Heart of Fire (8 page)

Inwardly she groaned at the thought of two weeks cooped up on board, but didn't complain out loud. There was no help for it. Riverboats were the only way to get their supplies upriver to where they could begin the trek on foot.

"Coming back, that time will be cut in half," he said. "We'll be riding with the current rather than against it, for one thing. For another, we won't be bringing all of these supplies out, and the load will be a lot lighter."

They had eight helpers, counting Dutra. Ben had hired an additional seven, five Brazilians and two Indians from the Tukano tribe. The two Indians, one on each boat, were silently distributing the weight of the supplies so the loads were evenly balanced. Ben divided his time between the two boats, his eyes shaded by dark sunglasses but missing nothing. He knew exactly where every item was, how much they had of it, how long their supplies should last. If they hadn't found this lost city by the time half of the supplies were gone, tough. They were coming back out anyway. He figured he'd have more trouble with Jillian than with any of the others if that happened, but he'd bring her back if he had to string her up on two poles like a peccary and carry her out.

When she had arrived on the docks this morning, ready to leave, it was the first time he had seen her since he'd left her hotel room two nights before. She had clubbed her shoulder-length dark hair, and in the bright sun it gleamed as lustrously as mink. "Put your hat on," he said automatically. He himself was bareheaded, for he hadn't wanted to take the chance that Dutra would recognize him if he wore a hat and sunglasses. He'd gotten rather fond of the khaki hat and had brought it along, but for now, if the sun got too hot for him, he would put on his usual baseball cap.

She obeyed. He liked the way she looked in her sturdy canvas pants and white short-sleeved shirt. With the straw fedora set firmly on her head, she was brisk and no-nonsense, her experience showing in every move she made. The canvas pants also revealed every delicious curve of her rounded buttocks, and he whistled silently to himself. She'd be sleeping beside him on the crowded deck for two weeks, and every night of those two weeks was going to be pure temptation. Nothing else, though, damn it. Not with four other people right beside them.

"What do you think of our friend Dutra?" he asked in a low voice.

She didn't have to look at the man in question to see him in her mind, and she suppressed a shudder. "We'll be lucky if he doesn't kill us all," she murmured.

A few inches shorter than Ben, Dutra probably outweighed him by thirty pounds or more. He wore a shirt with the sleeves ripped out, and huge sweat stains ran from his armpits to his waist. His head looked too small for his massive shoulders, even though his skull was covered by a thick mass of dull, unruly black hair, more like an animal's in texture than a human's. His brow ridge was as prominent as a Neanderthal's, but his eyebrows were sparse, almost nonexistent. His deep-set eyes were small and mean and cunning, his jaw unshaven, his teeth stained brown. His incisors were as pointed as an ape's. Between those teeth and his hair, he didn't appear quite human. She couldn't look at him without feeling her stomach roil with distaste and fear.

Dutra wasn't working, though he was supposed to be one of the helpers. He leaned against a post, his massive arms crossed as he stared unceasingly at Jillian. Ben let it slide; for one thing, the boats had to be precisely balanced, and Dutra would deliberately screw it up. For another, let him make Jillian uneasy; she might reconsider her decision about sharing a tent.

Rick Sherwood was on the second boat, sitting lazily on the prow with his feet propped up. Steven Kates, however, was pacing back and forth on the docks as if he were personally directing the placement of every box that went aboard. Ben spared both of them a disgusted look, knowing that the sunglasses hid his eyes. Those two would be in for a shock when they got upriver.

The humid heat had bathed them in steam by the time everything was loaded. Jillian took pleasure in seeing that the knife-edge creases in Kates's pants had wilted. She could have told him that having his clothes pressed was a useless effort in the tropics. She suspected both Rick and Kates were in for a rough time when they reached land upriver, for neither of them was used to hard physical labor and they would have to carry a load through the jungle just like everyone else. She kept herself in good physical condition, but she wasn't looking forward to the first few days.

"That's it." Ben said something to the two Tukano tribesmen in their language, and they murmured soft replies. One would be in the lead boat, the other in the second, piloting it. Both of them knew the rivers. He put his hand on Jillian's arm as he turned to Kates. "Kates, you and Sherwood go in the second boat. Jillian and I will be in the front one."

