Would he feel guiltier learning how she'd been held? Or would he even believe her?
His jaw flexed, any hint of a smile long gone.
They needed to put that subject on hold until Lucia was better settled for the night, rather than now when she could wake at any second. Her daughter had never known their life was anything other than normal.
Which brought new concerns about the transition to a real life on the outside. If they lived long enough.
"Sometimes I let myself imagine that Ramon lied to me and that you and Tomas made it out safely, but mostly—" she shrugged "—I feared I believed it because I desperately wanted it to be true."
"After the doc told me you'd died, we left in an outgoing helicopter. We were in the States by sunrise."
"You thought I was dead that soon? I always assumed you just grew to accept it over time when you didn't hear from me."
"You can't have thought I abandoned you,"
"I told you to take Tomas."
He stopped, pivoted, the steely determination shining from his eyes in a matching shade of the silver threading his temples. "I would have made sure he was on that helicopter out of here, but I wouldn't have left without you. They showed me your body. They told me you were dead."
She couldn't miss the pain in his voice, the proof that he had cared. She'd hurt him, used him, and he'd deserved so much better from her. At that time in her selfish little world, she'd justified holding back from him because he wasn't giving his all. She now wondered if—for him—he'd given so much more.
Lucas looked away, up at the sky, sunset splashing tequila hues through tiny holes in the jungle canopy. Fading light and the seclusion fuzzed out the rest of the world until she could only see the strong column of his neck she'd once taken delight in kissing in a path to his surprisingly and wonderfully full bottom lip.
She had no business thinking about her heart or tender reunions. Hadn't she sworn to herself she was a more practical woman now?
Shifting his attention back to her, he reached behind to secure groggy Lucia and extended his other hand.
Toward her.
The hard planes of his handsome face went tight, as close to hurting as a man like him would ever show. She held her breath. He plucked something from her hair, a flower, orange spiky leaves drifting to the ground as he flicked it aside without moving away. In spite of wiser intentions, she waited.
Wanted.
"Lucas?" Was that shaky voice really hers?
His throat moved in a long, slow swallow that begged her to taste his neck again. "Time to stop for the night."
Ramon Chavez had survived for fifty-two years by knowing when to abandon ship. And this was one of those times.
Taking cover in the dusky shadows of sunset, he crouched low, sprinting around sprays of palms toward the outer wall of the compound. Gunfire stuttered behind him, screams, explosions that blasted away everything he'd built.
The escape tunnel inside his casa had collapsed, which meant someone had sold him out. With luck— Dios he could use some—the camouflaged bunker with a Jeep and supplies remained a secret.
Padilla's men had the place surrounded, outnumbering Chavez's troops two to one. A few months ago with the help of his cousin Aliesandro Aragon, he could have fought off the bastard.
But not now that the idealists in the Cartinian government had taken out Aliesandro, a pampered mama's boy who couldn't hold on to what his father had built with strength, blood and sweat.
There was sweat and blood to spare now, caked to the camouflage he'd donned for battle. His sweat. His men's blood.
Why couldn't the officials in place see the value of his brand of leadership steeped in generations of tradition? Like an iron fist in a velvet glove, he nurtured and protected his people from Padilla's cruelty, as well as from the rampant anarchy his government wanted to institute.
Or he had.
Bitter defeat threatened to slow his steps. He could simply let the rat, tat, tat of the battle cut him in half. His children and his grandchildren were gone, dead in the collapse of the exit tunnels. He'd told his troops to scatter. Some listened, some suicidal fools refused to surrender, their to-the-death resistance echoing futilely as the sun sank.
He was beyond grief. Beyond rage or desperation. Numb and focused on only one goal, one reason to live.
Where were Sarafina and Lucia?