“The streets.”
Bethany eyes widened. “Excuse me?”
Xavier’s cheeks heated with embarrassment. He hadn’t meant to reveal so much, but there was something about the night and the fire—about Bethany—that made him careless.
He’d have to be more careful in the future.
Still, now that he’d opened his mouth, it was a little late to take it back. She wasn’t the type to let things go.
He knew that all too well.
Besides, information about his childhood wasn’t secret. There was nothing there of importance. Just memories, he told himself. “There was no one to take us in. No family that wanted us. So we went to the streets.”
“It must have been difficult.”
He nodded. They’d begged. Eaten garbage scraps. Slept huddled together under bits of cloth they’d used to make a blanket of sorts. “It wasn’t easy, but it could have been worse.”
There were children who had sold themselves for money. Men had made offers for Eva—hell, they’d made offers for him and Miguel—but he’d promised himself and his siblings that they would never do that.
He’d seen the empty eyes of enough child prostitutes to know that they’d sold more than their bodies. They’d sold their souls.
Not that most were offered a choice in their profession. Pimps preyed on them, and they were easy targets. Hunger, sickness, desperation and fear were the men’s tools. He remembered one pimp, El Lagarto.
A thug who used his fists to intimidate, he would force children to sell their bodies. When that wasn’t effective, he had used drugs and addiction to demand compliance.
Xavier and his siblings avoided the pimps by stealth and by watching out for each other. That simple commitment to each other had kept them alive and strong, even in the worst of times.
“Tell me more,” Bethany insisted. “Tell me about Miguel. What was he like?”
Xavier hesitated. He hadn’t spoken of Miguel to anyone but Eva in a very long time, but with Bethany, it felt right. “Miguel was the funny one of our little trio. He did silly tumbling acts and told jokes to make Eva smile. Comedy was his weapon of choice. Even when life was at its lowest.” He smiled, thinking of his brother’s many fake falls and how Eva would giggle every time.
She loved physical humor.
“And Eva?”
He stared into the fire, missing her. “A good laugh. Tough. Wants to change the world.”
“Like you,” Bethany affirmed.
Xavier froze. Change the world? He’d already tried that, and while he hadn’t failed, it wasn’t something he wanted to be a part of. Not anymore. He’d sacrificed his brother. And now, his sister. He picked up a stick and tossed it on the fire. “I am a bartender. That is all.”
“And a rebel leader,” Bethany added. “Someone who rescues people from FARC.”
She made him sound like a hero. Her admiration warmed him more than the flames and made him want to lay her down in the firelight and make love to her.
To be the man she saw.
But he wasn’t that man. Not anymore. And they’d both do well to remember that. “I do those things for a price,” Xavier reminded her. “For no other reason. Do not romanticize me.”
“The fee. I’d almost forgotten that,” Bethany said.
He thought of Eva and Miguel. All the friends and family he’d lost by being the hero. “I didn’t.”
“Wake up.”
Bethany jerked upright, embarrassed to have fallen asleep on watch. “I’m not asleep. I was resting my—”
He put a finger to her lips, shushing her. The cock of his head and tension of his posture told her that he didn’t shush her for convenience.
There was danger. And it was close.
She’d beat herself up later. She nodded, showing she understood the situation.
He leaned in until his mouth touched the rim of her ear. “We have another cat. Maybe the one from earlier. Maybe not.”
“Did you see it?”
He pointed toward the jungle.
She followed his line of vision. Glowing eyes stared at them. Bethany swallowed hard. “This must be what a mouse feels like.” There were few thoughts more horrifying than being dragged off by a jaguar.
Xavier took a stick from the fire and rose. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Bethany asked in a stage whisper. “The fire is the one thing keeping us safe.”
He looked at her then out into the darkness. “I’ll only be a minute.”
Men. Why did they have to act like heroes? “What are you going to do? Wrestle it?”
“Scare it away.”
