“Maybe the jaguar scared them.”
“Could be,” he agreed.
What little was left of the smashed crates was carelessly thrown about the small field. Alanna stayed close to Matt as he carefully inspected each piece. She leaned down to read the black stenciled numbers on the crates.
“This isn’t even from one of our shipments,” Matt growled. “It’s a different number code.”
Alanna gasped involuntarily. “You’re right!” Hope rose in her heart. “Maybe these crates held stolen supplies that the guerrillas took from someone else.” Hurriedly she brought up her camera and clicked the shutter. It wouldn’t budge. She gave the camera an aggravated look, and realized that she had run out of film. Quickly changing rolls, she took two photos of the crate lettering. She looked over at Matt. “Am I right?”
“Beginning to look that way. Come on, let’s comb this place for more evidence.”
They spent another half-hour finding more broken slats that had been tossed here and there. One policeman cried out, motioning for them to come where he was standing. Alanna saw tire tracks imprinted on the muddy surface of the jungle floor. Matt knelt down, studying them intently. Finally, he looked over at her. “Looks like heavy transport vehicles.” He grimly added, “The kind that are used by the police.”
“What? Why, that’s impossible. Why would the police be hauling supplies out here?”
Matt slowly rose, wiping his muddy fingers on the thigh of his utilities. “Simple, a black market scam.”
“Then we’ve stumbled onto a smuggling ring?”
He nodded, following the grooved tracks back into the jungle. He knelt down over another spot, motioning her to join him. “Look here. Our truck has a slashed tire.”
Alanna took several photos of the odd tire configuration. It appeared to have been cut by something, but not cut deeply enough to have caused a flat.
Finally, Matt said, “We’ve wasted enough time here. I’m going to radio Cauley to pick us up. I’ve got to get back to base anyway. Ready?”
She nodded. “Right now, the base sounds wonderful. Just think, a board floor to sleep on tonight.” She gave him a warm smile, remembering his own words on the subject.
Matt returned it, digging the radio out of his pack. “Now you can begin to appreciate what I meant when I told you earlier that a floor was a luxury in some cases.”
* * *
It seemed only a short time before a helicopter hovered over the clearing to pick them up. Alanna marveled at the time it had taken them to hike in on foot, appreciating the helicopter’s usefulness. She sat against the fuselage, watching as Matt and Jim Cauley talked on the microphone to one another. She felt a surge of warmth whenever Matt smiled or laughed. If only she could share that kind of laughter with him one day. She clutched her briefcase as they landed, relieved that the crates they had discovered did not belong to San Dolega.
Alanna would choose another time to approach Matt on the remaining problem of the half-empty medical crates found up at the village. He was swamped by half the base personnel the minute he stepped off the chopper. Cauley gave her a distrusting look but said nothing directly to her as she left the confines of the helicopter.
It was near evening and they were sitting on the floor, eating their barely warm food when she finally brought up the subject.
“What are you going to do?”
Matt gave her an intent look. “Fly into San Jose tomorrow morning and start an investigation dockside.”
“Mind if I tag along?”
“Is that a proposition?”
She smiled, responding to the teasing warmth in his husky voice. “Want it to be?”
“Absolutely.”
She felt a rush of excitement at the thought of finally being alone with him. There would be no interruptions, no phone calls…. Her heart sank. The investigation. What if Senator Thornton found out? He would tear the report up if he knew how she felt about Matt.
“Why the long face?” Matt asked.
Alanna placed her half-empty plate on the floor beside her. “I’m worrying about a lot of little things.”
“That if Thornton finds out you’re consorting with his arch enemy your job will be on the line?”
She avoided his gaze, his honesty jarring her. Alanna felt small and guilty. “That’s part of it. But more importantly, if he finds out about how I feel it will discredit the report I have to do on you. If I turn up nothing conclusive, he’s going to badger me for some silly detail. And if I provide none and it gets back to him we were sleeping in a tent together, he may think I’m covering up something, trying to protect you.” She gave a helpless shrug. “I’m sorry.”
