He wasn't the twenty-year-old freedom fighter anymore. Now he spent more time ruling from his office than a tent in the jungle. But his reflexes were sharp, thanks to hours with his trainer and a determination not to go soft.
"Agotarse." Come out, he ordered, his voice hoarse from shouting when he watched helplessly as his quarters exploded, his family trapped inside the tunnels.
The palms parted to reveal...
A woman's face. Not Sarafina, too pale and tall. He suppressed a roar of frustration as he aimed at the young woman around thirty, with short blond hair and wary eyes.
"Help me," she pleaded in flawless English. "Please don't let Hector Padilla take me again."
Chapter 4
Sara broke off another waxy palm leaf that Lucas swore he could somehow weave into a shelter for the night. Sleep with Lucas again?
The sun was sinking faster than her boundaries.
Of course she'd known since the bridge blew that they would spend the night in the jungle, probably more than one. But looking at that tiny lean-to framed with three large branches resting in the crook of a tree, she realized she would rest curled up against him.
She could swear her stomach was full of those bubbles she used to love blowing.
Not that anything could actually happen since they had Lucia to look after, even if their daughter was already curled up snoozing on a mossy bed with her head on the backpack, an abandoned banana peel next to her. The darkness held too many dangers in the jungle to be anything but alert to the threat of spiders, snakes, dart frogs. All poisonous.
So since they wouldn't be having sex, and since she was fairly certain she wouldn't be able to sleep, they would have nothing to do but talk about subjects they'd avoided all day. Their relationship, or lack thereof.
And Lucia. That would make for a big enough discussion to eclipse the rest.
Silently, Lucas draped the mosquito netting from her backpack over the branches before gathering a stack of the palm leaves. Starting at ground level, he lined them along the bottom in a row, then lined up the next layer, and the next. He'd told her that by beginning low and building up, water from any surprise rain showers would sheet off, rather than in.
Echoing in the distance, gunfire popped from the continued battle, reminding her of mortality. She couldn't ignore the possibility that they may not make it through the night to finish their discussions and find the answers she craved.
First and foremost, were her feelings for Lucas still there, nestled deep somewhere in her bruised soul? Certainly the attraction thrived as strong as ever. But beyond the physical, she yearned for some sign of tenderness from him after so long alone, a fanciful notion when she should focus on getting out of the jungle and out of the country alive.
Lean-to completed, Lucas scooped up Lucia to carry her inside. Sara soaked in the sight. How often she'd imagined her lover's stark face softening as he looked at the miracle of their child.
Except she saw no such softening. In fact, he seemed to be shutting out the world. Lucas had always been a stoic man, but she'd sensed the deep waters beneath his stark exterior and had burned to tap them.
Now, she found nothing but darkness behind his blue eyes.
Time couldn't have changed him that much, could it? Still she didn't understand this man at all and he gave no peeks into his soul for guidance.
Didn't he want to know what had happened to her? Or was he waiting for her to talk? Thoughtful, certainly, and the answer she hoped for because indifference hurt. She'd grieved for him for five years and he hadn't even shown the least emotion at finding her alive.
But what emotion had she shown him? Could he be as frozen inside as she felt sometimes?
Perhaps she needed to make the first move, a touch that had nothing to do with tending a wound or helping someone over a rotten log. To rest her hand on his and absorb the familiar texture of him again...
Just when she'd thought herself completely numb, emotions frothed to life, choking her throat, burning her eyes. Lucas was alive, a stranger or not, he lived.
She reached for him, suddenly needing so much more than a touch, instead starving for him to put his arms around her and hold her. "Lucas—"
He flinched back.
Such a small movement, likely imperceptible to most, but so very telling to her. The rejection slapped over her all the more coming from him. Dreams dissolved into the fading sunlight.
She kept her hand extended, refusing to let him see her vulnerability. "I should look at your arm while there's still a little light left."
He glanced down at his blood-soaked T-shirt strips as if he'd forgotten the injury. "I have antiseptic and a couple of bandages in my survival vest."
"I brought a first aid kit." She fished the small white box from her backpack, nudging aside her black insulin case. Thank heavens she'd had the cover of a quick trip to the bushes to check her glucose level and give herself an injection. She needed to be all the more careful with the exertion, sweating and weird diet of bananas and passion fruit.