by Dale Mayer
“We’ll see,” he said.
She took one deep breath and slowly let out the air.
He smiled and held her close, then waited until she dropped off. He took several deep and long breaths and fell asleep at her side soon afterward.
It was the sunshine and the heat that hit Manila first. When she slowly opened her eyes, she slammed them shut against the bright glare. She laid here, beyond comfortable, nestled underneath the sheets, her body sinking deep into the mattress. She was so damn comfortable and so clean and beautifully warm and, best of all, safe. She opened her eyes a little bit to stare beneath her lashes, seeing that the curtains were wide open, and the light shone in. A stunning view of the ocean was right outside.
She didn’t even remember how much the room cost, and she didn’t care. It was safety; it was security, and it was comforting at a point in time when she had been desperately in need. She rolled over ever-so-slightly, groaning at her aching body, even though it sunk into a featherlight mattress. It seemed like any movements hurt. The thought of standing up made her wince.
Yesterday had been one of the hardest and most grueling and painful days of her life. Actually, it was probably the worst. She couldn’t even imagine all that they had gone through. It didn’t help to think about it, but she couldn’t stop dwelling on that. And when she remembered Pablo, that damn rope climb down the cliff, and even Ryker during the night, she smiled at that. The last thing she’d expected was to have hot sex with her rescuer.
She reached out an arm, but, of course, he wasn’t here. He was probably up that damn rope, trying to get all their gear back down again. But, as her gaze wandered over the room, she saw bags and bags of gear and realized he’d already come and gone. She sighed, sat up slowly and moaned at the aches brought on by her movements.
A light knock came on her door. She pulled the sheet up to her bare chest and called out, “Who is it?”
“It’s Ryker.”
“Come in, of course,” she said, tucking the sheet around her. She shuffled backward, wincing with every movement, until she leaned against the headboard.
He walked in with a tray carefully balanced in one hand and closed the door behind him. As he walked toward her, his gaze was quick and assessing.
She smiled up at him. “Outside of trying to move and feeling like somebody ran me over with a cement truck, I’m fine.”
“You look divine,” he admitted. “For what you’ve been through, you don’t look like you’ve suffered at all.”
“Well, looks are deceptive,” she announced, “because that’s crap. Just waking up and rolling over hurt.”
He smiled at her. “Understandable. We covered a lot of miles yesterday.”
She looked at the tray he brought. “Is that coffee?”
He chuckled and placed it on the small table by the window. “It so is. Do you want it in bed right here or outside?”
“How hot is it outside?” she asked. “I’m not sure I can take too much heat after yesterday.” He opened the glass doors, and she could feel a heatwave coming toward her. “It’s beautiful though,” she admitted. She stared, undecided, when he pulled out a long awning and propped up stick stands for it to cover half of the balcony. She smiled in delight. “Okay, outside it is. At least we’ll try it.” Then she stood and groaned. “That means I have to put all those crappy clothes on again.”
He stopped, looked at her, and said, “I took a liberty.”
“A liberty?” she asked hazily. “You mean, outside of bringing me breakfast and coffee?”
He nodded and pulled out a small plastic bag from his pocket. He tossed it her way. It was rolled up into this tiny little ball. She looked at it in surprise and then pulled out a thin cotton sundress. “Oh, my goodness, it’s gorgeous.”
“Well, it’s not perfect,” he said. “But I figured that it had to be better than putting on your heavy dirty clothes again. Although you’ll need them anyway later today.”
“Right,” she said. She quickly pulled the dress over her head and dropped it down. “I think it needs a bra though, doesn’t it?” She did a slow twirl.
“Personally, I love the view,” Ryker admitted. He was studying the plump stretched-out top of the sundress. “But maybe you should rinse out your nightclothes or your underclothes.”
“Wow,” she said. “I never even thought of that.” She grabbed her underwear and bra, then headed to the sink and quickly washed them with soap. Then she rinsed them and said, “Where would they dry the fastest?”
“I think they’ll be dry in thirty minutes anywhere here,” he said with a chuckle. “At least right now. Once the humidity kicks in, it won’t be so easy.”
She hesitated and asked, “Do you mind? It seems rather intrusive to lay my underwear out on the deck.”
He shook his head. “Honestly, I already did that with my T-shirt.”
When she saw what he’d done, she shook her head. “My brain has not kicked in yet,” she said. She laid her bra and underwear on the rail and then went back and filled the bathtub with a little bit of water and quickly rinsed and washed her pants and her T-shirt. She gave them both a heavy lather, ridding them of Pablo’s blood and all kinds of unnamed dirt alongside the heavy sweat from her hike yesterday. Then she did the same with her socks. As soon as everything was clean, she wrung them out, and then walked out to the balcony. He held out his hand, surprising her. She gave him her pants and asked, “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” he said. “But I’m sure I can wring these out tighter than you.” And he proceeded to wring the material so that water literally poured from it. She stared at it in shock. “I don’t know how you did that,” she said. “But if you don’t mind …” She handed him her T-shirt and socks. Within minutes, they had all her clothing up around the railing and hanging off the awning. “They’ll bake like crazy here,” she said in delight. “Clean clothes!”