"I'd planned to be in the front one," Kates said.

"Won't work. You don't know how to navigate the river. I do."

"I meant, put Jillian in the second boat with Rick."

"Nope. Since she's the only one who knows where we're going, she has to ride with the navigator."

It was an argument Kates couldn't refute, but he didn't like it. Being on the second boat offended his sense of self-worth. Ben didn't give a damn; he didn't want Jillian on the same boat with Dutra. She walked calmly aboard the first boat, surefooted in her deck shoes, cutting off further discussion.

"We're casting off," Ben said impatiently, and Kates stalked aboard the second boat.

Ben took the wheel and started the engine. The boats didn't look like much, but the engines were first-class. They had to be, to buck the current They surged to life with deep, guttural roars. The two Tukanos slipped the mooring lines, tossing them on board and following with agile leaps as the boats eased away from the docks.

"Talk to me," Ben said to Jillian as he deftly steered through the maze of ships and boats in the harbor. The idea had come to him that morning. "I've been thinking about something. Can you find this place as easily if we go in on the Rio Negro rather than the Amazon?"

She cleared her throat.

He took the chance of looking at her rather than at what he was doing, and her expression made him swear softly under his breath. "Goddammit," he muttered. "Just when were you going to say, 'Oh, by the way, Mr. Lewis, we need to go up this river rather than the other one'?"

She made a show of looking around. "Actually… right about now."

"And what if I didn't know anything about the Rio Negro?"

"You aren't the only one who can snoop around," she replied easily. "I asked around about you. You've guided as much up the Rio Negro as you have up the big river."

"So why didn't you bother to say something before now?"

"To throw off anyone who might have been nosing around, anyone Kates or Rick might have told. I had my reasons."

"Yeah, lack of trust being at the top of the list."

"You got it."

He frowned, but only for a minute. What the hell, so she'd been one step ahead of him all along. It happened. Not often, but it happened.

"Well, I agree with you," he said. "Not only will it give us an advantage, but it'll be more comfortable. No mosquitoes."

"Really? Why not?"

He shrugged. "Something in the water. Black-water rivers tend to have fewer insects."

She'd already had experience with the swarming black clouds of mosquitoes that inhabited tropical areas. If the Rio Negro had fewer of the insects, she was all for traveling on it. It would certainly make sleeping on deck much more comfortable.

Ben whistled as he handled the wheel. Manaus sat on the Rio Negro, but he hadn't actually thought of going up the black river until that morning. He had assumed they would head downstream for seven miles and pick up the Amazon. But upstream the rivers penetrated similar regions. And if they took the Rio Negro, Ben would have a significant advantage. From what all his contacts had said, Dutra always went up the Amazon when he disappeared upriver. As far as he'd been able to find out, the thug didn't know anything about the Rio Negro. But Ben knew both rivers. Little things added up; if putting Dutra on unfamiliar ground would give Ben even the slightest advantage, he'd take it.

All in all, he was pleased with himself. He pulled his baseball cap out of his back pocket and put it on. They were on their way; they likely wouldn't find anything in the jungle worth stealing, so they wouldn't have anything to worry about from Kates and Dutra; and he had Jillian Sherwood in his constant company for about two months. He figured that by the time they left the boats, he'd have her so hot for him that they could leave one of the tents behind, as they wouldn't be needing it.

He was so pleased, in fact, that he reached out and gave her bottom a caressing pat, briefly clenching his hand on the enticing fullness. Less than half a second later, the heel of her shoe connected violently with his shin. She gave him a smile that showed a lot of teeth, and moved away to the prow of the boat.

