To Save His Child

by Margaret Watson

  Caine’s heart beat steadily against her cheek. She kept her eyes tightly closed and her face pressed into his shoulder as cold sweat trickled down her back and sides. The grip she had on his arm would probably cause bruises tomorrow, but she couldn’t let go. She was holding herself together by a single, frayed thread, and that thread was attached to Caine.

  “Are you all right?” she heard him whisper next to her.

  She nodded, afraid that if she opened her mouth she would sob with fear. He moved, and she clutched at him frantically.

  “It’s okay, Lex,” he murmured into her ear. “I won’t let you go.”

  She could feel him sliding her over his leg and nestling her onto his lap. “I’ve got you,” he said, stroking her hair. “It’ll take about ten more minutes to get to the airport, and we should be in the air a half hour after that. We tried to wait until the last possible moment to leave.”

  He kept up a soothing monologue until the truck shuddered to a halt. Then, bending closer to her ear, he breathed, “I have to be quiet now. We can’t take a chance on someone hearing voices from this crate.” He smoothed his hand down her back and side, again and again, until he touched the shawl. His hand stilled.

  “What about her?” he whispered. “Is she asleep?”

  Lexie nodded again, then whispered back, “She should be fine until we’re in the air.” Her throat felt swollen and tight, and she had to force the words out.

  Suddenly they were swinging through the air, and she fell away from Caine as the box tilted to one side. She bit on her lip, trying to stifle the scream that tried to escape, and scrabbled frantically in the darkness as she reached for him.

  His strong hands grasped her arms and he pulled her back against him. This time he braced her between his legs, then lowered his head and brushed his mouth over her cheek.

  She clung to him, trying to let him banish the nightmare that filled her head. His mouth drifted toward her ear, and he breathed, “It’s all right, Lex, I’m here. It won’t be much longer.”

  The crate bumped against something and shuddered to a halt, and the next moment she could feel them sliding across a floor. She heard voices, muffled and indistinct. Then they bumped into something else and stopped. Caine must have sensed her question, because he put his mouth against her ear again and said, “We’re on the plane now. Almost there.”

  She nodded once, jerkily, and shifted Ana in her arms. Then, searching for Caine’s hand in the darkness, she grasped it as she tried to listen to the voices coming from outside the crate. She couldn’t make out the words, but the effort distracted her from the blackness that enfolded them.

  Suddenly Caine stiffened. She felt all his muscles tense, and he eased her away from him and pressed his ear against the wood of their prison. The voices had suddenly gotten louder, and even inside the wooden crate she could feel their anger.

  Terror filled her again, but this time it was fear of being caught. They couldn’t have gotten this far only to be stopped minutes before they would have been free, she thought with despair.

  She reached out for Caine, needing to hold on to him. He took her hand, but didn’t move away from the side of the crate. After a moment, he dropped her hand and she felt him reach for his boot. Fear clawed at her as she heard the quiet hiss of his knife sliding out of its sheath.

  The voices were suddenly louder and closer. Her heart began to pound, and she was sure anyone within a ten-foot radius of the crate could hear it booming against her chest. Blood roared in her ears, drowning out the approaching voices.

  Caine must have sensed her panic, because he reached out and squeezed her shoulder once. Then he shifted and the coiled tension emanating from him seemed to fill the enclosed space.

  Her arm curled around the still-sleeping Ana, hovering over her protectively, and she waited for someone to rip the cover off their hiding place. But after a few minutes the voices stopped abruptly, and immediately the plane began to move.

  Lexie collapsed against the side of the crate, exhausted and trembling. Caine didn’t move. He waited, crouching still and silent, for a long time. Finally, though, when he felt the plane lift into the air, he sat back down. Lexie heard the whisper of metal against leather as he sheathed his knife.

  He slid over next to her and put his arm around her again, and she could feel the tension that still hummed through his body. “What was that—” she started to say, but he covered her mouth with his hand.

  “Not yet,” he murmured into her ear. “Wait.”

