Dangerous to Hold (10 page)

But the body pressed against hers wasn't Eduard's or Ricci's. It was long and sleekly muscled and musky with the scent of a man. Sarah felt a stir of awareness at the feel of him leaning into her. Her swift, instinctive reaction quickly gave way to another emotion, however. An unexpected tenderness welled up in her heart. For so many days now, she'd drawn from this man's strength. For so many nights, she'd fallen asleep knowing he was beside her. That he would now
wrap an arm around her hips and lean into her for support filled her with soft, sweet warmth.

She was so bemused by the feeling that it was some moments before she realized his head had turned a few degrees, until his cheek rested on the slope of her breast. And that his arm had slowly tightened, drawing her even closer into the heat of his body. It took a moment more before she registered the fact that the hand on her hip no longer just rested there. Through the heavy fabric of her robe, his fingers kneaded the swell of rounded flesh.

“What are you doing?” Sarah gasped, pushing herself out of his hold.

“I…” A wave of confusion crossed his face for a moment, to be replaced almost immediately by a scowl. His arm dropped. “Damn, it was the tequila.”

Sarah was so disturbed by the sensations his touch had aroused that she didn't even chastise him for his inappropriate language.

“Tequila? Have you been drinking?”

“A little.” He met her incredulous stare, then shrugged. “Hell, a lot.”

Sarah's mouth sagged open, then closed to a thin, ominous line. “You mean we've been sitting here in the dark, frantic with worry, and you've…you've been swilling tequila with that rabble out there?”

At her accusing tone, a tinge of red rose in his cheeks. “Look, I was just cementing my relationship with the boys. So they wouldn't come looking for Sister Sarah to tend their ‘aches,' as well.”

Sarah stood rigid while a slow, fiery fury flowed through her veins. He'd been drinking, while she sat here terrified, praying her heart out for him! He'd been schmoozing with his cretinous pals while she blocked out every despicable aspect of his character and painted him as a cross between Santa Claus and an unshaven Pierce Brosnan! He'd stumbled in, covered with blood, and made Sarah's heart leap in fear. She'd cradled him to her breast like some hurt child. Now he
had the nerve to sit there, his head tilted up at her belligerently, and scowl at her as though the whole thing had been her fault.

Acting on pure impulse, Sarah tipped her hand and poured the entire bottle of disinfectant over his cut.

“Jesus H. Christ!”

This time Sarah would have chastised him, if she hadn't been so startled by his reaction. His drinking hadn't dulled his reflexes, she discovered. With the deadly speed of a bush-master, he uncoiled his long body and sprang up. A hard hand grabbed her outstretched wrist and twisted it up behind her.

Off balance, Sarah stumbled against his bare chest. The soft, springy pelt she'd fantasized about brushed her cheek. She tried to push herself away with the flat of her palm. He held her easily with one hand, which only added to Sarah's pounding, white hot anger.

“You want to explain that little bit of medical malpractice,
Sister Sarah?
”

“Figure it out for yourself, gringo.”

She realized her mistake as soon as the words were out. There wasn't anything even remotely nunlike in the way she challenged him, eyes flashing, fury radiating from every inch of the body he held pressed against his own.

His eyes narrowed. In the dim light, Sarah couldn't see their expression, but she felt his body stiffen against hers. The hand holding her wrist behind her back tightened, and her breasts were crushed against a solid, unyielding wall of hard, male flesh.

They stared at each other, unspeaking, until a small whimper shattered the tension arcing between them.

“Please, Señor Creighton, you and Sarita, you must not fight.”

Teresa's tearful voice brought them back to the reality of a small, airless hut and three frightened children. The hold on Sarah's wrist loosened, then fell away. She stepped back and drew in a long, shuddering breath.

“I'm…I'm sorry,” she stuttered.

His eyes were guarded, curiously so after his blazing anger of moments before.