“By yourself?” She rose and pulled another branch from the fire. “Two are better than one.”
He reached over and tried to take her torch, but she tightened her grip, knowing he couldn’t fight too hard for control without putting both of them at risk for a nasty burn.
He pulled harder. She dug in her feet and pulled back.
A low growl rolled through the camp. Both froze. “All this movement is making it angry,” Xavier whispered.
“I go or neither of us goes,” Bethany implored. She pulled harder. “Now let go.”
He released the stick with a sigh of exasperation. “You are difficult and a pain in my ass.”
“Ditto.”
His lips pressed together in a tight frown as he peered at the predator. “We need to know if it’s the wounded cat. I will go check the situation. You will stay and guard Sebastian and Tomas.”
Bethany rubbed the back of her neck. He spoke as if there was no argument, as if they hadn’t just played tug-of-war seconds ago.
As if what she said made no difference.
She glanced at her watch. One hand on the twelve with the other on six. Thirty minutes to shift change. Close enough.
Keeping her focus on the glowing eyes, Bethany pushed past Xavier and went to the tent.
“What are you doing?” Xavier hissed.
Unzipping the tent, she was greeted with the wrong end of Tomas’s gun. Sebastian continued to snore.
“The cat is back,” Bethany whispered.
Tomas tapped on Sebastian’s forehead with the butt end of his weapon. “Get up.”
“Xavier and I will check it out,” Bethany insisted. “Move slow. It’s close.”
She stepped back out and faced Xavier, one hand on her hip. “Problem solved.”
Seconds later, both Tomas and Sebastian emerged carrying their guns and wearing nothing but T-shirts, boxers and socks.
“¿Qué pasa?” Sebastian whispered.
Xavier pointed toward the jungle. The glowing eyes were no longer visible, but the hairs on Bethany’s neck rose. It was still out there. She didn’t doubt that.
“Gato grande,” Xavier answered.
Sebastian took the safety off his weapon. “Don’t get eaten.”
Xavier tossed his branch back into the fire and pulled a flashlight from his pocket. “Keep yours,” he instructed. “It might help us scare the cat away.”
He turned on his heel and Bethany followed. Unholstering one of her weapons, she held the pistol in one hand and the torch in the other. Xavier might demand secrecy but that wouldn’t matter if he were dead.
The darkness closed in around them, making Bethany’s torch seem minute and unimportant. “This was a bad idea,” she murmured.
Xavier didn’t answer. A branch cracked under her feet, and she cringed at the snap. Then again, she was walking through the jungle carrying a flaming stick. Did noise even matter at this point? It might scare the cat away, though if it were the one from earlier, there was no way to be certain.
Xavier stopped, bent down and pushed the debris aside. There was a paw print. Fresh. Feline. She shook her head. She was a good guide and tracker, but Xavier’s tracking skills were exceptional. There was no doubt about that.
They headed in the direction the paw angled. She nodded and let him continue to lead. Ten more feet and he pointed out a leaf. A
darkness stained it. She stopped and touched it with her finger, smearing it across the leaf.
Blood.
It was their wounded jaguar.
Great.
A low growl sounded again. Once again, Bethany’s heart slammed against her chest and every cell in her body screamed run.
Then Xavier’s hand was in hers. The internal screaming stopped, leaving a calm strength in its wake. Xavier looked at her, their faces illuminated with his flashlight.
Okay? he mouthed.
She nodded. This was a bad idea.
He nodded back. Letting go of her, he pulled his weapon out and motioned for Bethany to return the way they’d come. The growling grew louder.
Seconds later, Bethany spotted the cat. Crouched low, with its hindquarters up in the air and tail lashing, it appeared poised to attack.
She unlocked the safety on her weapon. Screw him being a hero. And screw being quiet.
The cat froze.
Seconds later, the distinct sounds of men crashing through the jungle interrupted the growling and large lights washed over them. The cat bolted.
Xavier grabbed the makeshift torch from her hand and ground it under his shoe as he pulled her to the ground. “Hunters!”