“I know,” he said. “Now, your boots. Are they okay?”
She nodded but then said, “I’ll grab my hat too. I’m sure it’s more than sweaty.” She did the same thing with her hat and looked around to see if anything else needed washing. When she realized that she was pretty well cleaned out of clothing otherwise, she put her backpack on the floor. It was filled with all her business stuff and rocks and her laptop. She felt better confirming they were there. Then she gathered the stuff that she had collected on the sink from her pockets and laid them on her night table. Then she walked outside again, still brushing her hair and smiling. “You have no idea how you taking a liberty has made my day.”
He grinned at her. “Not every woman appreciates a man buying them clothes.”
“Well, this woman really does,” she said. “Particularly in these circumstances, so feel free to do it again.”
“I found them by accident,” he said. “When I was checking on Pablo, a little store was open, and they had these hanging up. They looked like one size would fit all, which took some of the guesswork out of my purchase.”
“And yet, I’m sure your firsthand knowledge gave you exactly what my measurements are,” she said cheekily.
“Well, it was the most excellent firsthand knowledge,” he said, flashing her a wicked grin.
She felt the color wash up her cheeks, but she refused to be embarrassed. They’d had way too much fun, and she’d been way too exhausted. “I’m only sorry,” she said, “that it was over so fast. But I was seriously tired.”
“Well, depending on your plans, we might do something about that.”
“And here I figured that we were leaving today,” she said, cocking an eyebrow at him. “Aren’t we?”
“Yes,” he said. “Hopefully. But I haven’t had confirmation of that yet.”
“Well, now this is an idyllic holiday,” she said, as she motioned at the small town around her. “I’d be more than happy to go for a walk.”
He glanced down on her feet and asked, “Barefoot?”
She winced. “So maybe I’ll
send you out on an errand looking for a pair of sandals too then,” she said with a laugh.
He just smiled and said, “Sit down, and let’s enjoy the coffee.”
She sat to find the coffee was thick and rich and darker than anything she’d ever had before. When she took her first sip, she stopped, paused and then let out a slow and deep breath. “Wow.”
“Maybe you want some cream? I put it there on the side.”
She carefully poured cream into her cup and then studied the pastries with interest. “Are these savory or sweet?”
“No idea,” he said cheerfully. “I figured we could cut them all in half and try each one.”
“Well, considering that I thought you had enough here for the whole team …”
“Hell no,” he said, “but I need to eat too.”
He picked up the knife and carefully cut the four pastries in half. They were all different kinds, and he grabbed the half closest to him. She immediately grabbed the other half of the one he had chosen. As she’d bit into the rich pastry, she moaned. “Oh, my God, there’s nothing like real food after starving for a while.”
“Right,” he said. “Being in that tent with the guerrillas couldn’t have been easy.”
“No,” she said. “It was hot. We got very little water and, of course, almost no food.”
“Any idea why they kept you?”
“Not only do I not know why,” she said, “but we also never did get any resolution to it. So I don’t know if they’re still looking for us.”
“I think they are,” he said. “As much as I hate to admit it, I’m fairly certain that there have been questions asked around town.”
At that, her heart froze, and she stared at him in shock. “Please tell me that we’re not in danger.”
“I can’t tell you that,” he said, his tone serious. “There’s absolutely no way to know just what’s going on yet, but we will find out.”
“If we could find the old guide,” she said, “then possibly we’d get answers.”
“But he’s on the other side of the jungle,” he said.
“I know. I wasn’t expecting to be here at this point myself.”
“Did you do any of your original trip in a vehicle?”
“Yes,” she said. “We went inland as far as we could, and then we ended up on foot.”
“Right,” he said. “That makes sense.”
“We also tried to get as many of the rock samples as we could locally on day trips, and I’ve already shipped those back.”
“But these? How much do you plan to pick up and bring home?”
“That’s what Andy was for.”
“Lucky Andy,” Ryker said with a laugh. “He’s just an eager and strong back, isn’t he?”
“He’s a very talented university kid, looking for solid career experience,” she said. “He was thrilled at the opportunity. Only after we were captured did he realize the negatives of the trip.”
“And Benjamin? He seems like an odd person for the trip.”
“I wanted to come alone, as you know,” she admitted, watching his eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, “but Global would only let me come as part of a team.”
“Well, thank heavens for that,” he said.
“I don’t know,” she said, “because then we had to have two guides, and one of them ended up betraying us.”
“All alone in the jungle would not have been a good idea either,” he said.
“Benjamin was Global’s choice.”
“Interesting choice.”
“As it is, we got into trouble with a team and the guides. And we would still be in grave trouble if you hadn’t rescued us, so thank you. I think I completely forgot to mention that part yesterday, but I really do appreciate the efforts you went to.”
“I don’t mind,” he said. “It’s what I do.”
She studied him as he looked at the platter of goodies again. “Do you really travel around the jungles and pick up kidnapped people?”