Jillian remained in the prow for most of that first day, so she could see everything. The excitement of actually being under way drowned out—at least for the moment—the concerns that had been keeping her up nights. She watched the roiling waters of the massive river in awe. The Rio Negro was the largest of the Amazon's tributaries, so she felt a deep connection to that great river, which really only became the Amazon when it met with the Rio Negro seven miles downstream from Manaus. One fifth of all the fresh water on earth was contained in the Amazon and its tributaries, ten of which carried more water than the Mississippi. The great Nile might be considered the longest, by a small margin and depending on which course of the Amazon was measured, but the African river paled in comparison to the South American giant. The river was a law unto itself, so strong that when it emptied into the Atlantic it pushed back the ocean's salt water for about one hundred miles. Jillian was thrilled to actually see this part of it, to feel the power of the water humming through the wooden boards beneath her feet.

The riverbanks were lined with shanties, some of them little more than a few pieces of tin and wood nailed together. As they got farther from Manaus the number of shanties diminished until there were only a few of the dismal dwellings spaced here and there.

The heat became suffocating. She finally moved to sit under the roof of the boat, but the shade couldn't diminish the humidity.

The three Brazilians were talking quietly among themselves, while the Tukano sat on the deck a few feet away from Ben, completely silent but not missing anything. Her excitement had ebbed; the heat and the motion of the boat made her drowsy, but she didn't want to nap.

She pulled off her hat and fanned herself. After a while the slow, hypnotic motion of her own hand became so soporific that she had to stop.

Her sleepy gaze wandered to Ben. She couldn't find a single thing wrong with the view. He stood solidly at the wheel, his back to her, his feet planted apart to brace himself against the sway of the boat. Thick dark hair curled over his collar, unless he got his hair cut sometime during this expedition, it would be touching his shoulders by the time they got back. Broad shoulders strained the fabric of his sweat-dampened shirt. His khaki pants revealed powerfully muscled legs and clearly outlined his tight buttocks. She smiled a little to herself. She did so admire the sight of a nice, tight, muscled male derriere, and Ben's was perfect. Aesthetically speaking, of course. Beauty was where one found it.

As if he were clairvoyant, he turned and gave her a slow, knowing, lascivious wink.

Kates was furious that they were going up the "wrong" river, yelling his protests over the radio.

After a while Ben got tired of listening to him and took the microphone long enough to say, "Sorry, this is the way Ms. Sherwood says we have to go," neatly placing all the blame on Jillian's shoulders. After a while, accepting the uselessness of his protests, Kates shut up.

It was well before dusk when Ben steered the boat into the shelter of a cove. "Storm," he said briefly to Jillian. "This is a good place to tie up, so we might as well spend the night here. There won't be much light left by the time the storm is over."

It had rained almost every day they had been in Brazil, so the weather didn't come as a surprise. Jillian had been watching the purple clouds gather on the horizon and march steadily closer. Now that the boat engines were silent, she could hear thunder rumbling.

The Brazilians on both boats began unrolling the heavy tarps that were secured to the flat roofs. Neither boat had a closed cabin, just a simple roof over the cargo area, with all four sides left open except for a tiny, crude toilet area. She had noticed the tarps and thought they were meant to provide shade during the late afternoon when the angled sunlight could penetrate beneath the roof, but as the wind began to pick up she saw the real reason for them. When they were unrolled, they were tied down to rings on the deck to keep out the blowing rain. One side, away from the wind, was left open.

But the storm hadn't yet arrived, and Jillian didn't want to remain in the dim, close shelter. She moved out on the deck with the men. One of the Brazilians smiled shyly at her and she returned the smile. Ben had said that these men weren't top notch, not his regular helpers, but she couldn't help liking this one man. From listening to their conversation, she had learned that his name was Jorge. The other two were Floriano and Vicente; Ben had called the Indian Pepe, though she was certain that wasn't his real name. It didn't seem to matter to him, though. He replied to the name and kept to himself. The other Indian, Eulogio, was piloting the second boat, which carried Joaquim and Martim, the other two men Ben had hired.

Because of the heat, no one would take shelter behind the tarps until the storm was actually upon them. She looked at the other boat and saw that the preparations on it mirrored their own. Likewise, everyone was on deck. Rick's face was flushed and he was talking too loud. He had probably been drinking ever since they left Manaus.

Thunder began booming continuously, much closer now. A sudden breeze lifted, delightful in its coolness. She took off her hat and let the fresh wind lift her hair. The sky was darkening dramatically.

