by Dana Marton
He stepped back to the boat, tightened the rope.
Audrey moved over to him. “What are we going to do?”
He shook his head, and for the first time she saw something close to defeat in his eyes. And it scared her, more than anything had scared her so far.
“Not much until morning. Nobody can navigate this river in the dark. I was thinking about putting the weakest in the boat at first light. The rest of us can make it on foot.” He shook his head.
“What’s wrong with that plan?”
“Those who are too weak to walk, would be too weak to handle the boat the way the river is now. And it’s dangerous. Guerillas use the river. There are rapids. They would need me with them.”
“Then go.”
“The people in the forest need me, too. And even if I go with the boat, we’ll have to stop to rest, to eat. We’re not going to make it to civilization before August tenth.”
Oh, God, there was still that. Some kind of attack, possibly thousands of lives at stake. She had for a while forgotten about it in the joy of having Nicky with her, safe.
“You should go alone, that would be fastest.” Resolve filled her, as the idea blossomed in her mind. “We’ll stay and you’ll send help. You taught me enough so I should be able to keep everyone alive for a couple of days. We have weapons. You can help us get to a cave then leave.”
She wished she felt a tenth of the self-confidence that she forced into her words. “Or you could take the strongest of the men with you,” she added when she thought of the perils of the river.
He looked at her as if she’d just given him a million dollars, kissed her on the lips, just like that, in front of everyone, and strode to the group of hostages, but not to the biggest and tallest men. He went to the shortest one.
“How far is your tribe?”
“A day’s walk down the hillside,” the man responded in a lilting accent.
“How big is it?”
“About fifty men.”
“Friendly with the guerillas?”
The man spat on the ground.
“Would they protect these people until I send help?”
“They don’t have much, but they would share. It’s the way of the jungle. We have fine witch doctor.”
“Will you take them there?”
“I owe you my life. I do what you tell me.”
Brian hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Listen up,” he addressed the others as the first light of dawn crept across the sky above them. “Your guide will take you to his village. It’s one day of walking, everybody can manage that. I’m going down the river and will send help as soon as I can.”
The man who had given him trouble lurched forward. “You’re taking the boat and leaving us behind?”
But he couldn’t rile Brian. He was perfectly calm now. “Which would you rather do? Walk for a day led by a man who grew up in the jungle and knows more than any of us about surviving in it? Or spend five days on a river that’s flooding out of control and is controlled by guerillas, a plain target in a small boat where anyone with a gun can pick you off from shore?”
The man made some noise, but backed down.
“When do we leave?” another one asked.
“Now. If you run into the official Malaysian rescue team, or anyone at all with a radio, you have to let the authorities know that there is a credible terrorist threat for Kuala Lumpur for the tenth of August. Given where you spent the last week or so, they’re going to believe you.”
Another man stepped forward and shook Brian’s hand, and then more came with their thanks and handshakes, wishing him speed down the river, some asking him to send word to family if he got the chance. Audrey wanted to move forward to do the same, but Nicky was hanging on to her hand just as tight as she could.
“Is this a good idea?”
“There just isn’t an alternative.” She hugged her, still getting used to them being together, that Nicky was alive, unharmed.
“When did you get to be so tough?” Nicky asked when they pulled away. “I thought I was the family daredevil.”
“Oh yeah, and look where going on a jungle tour got you.”
“When we get home I’ll be sticking to kiddy parks with stroller trails.”
“Exactly. Don’t make me have to come after you again. You’ll be an aunt soon. You’re going to have to act responsible and dignified.”
“Oh, man, you’re kidding.”
God, it was good to joke like that again. It made things feel a hell of a lot more normal, which they were still not. But the banter at least took some of the fright out of the night.
Brian sought her out at the end. “You’ll be all right. I’ll have the army up here in no time.”
“You must take someone with you. You need someone to watch your back.” The sudden worry about him going alone seemed ridiculous. If anyone knew what they were doing it was him. He had a vast knowledge of jungle survival. And still, she hated to see him go.
“I doubt any of the men would want to leave their wives.” He ran his hand down her arm in a gesture of farewell. “And they wouldn’t be much help anyway. They don’t know anything about the jungle. I’d be watching out for them.”
“Take me then,” she said, and pulled away from Nicky. “You can’t go alone. I know the jungle. You taught me. You’ll need help with the boat.”
“Audrey, no.” Nicky pulled her back. “This is crazy.”
She turned and gave her sister a fierce hug. “He saved my life, and yours. I can’t let him go alone.”
Nicky hugged her tighter, but after a while nodded against her shoulder and let her go. She glanced from her to Brian. “Why do I think I’m missing something here? You two are not—”
“I’ll be fine.” Audrey cut her off.
“Take care of yourself,” Nicky said with a bittersweet smile. “Take care of each other.”
“Will do. And you, too.”
“A walk in the park.” Nicky picked up the rifle Brian had taken from the man with the big mouth, slung it over her shoulder and gave Audrey an if-you-can-do-it-so-can-I look, that was way too familiar.
