“So you’re really making strides for all women down here in Peru.” Jake admired her verve and guts. He knew how hard it was for North American women to survive in the military. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the harassment and pressures on Ana and the other South American woman. And then to be selected and sent to the U.S. for further training, which was always seen as a plum assignment by foreign military services, probably placed her in an envious position that her fellow pilots, the males, wouldn’t like at all.
“Yes…we are role models of a sort,” Ana agreed quietly. “We had a lot of trouble up at Fort Rucker with one particular flight instructor, a Captain Dane York. If it weren’t for Chief Warrant Officer Maya Stevenson, he would have flunked all of us out of training just because we were women. It didn’t matter that all the women pilots, despite his prejudice, were at the top of the class. He just didn’t believe we could do the job as well as a man could. So Maya asked her father, who is an army general, for help. Well, Captain York mended his ways, but it left a bitter taste in the mouths of all the women pilots who were under his command.
“Maya was so angry over the injustice that she conceived a plan for a secret base here in Peru, to help stem the floodtide of cocaine being flown from our country into Bolivia, where it isn’t stopped at all. Her father pushed it through. It became a spec ops—special operations. When Maya told us about it, every last woman volunteered to be part of her Black Jaguar squadron.”
The lightning flashed and momentarily illuminated the tent, revealing the look of intense interest on Jake’s face. She saw his brows draw down in a scowl, saw censure in his eyes when he heard about the treatment she’d received. Waving her hand, she murmured, “We came here, to a secret base in the mountains. And the rest is history. I’ve spent the last three years here, as has every other woman who came with Maya. We’ve reduced the air flights of cocaine out of Peru in this area by fifty percent, and that’s pretty good considering the drug lords have millions of dollars to throw away on the best foreign aircraft, like Kamov Black Sharks, and the best Russian combat pilots, who fly them as mercenaries, demanding only U.S. dollars for their services.”
“So,” Jake growled, “you’re really in a war up to your hocks and back. I didn’t realize that.”
“Very much a wartime footing,” Ana agreed somberly. The crash of thunder rolled through the grove, shaking the tent. The rain continued, furious and unabated. “But I love it. I believe in what we’re doing. And Maya…well, she’s an extraordinary person with unusual skills and abilities. I’d fly with her anywhere she asked me to. We’re an all-woman unit, even down to the mechanics, cooks and office personnel. The army likes to ignore us. Maya caused so much trouble up at Fort Rucker that I think they were more than happy to see us all disappear down here. We weren’t a PR liability to them, that way.” Ana chuckled.
“So,” Jake murmured, “you’re a Peruvian Air Force pilot on loan to the U.S. Army?”
“Yes, exactly. I draw my pay from Peru. And frankly speaking, because I’m a woman, they don’t want me in Lima, either. The Peruvian male pilots are up in arms that women are allowed to fly at all. The pilot I trained with, Lieutenant Mirella Gallardo, comes from a very rich copper-mining family in Lima and is my best friend. She’s been with Maya since the beginning, too.”
Jake shook his head. “You’ve really butted heads with men in the military.” He admired Ana’s spirit and spunk. More importantly, he didn’t see her taking out her anger or resentment on the men around her, which spoke highly of her maturity. Maybe because she was a woman, she was able to work well with a partner in a close-knit team? Women had an innate ability to do that, from what Jake had observed.
Laughing a little, Ana said, “Oh, yes…but those of us who fly with the Black Jaguars know what is really important. What men think of us is not. Stopping the drugs from leaving the country and especially, keeping children from taking them, is the heart and soul of why we do what we do.”
“And it’s dangerous.”
“Always.”
Jake scowled. “You ever thought of…well…having a family? Where I come from…my family…women should be at home, be housewives, and mothers to our children.”
Closing her eyes, Ana whispered, “Oh, yes…with Roberto—my fiancé.” She opened her eyes, which were filled with sadness now. “But that is a lost dream. Roberto was killed a year ago, while aboard a Peruvian navy cruiser. He was shot down by drug runners.” Blinking back the tears that threatened, she continued, “Maya knows that the women under her command are young and full of hopes and dreams. She doesn’t expect us to stay with the operation forever, as she plans to. Her commitment to Peru is in her blood, in her bones and her soul. She knew that when Roberto and I married, I would leave as soon as she got a replacement pilot for me.”