Then the darkness was split by great sheets of lightning, brightening the dim jungle with dazzling white. The wind died and a great calm settled on them. The hot, still air was heavy with the decaying odors of the thick vegetation that loomed on the bank.

"Here it comes," Ben said. He turned and took her arm, holding her steady as the boat began to surge beneath their feet. "Get under the roof."

A huge blast of wind pressed against the boat, and the temperature plummeted. Even sheltered behind the tarps, Jillian began to shiver. The cove was much calmer than the open river, but even so, the water was churning and lifting under the boat, whipped by the wind. A few heavy raindrops pounded against the roof like hammers; then the deluge hit. There was no talking; the effort would have been useless in that din, as overwhelming as if they had been inside a huge drum.

Everyone seemed to take the storm as a matter of course, having been through similiar ones more times than they could count. Pepe, the Indian, squatted in a corner and calmly waited. The Brazilians found comfortable niches and settled back to smoke. Ben sat down beside her and put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her against the solid heat of his big body.

She started to pull away, but his arm tightened and she looked up to protest. He was looking down at her, his blue eyes steady, warning her to sit still. In a split second, she realized that the others had noted his action. Ben had marked her as his woman. She might not agree, but she was realistic enough to see that, considering the prevalent macho attitudes, he had just given her a measure of protection.

So she sat there, letting her weight rest against him, letting his heat protect her from the chill, and against her will she was swamped by primitive female satisfaction. Women had felt the same way thousands of years before, sitting in firelit caves and leaning against their rock-hard, muscled mates, men who used their strength to keep their families fed, to guard them, to stand between them and danger. Her field might be archaeology rather than anthropology, but she was well aware of the seductiveness of his strength. A few hundred years of civilization couldn't override instincts developed over years that numbered in the millennia.

In a flash she saw how easy it was for the dominant male in a group to have his pick of the females. His very dominance made him
their
prime choice. Ben was definitely the dominant male in this little group, and she was the only female. He had been right to warn her about being the lone woman on an expedition, an uneasy situation he had instinctively recognized, while she had let her advanced education and life-style blind her to the basic nature of life.

It would take some very fancy footwork on her part to keep him out of her tent, because everything about the situation would work to force them together. He seemed certain she wouldn't be able to long resist giving in to him, and she had to admit he probably had the upper hand in this old battle. She had to fight him as well as herself and her own sexual instincts that had been stirred to life. Physically she was strongly attracted to him; mentally she didn't want to have an affair, didn't want to become involved in messy emotional tangles. She was strong and whole as she was. An affair would be too much trouble.

Not only that, his self-assurance ticked her off. He was so certain that he was eventually going to wear down her resistance and tempt her into having sex with him that he didn't even try to hide it. His confidence showed itself in every cocky, heart-stopping grin, in the wicked gleam in those deep blue eyes. He was challenged by her resistance, but she was equally challenged by his assurance, and her female pride had immediately battened down the hatches to weather a strong blow. Everything about him was saying, "I'm gonna get you," and her instinctive mental response was a truculent "Oh, yeah?"

She had a strong competitive streak in her nature. She liked to win, whether it was at cards or beating someone to a good parking spot. She liked most team sports and absolutely loved football. Seducing her was just a game to Ben, so that was the way she would play it too: to win.

She had woefully underestimated him at their first meeting, but now she had his measure and wouldn't make
that
mistake again.

They were in a dicey situation; they needed to keep their wits about them and their eyes wide open rather than waste time on the Adam and Eve stuff. Of course, as he had pointed out, they were safe enough on the trip in. It would be on the trip out that they would be in danger. Still, she didn't intend to let Ben distract her.

Night crashed down with stunning abruptness. One moment it was twilight, the next it wasn't. The impenetrable jungle seemed to press harder against the boats where they were pulled up to the riverbank. The level of noise began to build, complete with shrieks and howls, coughs and rumbles, until she wondered how any of them would get any sleep.