  Unease trickled through her as she realized that he wasn’t sure all the danger was behind them. She stared in his direction, trying to figure out what he was worried about. He pulled her close again and dropped a kiss on her hair, whispering, “Don’t worry. I think everything’s fine.”

  But he wasn’t sure, and that was why he didn’t let himself relax. She leaned against his shoulder, letting his warmth seep into her frozen muscles, and swallowed hard. The terror of the darkness in the enclosed crate had been replaced by a fear of what waited outside.

  It seemed as if hours had passed when she heard someone prying the nails out of the lid of the box. Caine reached for his knife and she pulled Ana closer. When the lid moved slowly sideways, letting dim light into their hiding place, Caine leaped up from a crouching position, holding the knife in one hand.

  “Take it easy, buddy,” she heard a laughing voice say. “I’m one of the good guys.”

  The lid slid completely off the box, and a young, blond-haired stranger extended a hand in her direction. “Welcome aboard, Mrs. Smith,” he said, smiling. “Come on out.”

  She watched as Caine slowly slid his knife back into his boot and turned to her. Ignoring the young man’s extended hand, he reached down and pulled her to her feet. “It’s okay, honey,” he said. “He’s on our side.”

  Slowly Lexie stood, blinking in the light, stretching the kinks out of her legs and looking around. They were surrounded by cargo of all kinds, piled halfway to the ceiling of the silver plane. Behind the blond man she could see an open door that looked as if it led to the cockpit.

  “What happened back there?” Caine demanded, and the young stranger stopped smiling.

  “Trouble,” he said bluntly. “Those rebel soldiers wanted to check all our cargo. I don’t know if they knew you were on board or if they were checking everyone. I came down hard on them at first, but I didn’t want to make them suspicious so I finally just gave them a bribe. I acted like I figured that was what they were after all along.”

  “And they went along with that?” Caine asked. Lexie could hear the doubt in his voice.

  The blond man shrugged. “Hell if I know. I didn’t wait to find out. I shoved them out the door and started the engine. I thought I heard them shouting as I started to roll, but I ignored it. I figured once we were in the air they couldn’t stop us.” He grinned at them again. “I waited until we were out of San Rafael airspace to let you out, though.”

  Lexie could see Caine finally relax. “Thanks, Dan. If anyone else had been flying, we’d probably still be sitting on the runway back in Limores.” His mouth curved up in a ghost of a smile. “Jones said you were the best, and I guess he was right.”

  Dan shrugged as he turned back to the cockpit. “I aim to please. Sit back and enjoy the ride. It’ll be three hours or so before we get there.”

  As he disappeared into the cockpit, Lexie said, “Where are we going, Ca—”

  Before she could finish his name he’d plastered his hand over her mouth. “Don’t use my name. As far as Dan knows, we’re Mr. and Mrs. Smith. He doesn’t want to know the truth any more than I want him to.”

  She looked toward the cockpit, where the door was slightly ajar. “Who is he?”

  “He owns a charter company in the States and one of his customers is the U.S. government. He does the odd job for us every now and then, but it’s less awkward for everyone if it’s kept anonymous.”

  Nodding, she glanced once more toward
the front of the plane, where she could hear someone whistling off-key. Then she looked back at Caine. “You didn’t answer my other question. Where are we going?”

  He leaned down to pick up the canteen that still stood in the corner of the crate. “We’re going to my ranch,” he said, his voice casual. “It’s in Montana. You can stay there for as long as you like.”

  She started to ask him where in Montana it was, but Ana awakened and began to cry. Reaching for her, she scooped the baby out of the shawl and began to unbutton her blouse.

  Caine bent down to arrange a pillow against the side of the crate. “I’m afraid this is the only place to sit,” he said, his voice apologetic.

  She gave him a wan smile. “I’ve sat in worse places to nurse. This is fine.”

  Her pack was just out of reach and as she leaned over to get it, Caine asked, “What do you need?”

