“There are guided tours available for the guests,” she reminded him. “Since we’ve been here, there hasn’t been a hint that anyone has found us, has there?” She didn’t bother to wait for a reply. “So why can’t we take one of the tours?”
Riley stuck his finger between the pages to hold his place as he used his free hand to pick up a brochure and study it.
“We’d be in a group. All perfectly safe,” she recited. “You know, ‘safety in numbers’ and all that. There should be no reason why we can’t go.”
“You’re safe here.” He dropped the brochure on the table and returned to his book.
Jenna snatched the book out of his hands and dropped it on the floor. She swung her leg around and planted herself in his lap.
“Do you know what I have done in the past week?”
He considered her demand for a moment. “Let’s see. You rediscovered windsurfing and how bad you’ve always been at it. You’ve built two mega sand castles. You spent one day at the spa with all those wraps and a massage and facials and whatever else they do to you in there. All in all, I’d say you’ve had a fun time.”
“And now I want to go someplace where there isn’t a beach or a spa or a swimming pool,” she stated. “I want to take the tour that goes to the temples.”
“If you look in the gift shop you’ll find postcards showing the temples from every side.” He tried to lean down to retrieve his book, but she blocked his every attempt. “Don’t even think about mailing any of them out to friends, though. This isn’t a vacation, you know.”
“It isn’t? You’ve sure done your part to make it seem like one. Have you talked to Dave?”
He looked surprised by her sudden switch in subject. “Just this morning. He sends his regards.”
“And did he have anything new to report?”
He heaved a deep sigh. “No, but that doesn’t mean anything. We think they’re keeping their activities as quiet as possible. But there have been some inquiries made about you. He’s running down the rumors.”
“But no one has shown up here,” Jenna said. “Besides, my looks have changed. Even more so.”
“True.” Riley’s gaze wandered over her barely clad body with more than a hint of interest.
Jenna had been sunbathing on the patio and wore a bronze-colored bikini that highlighted the deep tan she had acquired during her stay. Her hair had lightened even more from her days in the sun, and pampering from the hotel spa had left her skin looking luminous. She smelled of coconut-scented lotion and her own personal scent.
He wondered if he could get away with loosening the string holding her bikini top intact. Even though no one could see them when they relaxed on their patio, she refused to sunbathe topless.
“Haven’t you read all the reports written about the sun and skin cancer?” he asked her in an amiable voice.
“I wear sunblock. Don’t change the subject, Riley. I want to take that tour,” she said stubbornly.
Her unconscious shifting in his lap wasn’t helping his concentration any. He finally grabbed hold of her by the waist to keep her still.
“Not a good idea, Smitty.” He kept his gaze level with hers, but her eyes remained fixed on his.
Riley had to admire Jenna for her persistence. He didn’t know when she’d gotten this stubborn streak. He didn’t remember her having it before. Right now he was privately cursing her for having one, but he still had to admire her.
“I’ll check it out,” he said finally.
She had the grace not to show her triumph.
“Day after tomorrow.”
“You have to sign up for it in advance.”
Riley shot her a level look. “Trust me, Jen. You won’t have a problem getting on the tour of your choice.” He reached around her and this time successfully snagged his book.
Jenna climbed off his lap and backed up to sit on the small table by Riley’s chair. “When are we returning to the States?”
“If Dave hears what he wants to hear, we should be able to go back in the next week or so.”
Jenna ran her fingers lightly across her bandaged hand. Discomfort was at a minimum now. The doctor had examined and X-rayed it the day before and announced it was healing nicely.
She moved her fingers as little as possible, even though the pain was almost nonexistent. The bruising was gone and the skin was a healthy pink, but she had no idea if she still had dexterity.
She spent an hour each day practicing writing her name with her left hand. Her name finally looked legible, but she hadn’t tried writing anything else much less attempting to draw. She was too afraid of failure.
Riley noticed Jenna’s absent air and easily gauged the direction of her thoughts. He didn’t need to see her touching her hand to understand what was bothering her.
“I wouldn’t worry about it, Jen.”
She looked up. “Worry about what?”
“What you worried about before. Playing the violin. You never could before, and you’re tone-deaf to boot.”
Jenna rolled her eyes. “Not funny, Cooper.”
He leaned over and covered her wrist with his hand. “It was a vicious attack. One meant to cripple you. In mind and body,” he said quietly. “Especially the mind. You can’t let them win, Smitty. You’re a strong woman, and you’ll come out fine.”
She remained so still for a moment he wondered if she even heard him.
“You still think someone will come for me, don’t you?” Her low-voiced question hung in the air like an executioner’s ax.
“They won’t stop looking.” He didn’t coat the truth, because he didn’t want her too relaxed.
The light in Jenna’s eyes died. She rose to her feet and walked back inside.
Riley muttered a pithy curse. He knew he had given her too much freedom in the past week. He kept a close eye on her, but she still roamed around the resort.
