The Mercenary Read online

  She was silent as she picked up the pile of clothes and the bottle of repellent and disappeared again behind the trees. He almost wished she’d made some smart-ass comment. It would have told him that she was bouncing back to normalcy.

  The flame was crackling, easily licking through the collection of dried twigs before it could bite into the larger pieces of tree branch. When he straightened, he unconsciously cradled an arm around his aching rib cage for support.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He jerked around, cursing under his breath at the pain that stabbed through him. He hadn’t heard her make a sound as she emerged from the bushes, yet there she was. Wearing another one of his T-shirts and a pair of roughly woven peasant-style trousers that he’d brought along for himself. She’d taken the hem of the off-white pants and tied them up in little knots. It was effective enough at keeping the too-long length from tripping her. She’d also rolled up the short sleeves of the T-shirt, and knotted the hem at her hip. She looked entirely at home in the jungle, in fact. Except for the leather shoes she wore, which would’ve looked more at home on a yuppie Wall Street broker.

  “Mr. Murdoch?” She spoke to him, but he noticed she didn’t exactly look at him. “Is something wrong?”

  “Other than what’s already gone wrong?” He blew out a breath. So, she could move silently when she wanted to. It didn’t have to mean anything. “Lose the ‘mister’, would you?”

  She murmured something he couldn’t quite catch, and finished hanging her wet clothes over the line, then moved closer to the fire.

  “Think you can eat something?”

  Marisa fingered the ragged edge of the bandage on her forehead. She couldn’t believe it hadn’t come off completely when she’d gone overboard. Tyler had dragged a fallen piece of tree closer to the fire, obviously using some of the smaller pieces to feed the flame. She sat down on the far end of the log and pressed the adhesive bandage back into place for about the hundredth time. “At this point, I think I could eat the bark off this tree stump,” she admitted tiredly.

  He made a soft sound; almost a laugh, but not quite. “I think we can do a little better than that.”

  She finally just tugged off the loose bandage and tossed it into the small flame. “Tell me what to do.”

  “Stay inside the boat.”

  She blinked, then felt a reluctant smile tug at her lips. “Very funny. The only reason I wasn’t holding on was that I was trying to keep that from going over.” She pointed at the small black bag of his. Even now, he’d set it carefully aside, away from the fire, away from the water. “What have you got in there, anyway? A gun?”

  “I don’t carry a weapon.”

  That startled her. “Yet you intend to go into la Fortuna?”

  “I’d hardly go in as a domestic packing something. They undoubtedly search everyone who enters.”

  “How are you going to get your Westin free? I would certainly think that his guards do have weapons.”

  “I’m sure they do, too.”

  “And?” She waited for him to say something, anything, about how he intended to overcome armed guards, then felt annoyance bubble inside her. “Never mind. Of course you can’t tell me anything. I’ve probably got some secret transmitter glued to one of my molars that I’ll use to relay your plans to my partners, the El Jefe.” Her voice dropped sarcastically. She didn’t expect a response, so she wasn’t surprised when she received none. “Is it just me, or do you simply detest all women?”

  At that, he did look at her, and she wished that she’d kept her mouth shut.

  “Oh, princess,” he murmured, “I like women just fine.”

  There was no mistaking his meaning and she hated the curl of awareness that slipped through her. “But not me. What is it? You have something against Latinas?”

  “You could be from Mars and I wouldn’t care. I don’t work with women.”

  “So you’re not a racist, just a chauvinist.”

  He shrugged, obviously unperturbed. “Since I’m such a chauvinist, maybe I should let you rustle up some grub.”

  She’d called Gerald a chauvinist. And worse. Every name had been true. And he’d been apoplectic with rage.

  Tired of the comparisons, and definitely not willing to leave her fate in a man’s hands—even for something as prosaic as food—she pushed to her feet. But the abrupt movement made her head swim, and she swayed unsteadily.

