Cutter's Lady

by Candace Camp

  Leslie smiled dazzlingly. “I will.”

  ***

  They set out the next morning as early as Cutter had threatened. Leslie was still half-asleep, but she stumbled out and climbed on her small donkey. Cutter had made her leave her purse and everything else except her most necessary clothes, which he had compressed into a small bundle and stuck in a small weatherproof bag. He now strapped the bag onto one of the pack animals, then climbed onto the lead donkey and tapped it with his heels. Leslie smothered a grin at the sight of Cutter’s long legs dangling on either side of the little creature.

  The trail wound back into the mountains. At first it was wide enough for the two of them to ride side by side, but it soon narrowed until there was room for single-file riding only. The trees grew up thick and tall beside the trail, and often vines twisted between them and draped over their heads. Leslie called a few questions to Cutter about the trees, and he identified some—the strange-looking cannonball tree, with its rounded mounds on the trunk; the towering pouis, under whose shelter stood the cacao trees; the mango, flowering now in tiny pink, hairy blossoms; the sturdy mahogany. But it was quickly apparent that riding in single file made it difficult either to talk or to hear, and Leslie abandoned her attempts at conversation.

  The trees shaded Leslie from much of the sun, but now and then they emerged into an open spot, and the sun blazed down on her. She was grateful for the wide-brimmed hat Cutter had given her and the sunscreen she had smeared on her arms before she left that morning. Even when the sun didn’t hit her directly, it was decidedly warm, the heat thickened by the dampness in the air. Leslie, in jeans, shirt and boots, soon began to sweat. Before long the discomfort of the heat was increased by a steady ache in her back; she wasn’t used to sitting without back support, as she now sat on the donkey. Next, pain began in her thighs and buttocks from riding, and then her lower legs started growing numb.

  By noon, Leslie was tired and plagued by aches all over her body. Not only that, her stomach rumbled with hunger, but Cutter didn’t even suggest stopping to eat lunch. She was beginning to have serious doubts about her sanity for insisting on accompanying him.

  When at least he pulled his mount to a stop and hopped off, Leslie discovered, much to her dismay, that her legs didn’t want to work, even to get off the source of her torture. It took forever to swing her leg over and slide the short distance to the ground. When her feet touched the dirt, her knees buckled and she would have fallen if she hadn’t grabbed hold of her saddle. Cutter was quickly by her side, his hand under her elbow to support her.

  “A little wobbly?” he asked, and Leslie was amazed to see that his eyes were soft and kind—and perhaps the tiniest bit amused.

  “Yes. Thank you. My legs went to sleep.”

  “Ready for some lunch?”

  “I was ready hours ago,” Leslie answered truthfully, and Cutter smiled.

  Yesterday she had pissed him off, and Cutter had vowed to himself he wouldn’t touch her again voluntarily. Of course, the condoms he had somehow managed to find space for in his small traveling pack disproved his intentions before he’d even loaded up the donkeys. And his anger had faded more and more during the ride.

  He liked having Leslie with him; there was a pleasant sense of companionship between them even when they weren’t talking. He kept thinking about her riding behind him, kept picturing her swaying along on her donkey, and he had to admit that he wanted her as much as ever. He had more than one twinge of guilt—he shouldn’t have let her go along, no matter what she’d said or the tears in her beautiful eyes, and now he wondered if he had given in because deep down he really wanted her with him. It was selfish, knowing how much danger it placed her in.

  Cutter sighed and pulled out the food Mary had fixed earlier. He handed Leslie a thick ham sandwich and one of the LifeStraw Go water bottles he’d packed for them that could be refilled from a stream. He figured Leslie had probably never even heard of bottles that filtered out bacteria and parasites, much less had thought to bring her own. They stood as they ate, grateful for the relief to their sore muscles and chafed skin.

  “Where exactly are we going?” Leslie asked when she’d eaten enough to satisfy the hardest pangs of her hunger.

  Cutter shrugged. “In the general area of Monte Viejo; that’s the last place the Moristas were, according to the men at the mission.”

