by Lowe, Anna
A broad hand stroked her hair, and his lips flitted over her forehead. The man was steel and cotton at the same time, all hard plates of muscle with a soft, soothing touch.
“I’ll get you out of here, Cara. I swear I will.”
And for the first time in days — maybe even years, it felt like somehow, everything might just turn out all right.
She waited for the funny comment Tobin was sure to make. The tease. Something about snakes and bites and sex, maybe. Or something about princesses stuck in the jungle, followed by a flash of his perfect teeth and knee-melting smile.
But he didn’t. He looked at her long and hard, as if a whole speech was perched on the tip of his tongue, dying for him to work up the courage to set it free.
The words never came, though. He closed his eyes briefly, let her get dressed quickly then quietly shooed her out the door.
Maybe it wasn’t the same old Tobin as before. This one was a little older, a little wiser. A little quieter, too.
He came out silently, the snake looped over his machete.
His machete.
Holy shit.
He tossed the carcass in the bushes then came back to her side.
“See?” He kicked aside leaves, clearing a trail. “The coast is clear.”
The man was a prince.
No one in the village seemed to bat an eye at the sight of the snake. One man, though, sat on a tree stump across the clearing, watching them closely. Lefebvre. Looking like he’d been waiting for them to come out — or waiting for them to never come out. Was that a scowl of disappointment or just his usual disdain?
“Señora! Señor!” A woman beckoned them over for breakfast. It had been like that every morning: with no ado whatsoever, someone would smile and wave and offer a plate. In fact, there were often a couple of people vying for the honor of feeding her.
But breakfast, at a time like this?
Tobin, of course, dug right in.
Cara gave the ground a good stomp to chase away any lurking snakes before sitting down and accepting a plate of fried plantains.
“You think if a couple of these people showed up in your hometown, anyone would spontaneously offer them a warm meal?” Tobin mused between munches.
She snorted. The villagers had taught her a lot of things besides basket-weaving and which plants — and snakes — to avoid. Things like generosity, openheartedness, neighborliness.
On the other hand, they were keeping her captive, too.
She shook her head, not knowing what to believe. “For all we know, they could have slipped the snake into our cabin.”
“Nah,” Tobin countered, shoveling another plantain into his mouth. Totally relaxed, like he started every day by killing venomous snakes and eating with his bare hands. “I think it came in through the roof.”
Like that made her feel better.
“That, or he did it.” Tobin’s voice dropped and his eyes narrowed on Lefebvre, who glared back.
Cara didn’t want to believe the anthropologist would go that far, but still…
Tobin kicked the ground then stuck a smile back on.
“Delicious!” he announced, and all the ladies clucked in approval.
Rodrigo showed up halfway through Tobin’s third helping, wearing a green T-shirt with a picture of a bulldozer circled and crossed out by a red line. “I will organize a guide, so you can see the waterfall.”
Cara wanted to moan. The last thing she wanted was a jungle hike. She wanted out, now more than ever.
“Great!” Tobin said. “I can’t wait to see the birds.”
“You like birds?” Rodrigo looked delighted.
Cara crooked an eyebrow. Since when did Tobin like birds?
“Sure, I’m an amateur orni—” Either he got stuck on the word, or he was having fun. “A horny…an ormi—”
She lifted her eyebrows. “An ornithologist?”
He stuck another banana in his mouth and pointed at her with a look that said, Bingo!
Rodrigo pointed uphill, but Tobin shook his head.
“Not the top of the waterfall.” He pointed down, in the direction of the valley with the bridge. The way out. “The bottom.” He said it so casually, she knew something was up.
Rodrigo eyed Tobin the way one might study a sleeping anaconda. “Why the bottom?”
Yes, she wanted to echo, why the bottom?
“I saw a waterfall in Honduras that people say is the most beautiful in all Central America, but when I saw the one here yesterday, I thought it might be a contender. But I’d need to see from the bottom to be sure.”
