He walked faster, again trying to put a distance between himself and the woman. It was pointless. She trotted to keep up.
“How much longer?” she asked, obviously oblivious to his torment.
“Over an hour even if we pick up the pace.”
“Okay.” She nodded and hurried back to her team.
He sighed and tried to settle his wayward thoughts. If he breathed lightly, maybe her scent wouldn’t be so intoxicating. And maybe he’d wake up and find himself in his newly decorated city apartment too.
“Malcolm should never have left us,” Sid said. “He knew it was dangerous. We could have been killed.”
“He didn’t leave us,” Ian snarled. “He died.”
“And we could have.” Sid bent down to tie one of the vines that had come loose on the pallet.
“Shut up!” Ian shouted.
“Cool it, girl,” Sid shot back.
“Don’t call me that,” Ian said and his voice raised an octave.
“We know you had the hots for him. No, according to you, he couldn’t do any wrong. Even though he left us all to die.” Sid glared at Ian. “He left you, too, girl.”
“Sid!” Garrett barked as she went to grab Ian, whose fists balled up as he looked ready to launch himself at Sid.
Ian shook her off. “Leave me,” he whispered, glaring at Sid before stalking back to take his turn at the stretcher.
“Girl-boy,” Sid muttered.
“Enough, Sid. He’s been through a lot,” Burke said.
“We all have,” Garrett agreed.
Ian was uncharacteristically silent and Sid’s mouth was clamped in a hard line. She doubted either man had the energy for further baiting and arguing. That’s how it went with those two. Ian was someone for Sid to take his frustration out on. He’d taken the breakup of his marriage hard. She suspected that now it was more a matter of bruised pride. Either way, the aftermath was this game between Sid and Ian where they sparred and ducked and then retired to their respective corners.
Ahead, their rescuer was marching along, leading the way. She ran to catch up. He continued to walk, ignoring her.
“I’m sorry we interrupted your hunting,” she said as she matched his pace and kept just behind him, allowing him for the moment to break trail.
Nothing. He continued to walk, silently, without rustling a leaf or a vine.
How did he do that? she thought briefly as she assessed him. His blonde hair curled softly down to his shoulders and only softened the tanned planes of his face. His bare back glistened as if he had added suntan lotion. She wondered if that was some jungle remedy to prevent sunburn. She discounted that idea. His skin was burnished a deep, sun-glazed brown. Why was he tramping around the jungle in almost nothing? He was wearing a loincloth, flip-flops and nothing else. Bare chest, bare legs, bare everything.
It didn’t matter whether he was clothed or unclothed, it didn’t change Malcolm’s tragic end or their current situation. She glanced back and saw immediately that Ian was struggling to keep the pace. “Burke, spell Ian off, please.”
Burke nodded and they quickly changed places. Still, Ian’s complexion was unhealthily flushed. She was hoping to get a plane to take them out first thing in the morning. One night and they would be seeing the authorities, turning this problem over to them.
“Excuse me,” she said to the blonde-haired giant.
He ignored her. She should be getting used to it. But they’d fought through miles of jungle to get here. She wouldn’t be ignored now. She swallowed back temper. No matter what she felt, they were at his mercy. There was no other rescuer in the vicinity. He literally held their lives in his hands. Mitts, she amended. His hands were huge. She peeled her eyes from his hands, pissed for noticing anything about the primitive beast. He was a means to get out of here—that was it.
He’d gotten way ahead of her again. His legs covered twice the ground of hers.
“Excuse me!” This time she shouted. Around her, screeching erupted from nearby branches.
“Damn it, Garrett, keep it down,” Sid snapped.
She threw Sid a scathing look and broke into a jog to catch up with their rescuer. Behind her she could hear the others hurrying to catch up.
“Excuse me.” This time she tapped him on the shoulder.
“What?” He swung around.
“I . . .” She choked in the face of his unconcealed aggression. She hadn’t expected that. And she smiled. Aggression she could manage.
“We’re close?”
Footsteps crunched directly behind her. She hadn’t realized how much noise they made until now. It didn’t matter. Maybe that was a good thing. Kept the predators away. She looked at him and waited. She glanced behind her to where her group was struggling into the small clearing and then back to him.
“I’ll get you there. I promise.”
“Thanks.” She knew, even after this brief acquaintance, what the extra words had cost him. “And then we’ll go to the village tomorrow.” That wasn’t so bad, she thought. One night in the forest on a wooden verandah, she could live with that.
He shook his head. “Too far.”
“Too far? We were just there and we have to get back there tomorrow.” She held back the sour taste of anger. She was just too exhausted.
“How long has he been dead?” he said in a voice that would have been average except for the slight rasp that sent pleasurable chills along her spine.
“A day, no more. He was our guide.”
“Your guide is bait now.”
She looked furtively behind her. “Are you always so blunt?”
The others caught up and pushed in behind her.
“We could get to civilization quicker if we followed the bloody river.” Sid was beside her.
“Forget the river,” their rescuer said in clipped, measured words and turned around and began moving uphill and away from the river.