Saviors were more like it. Relief as strong as adrenaline rushed through her, and she covered her head with her hands, keeping low.
Shouts of anger and excitement sounded around them. More gunshots. Men raced past them.
Then two sets of black-booted feet stopped next in front of her. “¿Cómo te llamas?” A deep voice demanded.
Bethany uncovered her head, following the boots upward to military-issue fatigues and then to the Colombian bars of ranking on the soldier’s pocket. Her stomach lurched. It wasn’t the cavalry that saved them.
It was the Colombian army.
In her case, they were almost as dangerous as FARC. If they discovered what she was doing, she’d be spending the rest of her quality time in a cell.
She had to make sure that didn’t happen.
“Thank God you arrived,” Bethany greeted, rising to her knees and looking up at the soldier towering over her and praying he believed her. “We were camping and there’s a jaguar out there.”
“Be quiet,” Xavier whispered as more men arrived. One of the soldiers yanked Xavier’s arms behind his back. “They don’t care, and I don’t think they understand you.”
Bethany shrugged. It was a lame lie in any language.
Shouting orders in Spanish, the soldier yanked her to her feet as confirmation while two more grabbed Xavier—one on each arm.
“What do we do?” Bethany asked Xavier, as the man who found them wound her wrists with a length of rope.
“Whatever they say,” Xavier said.
“They can’t just take us.” She tried to jerk away from the soldier.
Another soldier came through the brush, two bags in hand.
“Bethany, don’t struggle,” Xavier insisted. “This will be fine. I promise.”
She didn’t have time to respond before the bag was jammed over her head.
Chapter 6
Her hands still trussed behind her back, Bethany lay motionless on the ground until her captors left. She counted to thirty in case they came back, but nothing broke the silence.
Was Xavier even here? They’d been dragged through the jungle and she hadn’t heard a word from him since.
“Xavier?” she whispered.
“Over here,” he replied. “Are you okay?”
She inched toward his voice, scraping the burlap bag off her head. Blinking dust and fibers from her eyes, she realized they were in a tent.
Xavier sat ten feet away, his legs out in front of him with a lit halogen lantern on one side and his burlap bag on the other.
Rolling to her knees, she winced as her hip hit a rock, but it was no worse than the other bruises she’d gathered as the soldiers forced them to trek, blind and bound, through the nighttime jungle and then shoved them in the back of a vehicle. All would heal in time, providing she had time. “I’m good. You?”
He nodded in response.
Still on her knees, she shuffled towards Xavier. “Where are Sebastian and Tomas?”
“They’re not here,” he responded. “They’re smart enough to make themselves scarce and not get captured.”
She didn’t miss the self-recrimination and felt much the same way.
“Think they’ll try to break us out?” she asked.
“There are too many soldiers,” Xavier noted. “They know the rules.”
She tried to hide her disappointment.
The rules were there for a reason, she told herself. And not taking on an army was a good rule. That didn’t mean she liked it. “That’s good.” Bethany reached Xavier and plopped next to him. “Smart.”
Xavier shook his head, chuckling. “Can you imagine Sebastian following a rule? Any rule?”
She smiled. “No.” So help would arrive. Eventually. “What now?” she pressed. “Wait? Send up a smoke signal?”
“We free our hands,” he said. Rising to his knees, they both shuffled until they were back to back. The knots were tight, but at least it was rope and not zip ties.
“Buenas noches” an unknown voice greeted.
Bethany stiffened and her hands stilled. Behind her, canvas smacked canvas as the tent flap was pushed aside and soldiers entered.
Xavier leaned back. “Stick with the hiker story,” he whispered so low that it reached her ears and no farther.
Before she could respond or react, Bethany found herself hauled to her feet.
The man towering over her was new. Granted, she hadn’t seen any of the soldiers that well, but she was sure this man would have stood out.