  “A diaper. She’s eating so fast that I’m afraid she might burp some of it back up.”

  He stuck his hand inside her pack and brought out a fistful of diapers. As he tried to disentangle them, a brown manila envelope fell onto the floor.

  Caine froze, staring at the innocuous-looking envelope. Without taking his eyes off it he handed Lexie one of the diapers, then shoved the rest back into her pack. Finally he looked up at Lexie.

  “Can I look at the pictures?”

  She nodded, watching him, but didn’t say a word. It looked like she was scarcely breathing.

  It was hard for him to catch his own breath. Something had his chest in its grip, squeezing so hard that his blood pounded in his ears. Put it back, a voice inside him pleaded. Once you look, it’ll be too late.

  But somehow he found himself reaching out, taking the flat package in his hands. The envelope crinkled, the paper stiff and rough against his suddenly sensitive fingers. He looked at Lexie again, but he couldn’t read her expression.

  In spite of the warnings screaming in his head he couldn’t stop himself from looking down at the envelope again. The feel of it burned into him, but he turned it over, examining it for the first time. He recognized Lexie’s handwriting. On the front she had scrawled “Santa Ysabel.” Farther down, in a different ink, she had written “Ana.”

  Slowly he straightened the metal prongs holding the envelope closed. The voice inside him warned that things would never be the same if he looked inside, but he couldn’t stop himself. Suddenly he was consumed with the need to know what his daughter looked like when she was born, to see how she had changed in the last two months.

  The pictures spilled out into his lap. The one on top was of Lexie, looking radiant but exhausted, holding a tightly wrapped bundle. She sat propped up in a bed, grinning weakly at the camera.

  His heart ached. “Who took these pictures?” he asked, his voice hoarse and unfamiliar.

  “Maria,” she answered in a soft voice. “She’s the local midwife. Ana was born in her house.”

  Slowly he laid that picture aside and picked up another one. As he reached for it he noticed that his hand was trembling. “She looks different,” he said after he’d studied it for a while. “Like she’s not fully formed yet.”

  “She was only two days old. I guess that’s the way newborns look.”

  He looked over at Lexie, but she’d put the baby on her shoulder and was murmuring to her. When she glanced over at him, he thought he saw a sheen of moisture in her eyes. She looked away so quickly, he couldn’t be sure.

  He looked through all the pictures, feeling his heart expand in his chest until he was afraid it would burst. Right in front of his eyes he’d seen the kid change. Finally he looked up at Lexie again. “She’s so different now. I had no idea so much happened in two months.”

  Lexie gave him a smile tinged with sadness. “She changes every day. That’s why I wanted those pictures. It’s already hard to remember what she looked like back then.” She lowered her head to look down at the baby in her arms and her hair swung over her face. “You can have the pictures if you want them.”

  Something exquisitely beautiful and equally painful moved inside him at her words. He closed his eyes and struggled for control before he spoke. “Thank you. I couldn’t take your pictures.” He swallowed and, trying to sound nonchalant, added, “Maybe I’ll make copies of them, though.”

  “I’ll send you copies,” she whispered. She kept her head bent over the baby, but he thought he saw something wet fall onto the shawl. He wanted to reach for her, but instead he forced himself to gather the pictures back into a neat stack.

  He’d picked up the envelope to replace them when he stopped. One of the other pictures was a group shot of what he assumed were some of the villagers of Santa Ysabel.

  “Do you mind if I look through the rest of these pictures?”

  She shook her head. “Be my guest.”

  He stuffed the baby pictures back into the envelope, his hand lingering on them as he slid them out of sight. Then, forcing himself to put them out of his mind, he spread the other photos in a semicircle in front of him.

  There were group shots of people from the village, and photos of individual people. Occasionally there was a picture of a couple, or of a group of three or four. Staring at the smiling faces looking back at him, an idea stirred. He looked over at Lexie, who was changing the baby’s diaper. “Do you know who all of these people are?”

  “Most of them,” she said without looking up.