Even though Sasha assured him she was safe, Riley still couldn’t dismiss the feeling that they were living in the eye of a hurricane. He knew he couldn’t go to the man for any further assistance.
What Sasha provided he did of his own free will for Jenna’s sake. Riley also knew that being in the older man’s debt wasn’t a good idea. Those kind of debts were expected to be repaid.
Things had been going too well for way too long. If it wasn’t that he knew exactly why they were there, he could make himself believe he and Jenna were back together again and they were down here for a vacation.
He shouldn’t have kept her here for as long as he had. They should have been on the move before now, but he wasn’t sure where they would go if they had to leave here. He had hoped it would be cleared up before now. His calls to Dave hadn’t been fruitful. If anything, they were frustrating, because Dave hadn’t been able to find out anything.
He had kept his calls short so they couldn’t be traced.
Riley looked down at his book. The fast-paced psychological thriller couldn’t hold his attention now. He even wondered why he started reading it in the first place. Real life tended to have more conspiracies than any book could hold. He set the book aside and went out to find her.
“You mean we can go on one of the tours?” Jenna looked at him as if afraid he might suddenly change his mind.
He inwardly winced that she was so suspicious of him. Even though he knew exactly why. “I guess I haven’t made your life all that easy these past few years,” he said slowly as he pulled a pale green T-shirt over his head.
Jenna turned away and bent closer to peer into the mirror as she applied lipstick.
“I told you before. I made the choice. Everything was fully explained to me. I was an adult, Riley. No one forced me into it.”
“Yeah, and I know all about those explanations.” He walked over and slid his arms around her waist, pulling her back against him. “Wouldn’t you rather stay here?” he murmured, nuzzling the soft hollow of her throat. The warm floral fragrance of her skin was starting to give him ideas. “We could
play doctor and insatiable nurse,” he said, tongue firmly in cheek. “You check my temperature. I check yours. We see whose is higher.”
She shook her head at him, smiling as if he was an incorrigible small child.
“Act your age. We cannot miss seeing temples that have been in existence for thousands of years.” She briefly leaned against him. “This is a chance to experience history. We can go out there and act like typical tourists. I’ll take your picture standing in front of one of the temples, and you can take mine.”
“Just as long as no one else gets in the photos we’d be fine.” He groaned and stood back. “All right, but this is still against my better judgment.”
Jenna looped her arms around his neck and lightly bumped her forehead against his chin in a teasing gesture. “Riley, I’ll be careful. I won’t go off by myself and I’ll always remain in sight. I just wanted to do something different.”
“Damn straight you will stay close to me,” he growled.
Jenna wanted to smile at this testy side of Riley.
“You sound like my grandmother.”
He rolled his eyes. “Terrific. Now you’re trying to wrap me in a shawl and put me in a rocking chair.”
“Why? My grandmother started taking flying lessons when she was fifty and took up skiing when she was sixty. For her seventy-fifth birthday, she started skydiving. I can’t imagine she’s slowed down any since the last time I saw her.”
Riley didn’t need any reminder of how much Jenna had given up when she entered the Witness Relocation Program.
“I really screwed up your life, didn’t I?” He made it more a fact, not a question.
Jenna shook her head as she framed his face with her hands. “I got a lot of practice with life drawing,” she teased.
Just as she knew it would, Riley’s face grew a dark red. She knew the man didn’t have one inhibited bone in his body, but the times she talked him into posing for her showed her there were a few things he was uncomfortable doing. One of them was posing nude.
“If we’re going we better get down to the lobby.” Riley picked up his sunglasses and set a baseball cap on his head, pulling the bill down over his eyes.
Jenna picked up the hat she planned to wear when they reached their destination and followed him out of the bungalow.
When they reached the lobby, they found the tour group standing around in a loose group.
“Gee, I may have trouble finding you among all these clones,” she murmured. She furtively eyed several of the men, who wore loud patterned shirts that matched their wives’ tops. “On second thought, I won’t have all that much trouble. We’re almost the only ones not wearing matching shirts.”
Riley eyed some of the more ostentatious floral print shirts worn by men and women alike. “No way you’ll ever get me into one of those,” he muttered.
“No problem. I’d never buy you one. Although that bright red and blue with all the parrots looks neat.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her outside. “Not in this lifetime.”
The small bus the group was herded onto was modern and air-conditioned.
“All the comforts of home,” Riley commented as he eased his seat back a bit. He picked up her hand and sandwiched it between his. He held it during the drive.
Since the seats were large enough, Jenna curled her legs up under her and to one side so she could lean against Riley. He smiled and slipped an arm around her shoulders. She snuggled up closer to him.
“It’s a forty-minute ride, so you may as well make yourself comfortable,” he told her.
“Thank you, Riley,” she murmured, turning her head just enough to press a kiss against his neck. Her breath was warm against his skin. “This will be a wonderful day. I know it will.”