Garrett swallowed. She had two options, leave the shelter of the river and trust this man, a stranger, or carry on without him. He’d made that obvious without saying one word about it. His ability to silently communicate was unsettling.
“Come.” He waved his spear in the air, pointing in the direction he expected to go and began to walk.
Just like the Neanderthal he is, Garrett thought, frustrated. She should be forever grateful to the man for getting them to safety, but all she could muster was anger.
“We can’t spend another night here. Look at him.” Sid waved his hand toward Ian, who was now trailing some yards behind the group. “And we’re relying on that savage. Shit, the man can’t even string together a coherent sentence.”
“Look, Sid, it’s the best we can do. We’ve trusted him so far.”
“He’s leaving the river,” Drew said.
“We’re done,” Sid muttered. “We should stick to the river. Garrett, you’re nuts if you think we should follow him.”
“Sid, we’ve got no choice here. We can’t follow the river; the bush will push us back. He’ll take us to shelter.”
What were they doing? Aidan had listened long enough to the rebellious Sid, the effeminate Ian, the obtuse Drew, the other one—he couldn’t remember his name, only that unlike the others, he had no habits that engrained in your mind like nails on a chalkboard. He paused, wondering where that old cliché had arisen. It wasn’t like he had spent any time near a chalkboard. Not in his early years. By the time he had come in contact with a classroom, he was long past childish pranks. The other participants in the classroom were by then adults, or at least young adults. It had been university.
Where did she collect this team of misfits?
He glanced behind him. Her rich mouth was pinched. She was in a difficult situation and for a moment compassion lurched somewhere deep in his gut and wrestled momentarily with lust. Her breasts softly filled the whisper-thin T-shirt, a gentle size, like the rest of her, enough to make a statement. I am feminine, but not too much. Enough to pleasure a man. He glanced at his
oversized hands; they weren’t a handful, not for him, but they’d be enough . . .
Enough for what, Aidan?
He forced his thoughts to the practical, to the body that they were hauling. If it was foul play, they would have to determine that right away. That and whether any of them had been involved. He doubted the possibility, but still . . . A plan began to form and it all hinged on his friend Mark’s cooperation.
“I was hoping to get him to Kuching,” she said.
“How?” he asked. It was apparent by her insistence on getting the body to Kuching that she wanted justice. He canceled her off the list of suspects, but that left the others.
Behind them the makeshift stretcher scraped along the jungle floor as the rest of the team caught up.
“This thing is falling apart again, Gar,” Ian said.
“Let’s see,” Aidan said and knelt beside the stretcher, tying vines. He stood up. “That should hold it until we get there.”
She stood and her shoulder briefly brushed his arm. “Let’s get going. There’s at least another hour before we’re at the longhouse.”
“Jeez, Garrett, use your head,” Sid snarled. “Are you just going to blindly follow ape man?” His words choked in a gurgle as Aidan had him by the throat.
“Silence!” Aidan laced the command with deadly calm. “Who’s in charge?” He relaxed his hold as Sid gurgled and choked.
“Loosen up, man, she is.” Sid’s voice was raspy.
She was beside him. “You didn’t need to choke him.”
He grunted and let go of Sid’s neck.
“I’m Garrett,” she said, surprising him, and held out her hand. “I would have introduced myself before, but you keep getting away on me.” There was sarcasm and a trace of humor in her voice.
It was an odd time for delayed introductions, but it was as effective as she’d meant it to be, a distraction that defused tempers all around. Tentatively he took her hand, and he was surprised that her palm was calloused.
“Ian, Sid, Drew, Burke.” She pointed to each man as she reported their names.
“Hmmph.” Aidan refused to be drawn out of his jungle persona or admit he’d been paying any degree of attention to them and already knew their names.
“Tarzan,” Ian muttered.
“I’m sorry. We’re all bitchy, tired. But we really appreciate you helping us like this when we’ve interrupted whatever you were doing.” The look on her face said that she couldn’t imagine what he had been doing. “And you are?”
When he didn’t reply, she turned to her group.
“C’mon, guys, let’s get moving.” She waved them forward.
“Thanks,” she whispered as she swept past him with queenly grace. “Mr. Irrelevant,” she threw over her shoulder with a soft laugh.
She trailed that exquisite scent behind her and her lithe body had a subtle rhythm that was heady and overpowering. He wanted to carry her into the jungle and wrap himself around her. He shook his head. She was panicked, upset, and he was doing nothing to make things easy—that was his job, at least until he could dump that job on Mark. But his eyes kept going to her, which, considering the situation, was not normal. But death was part of life out here. Maybe the reminder of how finite life was only a few feet from him made him want to validate life, haul her into the jungle and have his way with her—and she with him.
Chapter Seven
The longhouse blended softly into the tropical lushness. The verandah wrapped the length of the stilted structure, perched high above the jungle in a place where the water levels and forest life could not reach. Along the eastern wall of the longhouse, glass winked quietly as sunlight grazed the building. On the dock, a boy stared at them, his mouth slightly open and a hand wedged in the pocket of his too-big shorts.