Rodrigo looked positively outraged. “Our waterfall is the most beautiful. People come from all over the world to see it.”
“That’s why I want to go. To see for myself. From the bottom.”
What was this obsession with the bottom of the falls?
“It’s very far,” Rodrigo warned.
“I love hiking,” Tobin countered.
Since when?
“And I love butterflies.”
“I thought you said you liked birds.”
She could see his mind racing. “I like birds. But butterflies are my passion.” The man even managed to say it with a straight face. “And they’re most active around now, so we need to get going.”
Tobin liked butterflies about as much as he liked the opera music her father listened to.
“It’s much closer to visit the top,” Rodrigo warned.
“How close?”
“Only about an hour.”
Tobin nodded. “That’ll be on our list for tomorrow. Today we want the view from the bottom.”
“The bottom,” Rodrigo repeated. He scrutinized Tobin’s poker face.
“The bottom is the best place to appreciate the height of a waterfall. But whatever.” Tobin flapped his hand, as if was all the same to him. “I’m pretty sure that waterfall in Honduras is nicer, anyway.”
Rodrigo muttered under his breath and stalked away in search of a guide.
She sidled up to Tobin. “A hike? And another one tomorrow?”
He nodded, looking ridiculously pleased with himself.
“Tomorrow is Friday,” she went on. “And the presentation is at three. I need to get out of this place. I thought you came to save me.”
Tobin inched closer. Closer. Kissing close. Not a good thing, because a happy, confident Tobin did deadly things to her resolve. Just like the day she met him on the ski slope: the minute she saw him, she went hot all over. And not just because of his looks. It was more than that, like her soul already knew he was the only man for her. She’d fought the attraction all day, only to end up in bed with him that very same night. And loved every minute of it.
She blinked a few times, because thinking about hot nights with Tobin was not doing anything for her cause.
“Where’s your sense of adventure?”
When he grinned at her like that, she could have swung Tarzan-style through the trees to get to him. Wrap her legs around him. Dive into his mouth with her tongue.
“Tobin, why are really you here?”
He leaned in so close, she thought he might kiss her. “I came because I heard you were in trouble.”
She could feel his soft breath on her cheek, smell that uniquely Tobin scent that always reminded her of schnapps: fruity but hard-hitting. The kind of scent that didn’t come in a bottle, only on him.
“I am in trouble.”
“I mean, like big trouble. Mortal danger. Damsel in distress.” He flashed a winning smile, and she nearly bought it. That smile was Tobin’s weapon and his weakness, because most people couldn’t see past the sheer voltage of it to the soul beneath.
But she saw, and it made her heart skip. He was serious behind the smile. Dead serious. Worried — for her. His eyes said he would have fought his way into a guerrilla camp for her. Parachuted onto an erupting volcano. Those eyes promised he’d never, ever let anything happen to her. He’d keep her safe.
From anythin
g but her own stupidity.
Her chin started to dip in shame, but he tilted it back up with one finger. “Look, I will get you out of here. Soon. But for now, we make like we’re here to enjoy life in the slow lane. So we’ll play with the kids, visit the waterfall. Smell the roses, or whatever kind of flowers those giant yellow things are.” He motioned overhead. “And all the time, we’re looking for a way to get out.”
She glanced in Lefebvre’s direction and hid a shiver.
“But how? Every time I get more than one hundred yards, they herd me back in. Always polite, never with force,” she added, because his gaze narrowed like he might just let his hidden dragon out. “But no matter what I try, I’m stuck.”
He reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, and he left his fingers there much longer than necessary. Then he twitched a little and went from sad to sneaky with a mischievous wink. “I think the waterfall is a great place to start bird-watching, don’t you think?”
Chapter Twelve
Off they went, through the thick of the rain forest with three local men, each of them carrying a blowgun and a bundle of darts. Guides, Rodrigo called them. His code word for guards.