“I was petrified, sitting here in the dark, not knowing what was happening. I…I said every prayer I knew for you.” She stumbled through the apology, not really sorry, but shaken enough by what had just occurred that she felt the need to reestablish their previous relationship.

His jaw worked for a moment. “Well, I suppose I have to thank you for your spiritual intervention, but I'll damn sure let you know when I want any more of your medical attention. Now let's see if we can get some sleep for what's left of the night.”

 

The children managed to drift back into quiet slumber, but they were the only ones. Jake lay still and tense in the darkness, waiting for dawn to slice through the cracks in the tin roof with its characteristic suddenness. He could tell from Sarah's lack of movement that she wasn't sleep. She lay with her back turned stubbornly to him, too far away to touch, too close for him to ignore the prickling sensation her mere presence caused within him.

He knew the knife-edged tension that kept him awake was the culmination of the night's events. The brawl with Enrique. The knowledge that the drop was set and Jake could finally contact OMEGA. The fiery tequila. The feel of Sarah's hips cradled in his arm.

The desire that had been curling in Jake's belly since the moment she'd snuggled up to him all those hours ago suddenly jackknifed. He gritted his teeth, straining to keep a leash on his rampaging libido. Drawing up one knee to ease the coiled ache, he cursed himself and her in the darkness.

Didn't she know better than to hold his head against her breast like that while she swabbed his cuts? Didn't she know that every time she even brushed his arm, fire streaked all along his nerves? Couldn't she sense how it twisted his gut every time she feathered her fingers through her hair?

For all that she wore a nun's habit, wasn't she still woman
enough to recognize the effect she had on a man when she flashed those magnificent, fury-filled eyes up at him? At that moment, Jake had come so close to forgetting who she was and where they were that it scared the hell out of him.

His jaw clenching, Jake played and replayed that strange confrontation in his mind.

He'd dealt with enough people in his time to know that no human being ever really fit a stereotype. The toughest first sergeant he'd ever worked with had had an almost pathological fear of heights. The sweet, honey-haired second-grade teacher he'd dated for a while after his divorce had kept a library of porno flicks just the other side of kinky. Maggie Sinclair, with her long legs, sparkling brown eyes and infectious grin, could put a bullet through the center of a target forty-four out of forty-five times.

So it didn't bother Jake that Sarah wasn't exactly a younger version of Mother Teresa. He could accept that she sported a fall of silvery-blond hair under the black veil. He understood that she was only human, like when she alternated between quiet competence and frazzled weariness with the children. He knew that the fear and strain of waiting for him tonight had toppled many of the barriers between them, causing her to blaze up at him like any outraged female confronting an errant male.

Still, that confrontation bothered him. And he didn't know why.

Jake's mouth settled into a tight line. Maybe it was his own internal alert mechanism that had activated this indefinable tension that shimmered right below his skin's surface. Maybe his body was signaling that he'd gotten too close to this operation, too emotionally involved with Sarah. He needed to back off, to avoid any repetition of the fierce, primal protectiveness he'd felt when Enrique threatened her. He sure as hell needed to avoid any more physical contact with her. From here on, he had to concentrate more on his mission and less on this woman who intrigued, irritated and aroused him in equal measures.

That was it, Jake decided. He had to get this operation moving forward again. As soon as he could slip out of camp, later today, he'd reclaim his backup transmitter and reestablish contact with his OMEGA control. Now that he knew the approximate time of the drop, he could work out the details of the extraction and strike with Maggie Sinclair.

Some of Jake's tension eased at the thought of Maggie. Once again he thanked his lucky stars she was the controller for this operation. Not that the others weren't good—damn good. But Maggie and that sixth sense of hers were in a separate category altogether. Of course, her uncanny instincts were probably going bananas right now. No doubt she'd worn a track in the tile floor of the control center with her pacing over the lack of contact with Jaguar.

Jake wiped away the trickle of sweat that signaled the imminent arrival of another hot, humid dawn, then grinned wryly in the dark. At least Maggie was doing her worrying and pacing in air-conditioned comfort.