Jake scowled at the vulnerability he saw in Ana’s eyes. He itched to move his hand those scant few inches and find Ana’s shoulder. To hold her, offer her comfort—and so much more, he admitted to himself. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to taste her, feel her and share her delicious warmth. Shrugging off his desire, he asked instead, “And she was okay with that?”
“Of course. Maya is a red-blooded South American woman herself.” Ana, chuckled, her humor returning. “Just because we are an all-woman base of operations doesn’t mean we don’t like men. Just the opposite! We talk about them often!”
He caught her amusement and said, “That’s good. So what were your plans after you married? Settle in Lima, where Roberto worked?”
Ana lost her smile. She closed her eyes, some old pain drifting back into her heart momentarily as the sound of the rain on the roof of their tent soothed her. “I agreed to live with Roberto down in Lima until he retired from the navy, which would have been ten years from now. And then we would have come back up here, to Rainbow Valley, to live at my parents’ farm. I really want to get back to my family, to Pachamama. I love the land, the seasons…and I wanted to raise our children up here, where they could be wild and free as I had been….” Her voice lowered painfully. “But that will never be, now.”
“Maybe you’ll fall in love again?”
Ana heard the hope in Jake’s voice. Her heart swelled with need of him, but she felt scared. In a choked tone, she said, “I don’t know, Jake…it’s just so hard for me. My heart can’t handle another loss like this. It just can’t….” For whatever reason, his disgruntled demeanor made her heart open toward him. Ana had thought her heart had died when Roberto died, but to her surprise, it hadn’t. This norteamericano, for whatever reason, gently held a key to her grieving heart. Ana was frightened and simultaneously lured by Jake. She sternly reminded herself that he was a visitor—someone who would leave as soon as his sister was found. And she would not become involved in such a transient way; her heart simply couldn’t take such a beating again—ever.
Shaking his head, he muttered, “I just don’t see how women can do this….”
“What?”
“Flying like you do. It’s dangerous.”
Ana saw that his expression was tight with judgment. “Just because I’m a woman I shouldn’t be in the military? Or take part in combat?”
Hearing the edge in her voice, he sighed. “Yeah, because you’re a woman. I guess all my old traditional instincts are rising to the top. My job is to protect the defenseless. I see women and children in that category.”
“We’ve all managed to survive three years without any help from men. Maya hadn’t intended it to be that way, but the army has pulled out a lot of its support of what we do, so we’ve basically had to make good with who and what we have.”
“Don’t you…” He groped for the right words. “Don’t you miss being at home? Still long to get married? Have kids? Be a mother?”
She heard the disbelief in his voice. “I don’t define myself in just those roles, although someday I hope to have children and be a mother to them. No one forced you to go into the army rangers, did they?”
/> “No. So what?”
“So, we all choose careers that touch our heart, Jake. I love to fly. I see nothing wrong with being an Apache helicopter pilot. Just as you see nothing wrong with having been an army ranger. To me, it’s not a gender question at all. To you it is.”
Thunder rolled loudly down the valley again. The tent vibrated with the noise. Jake shook his head. “I just don’t think women can take the heat in combat. Maybe you get a different perspective flying as a pilot than you get as a ground pounder who sees the bleeding up close and personal.” He slanted her a glance in the darkness. “I don’t think any woman can be as good as a man in ground combat.”
Ana lay there a long time digesting his comment. Finally, she said, “Whether you like it or not, or whether you believe in my ability to hold up my end of this mission isn’t the issue, Jake. You agreed to this mission with my being in command. I’ve tried to make you feel like an important part of this team of ours. You would not get anywhere near Tal or where she might be held prisoner if not for me.”
Glumly, Jake murmured, “I know.”
Lying on her back, her hands tucked beneath her head, Ana felt hurt weave through her heart. Jake didn’t trust her. Not like she trusted him. Sighing, she closed her eyes. Tomorrow was another day. Maybe she could show her skills as a leader, and over time, Jake would come to trust her. Why did he have to be so backward about women and their abilities?