  “That’s awfully vague, isn’t it?” Leslie protested. “How will we find them?”

  “We won’t. They’ll find us.”

  She didn’t like the sound of that. It was too uncertain—and somehow frightening. “But—”

  “There’s no way I could locate their camp, except by sheer accident. They’re constantly changing their location so the army won’t find them.”

  Leslie frowned. This was going to take much longer than she had anticipated. Again she wondered if she had been crazy to come with Cutter. Still, she kind of liked it out here, despite the heat and uncomfortable mode of transportation. The soft green of the forest was soothing, the flash of colorful parrots and the chatter of monkeys intriguing, and occasionally they came upon a cascade of flowers that she’d tried to capture with her cellphone but her pictures just couldn’t compare with the real thing. She even liked being with Cutter; he made her feel safe and yet at the same time adventurous.

  They rode on for several more hours. Cutter stopped more frequently in the afternoon to let Leslie stretch her legs, but she couldn’t completely get out the aches during any stop. They came upon a party of men cutting down trees, and Cutter chatted with them for a while, asking if they knew where the Moristas were camped. He received nothing in reply but negative shakes of their heads. Later in the afternoon they passed through a small village, where Cutter repeated his questions. Here he received only blank, rather frightened stares. They continued on their way.

  “They didn’t look as though they’d tell you even if they knew,” Leslie commented after they left the village.

  “I seriously doubt anyone will,” Cutter responded.

  “Then why…?”

  “I’m putting out feelers, letting it be known that I want to speak with Mora. It’ll get back to him, and hopefully he’ll send people to find us and take us to him.”

  “Oh.” Leslie was quiet for a moment, then asked, “When are we going to stop for the night?”

  Cutter flashed back a grin at her. “Not sore, are you?”

  “Oh, no, of course not.” Leslie gave an exaggerated shake of her head. “But there is the small issue that I may never have circulation in my legs again.”

  Cutter chuckled. “It won’t be long, I promise. I’m looking for a place.”

  Finally, as dusk approached, Cutter found what he was looking for—a small mountain stream—and called a halt to their day’s travel. He refilled his and Leslie’s LifeStraw bottles and then proceeded to pull the packs and saddles from the donkeys’ backs. He hobbled them near the stream to let them drink and once they’d had their fill they began to munch happily on the various vegetation nearby. Cutter had worn the gun belt with the knife scabbard today, and now he whisked the long knife from its resting place. Leslie saw that it was a machete. She watched with interest as he used it to clear a small area beside the stream.

  Then he pulled a bundle from one of the packs and began to erect a small tent.

  As Leslie watched him, a movement caught her eye, and she glanced up at the tree above Cutter. To her horror she was a yellow snake gliding slowly, sinuously down the trunk, its tongue flicking in and out rapidly as it moved. She drew in a gasp, frozen for an instant. “C-Cutter.”

  He heard the fear in her voice and his head snapped up. “What?”

  Leslie pointed at the snake. Cutter glanced up and calmly lifted his machete from the ground beside him. In one smooth motion he stood and swept the long knife down against the tree trunk. He neatly sliced the head from the body, and the snake fell to the ground. Cutter used the machete to flip both parts away from their c
amp into the thicket of the jungle. He wiped the machete off on the ground and resumed working. “Thanks.”

  Leslie’s knees trembled, and it was all she could do to keep from falling to the ground. Her lungs and heart were crashing in her chest, and sweat trickled down her sides. She hoped she wouldn’t faint.

  After a few minutes, she was finally calm enough to ask without her voice quivering, “What was it?”

  “Eyelash viper. They come out when it gets dark.”

  “Poisonous?”

  “Yeah.” He looked back up at her. “You all right?”

  Leslie nodded, embarrassed in the face of his calm to admit how terrified she had been. “That’s the first snake I’ve seen today.”

  He smiled. “I’m glad you saw it.”

  She nodded faintly. Cutter returned to work, and Leslie revolved slowly, surveying the area for more snakes. She saw none and turned back to watch Cutter, slightly reassured. He had finished pounding eight metal stakes into the ground to hold the tent firmly in place. Once he had moved their supplies inside the four-foot-high structure, he climbed back out and picked up his machete.