“Are those things really tipped with poison?” Tobin muttered out of the side of his mouth.
She nodded. “I’ve seen them make it. Serious stuff. They hunker down and do it carefully. Keep the kids out of arm’s reach. I’ve seen it work, too.”
“Yeah, so have I — in one of those TV documentaries my parents made me watch.” He grinned. “Kind of cool to see them for real, as long as they’re not pointed my way.”
One of the men stopped, crouched, and aimed his blowgun into the foliage. There was a thwooo-whack! and a flutter in the foliage as his prey fell. One of the boys scampered off trail and came back with a bird. Stone dead.
“Yeah, I guess now’s not the time to make a break for it,” Tobin murmured.
She shook her head. Even if they could evade the darts, they’d never get across the bridge with its machine gun-toting guards. They’d had a glimpse from a cliff’s edge, but only a hint before the trail wound farther east, downriver and away from the bridge.
No. Escape was not on the menu for today. Would it ever be?
She resigned herself to the walk and whatever secret plan Tobin was scheming at.
Even with Friday itching at the back of her mind, though, Cara found herself a bit too distracted to think clearly of escape as the walk stretched on. Distracted by Tobin. That her mountain god of a ski instructor could morph into a beach hunk and offer surf lessons straight from a woman’s fantasies, she already knew. But now he had the Indiana Jones look down pat, too. Him and his swinging machete and the bag slung across this shoulders and the shirt sticking to his back, showing every ripple of muscle.
A good thing the jungle dwellers were in full song; that covered up the throaty sigh she let out. Everything from blue-and-yellow tree frogs to rainbow-colored macaws to camouflaged insects croaked, whistled, and sang in full voice all around them, filling eight stories of rain forest with gossip. A howler monkey growled like a lion, and a sloth hung upside down from a branch.
“Now that’s my kind of guy,” Tobin quipped.
Stop it! She wanted to yell. Stop begging people to think that’s you!
Tobin ambled on, head turning every which way like he didn’t want to miss a square inch. Like he was enjoying being a captive of the world’s most hospitable hostage-takers. Her inner lens snapped and clicked as her mind scribbled a caption to go with it. A man who knows how to live.
She followed his gaze left, right, up, and down. The rain forest was dangerous, but gorgeous, too — not just in its grandest elements, but in the microscopic details. Tree roots thicker than her waist rose eight feet off the ground and formed intricate lace patterns. Miniature highways packed with a rush hour of ants bisected the trail, paying the human intruders no mind. The jungle pulsed with life, like the heartbeat of the earth. Tobin wasn’t swinging the machete for show, either; the forest grew so fast, each day threw another dozen vines across the winding mud trail.
With every stroke of the silver blade, the fabric of his shirt shifted and stretched. She frowned, recognizing it. Why did Tobin still insist on wearing that stupid shirt?
Waynston Prep, said the scrolling script. Underneath was a fancy crest and a date: 1832. Worn, torn, and stained, that shirt was everything a fancy prep school shirt shouldn’t be.
“Waynston Prep!” Her mom had practically clapped when she’d first met Tobin. “A great school. You went there?”
“I did.” He’d flashed a charming grin, then shattered the effect. “Until they threw me out.”
Cara remembered it perfectly: how her parents had exchanged horrified glances. How she kept straining for him to explain what really happened. But he didn’t. He just smiled and chowed down on the lasagna and told her mother how delicious dinner was.
That was the thing. Tobin never bothered to explain. She’d only managed to drag the story out of his brother bit by bit. For all the pranks Tobin had played in school, he’d only been expelled when he claimed responsibility for bringing alcohol into the dorms. All to save the skin of his roommate, the inner-city kid on scholarship who’d get no second chances in life.
She’d glared at Tobin that night, urging him to finish the story. Explain it, Tobin. Explain.
But Tobin just shot her a bittersweet look. They’ll never believe me anyway.