Chapter Five
Ana’s last words were spoken softly and drifted off like the drumming of the rain on the roof of their small, cozy tent. As the storm passed, Jake remained awake, on his side and facing her in the complete darkness. The plop, plop, plop of rain gathering at the tips of the leaves and falling from the trees that surrounded them was soothing to Jake. He was exhausted by the flight and then having to hike at a high altitude. His body had not adjusted yet.
Though he ached to reach out those few scant inches to where Ana lay asleep in her nylon sleeping bag, Jake stifled the urge. Having been married once, he knew the delicious and overwhelming feelings of having a warm, wonderful woman’s body fitting against his own. He wanted Ana in his arms. He wanted to know what she felt like against him. Her soft, shallow breathing made his heart open and throb with need. She was afraid to love again. Could he blame her? No. Didn’t he feel the same way, ever since his wife had been ripped brutally from his life? And hadn’t he felt only half-alive since Carol’s death?
Frowning, Jake forced his eyes shut. With Ana, he felt whole once more, and that shocked and frightened him. He had never thought he’d meet another woman who even began to match Carol in personality and sensuality, but he had. Ana had stepped out of the mists of Peru, like some kind of fevered dream he’d often had that was now real. Very real. And very appealing and provocative to him, even though she was not flirting with him at all.
The rumble of thunder was now far away, moving on down the Rainbow Valley, he supposed. As exhausted as he was, Jake found his mind racing and his thoughts shifting between Ana and his missing sister. His heart warred between incredible joy and a haunting terror. Feeling as if he were on a nonstop, out-of-control roller coaster of emotions, he forced himself to go to sleep. As he drifted deeper into the arms of the Peruvian night, Ana’s beautiful face gently appeared before him, her cinnamon eyes warm with laughter, her full lips slightly parted and her hand extended toward him….
Sometime near dawn, with the chirping of the first bird in a nearby tree, Jake pulled himself from the depths of sleep. His senses were fragmented. He felt the warmth of a woman in his arms. It felt familiar. Welcoming. He felt the soft moisture of her breath against the column of his neck. The weight of one arm was around his torso. Was he still dreaming of Ana? Or was this real? Fighting to awaken, Jake drowsily fluttered his lids. The tickle of hair against his chin roused him even more. The weight of someone’s head resting on his right arm, a face pressed into the crook of his shoulder made him drag his eyes wide open.
Grayish light hung in the tent; it was not quite night, but not dawn yet, either. The tent was warm. The rustle of leaves told him of a slight breeze wafting through the area. A chirp of another bird pierced the sluggish dawn light. His awakened senses slowly became aware of the woman in his arms, pressed against the length of his body.
Ana lay curled up in her sleeping bag against him. Sometime during the night she had moved from her back onto her left side, and into full contact with him. Her hair lay about her like a dark, silken coverlet, some of it tickling his chin. Her brow was pressed against the hard line of his jaw. Inhaling her sweet, womanly fragrance into his flaring nostrils, Jake felt fire tunneling down through him and settling hotly in his lower body. Ana smelled wonderful to him. Luxuriating in her innocent posture, he knew that she had probably turned over in her sleep and wasn’t even aware—yet—that she was in his arms. For one selfish moment, Jake wanted, like a starving wolf, to absorb her into his being.
Her right arm had slid innocently across his waist and hung limply against his back. The thick, lumpy sleeping bags created a barrier between them, but that didn’t matter. Right or wrong, Jake was going to enjoy this moment. Lifting his left hand, he lightly threaded his fingers through her long, slightly curled hair. He moved the strands away from her face, exposing her high cheekbones and thick, black lashes, which lay against her gold flesh. How beautiful, how peaceful Ana looked. Jake could feel the slow rise and fall of her breasts and knew she was still deeply asleep.
The sense that Ana trusted him like this shook Jake. Maybe she was afraid to love again, but on a perhaps more primal level, she had gravitated to him, knowing intuitively that he longed thirstily for her. Closing his eyes, Jake barely touched the warm firmness of her arm. He shouldn’t be doing this. He was taking advantage of Ana in her sleep. His conscience nagged him. It warred with his longing to kiss her awake. Easing up on an elbow, Jake gazed down at Ana in the growing light. Shadows moved kindly across her very Indian face. He saw nothing but beauty in Ana. She was perfect to him. The way her black hair cascaded like a dark waterfall around her shoulders, the way her full lips were slightly parted, all conspired against him and made him long for things he didn’t dare long for.