M
aggie couldn't remember the last time she'd been so hot!

It was still early morning, just an hour past dawn, and yet her heavy black robes were already sticking to her back. She sat on the sticky vinyl seat of the bus taking her into Cartoza's capital and fanned the air with one hand. The sleeve of her habit flapped energetically but stirred up a lot more dust than breeze. Despite the heat and the crowd packed belly to belly in the wheezing, huffing bus, however, Maggie felt a familiar drum of excitement beating in her veins.

She was back in the field!

After an intense session with Cowboy to get him up to speed and a hurried outfitting by the OMEGA uniform specialists, she'd left Washington just after midnight. An air force jet had flown her to her insertion point at a base in neighboring Costa Rica. From there she'd boarded a commercial flight into Cartoza's only airport, thus establishing her cover as a newly arrived medical sister.

And now she was back in the field!

So what if sweat rolled down her ribs? So what if her stiff
black habit scratched and the white wimple got in her way every time she unthinkingly tried to rake a hand through her hair? Maggie would've endured far worse—and had in the past—to feel the intensity and awareness of everything around her that came only with being in the middle of an operation.

Settling her small brown suitcase more comfortably across her knees, she made sure the blue steel Smith & Wesson .22 automatic pistol tucked in her sleeve didn't show, and sat back to enjoy the ride into the capital. She'd stay at the sisters' chapter house today, until she heard from Jake. Or until outside pressure or circumstance made her decide to go in for Sarah Chandler.

As the bus bounced over the rutted road that led out of the airport, chickens squawked, babies cried, and deafening music blared from a loudspeaker. The old woman next to Maggie smiled at the din, then held up a gnarled, arthritic hand to display the rosary beads she clutched. It didn't take Maggie long to realize that the old woman wasn't saying her rosary just to pass the time. She was probably praying fervently that she survived the trip. Maggie herself muttered a few prayers as the bus careered along the narrow, twisting road that led from the airport into the capital. On one side, lush vegetation in more shades of green than Maggie had ever seen climbed up the steep hillsides. On the other was a sheer two-hundred-foot vertical drop to the sparkling blue-green Atlantic. Sure that the bus would sail off the road at every turn, Maggie tried to focus on the bright flashes of brilliantly colored flowers on the right and ignore the empty stretch of air on the left.

When the bus turned inland and approached the tumble of shacks that formed the city's suburbs, she breathed a sigh of relief. Almost immediately, Maggie realized that she'd relaxed too soon. Cartoza's capital clung to the steep slopes of the Teleran foothills like barnacles on a ship's keel. Huffing and groaning, the bus crept up one almost perpendicular street, then plunged down the next, in wild defiance of any and all traffic laws. Pedestrians shouted curses and jumped out of the
way, horns blared, and thick exhaust fumes from poorly refined fuel added to the collection of odors trapped in the bus.

When she wasn't bracing herself against the seat in front of her, arms stiff and eyes squeezed shut in anticipation of her imminent demise, Maggie caught glimpses of adobe-covered buildings plastered with posters advertising everything from Diet Pepsi to the topless dancers at Café La Boom Boom. After countless stops to let off and take on passengers, the bus finally puffed to a halt before a pair of tall wooden doors set in a pink adobe wall.

“El convento!”
the driver bellowed back over his shoulder.

“Thank the Lord,” Maggie muttered, easing her way past the old woman.

A firm tug on the bell rope soon gained her access to a shaded, flowering courtyard. After paying her respects to the senior sister, she was shown to a small, sparsely furnished room kept in readiness for transients. As soon as the door shut behind her escort, Maggie sank down on the bed, tugged off her veil and raked a hand through her thick mane.

Seconds later, she pulled up the antenna on her hand-held secure-transmission satellite communications device. The transmitter-receiver, called a transceiver for short, was small and thin, not much bigger than a lady's compact. It switched from transmit to receive mode at the slightest touch of a finger.

