Once they hit shore, Jack faded into the undergrowth and searched the nearby jungle for any sign of guerilla activity. Finding nothing along the shoreline, he circled the village, moving quietly through the shadows. At times, he stopped and listened. Nothing seemed out of place, and he didn’t see anyone lurking on the perimeter, waiting to pounce on the medical team.
When he was fairly certain the village was free of commandos, he touched the communication device in his ear. “Are you there?”
“About time you checked in,” Gator said. “What’s going on?”
“We’ve set up a clinic in a small village close to the shore. You should be able to pick me up on GPS.”
“Gotcha,” Swede confirmed.
“I’m not sure what to expect. With yesterday’s aerial pyrotechnics, I don’t know if the guerillas will stick out their necks today. I learned we will be in the town of Trujillo tomorrow to work in their hospital clinic and also tomorrow night. The city has a festival going on, and some members of the team will be in attendance.”
“I take it you’ll be going along with them?” Gator questioned.
“Dr. Rhoades has expressed an interest in going. I’ll be with her.”
“Tough duty, right?” Swede laughed.
“We’ll organize a ground support team to intermingle at the festival,” Gator said. “If the guerillas decide overt ops are too risky with a squadron of Black Hawks performing a military exercise nearby, they might try to sneak in and capture your medical folks during the festival.”
Jack’s chest tightened. He’d had the same thought, but hearing it from his team made that event feel even more likely. “Having the team at the festival will be good. The guerillas might take any medical staff they can get their hands on.” Jack vowed to be right next to Natalie the entire evening. Not for a moment would he let her out of his sight. Too much could happen in a crowded marketplace.
“We’re on it,” Gator said.
Jack turned back toward the village and almost tripped over a young boy, standing behind him.
The boy stared at him, frowning.
Jack could imagine he appeared peculiar as if speaking to no one. He bent to the child and spoke in Spanish. “Do you ever talk to yourself?”
His eyes wide, the boy shook his head.
“Well, I do, when I want to think through something difficult.” He dug in his pocket for a peppermint candy and held it out. “Do you know who the Castillo Commandos are?”
The boy’s eyes grew even wider and he nodded.
So, the guerillas had made their presence known to the village, and the boy’s obvious fear indicated the experience hadn’t been pleasant.
“I will give you this sweet if you promise to watch for the Commandos and run as fast as you can to tell me if they are coming.” He caught the boy’s gaze and held it. “Can you do that?”
The boy eyed the candy and nodded his head.
Jack took the boy’s hand and closed it around the candy. “You’re a good boy.”
When he let go of the boy’s hand, the child disappeared into the trees and brush.
After another quick circle around the village, Jack returned to the makeshift tent and assisted the doctor, nurse and medic with the growing crowd of patients.
They worked all day and well into the afternoon, nonstop. The villagers offered food to the team. Jack noted Natalie smiled and took the food, but didn’t eat, continuing to work with the patients, obviously determined to see each and every one.
Every hour, Jack checked the perimeter, running into the little boy on several occasions.
The boy reported that he hadn’t seen the commandos and that he was still watching.
As they began breaking down the clinic, a man arrived from a distant village limping with a nasty, fresh laceration, bruises and a swollen eye.
Jack found him entering the village along a dirt road that led deeper into the interior.
The man could barely walk, he was bleeding and cowered when Jack hurried forward to help him.
Jack had him sit beneath a tree while he applied a pressure bandage over the laceration. Then he told him to stay where he was for a moment while he checked the area. Moving at the edge of the trees, Jack scouted along the road in the direction the man had come. The situation didn’t feel right. The victim had obviously been beaten and stabbed recently. A quarter of a mile back, he found tire tracks in the mud and a dark stain on the ground as if someone had bled there.
Senses on alert, he hurried back to the man beneath the tree and helped him into the village where the clinic had been set up.
The crowd had thinned to only a couple of minor injuries, ear infections and sniffles.
Jack helped the man to the chair in front of Natalie. “I found him on the road leading out of the village. I have a feeling he was injured on purpose. We need to wrap it up soon. If the guerillas did this, they aren’t far from here.”
Natalie’s lips thinned and she gave a slight nod, then she went to work on the victim’s injuries. She cleaned the wound, speaking in a soft, soothing voice as she pulled out a syringe and filled it with a local anesthetic.
The man’s eyes widened and he started to rise.
Dr. Rhoades touched his arm with her free hand. She patiently explained what was in the syringe and how it would help with the pain while she sewed his wound.
After several long minutes, the man collapsed in the chair and watched as she applied the local along the undamaged edges of the skin around the wound.
Within minutes, she had the wound stitched and a bandage applied. She told the man how to care for it and to boil water and let it cool before cleaning the wound to avoid infection.
While she worked, the team finished up with the other patients and asked the villagers to carry camp chairs to the skiff.
Jack alternated between being in the village and watching the dirt road.
The injured man thanked her profusely and limped back the way he’d come.
“We need to go,” Jack said.
“On our way.” Dr. Rhoades stood, gathered her bag and reached for the camp chair.