She shook her head as she hugged her one more time, then she turned to Brian. “I’m ready.”
“You are not coming,” he said, his voice hard, his face serious.
Chapter Eight
How had this happened? Brian gripped the pole tight and, ignoring the rain, pushed a large chunk of driftwood away from the boat, looking ahead, while Audrey scanned the river and the jungle for dangers behind them.
She was one determined woman. But to be truthful, he’d rather have her watch his back than anyone else. She was tough, had learned over the last couple of days not to be squeamish, and pulled her own weight. And he knew her at least a little, more so than any of the men among the hostages. She had earned his trust.
They were on the way back. He felt lighter with the first half of their mission done. The hostages were reasonably safe. They had a good guide and good weapons.
“Do you think they’ll reach the village safely?” Audrey asked, her mind obviously running along the same lines as his.
“They should be fine. Hamid’s men are probably nursing their injuries, holed up somewhere. If they think the army is in this part of the jungle, they are probably trying to hide.”
“What does he want anyway? Him and Omar and the rest?”
He shrugged. “What do opposition forces always want? A change in government.”
“To overthrow the monarchy?”
“Not quite. From what I heard over the years, Hamid figures himself to be some kind of a tragically overlooked heir to the throne. You should see the tattoo on his arm, a leaping tiger from wrist to elbow with a crown on his head.”
“Kidnapping people—there’s a real prince.”
“He’s raising money for a coup. And if he scares some foreigners out of the country at the same time, that’s fine with him, too. He’s a religious extremist.”
; “And Omar?”
“I don’t think he much believes in their cause, and he doesn’t follow any religion, that’s for sure. He likes fighting. He wants power and since he doesn’t have any under this government, he figures he might have better luck with the next, especially if he helps to bring it about.”
He pushed some debris away from the boat, a bunch of branches and the bloated body of a young wild pig tangled up between them. He registered a moment of regret that the meat was too far gone to eat.
“They’re halfway there,” she said, and he knew she was thinking about Nicky.
“I can’t believe you left your sister for me.”
“I’m a known masochist. A glutton for punishment,” she said in a dry voice.
“I thought maybe some kind of jungle fever addled your reasoning.”
She turned a little, one perfect eyebrow cocked. “Ever considered you might be able to get more from a girl by sweet-talking than by calling her a lunatic?”
And his breath caught, as if someone had dropped a boulder on his chest. Because their conversation was so normal, so lighthearted, so not something he’d expected. It was almost as if she were flirting with him, sounding as if she wouldn’t have minded at all if he tried to sweet-talk her.
God almighty. Did he still know how to sweet-talk? He felt like he just came across a field of land-mines. And acting appropriately, he backed away.
“Your sister will be fine.” He slid from the seat and sat on the bottom of the boat, ignoring the few inches of water. “Pull your head in. We’re close to camp.”
Audrey ducked down beneath the branches that covered the boat on the side and on top, making it look like a tangled mass of a tree trunk broken off by the storm, floating downriver. They were in the middle of the water, letting the current carry them.
“Do you think they’re watching the river?” She breathed the words.
“Not for us at this stage. We’ve been gone too long. But for flooding maybe. Omar’s camp is not that far from here.”
“But if the guerillas who ran off into the jungle last night got here before us—” she whispered.
“The boat is going a lot faster than anyone can in the jungle. Some will come to Omar without a doubt, but by the time they get here, we’ll be far downriver.”
He held his head up enough to see through the branches, keeping an eye out for driftwood, listening for anything suspicious, be it man-made noise or the sound of rapids ahead. He kept as low as he could. Their disguise was good enough to fool someone who happened to catch a glimpse of them from the corner of his eye, but would not stand up to closer scrutiny.
They cleared the area where Omar’s men would have been if they were out there, but were slowed down shortly after that, coming to a stretch where the river widened out. The surface was littered with debris the water had washed down from the mountains. Audrey directed the boat, while he used his pole to keep anything large from crashing into them—hard work for both of them. Night approached by the time they fought their way through the rough spot.
They pulled the boat to shore, up on higher ground as far in as they could, and turned it upside down to keep the rain from filling it, covered it with fallen leaves and branches.
“It’s not bad from afar.” Audrey stood back when they were done. “As long as nobody comes too close.”
“There’s less than an hour left before nightfall. Let’s hope our luck holds.” He moved forward.
“I’m starving,” she blurted out. “Sorry, didn’t mean to complain. Nothing you can do about it.”
While their progress on the river was much faster than it would have been on land, it had disadvantages. Not being able to forage for food was one of them. He searched the trees above for any sign of fruit as they went. “We’ll find something.”
No time to fish now. He had to find a place to spend the night, light a fire, build a shelter. All that before darkness fell. But luck was with them for once—they came across a rock formation not a hundred feet from the river. There was a large indentation in the rock, not quite a cave, but a ledge that would protect them from the elements.