Garrett was exhausted. They’d walked miles through the interior, finally meeting up with a branch of the same river they’d lost track of. From there, it had been a mile walk to the longhouse along the tributary that led even farther from the main river and seemed more raging river than tributary.
She nodded at the boy, who dodged her eyes and fixated on Drew, who was pulling the stretcher with what was left of Malcolm.
“No,” she murmured. She turned toward the stretcher, thinking to block the child’s view.
“Leave it,” their rescuer ordered in his strangely rough and sexy voice.
“The child,” she began.
“Will be fine.”
She didn’t move. “Garrett,” she said and pointed to herself, speaking slowly, enunciating carefully to the boy.
“Hi.” The boy smiled brightly. “You’re American, aren’t you? What state?”
Garrett didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She was too busy trying to hide her shock. She should have spent less time studying the field guide and more the local culture. Times had changed, and from the looks of things, years ago.
Mr. Irrelevant smirked. “He speaks English almost as well as you.”
“That’s obvious,” Garrett replied.
“I go to school in Kuching.” The boy smiled proudly. “I’m on vacation.”
So much for isolation, Garrett thought with relief.
“What happened?” the boy asked, awe in his voice.
“I don’t know,” Garrett replied honestly. “We found him in the river. I don’t know who did this to him.”
Their rescuer spoke to the child. The language was vaguely familiar but incomprehensible to Garrett.
“Are we spending the night here?” Worry threaded through Ian’s voice and then relief. “He’s coming back.”
But just as Ian said that their rescuer turned his back on her and began heading up the steep weather-worn steps. He didn’t even look back.
What the hell were they supposed to do now? She fumed and briefly considered waiting for him to return.
Aidan knew she followed him. Her anger wafted up behind him, an almost tangible heat. He stopped and turned around. She was all delicate limbs and temper, balancing on the edge of the wooden stairs that led up a sheer embankment from the river to the longhouse.
“Stay there.” One dead body was more than enough. Two, if he counted the monkey. “And keep them off the stairs.” He gestured to her men, if you could call them that. They were effeminate and weak. The jungle called for strong men and there was something weak about each of them. Only Garrett had any strength. Just no jungle smarts and a man’s name, Garrett—how appropriate.
At the top, Aidan glanced down. Garrett stood on the bottom step, blocking the stairway to the others. He turned back and faced the gnarled and woody face of an elderly Iban.
“I see you have a story.” The old man’s voice crackled and diverted his attention. His face was withered from many years in the sun. Akan said that he had survived eighty rainy seasons. Aidan was inclined to believe that it might have been more. He’d known Akan most of his life. His mother had brought him here as a small boy. She’d always lived life on the fringes, and just because she was born in New Jersey didn’t preclude her falling in love with a former headhunter. And so she had dragged Aidan with her.
“Memories?” Akan asked.
“Always.”
Akan took a drag from his pipe and blew smoke into the air. Through the cloud of smoke that masked his features and made him look oddly mysterious, he said, “She is like no other female you have ever known.”
“That’s true.”
“She will not leave.”
“There, you’re wrong.” Aidan said, as if putting the words out into the universe would change the destiny Akan predicted.
“Maybe, boy. Maybe not.”
“I’m not a boy.”
“Everyone to me is a boy. And you, especially, are my boy.”
The discussion was part of their ritual. Akan expected it.
“Whatever you want, old man.”
“You want her.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“She belongs here, with you.”
“Now this conversation is over,” Aidan said, but there was no denying the small thrill of pleasure that settled in his gut at the thought.
“You can’t face the truth, boy.” Akan’s smile threatened to break the deep leathered lines that crisscrossed his face.
“She’s a stranger with a crisis.” His gaze swept behind him and into the endless jungle.
“My gut says otherwise.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Never.” Akan took a long pull of his pipe.
“So, take it as a first.”
“We’ll see,” Akan replied, and from somewhere deep in the jungle a monkey screeched a warning and then for a few seconds the jungle was silent. A ripple of warning ran through him. There was no danger. Not yet. His mind jumped back to the body. He had recognized the tattoo, so common among the Iban. Yet he was sure the guide was no one known to him. It wasn’t unusual not to know someone not of his tribe. The tribes ranged throughout the forest, some migrating to Kuching and some flitting there and back again. The corpse was a stranger, a stranger who was dead without known cause. None of that boded well for either his continued vacation or a return to the city.
He considered whether it was a murder. They’d eliminate Garrett’s group of misfits first. Mark, their local authority, could do that. With any luck, despite his earlier thoughts, the whole thing was accidental. He sighed. The man had been shot and his head removed. What were the odds that it was an accident? What were the odds Mark could handle the initial investigation or that Kuching would send investigators here? He sighed as he foresaw his vacation evaporating. Odds had never been in his favor. He doubted if they were now.
Chapter Eight
Garrett blew hair from her forehead and held back the urge to wipe sweat from her face. With her luck, their rescuer would probably look back and take it as a sign of weakness. She wouldn’t give him the opportunity to think any such thing.
Fatal Intent Page 4