He finished his coffee. “There’s nothing for you to be sorry about, and your worry is understandable under the circumstances.”
She entwined her fingers in her lap, twisting them. “You seem to take such gigantic hurdles with such ease, Matt. Most men would be angry or upset. There seems to be no way I can help; a good report can be as damaging as a bad one.”
He got up, gathered the plates, and took them out to the radio room. The hollow sound of his boots striking the wooden floor was somehow soothing. He sat down close to her, his hands closed around his drawn-up legs. “Look, I’ve been dogged by the senator before, but this is the first time I stood to gain something from it. I met you.” He grinned. “I don’t feel angry or upset, lady, I feel impatient waiting for you. But where I come from, they believe in old-fashioned ways, such as long courtships.”
She gave a laugh. “So you’re used to waiting?”
He grinned. “Not often, but when something’s worth waiting for, I have all the patience in the world.”
Alanna suddenly felt panicky. “Matt, I’m afraid….”
He untangled her fingers, holding her right hand firmly within his own. “Why?”
“I’m afraid,” she blurted out unsteadily, “of myself…of you. If you acted like those guys up on the Hill, I’d probably feel more secure about you and myself. But I don’t,” she added unhappily.
He didn’t say anything for a long time, simply tracing the outline of her fingers. “Perhaps the men you’ve been meeting lately are out for a few nights of entertainment, Alanna. When I meet a woman who interests me, I like to take the time to get to know her. One of the many things I learned coming out of that war was to live each day like it was my last. That doesn’t mean compressing a lifetime into twenty-four hours. It means capturing each nuance.” He turned his head, studying her openly. “Like you, for instance. I love watching the color of your eyes change with your moods. Or those strands of hair at your temples that curl in the humidity. I like to hear you laugh. It’s like listening to the bells at an old California mission, so clear and pure.” He gave her fingers a squeeze, then released them.
“I understand the predicament you’re in, and I don’t want you to lose your job. I think I know what it means to you. So no more worry in those lovely eyes of yours. Let’s get your investigation completed and sent off to Thornton and then pick up where we left off. Fair enough?”
* * *
Alanna packed her meager belongings, anxious to board the helicopter. She stood behind Matt, out of the way of the hustle and bustle as he gave last-minute instructions to the men in his command. With the advent of good weather, the airlift of supplies, and the hospitalization of most of the injured completed, the pressure had eased off.
Matt finally turned to her, walking over to lead her out the door.
“Ready?” he asked, smiling.
She detected a subtle warmth and excitement in his eyes. Returning the smile she whispered, “Yes.”
Her spiraling mood of happiness quickly disappeared as her glance met Jim Cauley’s suspicious look. Pursing her lips, she strapped herself into the seat behind the pilot’s and said little else. As always, he and Matt donned the headset and conversed with one another freely. Alanna concentrated on the scenery, noting the various shades of green in the jungle
far below them. The mountains were clean looking from the recent rain, and the sun was brilliant and hot. With a wry smile, she looked down at her feet. Her shoes were ruined, and her slacks were stained and muddied. What would the people at the hotel think? How would her colleagues react if they ever saw her in this disheveled state? She longed to bathe and wash her hair, to don a feminine dress, anxious to show Matt that she could be beautiful.
A small voice whispered to her, But he finds you beautiful anyway. She leaned her head against the fuselage, closing her eyes, contented.
* * *
The hotel clerk’s pencil-thin eyebrows rose in horror as Matt walked into the plushly carpeted lobby in his field boots and well-worn utilities. The clerk’s eyes traveled to Alanna, and the brows fell into an angle of suspicion. She saw several American hotel guests studying them with frank surprise. Their looks had not gone unnoticed by Matt, and he leaned over, his voice a confidential whisper.
“You sure you don’t want to give a fictitious name? We’re getting a lot of stares.”
She grinned. “What, and ruin my image?”