“Up there.” He pointed, and helped Audrey climb.
Looked like they weren’t the first to discover the place. Ashes blackened the rock floor farther in, leftovers of a long-ago fire. There were piles of leaves the wind had blown into the back of the crevice, a couple of chunks of deadwood left behind by whoever had that fire. Enough to start one now.
“Here.” He handed Audrey the waterproof matches he’d grabbed at the guerilla camp, then pulled the papers from his shirt. “Try to dry these.”
He hadn’t had a chance to look at them yet, didn’t want to get them any wetter than he had to.
“I’m gonna look for some food.” He stepped back out into the rain that had turned into a downpour.
He didn’t bother to look for grubs, there was no sense searching the muddy ground. He walked back toward the river and looked for palm trees, came across a patch of wild berries and settled for that, picked his shirt full of the small semi-soft fruit. They’d had a poor diet so far, one that they couldn’t make it on in the long term, but sufficient to get them through the next couple of days.
He spotted something high up a tree, thought it might be fruit, climbed and found it to be orchids, a multitude of them, and on a whim, he filled the rest of the room in his shirt with blossoms.
AUDREY LAID the mess of soaked papers near the fire next to her clothes, close enough to dry fast, but not so close that they’d burn. She anchored them with a stone to make sure a gust of wind didn’t blow them into harm’s way.
“Anything useful on them?” Brian climbed up and sat next to her, dripped on the floor. He took off his hat and wiped the water off his face, brushed his hair back.
“Too soggy. Didn’t think I could pull them all apart without tearing them. Probably better to wait until they dry.”
He looked over the ones that were readable. Blueprints one after the other, but no writing on them, no identification of what building they belonged to. Only one of the sheets was different. It contained some kind of a scribbled list.
“Embassies.” Brian picked up that one. “That’s something. If we get to KL in time, this might be enough of a clue to head off tragedy.” He set the sheet down and placed a stone on top carefully, before turning back to her.
She eyed his bulging shirtfront with hope. “Find anything?”
He looked embarrassed for a second, reluctant.
“What?”
He reached inside and scooped a giant handful of white-pink blossoms, then hesitantly laid them at her bare feet.
“Oh, my God, these are beautiful.” She glanced up at him. “Are they edible?”
He laughed, the first real laugh she’d heard from him, and it reached to her heart. He scooped out another handful, then another. The light of the fire danced on the petals, a soft scent filling their small shelter.
“They are for you,” he said. “For coming with me.”
She stared at him, speechless, the gesture so sweet and unexpected she didn’t know for a moment how to react. “Thank you,” she said, and although she wanted to reach out to him, she didn’t. He hadn’t reacted well to that in the past.
But there was something in the orchid-scented air between them that hadn’t been there before. It made her feel self-conscious of the fact that she wore nothing but her underwear and tanktop, even though it had not been the first time she’d taken off her clothes to dry, nor was it the least amount of clothes he’d seen her in.
“These are to eat.” He brought forth handfuls of berries next, and she fell on them shamelessly.
When his shirt was empty, he took it off and laid it by the fire to dry, putting his pants next to it. She kept her gaze averted as she ate. There was a new-found awareness between them, she didn’t know what to do with. At some point he had transformed from wild man to simply a man she was interested in. It was absolutely crazy. They k
new nothing about each other.
“Where did you grow up?”
“Ladder, a very small town. My father worked for the post office. My mother was a homemaker.”
She deleted the cowboy image she’d been trying to put together. It never quite gelled anyway. “You never told me your full name.”
He held her gaze, his masculine lips stretching into a wry smile. “Old habits die hard. I don’t suppose it matters now. Brian Welkins.”
He’d been on some secret jungle mission before he’d gotten captured. She didn’t ask more about that. But she did want to know more about him. She knew his parents were gone and that he’d been their only child, adopted.
“Are you married?” she asked as it suddenly occurred to her, her heart beating harder as she waited for his response.
“Come on now, you’ve known me long enough to know that no woman would be crazy enough to have me.” He was joking, but there was a sour tone to his words.
“You’re not missing much. Marriage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“Can’t say I’ve ever been tempted to give it a try.”
She stirred the fire with a stick. If they could keep it going for a while longer, they would have dry clothes for sleeping.
“My parents got divorced when I was in high school. I was so mad at them. I wanted a real family again. I got married way too early, for all the wrong reasons. Even if we didn’t have all that stress from not being able to have a baby, I doubt we would have lasted. We just would have floundered longer.”
Silence stretched between them.
“The bugs got you.” He reached out to trace a finger over the row of red bumps on her arm.
The blinding lust that hit her out of nowhere froze her limbs for a moment, knocked the air out of her lungs. He misunderstood her reaction and pulled away.
“It’s okay,” she said, then felt embarrassed.
It’s okay? What was she, an idiot?
His blue gaze fastened on her face. “I don’t want you to be afraid of me. I would never hurt you.”