“Nothing from Jaguar yet,” Cowboy relayed, his voice as clear as if he were calling from across town instead of bouncing a signal off a low-orbiting satellite.

Maggie knew that she would've been contacted instantly if Jake had called in, but she still couldn't help feeling a stab of disappointment. That, combined with fatigue and the accumulated tension of the operation, made her sag for a moment. It was probably just as well she wasn't jumping right into action, she reflected. She wouldn't be much good to Jake if she let her instincts become dulled.

“Roger,” Maggie replied, acknowledging Cowboy's trans
mission. “I'm going to grab a few hours' sleep, then reconnoiter.”

“I'll hold the fort,” he replied.

Slipping out of the black robe, Maggie placed her gun on the handy night table and stretched out on the cot in her underwear. True to her cover, she wore plain, unadorned white cotton panties and bra, which the uniform specialists had assured her were
not
easy to find in D.C. on such short notice. The thick adobe walls gave the small room a cool, dim cast. Within moments, she was asleep.

Half an hour later, a raucous, booming bellow sent her leaping from the bed, .22 in hand. She dropped into a crouch, weapon held straight out, then swung it in an arc across the width of the room. A second bellow thundered through the walls.

The sound of scurrying feet outside drew Maggie toward the door. Opening it a cautious crack, she saw several sisters hurrying down the hall. A young, olive-skinned novice in a gray dress stopped at her signal.

“Excuse me. Is that a fire alarm?”

“It's the bell for midmorning prayers,” the young woman explained. She glanced pointedly at Maggie's underwear and uncovered hair. “You have only five minutes before you must be in place.”

“Mmm…” Maggie thought she just might skip midmorning prayers in favor of her first few hours' sleep in almost two days.

“Of course,” the novice said earnestly, “if you miss these prayers, just listen for the bell after next. It calls one to a special half hour of contemplation and prayer before lunch.”

Maggie stared at her in gathering consternation. “You mean the bell rings like that all morning long?”

“Oh, yes, Sister,” the young woman assured her. “All day long. Every thirty minutes, from five-o'clock wake-up to ten o'clock last prayers. It is, perhaps, a trifle loud, but one gets used to it.”

Not in this lifetime, Maggie thought. She closed the door and leaned against it. Jake had better call in, and soon!

 

“Xavier and I are going into the jungle to check the intrusion-detection devices.”

Sarah's hands stilled as she stared up at Jack's shadowed face. The black plastic comb hovered over her dull, limp hair.

“Xavier?”

“The man whose feet you treated.” His mouth twisted in a mocking smile. “He's supposed to be my assistant.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“Not long. Here, take this.”

She glanced at the small, toy-size gun he held out to her and repressed a shudder. She hated guns, and the violence they caused. Her mother had been killed in a hunting accident when Sarah was just a baby. The senator hadn't allowed a gun anywhere in the house since. Sarah had never touched one in her life. Lowering her hands, she clasped them tight in her lap. The sharp teeth of the comb bit into her palm.

“I…I don't…”

His mouth tightened at her reluctance to take the weapon. “Look, Sister, I'm not asking you to violate some deep-seated religious principles here. You don't have to shoot to kill. If anyone comes into the shack, just aim the thing straight up in the air and pull the trigger. I'll be back before the echo dies away.”

“Couldn't we just go with you?”

“I can't take you out of here just yet,” he said sharply. “I told you, I've got some business to conduct in a few days.”

“I wouldn't dream of asking you to put our welfare ahead of your
business,
” Sarah retorted, acid dripping from her voice. “I just want you to take me and the children a little way upstream.”

“And leave you alone? To try and make it out on your own? Don't be stupid. One misstep and you'd all be monkey bait.”

Sarah glared up at him. “I wasn't thinking of escape. I
wouldn't risk the children's lives by trying to find my own way through your booby traps. I just thought that I could bathe them while you did your…your business.”

The undisguised scorn in her voice tightened the skin across his cheeks. He closed his fingers around the gun.