  “Would you mind looking through them and telling me if there’s anyone you don’t recognize?”

  She raised her head sharply then. “Why? What are you thinking?”

  He handed her the stack of pictures and leaned back against the wooden crate, watching her. “It’s a long shot, but suppose you have a picture there of someone who’d rather not be photographed. That might be one reason why El Cuchillo is so eager to catch you.”

  Thumbing through the pictures, studying each one, she said, “But why would they have let me take a picture of them in the first place? And why would they wait until now to try and get it back?”

  “Who knows?” He shrugged. “Maybe circumstances have changed since the picture was taken. Maybe he just remembered that you had it. We may never know.”

  He stared at her as she slowly and methodically looked at each picture, then set it down. “Everyone familiar?” he asked softly.

  “So far.” She didn’t look up, just kept on examining the photos.

  Suddenly she froze, staring at one picture. Caine had to stop himself from grabbing for it.

  “I’d forgotten all about this,” she whispered.

  “About what?” His voice was too sharp, but he didn’t care. Sliding over next to her, he looked at the picture she held in her hand. She handed it to him.

  “About Pedro.” She stared at the picture again, a stricken look on her face. “Five or six months ago, one of the young men from the village came home with some friends of his. Pedro is one of Santa Ysabel’s success stories. He goes to the university in Limores, and everyone expects big things from him. His friends were men he’d met at school.”

  “But,” Caine prompted. He could see from her eyes that there was more to the story.

  “But these men made the rest of the villagers uneasy. They all whispered that Pedro had gotten in with a bad group. They were only there for a few days, then they left and we never saw them again. The next time Pedro came home, he was alone. When someone asked him about his friends, he said only that he had been mistaken in their character. We never heard anything else about them. Then when Pedro went back to school, he disappeared. No one’s heard from him for three months.”

  He could feel her eyes on him as she asked, “Do you recognize any of the people in the picture?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean anything.” He looked at the photo again, then up at her. “May I keep this one? There are people who might recognize some of these men.”

  “Of course,” she said immediately. She watched as he tucked it carefully into his pack, then
asked, “Do you really think that picture is the reason El Cuchillo wanted to catch me?”

  “There has to be some reason,” he answered, his voice grim. “And this makes as much sense as anything else.”

  He watched her jerky movements as she settled the baby into the shawl and realized she was frightened again. Sliding over next to her, he wrapped one arm around her and said, “Hey, it doesn’t matter anymore. We’re out of Limores and we’re safe. All you have to do now is lean back and enjoy the ride.”

  She gave him a shaky smile and snuggled closer to him. Desire flared inside him at her unconscious gesture of trust, but he fought against it. This wasn’t the time or place. “Why don’t you try to sleep? It’ll be a while before we get there.”

  “I spent the whole day sleeping,” she protested, but she laid her head against his shoulder. In a few minutes, both mother and daughter were asleep.

  Lexie awoke with a start when she felt the bump. Sitting up and looking around wildly, she realized she’d been asleep, lying in Caine’s lap. The nightmare of their trip out of Limores came flooding back, and she glanced around warily.

  “It’s okay.” Caine’s voice was soft and reassuring. “We’ve just landed.”

  She looked over at him, and saw that he was holding Ana. When he saw the direction of her gaze, his face reddened slightly and he held the baby out to her. As she took Ana, he said, “She looked uncomfortable and I was afraid you might roll over on her if she was still in the shawl.”

  “Thank you for taking care of her,” she murmured, her heart singing. He couldn’t be as indifferent to Ana as he’d wanted her to believe if he’d held her all the way from Limores to Montana.

  “No problem,” he answered, his voice gruff. Without looking at her, he began gathering their things and shoving them into the backpacks.

  The plane slowed down and came to a stop. Lexie snuggled Ana into her shawl and climbed out of the crate. She headed for the door of the plane, but suddenly stopped and turned around.

  “I never asked you, is it warm enough in Montana this time of year to be dressed like this? Will I need something else to cover Ana?”