A local woman snatched it up and carried it to the waiting boat.
Jack waited at the tree line until the last minute to ward off any attacks, giving the crew on the boat enough time to get out. He was edgy, feeling as though something wasn’t right. The people of the village who had been there to greet their arrival had disappeared without the usual send off. Jack stood in the shadows, watching the trail, shifting his gaze to anything that made a sound.
By the time the skiff was on the water and headed to the boat, the sun angled toward the horizon, getting close to the treetops and casting long shadows across the beach.
Jack was about to run for his jet ski when a tug on his cargo pants pocket made him jump.
The little boy he’d given a mint to earlier appeared beside him, stepping out from the shadows.
His pulse pounding, he turned to the kid who had a future as a guerilla fighter—silent and stealthy.
Squatting to get on eyelevel with the boy, Jack dug in his pocket for another mint.
The boy glanced back over his shoulder. In Spanish, he said, “The commandos, they are watching.” He grabbed the mint and ducked back into the forest, disappearing in seconds.
Jack checked the boat. No one had come out of the woods to chase it down, and the gunboat from the day before didn’t materialize.
If they were watching, what were they waiting on? Had they figured out they were being watched by the unit of Black Hawks supposedly on a military exercise? Whatever it was, Jack felt like a target as he stepped out from the shadows to cross the open beach. He walked quickly, wondering when the bullets would hit him in the back. He reached the jet ski, shoved it out into the water and jumped on.
Nothing. No bullets, no gunfire. No guerillas rushed out to grab him or the medical team. He raced out over the water, but his skin crept so he swerved back and forth so that he could g
lance back at the shoreline. With the shadows deepening, he could see nothing moving beneath the trees. He didn’t feel comfortable until they were all on board.
Dr. Rhoades hurried to the pilothouse.
Jack followed. “Let’s move.”
Ronnie frowned. “Run into trouble?”
The doctor shook her head. “No, but I felt creepy there at the last. As though we were being watched.” Frowning, she turned to Jack. “Did you see anything?”
“Nothing, but I had the same feeling. If it was the guerillas, why didn’t they attack?”
Ronnie started the engines and pushed the throttle forward. “I don’t know but it’s time to move out.”
Dr. Rhoades gaze met Jack’s. “The sooner, the better.”
Chapter Four
‡
Natalie poured a glass of wine and walked out on the deck. She stood at the railing, staring out at the moonlight skimming across the water. For the past five years, she’d performed the same ritual. She drank a toast to her daughter’s memory, also hoping to dull the ache with a little bit of alcohol. “Happy birthday, Emma,” she said to the stars. Then she tipped her glass and took a sip.
“Happy birthday, Emma,” a low, resonant voice echoed her words.
Natalie didn’t turn. She could feel his presence and knew who was nearby without having to look. Jack stepped up to where she stood and leaned his elbows on the railing. He wore shorts and a loose tank that did little to cover his massive chest, and he was barefoot like her.
“What was she like?” he asked.
With Jack standing close, Natalie didn’t feel as alone as she usually did. She didn’t even feel like crying. She’d done enough of that the night before. Instead, she sipped her wine and let the good memories of her daughter flow over her and remind her she’d been her mom for eight happy months. “She was a good baby. She slept through the night from the second month on.”
“How long did you have her?”
The knot in her chest tightened and she swallowed hard. “Eight months.”
Jack shook his head. “Too short.”
“Yeah.” She sipped more wine, the effect of the alcohol making her tingle. Or was the reaction because of the man standing next to her? Either way, the sensation took the edge off her grief, and for that, she was grateful.
“What happened, or is it too painful to talk about?”
Natalie shrugged. “It’s been over four years. You would think it would be easier by now.”
“Losing someone you care about is never easy.” He stared out at the water, his face grim.
His expression appeared as if he spoke from experience. Natalie stared at him, wondering yet again, who this man was she’d hired onto her boat. She sensed there was so much more to him than a deckhand for hire. “Have you lost someone you cared about?”
Jaw muscles clenched and he nodded. “Two of my brothers.”
Natalie touched his arm. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too. They were good men. Strong, smart and dedicated.”
“You must miss them.”
With a narrowed gaze, he stared out across the water. “Every day.”
“Were you close?”
“I’d have given my life for them.”
Natalie stood in silence, her heart beating faster. She felt a connection to this man through shared grief. All the pent-up guilt and emotion she’d locked away since her husband’s and baby Emma’s deaths relaxed.
“She was a happy baby and was just learning to walk when the accident happened.”
“House or vehicular?”
“Run off the road by an eighteen-wheeler,” Natalie said the statement out loud, amazed that she didn’t choke in the middle. Talking felt good, like liberating her heart. “We were on the way to visit my husband’s parents in Denver.”
“And your husband?” Jack asked.
Her lips twisted. “When the car rolled, their seatbelts held, they stayed with the vehicle all the way to the bottom of the hill. I was thrown clear after the first roll. For years, I’ve told myself that I hope they died immediately in the crash.”
“Why?”