“They need a bath,” Sarah insisted.
She
needed a bath, too. Badly. But she'd settle for dangling her feet in some cool water and splashing what she could over her face and arms.

Sarah set her jaw as she waited for his response. His shuttered gray eyes gave no clue to what he thought. He'd been so withdrawn this morning, so reserved. Ever since they'd rolled back the mosquito netting and gone about the business of seeing to the children's needs, Sarah had sensed a change in him. She wasn't sure exactly when she'd become so attuned to this man's moods, but she knew that something had changed between them last night. Irrevocably.

Maybe he was still suffering from all that tequila he'd downed, Sarah thought irritably. Or maybe he was still angry about the way she'd poured that disinfectant on him. Or maybe he was finding the prospect of protecting her and the children more of a strain on his patience and his admittedly tattered conscience than he'd bargained for.

Too bad.

Sarah wasn't any happier about being stuck in this camp than he apparently was, but until she figured out a way to get herself and the children back to civilization, she wasn't letting Mr. Mercenary off the hook. He was stuck with them. And they were stuck with him.

“All right,” he answered finally. “There's a pool about a kilometer from here. Far enough away to give you some privacy, but still well within the perimeter defenses.”

Sarah scrambled to her feet before he could change his mind. “Good! I'll gather a few things while you go get the children. They're with Eleanora.”

One dark brow rose cynically as she headed for the backpack she now considered her own. He didn't comment, however, and stepped out the door.

The prospect of being out of the hut and the oppressive camp for even an hour lifted Sarah's spirits. Her unease over Jack's strange quietness vanished as she dug through the pockets of the backpack for the few remaining toiletry items.

She felt like a child being given a special treat, like an adventurer setting off on an exciting journey instead of just trudging a half or so mile upstream. Sarah smiled, remembering the vacations she'd taken with her father at five-star resorts. The junkets provided by lobbyists who were currying his favor. The yearly trips to Europe to buy clothes and enjoy the hospitality of the ambassadors and diplomats she'd entertained in D.C. None of those jaunts had thrilled her as much as the prospect of this little excursion.

She threw on the black robe and rolled her few supplies up in the cotton blouse. The blouse was so big and baggy on her, she could wear it while she was bathing the children and still be covered from neck to knees.

Hearing Teresa's childish giggles, Sarah pulled open the door and watched the little procession cross the clearing. Ricci was perched on Jack's shoulders, his black hair covered by the floppy-brimmed camouflage hat. Silent, unsmiling Eduard walked beside them. Teresa danced along in her bright red dress, holding on to her precious doll with one hand and Eleanora with the other. Bringing up the rear was the thin, stoop-shouldered guerrilla whose bleeding feet Sarah had treated yesterday. He grinned and pointed to his boots with the tip of his rifle.

The cavalcade came to a halt. Jack nodded toward the heavyset, expressionless woman beside him. “She says she can help you with the children.”

Sarah flashed Eleanora a wide, grateful smile. As much as the children tugged at her heartstrings, they still overwhelmed her at times. She'd gained a whole new appreciation of motherhood in the past few days. The younger children's constant demands for her attention, their swift mood swings from happy to tearful, the utter lack of privacy, even to go to the
bathroom, had added to the stress of her ever-present uncertainty and fear.

“I managed to round up some soap,” Jack added, handing her a much-used bar.

Sarah grabbed it with an involuntary cry of delight. She didn't want to know what he'd had to barter or promise for it. It was one thing for him to sell his knowledge of stolen weapons for cash, she admitted to herself with rueful honesty. It was another thing altogether when he sold it to benefit her or the children.

From the way his lips twisted cynically, Sarah guessed that he'd noticed this apparent inconsistency in her rigid contempt for his business dealings. Shrugging, she tucked the soap inside her bundle.

“Okay, troops,” he said dryly, “fall in. Stay behind me on the path once we leave the clearing, understand?”

“S
,
Señor Creighton,”
Teresa trilled.