  “I’ll build a fire.” He cast a glance at the dying strip of light on the horizon. The shadows were deep now in the forest; the thick trees cut out nearly all of what little sunlight was left. Cutter worked quickly, chopping up a dead vine into several pieces, then lopping off several smaller branches of a fallen tree. He arranged a few stones in a circle, added a tinder stick to the collected wood and lit it with a magnesium fire rod. It crackled to life quickly.

  “I’m impressed,” Leslie said. “You’re handy in the woods.”

  “Most of the time. Want some soup and crackers?” he whipped out a pan, two cans of soup and a can opener and proceeded to heat their dinner. When it was ready he poured Leslie’s into a bowl and ate his from the pan. They finished off their meal with slices of cheese. As they were eating, Leslie asked in a studiedly casual voice, “Who is Teresa?”

  Cutter froze for an instant, then continued eating. “I told you. A woman Mary and I knew.”

  “How’d you know her?”

  “She lived down here. She was a distant cousin of Mora’s, in fact.”

  “Was she a rebel, too?”

  Cutter smiled reminiscently. “She was a rebel before Mora ever thought of being one. I think Teresa was a rebel from the day she was born.”

  “Were you in love with her?” Leslie gripped her bowl tightly, certain of the answer yet afraid to hear it. In the past, Leslie had thought if you were crazy about someone, you’d gush about them constantly—it was what most of her friends did when they were dating someone seriously. And Leslie had first noticed her feelings for Michael when little stories or sayings of his started creeping into her conversations with other people. But Michael had barely mentioned his ex to her and it wasn’t until after Leslie had gotten divorced that she’d learned he’d been trying to win his ex back the whole time they were friends. Maybe not talking about someone was the way some men dealt with being in love.

  “Yeah. I loved her.” Cutter’s voice was carefully blank. “We were engaged.”

  “Engaged?” Leslie was astonished. Cutter didn’t seem the type to marry.

  “Until she was killed by a mortar shell.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “She wasn’t an active guerrilla, but she was always on the fringes. She worked with a supply group in La Luz. I tried and tried to convince her to get out of it. I wanted to leave and take her back to the States with me, but she wouldn’t go.” His hand clenched into a hard knot as his gaze turned inward, remembering. “She was so damn stubborn. One day she ran a load of supplies to a village where the rebels were hiding, and the army attacked while she was there. She was killed instantly.”

  Leslie’s heart squeezed in her chest. She wished she hadn’t asked. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago.” Cutter rose, dismissing the subject. “Let’s wash these dishes in the stream.”

  Leslie helped him wash their utensils and dry them. Cutter repacked them into the bundle of supplies. “Time to turn in,” he said, and gestured toward the tent. “No late nights in the jungle.”

  Leslie glanced toward the tent, then back to Cutter. “You’re putting up only one tent?”

  He met her gaze. “Yeah.”

  They stared at each other steadily. Leslie gnawed at the inside of her cheek. She couldn’t ask him to go to the trouble of setting up another tent when this one was ample for two people. But she didn’t like the thought of sleeping that close to Cutter.

  Finally Cutter broke their deadlocked gaze and turned away. “Don’t worry. I’ll try to restrain my animalistic nature.” His mouth quirked into a half-smile. “And I haven’t had a violent night terror in weeks, at least.” He winked.

  Leslie made a face. He pulled two bedrolls from one of the packs and placed them in the tent. “Uh, if you’d like some privacy, you can walk downstream a little. I won’t be able to see you.”

  Leslie blushed to the roots of her hair and gave him a jerky nod of thanks. She walked away stiffly, in the direction he’d indicated. When she returned Cutter had laid out the bedrolls in the tent and was waiting for her so that he could put out the fire. He covered it with dirt, and the area was completely dark. They crawled inside the tent, and Cutter zipped it up.