“If this ever gets back to the Hill, you’ll be a fallen woman among your friends,” he suggested mockingly.
Her eyes gleamed. “You know, for the first time in my life, I don’t care.”
Matt squeezed her elbow reassuringly. “That’s my gal. Do you want to do the honors of getting us rooms? I’m afraid this guy might lapse back into Spanish from sheer shock.”
Alanna suppressed a giggle. “Well, you have to admit, we wouldn’t make the best-dressed list.”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Lady, you would look beautiful no matter what you did or didn’t wear, take my word for it.”
She blushed becomingly as they halted at the desk. Gathering her scattered thoughts, Alanna requested two rooms next to one another.
The clerk’s darting brown gaze traveled to each of them. “Dos?” he repeated disbelievingly.
Matt leaned over. “Sí, dos,”
“And all along you said you didn’t know Spanish,” she accused.
“I understand it sometimes,” he admitted. “In this case, I can count to two in Spanish and get the point across to him before he faints.”
She swallowed a smile, unable to keep the merriment from her green eyes. The clerk meekly handed them keys, refusing to meet their eyes.
She padded down the carpeted expanse of the fourth floor hallway. “Matt, I feel like I’m in a dream. Carpeting. My God, this is an unheard of luxury!”
He stopped at her door, unlocking it and pushing it open. “Now you know how I felt when I returned from Nam. I was used to mud, water and the sky for a ceiling.”
She shook her head in amazement, stepping into the large, sunny room. “Two different worlds,” she murmured.
“Look, take your time getting cleaned up. I’m going to take a quick shower, change and make a few phone calls.” He looked at his watch. “How about lunch at one o’clock?”
That would give her two hours. “Sounds good.”
He placed her small suitcase beside the bed. “I’ll knock on your door,” he said, and then disappeared down the hall.
Alanna stripped off her smelly jungle clothes and dropped the shoes in the waste basket, mourning their loss. For the next half-hour, she stood beneath the hot, pummeling shower and scrubbed her hair until it was squeaky clean. Then she lathered herself with an apricot-scented soap. As she stepped from the bathroom wrapped in a large lemon yellow towel, she halted at the end of the bed. Should she lie down? Picking up her wrist watch, she noted that she had an hour and a half left. It looked so inviting…. Towel-drying her hair until it was only damp, Alanna slipped into her light blue robe and sank down onto the bed. Oh, what extravagance. Closing her eyes briefly, she dropped off into a deep, badly needed sleep.
Chapter Nine
An insistent knock at the door pulled her unwillingly out of the healing slumber. Groggily, Alanna stumbled off the bed, hands outstretched, vaguely aware that it was dark in her room. Groping for the knob, she fumbled with the lock and pulled the door open. The light was blinding, and she put up her hand, shielding her eyes momentarily.
Matt stood there in his khaki summer uniform, a slight smile on his mouth.
“Feel better?” he inquired.
She pushed several strands of hair away from her face. “What? Come in,” she mumbled. Turning, she went to sit on the bed, still fighting the stupor of sleep. Alanna heard the door being closed quietly and the sound of Matt walking over to the sliding glass doors and opening them. A fresh, cooling breeze entered the stuffy room.
“How long did I sleep?” she muttered, rubbing her eyes.
He ambled over, taking his garrison cap off and tossing it on the bedstand. “It’s eight-thirty. Probably close to ten hours.”
She gasped. “No!”
He stood there, seemingly enjoying her drowsy state. “Hungry?”
Alanna suddenly became aware that she was wearing a very revealing robe. She felt her heart begin to beat faster. There was a curious gray flame within his eyes, a half-smile pulling at one corner of his mouth. A shiver coursed through her, and she felt both desirable and slightly frightened. The silken material of her robe outlined the curve of her rounded breasts, slender waist, and hips. Everything she wanted to say seemed to freeze on the tip of her tongue.
“I just got back from the Department of Transportation,” he began, moving to the balcony area. “I thought we might discuss what I discovered over dinner tonight.”
