Proposition: Marriage. Eileen Wilks

brushing her ear. His breath was as gentle and warm as his words were cold. “I’d rather not kill him. It will be easier to avoid that if you aren’t trotting along behind me.”

      She swallowed, nodded, and went to wait behind the tree he’d indicated. And she tried to convince herself that her goose bumps came from fear, or from being wet. From anything except the remembered thrill of his lips brushing her ear.

      Two

      The second soldier was as easy to surprise as the first one had been. The watcher came up behind his quarry, silent as a shadow, and locked his forearm across the soldado’s throat, his right hand finding the carotid artery with deadly speed. His victim didn’t struggle long. Cutting off the blood flow to the brain was a faster way of knocking a man out than trying to throttle him, and a good deal quieter and more certain than hitting him over the head.

      After seven carefully counted seconds, he lowered the unconscious body to the ground, then lightly felt the artery again. He held his breath, then let it out, relieved, as soon as he felt the pulse.

      Killing some poor SOB accidentally would have been a hell of a note on which to end his career with the agency.

      It took only a moment to use the man’s belt to tie his arms behind him. That wouldn’t hold him for long, but they couldn’t expect a long delay, anyhow. There were other searchers, and not all of them were Ruiz’s poorly trained, poorly equipped guerrillas.

      Not all of them were after the woman, either.

      He straightened and looked down at his victim, who wasn’t really a man at all, he saw. Not yet, anyway. Sixteen or seventeen, at a guess. Scarcely old enough to grow a beard. Had soldiers always been so painfully young? Or was he getting old?

      Of course, he was himself capable of looking both young and innocent, though he couldn’t remember being the former, and wasn’t sure he’d ever been the latter. It was a useful skill, but he doubted he could manage it if he were the one unconscious.

      He made his silent way back to where he’d left the woman. She was peering around the trunk of the tree, looking in the wrong direction. Her gauzy sundress had originally been long and loose and white; it was still long, dragging about her ankles, but now it was wet and dirty and nearly transparent He had a marvelous view of her rounded rump and white bikini panties beneath the clinging fabric.

      He smiled and gave in to a rare impulse. “Boo,” he said conversationally.

      She jumped half a mile.

      He had his impulses under control and his smile tucked back out of sight by the time she spun around. She was really kind of cute, even half-drowned as she was right now; small and cute and round all over, like a kitten. Her face was round and innocent Her body was nicely rounded, too, if not so innocent looking, with plenty of curves and softness in just the places where a man liked to find curves and softness. Even her big brown eyes were round at the moment

      Then they narrowed. “You scared me on purpose. I take it the other soldier is, uh—unconscious?”

      He shrugged dismissively. Let her wonder what he’d done. It might make her jump more quickly when he wanted her to jump. “There’s no one close enough to hear us at the moment.” They needed to put some distance between them and Ruiz’s men while they could. He turned away. “Come on.”

      “Where?”

      He headed for his mango tree.

      “Dang it,” she said. The rubbery squish of wet tennis shoes hurried along behind him. “Where are we going?”

      “To get my gear, first.” He reached the tree, crouched, and jumped, catching the lowest branch. He heaved himself up.

      “Then what happens?” She tilted her head back, watching him.

      “We go to a village I know about on the old Camino Real—that’s the royal highway.”

      “I know what it means. What I want to know is—”

      “That’s right, you speak Spanish, don’t you? I hope we can reach the village before dark, but I’m not sure of the route. Between Ruiz’s troops and the new lake, my choices have become limited.” He grabbed his backpack from the crotch of the tree. “Watch out.” He tossed it down.

      She jumped back just in time.

      He swung down to land beside her. The sight of her from the front was just as appealing as it had been from behind. A little gold locket lay in the valley formed by full, pretty breasts. Her lacy white bra kept him from seeing as much of her nipples as he would have liked, but he could see their shadows beneath the two layers of wet cloth.

      It was probably just as well she had on the bra, he decided. The low hum of arousal he felt now was pleasant More would be distracting.

      Either she liked letting him look, or she was too upset to realize how transparent her dress was. “But the old Camino Real is in the high country to the east,” she said earnestly. “Shouldn’t we head south, back where we came from? Or west? There’s a decent-size town to the west—Narista, I think it’s called. I’m sure they’d have a garrison of the national police there.”

      He raised his brows. Apparently she’d done some homework on San Tomás. “There’s a man in the village where we’re headed who can be trusted to get you back to the capital.” Which was where she should have stayed. The local government made great efforts to keep the beaches safe for tourists from the cruise ships. “Going south is out. Ruiz will have his troops watching the road.” He shouldered his backpack.

      She frowned. “Who’s Ruiz?”

      “The man who sent soldiers to kidnap you. Let’s go.”

      “Wait a minute.” She laid her hand on his arm. It was a small hand, surprisingly warm, with rounded fingernails that had been neatly manicured before she soaked them in a lake while hiding from guerrillas. Now the pretty pink polish was chipped. “Who are you? I mean, I saw you on the bus, but we weren’t introduced.”

      “John,” he said. It was as good a name as any, and the man he was taking her to thought of him as “John.”

      “John. I am very glad to meet you.” She smiled, and her fingers tightened in a friendly squeeze. “I’m Jane.”

      Heat, quick and compelling, dazzled his system for one crazy moment.

      “Thank you for—”

      “Come on.” He pulled away from her, looking for a game trail to take them deeper into the forest.

      She scrambled after him, making every bit as much noise as he’d expected she would. “What about west? Why aren’t we going west instead of heading into the hills?”

      “Go west if you want to. I’m going east.” The strength of his reaction to her disturbed him. He was familiar with the effects of danger—the heightened senses, the rush of adrenaline, the occasional swift slide from sensory stimulation into arousal. But he’d never reacted this fast, this hard, before. She’d only squeezed his arm, for heaven’s sake. One simple squeeze, and his body had gone on full alert.

      He didn’t just want to kiss the woman now. He wanted to lay her down on the spongy floor of the forest, push up her dress, pull down her panties and push inside her. He wanted to nde her until they both screamed.

      She followed without speaking. He’d almost hoped she’d turn around and head west—where, as she’d said, a town with a large garrison of the national police waited to welcome her back to what passed for civilization. Of course, Ruiz’s men would almost certainly pick her up before she’d gone a mile.

      They traveled in silence with him in the lead, moving slowly but steadily upward. The trails he took twisted and branched. He used the compass from his backpack to keep them heading in the right general direction, and by late afternoon they were deep in the rain forest and several hundred feet higher. The light here was shadowy and green, filtered