  “Whoa.” Tyler caught her and nudged her back down to the fallen log. “Come on, princess, just sit, would you? I’ve got enough to do without scraping you up off the dirt.”

  Since she felt more than a little nauseated all of a sudden, she decided to do just that. She propped her head gingerly on her palms and closed her eyes. How many times had she thought herself to be exhausted working at the restaurant for a full shift only to work for hours more on an interpreting project? Those days were a snap compared to falling out of the sky and shooting the rapids.

  “Here.”

  She looked up to see Tyler holding out the canteen again. He also dropped a foil-wrapped protein bar on her lap. “That’ll keep you going until I can get something else started. But I’ll warn you. You might prefer the tree bark. And with the water you swallowed, you might not feel too great when you do eat.”

  She turned the bar over in her fingers. “You’re a puzzle, Mr. Murdoch.”

  “Tyler. And don’t bother trying to put it together,” he said as he stepped down to the water’s edge and dropped in the fishing line he’d managed to rig while she wasn’t watching. “There are too many pieces missing.”

  He hunkered down on his heels, at that moment looking more like he’d been carved from stone than flesh and blood. He’d fished her out of the roiling river, tended her cuts, and made sure she had dry clothes.

  He’d held her until she’d stopped shaking.

  All this from a man who freely admitted he neither trusted her, nor wanted her presence on this excursion.

  A puzzle, indeed. One that disturbed her in ways she didn’t even want to examine.

  The only light came from the dancing glow of the fire that Tyler kept burning. It wasn’t likely to get terribly cold that night; she knew, because they were still at a fairly low elevation. But the fire would keep any curious critters from getting too close, and as far as Marisa was concerned, that was a good thing.

  After Tyler had cooked the fish he’d snared, he’d flipped out a tarp and made a quick shelter with it and a length of rope and some rocks before tossing a bedroll under it for Marisa. She’d been so grateful to lie on something other than the rich, moist dirt under their feet that she could have kissed him.

  She started to look at the watch on her wrist, but remembered that she’d lost it somewhere along the way from the plane to this small indent off the river. Beyond the shelter and the canopy of trees overhead, she could just barely make out the pinprick of a few stars. And beyond the circle of the fire, she could hear the occasional rustle of leaves.

  Other than whatever animals were making their nighttime rounds, they were utterly alone. And still, Tyler sat at the fire, looking very much as if he were on guard.

  If she’d had any doubts that the reason the plane had gone down was because they’d been shot at, they were thoroughly dispelled by the disturbing sight of Tyler at watch.

  She lay there for a long while, watching him from her vantage point in the darkness. He’d been studying a map earlier, and now it was rolled up in a narrow tube, sitting on the ground beside him. Right beside the machete that gleamed in the firelight.

  She should be scared out of her wits. But while she was very definitely uneasy, Marisa couldn’t actually say that she was frightened. Neither by Tyler, nor by whatever dangers may be following them.

  If Tyler had truly wanted to be rid of her, he’d had the opportunity more than once. Even well before the rapids, he could have left the airport without her. Somehow, she just couldn’t envision anyone chasing after Tyler for disregarding his or
ders to cooperate with the other parties involved in his rescue operation. Yet he’d kept her with him right from the start.

  The start. It seemed ridiculous that it had been less than twenty-four hours ago.

  Sighing quietly, she rolled to her feet, wincing at the aches and pains that were, thankfully, all that remained from her river dunking. Then she soundlessly crept into the bushes and relieved herself.

  But before she could slip back to the bedroll, she heard the snap of a twig and felt an arm wrap, hard, around her neck.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Tyler’s voice was nearly soundless next to her ear.

  She kicked back at his shin and felt some small satisfaction at the grunt he gave when her hard shoe connected. “El idiota terco,” she rasped. “Stubborn idiot! Let me go.”

  The pressure on her neck lifted fractionally. “Tell me.”

  “I was using nature’s lavatory.” She kicked him again, harder this time. “Now let me go!” Her demand was loud enough to startle something in the trees into flight. She followed it up with a hard jab of her elbow into his ribs.