He wanted to tell her not to thank him until they were safely back at the bungalow. He wanted to tell her he changed his mind and they weren’t going, after all. He wanted to tell her the jittery feeling he’d been experiencing lately was increasing. He didn’t like it one bit. He felt as if he should be looking over his shoulder all the time.
He told himself he had these odd feelings because it had been way too quiet for too long. He told himself it was because he’d been out of the game, and he worried his reflexes weren’t what they were supposed to be.
You didn’t have to worry about carrying a gun when you were out surfing.
Most of all, he worried that all he would have to do is make one tiny mistake and Jenna would be the one to pay the hefty price.
With her life.
Chapter 10
“Why didn’t I wear my running shoes?” Jenna moaned as she followed Riley off the bus. She stopped for a second to slip off her sandals and knock the dirt out of them.
“Don’t even think I’m going to carry you,” Riley warned her.
He barely turned around when she suddenly leaped onto his back and wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck.
“You were saying?” she giggled.
Several others walking around them laughed at the stunned look on Riley’s face.
“Why can’t you be fun like that?” One blond woman asked the man she was with. The expression on his face told her that wasn’t his idea of fun.
“Don’t worry, baby, we’ll have our own fun when we get back to the hotel,” he promised her. “You wanted to see these damn things, so let’s get it over with.”
Riley turned his head and stared at Jenna.
“Do not even think about dumping me,” she whispered in his ear, playfully pulling his hair.
Riley dutifully carried Jenna piggyback until they reached the first temple. He loosened his hold, and she hopped down. She pulled her camera out of her tote bag and began snapping pictures.
“Look at this!” she enthused, holding the viewfinder up to her eye and tipping her head back to get as much of the stone temple as she could. “We have to climb this, Riley.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the steep steps at one end of the building.
He hung back. “Let’s explore the interior first.”
Jenna considered it and nodded.
The temple was surprisingly cool inside compared to the heat outside.
Jenna was disappointed that there were no drawings on the walls. She already knew there wouldn’t be any rare artifacts since the temple had been plundered centuries ago and archeologists had taken the rest. Instead she allowed her imagination to take over and tell her what might have been found there.
She could see pots glazed with earthen colors set in the niches carved within the walls. She wondered if they would have had wall hangings depicting scenes of daily life or religious rituals. Priests, wearing their garb of power, would be in here praying to their gods and going about their daily duties. She felt as if she could hear their chants echoing in her mind.
“How sad that there is so little known about these people,” she murmured, placing her hand against a wall and feeling the cool stone rough against her skin. “I wonder what their lives were like. Were they happy? Did they have large families? Did they have to work hard? What were their festivals like? Did they have enemies?”
“They probably had all of the above along with a few virgin sacrifices to spice up the holidays.” Riley leaned down to murmur in her ear, “But then I guess you don’t have to worry about that, do you?”
She not so subtly pushed her elbow into his stomach. “You don’t have to gloat, you know.”
He grunted from the contact. It turned out she had a very sharp elbow. “It’s a guy thing.”
“From what I remember, men were also sacrificed.” Jenna grabbed his hand and pulled him back outside. “Maybe we’ll find out once we’ve reached the top.” She climbed up the first step and looked over her shoulder. “Are you coming?”
Riley sighed. “Not just yet. Maybe later.” He climbed up after her.
Leaves rustled from the nearby jungle of thick plants and trees. Eyes hidden behind dark glasses scanned and counted th
e number of people walking around the small cluster of temples. They also tracked the others brave enough to climb up the main structure. The owner of the eyes didn’t like what he saw.
There were too many people around for to him accomplish his task. Still, he was a professional. If he was patient he would have his opportunity. He wanted to be as far away as possible by nightfall.
He had to succeed. He was told not to come back until he accomplished the job.
He touched the knife strapped to his thigh.
He didn’t like using guns. Never had. They were too impersonal. He preferred his work to be up close and personal. The only way he could do that was with a knife. Or his fists.
She had been afraid of him that night. She couldn’t hide it. He drank in that fear as if it had been a strong narcotic. He liked knowing she was afraid of him. The power he’d had over her that night let him feel in control. He always liked being in control of a situation.
It was something he couldn’t experience when he reported to his employer. He didn’t know the man’s name. The man had never introduced himself, and to be honest, he never wanted to know the bastard’s name. He always had the feeling if he said one word wrong the man would kill him without a second thought. He considered himself a coldhearted bastard. He considered his employer a man who didn’t have a heart.
If he could, he’d leave the man’s employ and go elsewhere. He didn’t care that the money was excellent He’d rather work for anyone but the man he privately called the devil. There was only one problem.
The only resignation his employer would accept was death. His.
“What is it with you and climbing?” Riley grumbled, once they reached the top of the stone edifice.
“This is beautiful!” Jenna spun around with her arms open wide as if to accept the sun around her.
Jenna stopped when she found Riley watching her. It was too easy to forget they had been apart for some time. Here in Mexico she could make herself believe none of it had ever happened. She could believe they were down here for a once-in-a-lifetime vacation.
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