Whether he had understood her sudden discomfort and embarrassment or not, Alanna was thankful that he had turned away to give her time to scoop up her only set of clean clothes.
“I’d like that. Give me a minute, and I’ll join you.”
When she assessed herself in the bathroom mirror, Alanna wrinkled her nose. Somehow, she didn’t feel special or magical in a plain cotton blouse of mint green and a pair of blue jeans. Matt was still resting against the balcony, gazing out into the night, when she walked softly out onto the small terrace area to join him.
“You look terribly handsome in dress uniform,” she said, turning and catching his gray gaze.
“You mean you aren’t going to be embarrassed by eating dinner with a military man tonight?”
She gave a low laugh. “If you had asked me that question five days ago, I would have said yes.”
“Five days,” he reminisced. “It seems like years ago, doesn’t it?”
Alanna sobered, enjoying his closeness. “Yes, yes it does, Matt. Are you sure you won’t be embarrassed having dinner with someone from the Hill?” she teased. “This is probably a first.”
Matt smiles. “It is.”
“I suppose you stick to the Pentagon people for your friends and entertainment,” she prodded.
“And you stick to the Hill circuit and make all the parties,” he finished.
“Mmm, sometimes,” she hedged. “But with my busy schedule parties never have drawn me.”
“Oh? Why?” He was resting his elbows on the railing. But even when he was relaxed, there was something exciting about the way his body moved.
“I’m not a crowd person,” she explained. “I like to talk with one or two people instead of milling around like some cow in a herd.”
Matt smiled and ran his fingers through her loose, silken hair. “See, you have more country in your soul than you first thought.”
She shivered inwardly at his caressing, fleeting touch. “You don’t strike me as a man who enjoys parties either.”
“Never have. I’m like you in that respect, I enjoy a one-to-one relationship. See, we do have something in common.”
Alanna laughed with him, a new sense of joy bubbling up in her. She had caught up on her sleep and felt refreshed, and there was a delicious wave of excitement swirling between them.
“We have something else in common. I’m starved.”
He nodded, moving fluidly upright. “Let’s go then
.”
“I’m just worried that they won’t let us in to eat dinner the way I’m dressed.”
His fingers closed around her elbow as he escorted her down the hall to the elevator. “We’ll eat here in the hotel. I don’t think anyone will say anything, so relax,” he soothed.
* * *
Alanna leaned forward and rested her elbows on the cleared table. The meal had been delicious. Matt was watching her through half-closed eyes.
“Penny for your thoughts?” he inquired.
“You probably already know.”
“That you’re happy? And sharing a meal makes you think of old times at the base camp or up at San Dolega?”
Alanna returned his smile. “You’d better be careful, Matt, or I’ll think you’re a mind reader.”
He slid his hand across her fingers, picking them up and squeezing them. “I only read the minds of people who give away every emotion in their eyes and faces.”
She wrinkled her nose, acutely aware of the pressure of his strong fingers. “I just can’t believe I’m that readable. My God, how many times must Senator Thornton have seen what I was really thinking!”
He turned her hand over, lightly stroking her palm in an unhurried fashion. “Remember, not everyone has trained themselves in our nonverbal language,” he reminded her.
Alanna felt her pulse quicken at his knowing touch. Reluctantly, she drew her hand back. “What did you learn while I was out like a light?” she asked.
If Matt was disappointed by her gesture, he didn’t show it. Instead, he rested his jaw against his hands, appraising her in an intense, disturbing way.
“I managed to threaten the police commandant enough to find out that there is a renegade band of guerrillas in the area where we found those crates. Also, they have stolen some transportation trucks and used them to take their heisted supplies close to the border of Nicaragua.”
“And our missing medical supplies?” she asked, her voice betraying her panic.
“I’ve got Captain Jackson investigating it right now. I coaxed the police to check all the names of the men working for us during this effort. I have a hunch that at least one or two of them will be connected with the guerrilla force.”
Captive of Fate Page 12