That was Tobin: principled to a fault, even when he had to pay a heavy price. Resigned to his fate. Did he wear the shirt as a reminder of failure or of doing the right thing?
She hung her head. High school wasn’t the only time he’d done the right thing, nor was it the only time he’d been punished for a crime he didn’t commit. The second instance, she knew all too well because she was the one who’d done the accusing when all Tobin had done was the right thing.
She kicked a rock, sending it into the shadows. Tobin was Tobin. He hadn’t changed. The scary thing was how much she had — and how she’d never noticed until now. She’d gotten colder. Harder. Judgmental, like everybody else.
The kids who’d tagged along chattered away at Tobin, and he chattered right back in nonsensical syllables that made them giggle and tease.
She wanted to stop him there and then, scream and shout. At him, at herself.
Tobin! Why did you let me go? Why didn’t you come back to me?
That one, she knew the answer to. She’d told him she never wanted to see him again, that’s why. Yelled it at the top of her lungs.
She was the one who’d ruined everything, not him. He was the one who ought to be asking her, Cara, why didn’t you come back to me?
It had all seemed so black and white, until everything faded to a thousand shades of gray.
“Listen, Tobin,” she started, trying to get the words organized in her mind. About us. About six years ago when—
He held up a hand and gently shushed her. “Listen.”
The sound of the waterfall broke through the trees, and a patch of sunlight pierced the foliage ahead. “We’re nearly there.”
Her mouth closed. Opened. Closed again, and stayed that way.
A minute later, they really were there, and even the straight-faced bushmen accompanying them stood in a reverent kind of daze.
The waterfall fell from sixty feet above, scraping a half bowl out of a yellow-brown cliff. Somewhere above it were the upper two stages of the falls. Unobstructed sunlight filled the clearing with golden light, and rainbows played in the mist. Cara couldn’t resist turning her face up to the sky, soaking the sun in after nearly a week spent in shadows.
“You don’t realize how much you miss something until it’s gone, do you?” Tobin asked in a hushed voice.
She glanced over and found him looking at her, not the sun. His lips quivered, and part of her wanted nothing more than to lean toward him and find out what those unspoken words might be.
Then he
flipped a switch and went back to fun-loving Tobin. “Coming in?”
He strode toward the edge of the pool, shedding layers as he went. He dropped the shoulder bag on a stone, spread his shirt across a bush. He’d changed into a pair of surf shorts back in the village — unlike her, the man had the foresight to bring a backpack of things. He stood before her, tan, tough, and bare-chested, and held out a hand. “Come on!”
She folded her arms. “I don’t have anything to wear.”
His eyes sparkled. “So don’t wear anything.”
Click, zing. Caption: The zest of life. The man was one of a kind.
“What about them?” She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder at their escort.
“Who?”
She spun around and found nothing. Their escort had disappeared into the foliage.
“I think they’re off hunting. Just you, me, and the kids now.”
She looked over to find the two little boys already making for the shallows.
She blinked. If the guards were gone, maybe she and Tobin could make a run for it.
“I doubt they’re far,” Tobin said, reading her mind. “Now’s not our chance to escape. Not yet. But it is our chance for a nice, refreshing dip. Come in, already.”
God, the water was tempting.
“It’s probably full of leeches,” she protested, wondering why she was trying so hard to say no.
“It’s clean. Fresh. You know how good this feels after months of salt water?”
No, she didn’t, but she hadn’t washed properly in days, and everything itched.
“Come on, Cara!”
Tobin didn’t wait. He just turned and made for the pool. He’d pulled the same trick the first day they met, leaving her at the lip of a slope and skiing away. And silly girl, she’d followed right him down that mountain. Then another and another, and eventually, she’d followed him right into bed.
And damn it, the same magic was working on her now, because she already had the buttons worked halfway down her shirt. Most of the women in the village went topless, so surely, she could strip down to panties and a bra. And no one was looking, right?
