Escape Out of Darkness (Maggie Bennett 1)

“You do. But now is neither the time nor the place. I’m perfectly willing to wait until the time and place are right. Are you going to run, Maggie?”

She took a deep breath. “No. You don’t scare me.”

He laughed, a silent expelling of sweet breath against her face. “That’s good. Because there are times when you scare the hell out of me.”

She smiled, a smug cat-that-got-the-canary smile that he couldn’t see in the dark, and snuggled closer. “Keep it that way, Pulaski,” she said. And willed herself back to sleep.

Maggie stamped with all her might on the clutch pedal, shoved the shrieking gear shift into third, and continued bouncing down the rutted road, a brilliant smile on her face, her tawny blond hair streaming out behind her. Her sense of well-being was completely out of proportion to her accomplishments, but she couldn’t resist feeling absolutely wonderful and at peace with the world.

She’d woken up early, at first light, her bones and muscles cramped from sleeping on the hard sand. Mack slept on, and in the early morning light he looked as all men look when they sleep—young and vulnerable. Pulling herself into a sitting position, she’d stayed and watched him for long moments. He was a good man, Mack “Snake” Pulaski. Good and kind and generous. And sexy. Lying there with his shirt half open, his breathing deep and even, the stubble of beard rough on her hand as she reached out and touched him.

But she left him to sleep and headed off down what looked like it had once been a road.

It was forty-five minutes before she came to what passed for civilization. Four or five adobe buildings clustered together around the rough road, and the chickens and dogs outnumbered the curious inhabitants. Maggie had always had a facility for language, and it took her little time to be presented to the patriarch of the village and to ascertain that they were indeed in Honduras, though about as far from the border and the various camps of marauding rebels as they could be.

At first transportation was a complete impossibility. Once, however, the jefe accepted the fact that he had to deal with an inferior norteamericana woman, and once he caught sight of the always acceptable norteamericano money, impossibilities became easily accomplished.

And here she was, an hour and a half later, bouncing down the narrowing track, back to Mack, in a battered four-wheel-drive vehicle, a sack of food in the back, the sun beating down, the wind in her hair. God was in his heaven and all was right with the world. If she’d pinpointed their location and secured a running vehicle this easily, anything was possible.

She’d paid careful attention to the landmarks on her trek outward, and the distinctive triple palm tree signaled their campsite from the night before.

She pulled up as close to the beach as she could, put the balky vehicle in neutral, since she had dubious confidence in her ability to restart it, and leapt from the Jeep, racing out toward the ocean to show Mack her triumph.

But he was nowhere in sight. Last night’s campfire was a circle of charred cinders, and she could see the indentation in the sand where the two of them had slept. She whirled around, but there was no sign of him anywhere on the deserted beach. She was alone—abandoned. He hadn’t trusted her ability to get him out of this mess. Damn him, she thought, feeling oddly close to the tears she never shed. Tears of anger, she told herself, feeling bereft. Tears of rage.

ten

“That’s a hell of a vehicle, Maggie.” Mack’s voice came from directly behind her. “Where did you conjure it up from?”

“Where were you?” She turned, her body radiating disapproval. “I thought you’d taken off.” She kept her voice completely even, unmoved by the fact that he was standing there dripping seawater and stark naked.

He shrugged. “I thought the same about you, Maggie. Fortunately, I had enough trust to wait around and see if you were going to return.”

She bit back the scathing reply. “I would have thought you’d had enough salt water yesterday,” she said instead, running her eyes over his body with studied calm. If the turquoise Jockey shorts had been distracting, this was much worse. She was going to dream about his damned, beautiful body, she knew she was.

He shook back his long wet hair and smiled at her sweetly. “It’s very refreshing.” And he started pulling on the clothes he carried over his arm. “You ought to try it,” he said.

“What I’d like to try is a long hot shower in a modern hotel,” she replied, noticing that some of the tension left her as the clothes covered his body. She was becoming more and more vulnerable to him, and it was a vulnerability she couldn’t afford. “We’re in Honduras, but we’re about as far from where we want to be as possible. If only Van Zandt had his damned camp in Costa Rica,” she grumbled.

“Why?”

“Why?” she echoed, incensed. “Haven’t you looked at the horizon?” She gestured extravagantly. “This country is nothing but mountains and ridges and steep little valleys. Its roads are nonexistent, its population sparse and suspicious. We are going to have a hell of a time making it to Tegucigalpa.”

“Where?”

“Tegucigalpa. Capital of Honduras, center of rebel activities. That’s where I find out exactly where Van Zandt is, and that’s where the nearest Holiday Inn is. It’s about a hundred and fifty miles as the crow flies, and I figure on these roads it’ll take us three days.”

Mack was fastening the buttons of his much-abused chambray shirt. “Then what are we waiting for?”

They traveled in almost complete silence for the first hour. Maggie was concentrating on her driving. Mack was concentrating first on the provisions she’d conned from the villagers and then on the shredded Texaco map he’d found in the glove compartment that was chock-full of empty shell cases from a weapon that was undoubtedly the size of an elephant gun.

“You still haven’t told me how you managed to get this Jeep,” Mack said finally. “And the food, for that matter.”

“I found a village a little to the west of our beach.”

“And how did you persuade them to part with such a prized possession? I thought your money reserves were running low, and somehow I wouldn’t think a remote village on the east coast of Honduras would take Visa.”

“Nope. They did, however, take our gun.” She’d been trying to avoid