“The car exploded into flame. I couldn’t bear to think they were still alive when that happened.” Her body shook as once again, the memory of the flames burned through her soul.
Jack’s arms slipped around her. “I’m sorry. You must have loved them so very much. There’re no words that can ease that memory. I know.”
She leaned her cheek against his chest “I could do nothing. I came to long enough to see the flames, then passed out again. I should have been in that car with them.” She could feel Jack shaking his head.
“No,” he said. “You had more to do in this life.”
“Emma and Andrew didn’t?” She leaned back. “Andrew was interning to be a heart surgeon. I think of all the lives he could have saved. And Emma, who knows what her life would have been. She’ll never go to kindergarten, never fall in love, never give me grandchildren. She should have had a life. But she didn’t.” Natalie pressed her cheek to his chest, her eyes dry, her heart full of what could have been.
“Nothing I can say will change that. But you are a talented physician. You have so much to give to others. I watched the people of that village come to you with their sick and injured.” He smoothed a hand over her head. “You gave them hope.”
She nodded. “Knowing my work makes a difference is the only reason I can keeping going.”
“Dr. Rhoades, there is no doubt that you make a difference to the people you serve.” He tipped up her head and stared down into her eyes.
“Natalie,” she whispered, her gaze dropping to his lips. “You can call me Natalie.”
“Natalie,” he said, the sound rumbling in his chest. “The truth is that you lived. You can’t beat yourself up for what happened. Second-guessing whether or not you put your seatbelt on right or if you’d left a little earlier won’t change what happened.”
His reassuring words vibrated against her ear and she sighed. “I know.”
“You have to go on living.”
“Even when I feel like something really important died inside?”
“Don’t you see? They didn’t die inside you. They still live inside you. That’s why you will never forget who they were or the joy they brought you when they were still here on earth.”
“You’re right.” Natalie smiled up at him. “How did you get to be so insightful?”
His brushed a stray strand of her hair behind her ear. “When life knocks me around, I don’t believe in giving up. And neither do you.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Do you know when the moonlight reflects off your eyes, I feel like I can see all the way into your soul?”
She laughed. “You’re a deckhand and a poet? Do you charge extra for flattery—”
He cut off her words with a kiss, his mouth claiming hers in a gentle, but insistent touch.
Almost five years had gone by since she’d wanted to kiss anyone. Now, she found herself wanting to kiss Jack. Again and again. The last kiss she’d shared with Andrew had been a quick goodnight kiss the night before he’d died.
Jack’s kisses were completely different, stirring emotions and sensations she thought long dead and buried with her first husband. Her pulse raced, and her core awoke and burned low in her belly.
In a single kiss, he reminded her she was alive and healthy and had needs she’d long ignored. The conditions were right with the moon shining bright in the tropical sky, the sea bathed in sparkling diamonds, reflecting the light in the sky and a soft breeze stirring her hair across her skin, tickling her nerves to life. Warm tropical air wrapped around her and him, making her glad she wore nothing but a soft, stretchy pair of shorts and a tank top. Thinking she’d be alone, she’d forgone the bra—glad now that she had, and that she wasn’t alone.
Rather than draw away and act affronted at his kiss, Natalie leaned up on her toes and returned it. At the touch of his tongue tracing the line of her
lips, she opened to him, allowing him in.
She raised her hands, circling his neck, drawing him closer. Her body pressing against his hard lines absorbed his heat and strength. A surge of something like power roared through her when she felt the hard ridge of his member nudging her belly. It ignited a flame inside that burned brighter by the minute.
Natalie couldn’t slow her heart, couldn’t catch her breath, and she didn’t want to break the contact. Emboldened by the darkness, she lifted her foot and slid her calf along his.
Jack shifted, his knee slipping between hers, his muscled thigh pressing against her center.
With both of them wearing nothing but shorts and tank tops, there was little standing between their naked skin.
Shifting the kiss from her mouth, Jack blazed a path along her neck down to the pulse beating at the base of her throat.
Tingles running along her skin, Natalie tipped her head to give him better range and ran her hands down his chest to the hem of his shirt. She wanted to touch him, skin-to-skin, to feel just how hard those muscles were. She climbed her fingers over his taut abs and up his torso.
He worked his lips down to her shoulder, nipping and flicking her skin, while his hands slipped lower down her sides. His thumbs brushed over her breasts.
Natalie sucked in a breath and arched her back, pressing her chest against his, her hands caught between them.
Then he bent and scooped the backs of her thighs into his big hands, wrapping her legs around his waist. He turned and backed her against the wall of the cabin, taking her into the darkest shadows, away from possible prying eyes. There, he kissed her again, the gentle brush of his lips a faint memory as he crushed her mouth with his and took her breath away.
After pulling her arms loose, Natalie grabbed the back of his shirt and yanked it over his head, dropping it to the ground.
Jack leaned back enough to tear her tank up over her head to join his at their feet. Her pale skin glowed in the darkness. Because they were in the shadows, she couldn’t read his expression as he stared down at her naked breasts. For a long moment, he held her without taking more.
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