He considered telling the woman she was safe with him, but then fear could keep her docile. Best to let her wonder.
Cranking the ignition, he pumped the gas pedal until the vehicle roared to life. He wouldn't resort to rape. He'd never needed to, and right now with the grief and loss surging through him, sex was the last thing on his mind.
Midway through the night he'd realized survival and revenge weren't enough. He owed it to his country to regain power. He had money stashed away. As long as some of his troops escaped, they could lead additional fighters he would hire. He had a two-way radio to use when the time was right.>No.
If she told him, he would snatch the backpack from her hands and carry it, as well. She pulled out the glucose monitor, pricked her thumb, watched for the results. . .sixty milligrams per deciliter. Low. But not as bad as she would have expected given her erratic diet. She would keep her peppermints within easy reach today.
Hitching up her shirt, she inched her waistband down and swabbed an alcohol patch along her stomach. With a speed born of practice, she drew the insulin into the syringe and pierced her skin with barely a wince.
Done.
She cleared up the supplies, zipped the case closed again and stuffed it down into the backpack. As long as the temperature stayed constant, her insulin did not need refrigeration.
A twig snapped behind her.
Clutching the bag to her chest, she jerked around — eyes drawn to the opened front of their lean-to. Lucia stretched with a jaw-cracking yawn, grubby fists scrubbing the sleep from her eyes.
Sara stifled the urge to dunk her daughter in the stream. Lucas had already warned her about leeches. Cup the water and check it first, as much bathing as they could risk.
"Morning, chica." Sara smoothed a hand over her daughter's smudged brow. "Are you all rested for more walking?"
"Yep." She rolled up to sit. "But it's just us today, right?"
"Uhmm."
Her face scrunched with the early warning signs of a tantrum. "Does he—" she pointed to Lucas "—have to come with us? I just want my mama."
How could she have forgotten to talk to Lucia about Lucas being her father? They'd been so concerned with escape, staying quiet, and then setting up for the night, Lucia falling asleep. Her daughter had been told plenty of stories about her father, but that he was dead. Would Lucas want to explain together?
She glanced at him washing his hands a few steps farther downstream and found him staring back, waiting.
He'd heard.
Her heart pinched all over again. What a sad father-daughter beginning. He should have been there to count her precious pink toes.
Except they hadn't been pink. They had been a frightening gray color, so unbelievably tiny she'd been terrified her three-pound daughter wouldn't live to breathe on her own without the help of a respirator.
She was so damn sick of hospitals and medicines and guarding every word that came out of her mouth. She wanted to crawl up against Lucas's chest and cry all the tears she hadn't allowed herself then because she'd wanted her baby girl to see only smiles for however long she lived.
But she'd given up whining a long time ago. Buck up. "Lucas, do we have a minute or two to talk with Lucia before we go?"
He nodded, picking his way through the undergrowth along the stream bank to stop beside them, dropping to sit on a small boulder. So as not to tower over his daughter? Sara prayed so as she continued to pray he would be sensitive enough to handle this moment—and their child—with care.
Heaven knew he'd been a taciturn man before, but beyond aloof, he'd grown harder over the years. Surely only because of the survival situation.
Sara looped an arm around her daughter's too-tiny shoulders and placed a hand on Lucas's knee to establish a family sort of link, even if only a symbolic one. "Lucia, chica, this is your padre."
"My papa?" Frowning, she studied Lucas with confused brown eyes, then looked back at her mother. "My papa lives in heaven with God."
"That's what I was told. But it wasn't true."
"Well, where's he been?" Lucia asked, risking only quick looks at Lucas while inching closer to her mother.
"He thought I died years ago. He never even knew about you." Please don't let this turn into an awkward discussion of how babies were made.
Lucia's forehead furrowed deep. "You both think wrong a lot. I thought grown-ups was supposed to know everything. Are you sure you got it right this time?"
The night they'd made this precious child came blazing back to mind in sensual detail, tingling along nerves and bringing the remembered scent of him, them together. She'd known in her heart they'd made a baby, even if she wanted to wait to be certain before she told him.