He looked at her and blinked, and his grin flashed again. “No,” he said. “But I travel to hot spots with a small team—as in Miles and me or four of us sometimes. There’s always trouble somewhere. If it isn’t a kidnapping, it’s often a murder for hire, and we’re after the killers. It could be car bombings and arsonists too, and we’re after the bomber or the firebug. It could be any number of things. And, on some occasions, it’s all about a government, where government members have been taken hostage, and, even after a rescue, they need to have the government reestablished. But those require bigger teams and a whole lot of different scenarios. I’m doing smaller missions right now.”
“None of it sounds like fun,” she said quietly. With a shake of her head, she picked up a second piece of a treat and took a bite into it, almost melting herself as the buttery flavor exploded in her mouth and the sweet sugary goodness drifted down her throat. “As a matter of fact, it sounds like a terrible way to live.”
“I used to be a Navy SEAL,” he said. “And then I was asked to join a secret black-ops department. So it’s basically the same thing but different.”
“Don’t you ever get tired of it?”
He looked at her for a long moment and said, “What do you say when people ask you, Don’t you get tired of looking at rocks?”
“Of course not,” she said passionately. “No two rocks are alike.” And then she realized what he meant, and she nodded. “So, just because you might get tired of some of it, you realize that there’s a need and that this is what you do and that no two jobs are alike.”
“Exactly,” he said.
She glanced toward the bags at the front of the room. “I gather you had no problem going back up the hill?”
“Miles and I both went up,” he said. “We were a little concerned that somebody might be up there, watching us, but we didn’t see anybody.”
“Was it dark out?”
“Doesn’t seem it’s very dark at all here,” he said with a shake of his head. “We were back by thirty minutes past seven.”
“And I was still asleep, I’m sure.”
“Absolutely,” he said cheerfully. “You looked delightful, but I restrained myself from crawling back in and joining you. I dropped the bags and headed out again.”
With a happy laugh, heat flushing over her cheeks, she asked, “And that’s when you went to get coffee?”
“No, I checked with Miles that Andy was doing okay, then we headed off to a spot where we could get communications up and running and contacted our bosses to figure out a plan to get you guys home.”
“Well, there are such things as commercial flights,” she said.
“No airport is nearby,” he said. “So, short of taking all of you on a cross-country trip for many hours to get to the closest one, we’re back to looking at waterways.”
“Or a helicopter?”
“Our people have none close enough, so I asked at the police station. There isn’t one here.”
“Interesting.”
He shrugged. “We aren’t in a Western world as we’d like to think of it,” he said. “And we’re in a very isolated small village.”
“I’m surprised,” she said, adding to his comment, “that there was even a hotel.”
“Two are here, but this looks like the cleanest and safest of them.”
“Right,” she said. “And, of course, I’m sure cash is king here.”
“It is, but they did take your credit card last night.”
“I wonder if they still will though,” she murmured.
“Meaning?”
“If anybody finds out that we escaped the guerrillas, I wonder if they’re guerrilla sympathizers and if they’ll make life as difficult as possible or have already gotten out the word that we’re here.”
“Depends how much money the guerrillas lost with your escape. If they’re not worried, as it’s a minor loss to them, they’ll chalk it up as the one who got away,” he said. “Or, if they’re looking at a much higher payout, then
it’s worth them coming back after you.”
She could feel all the color washing away from her skin at that. “Do you really think that’s an option?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’re not sticking around much longer to find out.”
She let out her pent-up breath slowly and nodded. “I appreciate that,” she said. “I can’t imagine the horror of getting into that same scenario again.”
“There’s also another problem,” he said.
She winced. “I don’t think I’ll like this.”
“It’s quite possible that somebody in town might be more than willing to hold you captive and tell the guerrillas you’re here. Whether they join the guerrillas or not, everybody here has to live with them in one way or another.”
“Don’t the guerrillas live in the jungle and avoid the villages?”
“Of course they do, but everybody needs supplies at some time. Everybody needs a certain amount of medical supplies or treatment at some time too.”
“Right. So their tents and their clothing and boots and military gear all have to come from somewhere.”
“They can live off the land for a large part of their existence, but everybody has family and friends and knows somebody. A lot of these kids are ones who were kicked out of their birth family or ran away from home and had terrible home lives for whatever reason or ended up with no family and became orphans of the world, where it became second nature to join up with another kind of family where they’re welcome.”
“So, lonely misfits. Got it,” she said with a nod.
“But you can’t make a generalization of that,” he said. “Hundreds of thousands of people have died in this war. Everybody—every one of the guerrillas—has lost somebody, and they know that, when they fight, it could be their last day.”
“Okay. This is getting very depressing. But what does any of that have to do with me?”
“It might be that they think you know more than you actually do.”
She stared at him in shock. “Say what?”
“Gold mining is very illegal here, but it’s also very prolific and very profitable. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guerrillas aren’t involved with it themselves or haven’t joined up with the drug trade and expanded into the gold trade. So what else is very valuable? Platinum. And what were you doing here? Looking for platinum.”