The gray in his military-cut hair and the deep wrinkles in his forehead told her that he was pushing fifty, but the firm shoulders and toned body beneath the camouflage uniform belonged to a man decades younger.
But it was his no-nonsense attitude and the multiple bars on his pocket that told her he was the commander of the camp.
He looked her over from head to feet.
There was nothing sexual in his assessment. In fact, it felt predatory, and the hairs on Bethany’s neck rose in response.
“I am Commander Franco Veron of the Colombian army.” He tossed her passport to her feet.
“Bethany Darrow,” she replied. She might lie about a lot, but there was no point in lying about her name when her passport told the truth.
“What are you doing in my jungle?”
Experience told her to treat him like the predator he seemed to be. Look away. Don’t make eye contact. Act submissive. Instinct told her to do the opposite. And she didn’t ignore instinct.
He leaned toward her, his posture daring her to step away. She didn’t flinch. “I was hiking until your men kidnapped me.”
“Wrong answer.” He stepped back, and Bethany’s knees gave as someone kicked them from behind. She fell to the ground, twisting sideways to keep from hitting her face, and whacked the side of her head instead.
Okay, her instincts were dead wrong. Dazed, she gave herself a shake, trying to clear her head.
Around her, there was shouting in Spanish. Scuffling.
She faced the source. Xavier lay a few feet from her, face down with a soldier’s foot on his lower back. “Touch her again and I will make you pay,” he vowed, his words muffled by the ground.
“It’s okay. I’m okay,” she said. God, this was worse than she realized, and she didn’t see it improving.
She glared at Veron. He was supposed to be the good guy?
Groaning, she rolled onto her back. Veron took a stance over her, one foot on each side of her hips, as he stared down. Once quick move and she’d have her knee in his crotch.
The thought of Veron joining her on the ground in the kind of pain only a man could feel was a tempting thought. But stupid, she realized, as was her attempt at defiance. Veron was in charge—the quintessential alpha
male of the camp.
At least until she and Xavier managed to free themselves. Then he’d find out who was stronger.
“Why are you here?” Veron’s gaze intensified and she looked away, acting the submissive and hating it. “I’m a tourist,” she responded. “Nothing more.”
Veron held out his hand to the side, palm up. From her peripheral vision, she saw someone give him something. He dropped the object onto her chest.
The headset from her backpack.
“Why does a tourist need a military-issue headset?”
Good question. “It’s the jungle,” Bethany replied. “I wanted to make sure we’d find each other if I got lost.” And a plausible answer.
Veron continued to stare at her, trying to unnerve her with his blank expression and daring her to confess her lie.
They were playing parts now. Alpha. Beta. Dominant. Submissive. Strong. Weak. Whatever the name, it was a role and a game, and she doubted her skill at acting like a helpless female made him trust her.
After all, he didn’t command an army because he was a fool.
He held out his hand again, and a soldier gave him something new. This time, he didn’t drop the item on her. He pointed it at her head. “And this?”
Bethany stared at the barrel of Xavier’s SIG.
Déjà vu.
She bit her lip before she broke into hysterics.
“That’s mine,” Xavier interrupted, rolling onto his back. “If we didn’t carry weapons in the jungle, we’d be dead. You should know that. What kind of guide would I be if I wasn’t armed?”
Her guide? It was the truth in a way.
Veron’s eyes narrowed as he focused his attention to Xavier. “Are you calling my intelligence into question?”
Xavier’s eyes narrowed, as well. “I am pointing out the obvious, which you seem to have missed.”
Veron stiffened. Stepping over Bethany, he strode the short distance to Xavier and aimed the gun at his head. “What is obvious is that you are lying,” he stated, his voice as calm and indifferent as if he asked for directions. “Why does a tourist and her guide need a military headset and a weapon?”
Bethany’s gaze slid from the gun to Xavier. He didn’t blink. Didn’t back away. And despite the fact that Veron was free and Xavier was bound, it wasn’t clear who was winning this pissing contest.
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