Reckless. Linda Howard

with her. Worrying over her could cloud his judgment. But, damn, how much could a man stand? He wanted her, and the wanting increased with every moment. In some curious way he felt lighter, happier. She certainly kept him on his toes! He was either laughing at her or contemplating beating her, but he was never bored or impatient in her company. Funny, but he couldn’t remember ever laughing with a woman before. Laughter, especially during the past few years, had been in short supply in his life.

      A chattering monkey caught his attention, and he looked up. The spots of sunlight darting through the shifting layers of trees reminded him that they were losing traveling time. “Get your blouse on,” he said tersely, swinging away from her to sling his backpack on. He buckled it into place, then swung her pack onto his right shoulder. The rifle was slung over his left shoulder. By that time, Jane had jerked her blouse on and buttoned it up. Rather than stuffing it in her pants, she tied the tails in a knot at her waist as she had with Grant’s shirt. He was already starting off through the jungle.

      “Grant! Wait!” she called to his back, hurrying after him.

      “You’ll have to stay with me,” he said unfeelingly, not slackening his pace.

      Well, did he think she couldn’t? Jane fumed, panting along in his path. She’d show him! And he could darn well act macho and carry both packs if he wanted; she wasn’t going to offer to help! But he wasn’t acting macho, she realized, and that deflated some of her indignation. He actually was that strong and indefatigable.

      Compared to the harrowing day before, the hours passed quietly, without sight of another human being. She followed right on his heels, never complaining about the punishing pace he set, though the heat and humidity were even worse than the day before, if that were possible. There wasn’t any hint of a breeze under the thick, smothering canopy. The air was still and heavy, steamy with an almost palpable thickness. She perspired freely, soaking her clothes and making her long for a real bath. That dousing in the stream the day before had felt refreshing, but didn’t really qualify as bathing. Her nose wrinkled. She probably smelled like a goat.

      Well, so what, she told herself. If she did, then so did he. In the jungle it was probably required to sweat.

      They stopped about midmorning for a break, and Jane tiredly accepted the canteen from him. “Do you have any salt tablets?” she asked. “I think I need one.”

      “You don’t need salt, honey, you need water. Drink up.”

      She drank, then passed the canteen back to him. “It’s nearly empty. Let’s pour the Perrier into it and chuck the empty bottles.”

      He nodded, and they were able to discard three bottles. As he got ready to start out again, Jane asked, “Why are you in such a hurry? Do you think we’re being followed?”

      “Not followed,” he said tersely. “But they’re looking for us, and the slower we move, the better chance they have of finding us.”

      “In this?” Jane joked, waving her hand to indicate the enclosing forest. It was difficult to see ten feet in any direction.

      “We can’t stay in here forever. Don’t underrate Turego; he can mobilize a small army to search for us. The minute we show our faces, he’ll know it.”

      “Something should be done about him,” Jane said strongly. “Surely he’s not operating with the sanction of the government?”

      “No. Extortion and terrorism are his own little sidelines. We’ve known about him, of course, and occasionally fed him what we wanted him to know.”

      “We?” Jane asked casually.

      His face was immediately shuttered, as cold and blank as a wall. “A figure of speech.” Mentally, he swore at himself for being so careless. She was too sharp to miss anything. Before she could ask any more questions, he began walking again. He didn’t want to talk about his past, about what he had been. He wanted to forget it all, even in his dreams.

      * * *

      ABOUT NOON THEY stopped to eat, and this time they had to resort to the field rations. After a quick glance at what she was eating, Jane didn’t look at it at all, just put it in her mouth and swallowed without allowing herself to taste it too much. It wasn’t really that bad; it was just so awfully bland. They each drank a bottle of Perrier, and Jane insisted that they take another yeast pill. A roll of thunder announced the daily downpour, so Grant quickly found them shelter under a rocky outcropping. The opening was partially blocked by bushes, making it a snug little haven.

      They sat watching the deluge for a few minutes; then Grant stretched out his long legs, leaning back to prop himself on his elbow. “Explain this business of how your father disinherited you as a form of protection.”

      Jane watched a small brown spider pick its way across the ground. “It’s very simple,” she said absently. “I wouldn’t live with around-the-clock protection the way he wanted, so the next best thing was to remove the incentive for any kidnappers.”

      “That sounds a little paranoid, seeing kidnappers behind every tree.”

      “Yes,” she agreed, still watching the spider. It finally minced into a crevice in the rock, out of sight, and she sighed. “He is paranoid about it, because he’s afraid that next time he wouldn’t get me back alive again.”

      “Again?” Grant asked sharply, seizing on the implication of her words. “You’ve been kidnapped before?”

      She nodded. “When I was nine years old.”

      She made no other comment and he sensed that she wasn’t going to elaborate, if given a choice. He wasn’t going to allow her that choice. He wanted to know more about her, learn what went on in that unconventional brain. It was new to him, this overwhelming curiosity about a woman; it was almost a compulsion. Despite his relaxed position, tension had tightened his muscles. She was being very matter-of-fact about it, but instinct told him that the kidnapping had played a large part in the formation of the woman she was now. He was on the verge of discovering the hidden layers of her psyche.

      “What happened?” he probed, keeping his voice casual.

      “Two men kidnapped me after school, took me to an abandoned house and locked me in a closet until Dad paid the ransom.”

      The explanation was so brief as to be ridiculous; how could something as traumatic as a kidnapping be condensed into one sentence? She was staring at the rain now, her expression pensive and withdrawn.

      Grant knew too much about the tactics of kidnappers, the means they used to force anxious relatives into paying the required ransom. Looking at her delicate profile, with the lush provocativeness of her mouth, he felt something savage well up in him at the thought that she might have been abused.

      “Did they rape you?” He was no longer concerned about maintaining a casual pose. The harshness of his tone made her glance at him, vague surprise in her exotically slanted eyes.

      “No, they didn’t do anything like that,” she assured him. “They just left me in that closet...alone. It was dark.”

      And to this day she was afraid of the dark, of being alone in it. So that was the basis for her fear. “Tell me about it,” he urged softly.

      She shrugged. “There isn’t a lot more to tell. I don’t know how long I was in the closet. There were no other houses close by, so no one heard me scream. The two men just left me there and went to some other location to negotiate with my parents. After a while I became convinced that they were never coming back, that I was going to die there in that dark closet, and that no one would ever know what had happened to me.”

      “Your father paid the ransom?”

      “Yes. Dad’s not stupid, though. He knew that he wasn’t likely to get me back alive if he just trusted the kidnappers, so he brought the police in on it. It’s lucky he did. When the kidnappers came back for me, I overheard them making their plans. They were just going to kill me and dump my body somewhere, because I’d seen them and could identify them.”