  He let her go so abruptly she pitched forward, falling onto her hands and knees. She rose, brushing her stinging palms against her thighs. “What is wrong with you? Don’t ever sneak up on me like that again!”

  “Calm down.”

  “You calm down! What’s the matter? Were you afraid I was going to sneak up on you and slit your throat or something?” She was aware of his shape, hunched forward at the waist, as she stomped over the leaf-laden ground and sat down on the bedroll under the shelter.

  Her heart was beating like a mad hornet and she deliberately calmed herself. If she’d hurt him with her elbow, it was no more than he deserved. The self-defense instructor had thoroughly drilled that principle into the participants of the class she’d taken a few years ago.

  He rounded the tarp, still with that odd, sort of hunched posture, and she watched him go over to the log and slowly lower himself onto it.

  He saved your life.

  So what? He grabbed you from behind!

  But…

  Stop feeling guilty!

  Her teeth worried the inside of her lip as her mental debate continued. “Tyler—”

  “Go back to sleep.”

  Definitely stop feeling guilty. She lay back on the mat and pulled the thin blanket over herself. “Yes, sir.”

  Once Tyler was sure Marisa had fallen back asleep, he managed to pull his own shirt over his head. He’d broken his ribs once, and was still pretty sure he hadn’t done that much damage in the crash. But the rest of the day’s activities—not the least of which was Marisa’s wicked little elbow move—hadn’t helped any. He ran his fingertips gingerly over himself. No broken skin, nothing but one huge ache.

  Forcing himself to move, he downed one of the precious-few aspirin from the first aid kit and yanked the T-shirt off the line to get it wet again. Then he folded up the cool, wet cloth and pressed it against his side. The pitch-dark corner beneath the tarp beckoned, but he ignored it and stretched out by the fire, glad for the warmth as the temperature had dropped considerably.

  There were only a few hours left before daybreak, and no matter what disasters had occurred that day, their trek would have to continue the next.

  Westin’s life depended on it.

  Four

  “You know, if we’re lost, you might as well just say so.”

  Tyler rolled up the map again and stuffed it inside his pack. “We’re not lost.”

  “Then why do we seem to be going in circles?”

  “We’re not. We’re just not where we’re supposed to be.” An understatement of the year.

  Marisa’s eyes rolled. As far as Tyler was concerned, she’d more than adequately recovered from the ordeal the day before. Her tongue was certainly back in fighting form. Since dawn, she’d been full of questions that he wouldn’t answer and comments that he’d mostly ignored.

  Quick as a thief, she plucked out the map and scooted back onto the bench as she unrolled it. They were on the river—mercifully calm—and the sun had been climbing over the edge of the horizon for only a few hours.

  “Where are we supposed to be, then?” She was peering at the map.

  He sighed and flipped the map around so that she was looking at it right-side-up. “You say you speak how many languages?”

  She sniffed, and somehow—despite the bruised cut on her forehead, the dirt-smudged clothes, and the hair that had worked into wild ringlets during the night—she managed to look down her nose at him. “More than you,” she said, her lips twitching. “Would you rather I had stellar map-reading abilities than fluency in Mezcayan?”

  He jabbed his finger on the map. “There.”

  “Mmm.” She pushed his hand away. “There is a mountain range with no river in sight.” She made a production of looking around them. “And we are very clearly on a river. A river I have no particular love for, I might add.”

  “We won’t be on it for long,” he said flatly. He figured the gas for the outboard might hold out for the rest of that day. Mostly, though, he wanted to get off the river where he felt uncomfortably like a sitting duck. But he didn’t really want to tell Marisa that he strongly suspected they were being tracked.

  Not until he knew by whom.

  “We’re down here somewhere, aren’t we?” She was tracing her slender finger along a winding blue line. “Heading—” she squinted up at the sky—“east, more or less. But isn’t la Fortuna northwest from here?”