  “There. Now, hopefully, we won’t have any friends visiting us tonight.” Cutter pulled off his boots and slid into his bedroll.

  Leslie did the same, grateful that the dark made it impossible to see anything but vague outlines inside the tent. She didn’t want to have to look at Cutter lying so close to her. She didn’t want to see his eyes or mouth…or hands.

  Restlessly Leslie turned onto her side. The ground was unbelievably hard. She reminded herself that she’d slept on harder stuff on the deck of the boat, but the thought didn’t make her more comfortable. On the boat she hadn’t been alone inside a tent with Cutter. Then she hadn’t been cozy and snug and private. There had been no possibility of Cutter’s kissing her, letting his hands roam over her body, working their delicious magic.

  Not that there was any possibility now, either, Leslie told herself. After all, Cutter had assured her he wouldn’t touch her. Leslie wondered what would happen if she turned over and said his name. She clamped her lips together tightly. She wouldn’t. She simply would not. That would be foolish, crazy. Impossible. There could be nothing between her and Cutter except a brief moment of physical desire. He was an adventurer, the kind who never stayed any place long, who was always searching for new danger, new excitement. He wouldn’t want to be stuck with one woman. Or, at least, not unless she was someone like Teresa, who loved danger and adventure as much as he. Cutter certainly wouldn’t want Leslie. Most of the time he thoroughly disliked her. As she did him, she told herself hastily.

  Leslie squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to sleep. It didn’t work. She kept thinking about his kisses yesterday, the callused touch of his fingertips on her sensitive skin. She wondered what his touch would be like without any clothes to impede them. How would it feel to have his long, hard body stretched out beside her…on top of her? Leslie wet her lips nervously and laced her fingers together. Why was she thinking like this? No doubt Cutter had long ago fallen asleep, without even a thought of sleeping with her.

  She was wrong. Cutter lay on his side of the tent, as fully awake as Leslie. He could see nothing of her except a dark lump against the far wall of the tent, but his imagination supplied a far better view of her. He saw her in the soft bare-backed sun dress she had worn last night at supper. He saw her in her tight-fitting jeans. In the sweater dress that outlined her every curve. He pictured her hair down and flowing across her shoulders, swaying with her movements, dark and thick and rich. It was like satin. He loved the way it felt in his hands. He remembered their all too brief moment the day before in his room at the mission, recalling every tormenting second, each glide of silken skin and sweet cli
nging of her lips, each twining of her tongue around his. For a few minutes she had been hot and hungry, just as he was for her—just as she had been that disastrous night in Chempua.

  Sweat popped out on Cutter’s forehead. He clenched his hands into fists and wrapped his arms against his chest, curling up into himself. Why was he doing this? He had told her he wouldn’t touch her tonight. Yesterday he had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t touch her ever again unless she made the first move. Every time he did, she was undeniably into it, then unceremoniously rejected him. Yesterday he’d worked himself up into a good fury over that, but tonight the relieving anger wouldn’t come.

  Instead, he reminded himself that both times he had been the one to stop first and that Leslie’s angry rejection had come only after that. His mind kept going back to her initial response. The melting of her body into his, that hot surge of passion in her lips—that was Leslie’s natural response. If he went to her, this time with a long night alone together stretching out in front of them… the thought of what might happen sent fire through his veins.

  “Leslie…” Cutter pushed aside the upper half of his bedroll and started to crawl out.

  On the other side of the tent, Leslie sat up and whirled around to face him, as if her name on his lips had been a needle plunging into her. “No!” Her voice was high and breathless. “Stay right where you are. You promised you wouldn’t try anything.”

  “I know.” He paused, watching her shadowy form. “But is seems like a terrible waste. I want you. You want me.”

  “That’s not the issue.” Leslie tried to remember all the reasons she shouldn’t let him near her but his low, husky voice was making it incredibly hard.

  “I want to kiss you, to touch you. And I think you want the same. How is that an issue?”

  “I’m—I’m not the type.”

  He chuckled, and the warm sound sent shivers of desire through her. “You could have fooled me. You didn’t have any problem yesterday.”