quickened his pace. As long as he didn’t let his wound go beneath the water, he should be okay. Otherwise the piranhas would have a feeding frenzy, and there wouldn’t be much of him left to ship home.
He continued walking carefully, judging each step to make sure the river bottom beneath his feet was secure. The current was strong, but he was able to walk all the way out to the bridge without the water reaching above his stomach.
“We can do this,” he said as he came back to shore. “Em, hand me the baby.”
Snake picked up Rosalia and held her high above the water. Peter looked at Emily and said, “Stay here and wait for me to carry you.”
“But why?” she protested. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Trust me, Em.” He could see by the guilty shift in her eyes that she wanted to trust him—it was just difficult for her and always had been.
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