  “Yeah.” There was no point in denying the obvious.

  She looked like she wanted to ask more, but she didn’t. She just rolled up the map and put it away. Then she leaned against her elbows and shook back her long hair, lifting her face to the sun. She’d seemed nervous when he’d first loaded them up in the boat, but that had obviously passed. “Some yacht you’ve got here.”

  “Nothing but the best for the boys of the United States military.”

  Her soft lips curved slightly. “When I was a little girl, I dreamed about riding in a boat with a real motor.” She sighed deeply, her amber eyes hidden by her lashes. “I didn’t even know what a yacht looked like until I left Mezcaya.”

  “Right.”

  Her chin lowered and she looked at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t grow up with the best your country had to offer.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “Okay, I won’t.” She leaned back again, looking for all the world like a woman sunning herself on the decks of the fictitious yacht.

  “You’re going to get sunburned.” He rummaged in the first aid kit and found a narrow tube of sunblock. The weather couldn’t be more perfect right now, with the rainy season still weeks off and the temperatures mild. But he could already see her nose was getting pink, and the last thing he wanted to do was have to nurse her through some wicked sunburn.

  “No more than you will.” But she took the tube and carefully rubbed some into her face and over her bare arms. Then she jackknifed forward and started smearing the stuff on him.

  He jerked back.

  “Oh, cut it out, Murdoch, and sit still. I’m not going to poke out your eyes.”

  “Last night I was Tyler.”

  She sniffed, looking bored. She was so close to him that he could see the rim of darker brown in her irises, and the flecks of gold that gave them that amber glow. “Last night I felt bad for trying to put my elbow through to your spine after you’d saved my life.”

  “You did a fair job of it, too,” he muttered, finally pulling away and taking the tube from her to finish the job himself. It just wasn’t a good idea to be too close to her, to feel her hands on him. “Where’d you learn to do that, anyway?” He’d had her in a damn secure hold, yet she’d managed to defend herself pretty well even after the day she’d had.

  Her shoulder lifted, and she suddenly seemed inordinately interested in the passing riverbank. “Did you know why those
trees there are called strangler figs? They’re parasites. The roots choke out the newer host trees.” The smooth line of her jaw tightened. “I took a course once.”

  “Botany or self-defense?”

  She didn’t answer. “What if we hit more rapids today?”

  “Stay in the boat.”

  Her lips twisted. “Oh, that just gets funnier every time you say it, Murdoch.”

  “A course. Not a class.”

  She shook her head slightly. “What does it matter to you?”

  “Just want to know how adept you might be at—”

  “At what?” Her eyes went hot and angry. “Disarming you?” She tossed up her arms. “What on earth did I ever do to make you so terribly trusting of me?”

  She was disarming. Only not in the way she was referring. And he finally acknowledged what had been tugging at the back of his mind since he first laid eyes on her. She reminded him of Haley. Haley Mercado.

  It wasn’t just the way Marisa had gone over the side of the boat that made him aware of the similarities, either. It was her looks, her spirit and that damnably appealing hint of vulnerability that she seemed hell-bent on hiding.

  It was so many years ago that it seemed like another lifetime when Tyler had been half in love with Haley, though she’d never thought more of him than as a friend of her brother’s. And she’d died in that other lifetime. In a boating accident that he still felt guilty about.

  If he, Luke, Spence and Flynt hadn’t been three sheets to the wind from celebrating their freedom and return from the Gulf, they’d never have encouraged Haley to go on that midnight boat ride with them, and she’d have never even been in the vicinity when their boat capsized.

  It’d been two weeks before her poor body was discovered. And until Sonya came along, Tyler hadn’t let himself get remotely close to caring for another female. Oh, there were women in his life. Ones who came and went, who’d share their bodies and a laugh or two before Tyler headed on down the road. His unwilling attraction to this woman was nothing more than those nearly forgotten feelings he’d had for a sweet girl from back home who’d died much too young. It was the only explanation.