The fire within him burned hotter and his lower body tightened painfully. He wanted Ana in all ways—the way a man wanted his woman. Yet the chivalry within him won out. He would not take advantage of her…not while she was asleep, at least. The last thing Jake wanted was for Ana to distrust him. No, he wanted her, but on her own terms and with her agreement. Otherwise, there would be a loss of respect between them, and that would set the vibrations between them off-kilter. Jake wanted Ana to want him fair and square. Maybe it was his upbringing on a conservative Iowa farm that won out. He wasn’t sure. He’d always been taught to respect a woman and not push himself on her. Jake smiled sadly. He would have to kiss Ana in his dreams, not in real life.
“Hey…” He called softly, leaning down, his lips very near her ear. “Sleepyhead, wake up….”
Jake watched Ana stir. She brought the hand that had been nestled between them upward, and rubbed her face in a haphazard motion, then sighed. Her hand fell back and nestled between them once again.
Smiling, Jake pressed a kiss to her hair, near her small, delicate ear. “Ana? It’s Jake. It’s time to wake up, sweetheart.” This time, he settled his hand on her right shoulder and squeezed it enough to rouse her.
Ana stirred. She felt safe and loved. Warm and secure. The feel of a man’s body against her own sang through her like lost music to her heart and soul. Wandering aimlessly in the realm of her colorful dream, she felt herself being embraced by a man, his body strong and capable against her more willowy one. Her nostrils flared and she dragged in his very male scent. It was like a lost perfume to her. Oh, it felt so good to be held once more! How she had missed having a man’s body against hers, a man’s arms around her. It was the most wonderful sensation in the world to Ana. For her, it signaled not only being loved, but being
protected from the world of combat that raged around her daily. Being in the arms of Roberto had always made her feel safe in a world gone mad. Now that same feeling was back, even more strong and soothing than she’d ever experienced.
The voice, the deep, amused tone of a man, thrummed through her awakening senses. It wasn’t Roberto’s teasing voice. No, another’s. Who? Her brows knitted. Ana stirred. The voice called to her again, and this time she felt a man’s firm hand on her shoulder, squeezing her flesh just enough to bring her out of sleep’s wings.
As she gradually woke, Ana became deliciously aware of her body pressed languidly against a man’s hard, tall form. His arms were around her. Where her hand rested against his chest, she could feel the solid, steady beat of his heart. It was soothing. Wonderful. Best of all, as she nuzzled her cheek against his hard, muscled shoulder, she felt his fingertips trail lightly down her arm. Wild, hot tingles leaped wherever he stroked her. His touch was knowing, gentle and exploring. All those sensations made her body ache to complete herself with him. How she missed being whole with a man.
Trapped between sleep and wakefulness, Ana opened her palm and moved it up across his chest. Even though he wore clothes, she could feel the magnificence of his deeply muscled body. Making a soft sound, she barely opened her eyes and looked up…up into Jake’s face, which was scant inches from her own. She blinked slowly several times, reorienting herself from her torrid dream state into the present. The melodic song of a bird in the background reminded her she was in a small tent with Jake Travers on a hillside in Rainbow Valley. Her thoughts were sluggish, but her womanly instincts and primal needs were very active, bubbling just beneath the surface.
Jake’s warming smile went straight to her heart like sunlight entering a darkened cavern where only grief had lived until this moment. Ana could not help herself as she slid her long, slender fingers up his chest, following the strong column of his neck until her palm came to rest on his sandpapery cheek. She saw his blue eyes grow stormy, his pupils huge and black as he studied her silently in the dawn light. Ana’s breath snagged. Her heart thudded hard in her chest. He was going to kiss her. She saw it in his eyes, in the parting of his hard, male mouth. He was only inches away from her, his moist breath flowing across her face as he looked down at her. She saw a question in his eyes. Did she want him to kiss her? Ana could almost feel what he was thinking. Either that or she was very good at interpreting what she saw in his eyes.
Man with a Mission Page 7
