"Do what? Trip over logs? Run into trees?" he asked, not really caring since he was enjoying seeing Sara's smile.
"Watch Lucia sleep and marvel at how perfect she is. She was too tiny for so long after being born prematurely, I was afraid she would break if I touched her. So I watched her sleep a lot more in those days."
Babies scared the crap out of him like that, too. Some grown-ups, too. One in particular. Sara looked too small and fragile for his peace of mind.
He should keep her mind off her exhaustion since waking the chatterbox wasn't an option. "Tell me about Lucia."
"My favorite subject. You don't know what you've let yourself in for." Sara's Madonna smile stretched wider. "She's tough, like you noticed, in spite of how small she is. She likes to be outdoors, running, swimming, climbing trees."
"She seems to talk well for her age." Something he hadn't thought of before. How well did a three-year-old talk versus a four-year-old? She was also bilingual, a sign of age perhaps. Or genius. Her sentences mixed languages, but he barely noticed anymore since he understood both and somehow her jumble always made sense. "But of course I don't know much about kids."
"Being a preemie slowed her down at first with motor skills, but she has more than caught up now, even though she's still naturally petite."
That could explain the size. For the first time he allowed himself to admit how much he wanted it to be true. Beyond wanting Sara to have stayed safe, the thought of his kid growing inside her...
Except hadn't she said the pregnancy was difficult?
Of course it was. She'd been shot multiple times. If she had been pregnant, then it was a wonder all the surgery and medication hadn't harmed the baby or made her miscarry.
While Sara had been recovering, he'd been back in the States moving on with his life. "What about you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Are you okay? Do you have any lasting problems from being shot?"
She paused to sweep aside a jutting cluster of palms, taking extra care to dance around the scurrying insects before looking at him again.
"Ramon thought of himself as my savior, watching over me for my father and making sure I didn't betray his memory by turning my back on the family. He treated me like a pampered niece, took care of me, set me up as nanny to his grandchildren. Lied to me and wouldn't let me go, but I guess it could have been so much worse."
Something about her answer niggled at him. She was quibbling on an element. Which one? There was a lot of subject matter to cover over five years. "That must have been hell."
"It's going to be all right. I'll see my brother. You've met Lucia. This is much more than I dared dream."
Sporadic gunfire popped again in the distance. The fighting resuming? A hunter?
Hunting for them? He couldn't know for sure until it would be too late.
He wouldn't let it be too late. Not only did he have to worry about Sara and Lucia, but he was responsible for two flight crews back at the Cartina National Airbase. God only knew what had happened to the Delta dudes earmarked to do a smash and grab for a woman who wasn't there any longer. "I will get us out of here."
"I know."
"I won't look at your dead body on a stretcher again."
"You mentioned that before. How could that have happened?"
He needed to scrub a hand over his face to pull himself together, but had his hands full of kid. "Damn. The doctor who assisted must have lied to me. Who knows what he pumped into you to make you appear lifeless."
She shivered, rubbing her hands along her arms. "A quarter of this country is on Ramon's payroll."
"I even paid a priest to give you a proper burial."
Her feet faltered to a stop. "That must have been horrible for you."
It had been hell—no other word fit for the black hole he'd fallen into. Taking care of Tomas had pulled him back out. He didn't ever want to step near that edge again.
"I am so sorry."
"It's not your fault."