High-Stakes Honeymoon. RaeAnne Thayne

      That seemed to pierce the haze of panic around her and he watched some of the blankness recede. He didn’t have time to be grateful for it as he suddenly remembered one more item that might come in handy. He hurried to his closet and dug for a moment, emerging a moment later with a large shoe box.

      In the distance, he thought he heard the throb of an engine and he swore harshly. “Come on. We’ve got to haul ass.”

      He half dragged, half carried her to his Jeep and threw her inside, tossing the box and a few other items he’d grabbed on the way out the door into the back seat, alongside the emergency survival pack he always kept there in case he found himself stranded on some remote beach somewhere by weather or tides.

      He quickly reached across the seat to buckle her shoulder belt, earning a quick ragged breath for his trouble. As her chest expanded with the sharp inhalation, the movement pressed her voluptuous breasts to his arm and he felt the hairs there rise—along with other parts of him that had no business noticing her in the middle of running for their lives.

      He had been too damn long without a woman.

      His beat-up old Jeep started immediately—a minor miracle—and he gunned the engine down the rutted, bumpy dirt track.

      At least the afternoon rains had dried somewhat so the roads were at least moderately passable for now, until the evening rains hit.

      The few roads in this primitive part of Costa Rica were unreliable at best. This was the only route between Puerto Jiménez and Carate, the gateway to Corcovado National Park.

      In the relatively dry summer months from December to May, he could usually count on being able to make it to Jiménez in only an hour, but in the rainy season—the green season, they called it to keep from scaring away the tourists—when it rained at least an inch or two every day, it could take him three times as long.

      And he usually just counted on being stuck at the station for the entire month of October, with its near constant deluge, unless he caught a flight out of the airstrip at Carate.

      Here in late September, he still had a possibility of making it safely. All he had to do right now was get them to the small police station in Matapalo. But if the rains hit while they were en route, this dirt road would become a slick, dangerous mess.

      He just had to hope that didn’t happen.

      As her captor gunned the rattletrap Jeep’s engine and sped away from his lair with his tires spitting mud and gravel, Olivia held on to the grab bar and divided her time between clamping her teeth together to keep from crying out and whispering a fervent prayer that her pitiful life would be spared.

      She wanted to be numb, to tune it all out. It was taking every ounce of concentration to keep her emotions contained.

      Instead of the blessed oblivion she would have vastly preferred, every sense seemed accentuated, as if the world had suddenly come sharply into focus. She was acutely aware of each jostling rut in the road, the throb of the engine, the heavy, humid air pressing down on her.

      She was especially aware of the man beside her—his overwhelming size and strength.

      For the last hour since he stepped out of the jungle, machete in hand, he had been simply a shadowy, threatening hulk of a man. She hadn’t caught a clear glimpse of him until he turned on the lights inside his spartan concrete research station.

      Though he was no doubt at least six feet tall, he had not been quite as large as her imagination had conjured up, more lean and lithe than she expected.

      During that hideous kayak ride as he had swiftly propelled them through the waves, she had tried not to look at him. It was the only way she could keep from letting the panic completely overwhelm her.

      Her impression then had been only of some dark, terrifying stranger. The light inside his dwelling had revealed a man of extraordinary good looks. Her friends in Fort Worth would have drooled over someone like him, with those chiseled features, the dark, intense eyes, full mouth, and eyelashes so long they looked fake.

      He looked nothing like any scientist she had ever seen. He looked more like some kind of Latino pop star, and she could easily imagine him on a stage somewhere crooning to thousands of screaming girls.

      She wasn’t at all reassured that he wasn’t the hideous monster her imagination had conjured up. Somehow this man seemed far more dangerous to her peace of mind.

      He was wild and rugged and beautiful, just like this isolated part of the world, completely out of her realm of experience.

      Ren Galvez was exactly the kind of man she would have avoided in Dallas, someone strong and masculine and…and sensual.

      She caught the word and grimaced at herself. What did she know if the man was sensual or not? Most likely, he was cold and analytical, more interested in facts than figures, at least the feminine kind.

      But there had been that moment back on the beach when he had tackled her and his hard, muscled body had pressed her into the sand. Through her fear and the adrenaline pumping violently through her system as she tried to escape, she could swear she had detected definite interest from the man.

      She thought for certain he would attack her there, press his obvious advantage in size and strength to overpower her. Instead, he had helped her to her feet and guided her to his utilitarian quarters, where he had proceeded to find clothes for her.

      What on earth did he want with her? He continued to assure her he wouldn’t hurt her, but if rape wasn’t on his mind, what other motive could he have?

      Was he after money? He had asked her name but maybe that was only to reassure himself he’d snatched the right heiress.

      She had heard about prevalent ransom kidnappings in some Central and South American countries, but everything she had read about Costa Rica assured her the country was safe. Ticos were proud of their stable government and their relative prosperity, and the country went out of its way to eagerly welcome visitors.

      Her imagination buzzed with possibilities. He said he was a scientist. The equipment in his dwelling certainly backed up the assertion. There had been that carved turtle on the porch and the sign over the door that said Playa Hermosa Turtle Institute.

      Maybe he was looking for funding and had hit on a rather unorthodox method of raising support. It seemed ludicrous in the extreme, but for the life of her, she couldn’t come up with any other explanation.

      Why else would a turtle researcher snatch a guest from a neighboring estate, just to rush off through the night with her?

      It all seemed so surreal. Things like this—mysterious strangers grabbing her at machete-point—didn’t happen to her.

      Everything about this situation terrified her. Most of all, she hated not knowing what was happening and Ren Galvez—if that was his real name—seemed in no hurry to explain.

      She desperately wanted to trust him when he said he wouldn’t hurt her. But then again, she had a lousy habit of fooling herself into believing the best in people.

      Just look at her choice of erstwhile fiancés. For six months, she had convinced herself Bradley loved her. How many warning signs had she ignored, just to avoid stirring up the waters?

      She had been so caught up in the unaccustomed sensation of pleasing her father, for once, that Bradley and her misgivings about him had almost seemed superfluous.

      Not that any of that mattered right now while she was in the hands of a madman who was going to drive them both over a cliff into the Pacific. She swallowed a scream as the Jeep slid toward the edge, but her captor yanked it back to the middle of the track that passed for a road.

      Her heart was still pounding when the sky unleashed the nightly rains he warned about.

      Rain seemed like such a benign term for this. Growing up in Texas, she thought she knew about precipitation, but this was like nothing in her experience. It was as if someone had suddenly turned on a hot high-pressure