Battery-operated lanterns were turned on. Each boat carried an alcohol stove, and a quick, simple meal was supplied. Vicente did the cooking on their boat, throwing together rice, fish, and seasonings to make a dish that wouldn't win any awards, but was edible. It would fill their bellies and give them energy; nothing else was required of their food, certainly not good taste or an elegant presentation.

Afterward, the tin plates were quickly cleaned and stored, and hammocks efficiently hung, taking up most of the deck space. "This one is yours," Ben said to Jillian, indicating the hammock closest to his. They were virtually side by side, close enough to hold hands if either of them was so inclined. Jillian wasn't.

She expertly maneuvered herself into the swaying hammock and arranged a swath of mosquito netting over her. Even though she had to admit the night was wonderfully free of the pests, she didn't want to take the chance that there might be a stray bug out there just waiting to jump on her. The mosquito netting was her own form of a security blanket.

Ben settled into his own hammock. "Bet you think you're safe, don't you?" he whispered a moment later. "Ever done it in a hammock?"

"Of course," she said, and was vastly pleased with the precise blend of unconcern and boredom that she had managed. Let him wonder about
that
! He hadn't specified which "it" he was talking about, so she felt free to apply her own interpretation. She had definitely slept in a hammock before.

The immediate blasé response brought a scowl to Ben's face as he relaxed with the slight swaying of the hammock. What did she mean, "of course"? Did more go on during her archaeological expeditions than he'd imagined? It made sense; people were together for long periods of time, so it would be human nature for their gonads to act up. He was sympathetic to the condition; his own libido wasn't the best-behaved in the world.

But the thought of Jillian swaying in a hammock with some bare-assed, bony-kneed archaeologist humping her wasn't pleasant. In fact, he didn't like it worth a damn. His scowl deepened, and a strange kind of anger flared deep in his belly. The incredulous thought surfaced that he was
feeling jealous
, but he dismissed the idea almost as soon as it had formed. That was ridiculous. He'd never been jealous of a woman before in his life, and he sure wasn't jealous of Jillian Sherwood. She wasn't even his type. Her main attraction was that she was the only woman available—that and the almost irresistible urge he had to show her that he could have her anytime he wanted. All he had to do was turn up the heat.

He reached out and nudged her hammock. "Where?"

"Where what?" she murmured, rousing up from a light doze.

"Where did you do it in a hammock?"

"Oh. On the balcony of my condo." Knowing that he couldn't see her in the dark, Jillian allowed herself a triumphant smirk. It was true; she did have a hammock on her balcony, and she had, on occasion, napped out there.

He lay in his own hammock and simmered as his image of a bony-kneed archaeologist was transformed into a vision of a trendy West Coast type with sun-bleached hair, whose clothes bore all the right labels. On the balcony.
In public
! Jesus Christ, even he had never done it in public. He couldn't believe his initial impression of her had been so far off base; he knew women, read them easily, but Jillian kept disconcerting him. That night in her hotel room, when he had kissed her, he had sensed her arousal but she had refused to open her mouth to him and return the kiss. Such self-control baffled him. Why would anyone want to resist pleasure?

The night wasn't clear, but there was a faint hint of light, just enough to keep the darkness from being complete, as it was under the canopy. He couldn't make out her features even though her hammock was only a few inches from his, but she was lying in the limp stillness that meant sleep. Damn it, how could she tell him about screwing in a hammock on her balcony and then just drop off to sleep? How in hell was
he
supposed to get to sleep now?

He couldn't stop thinking about that hammock, but somewhere along the way his imagination did away with the trendy West Coast type and substituted himself. He had touched her at various times, held her against him, so he knew how firm and sleekly muscled she was; he could easily visualize that neat, tight body naked, perky breasts high and nipples tightly drawn with excitement as he moved in and out of her.

His erection pushed painfully against his pants. In the darkness he scowled at her sleeping form and reached down to adjust himself to a more comfortable position.

He lay awake for a long time, scowling and shifting uncomfortably. Another storm built up in the distance and he listened to the rumble of thunder for a while, waiting to see if they would need to move to shelter, but the storm drifted by at a distance. Once he heard a faint scratching against the side of the boat; both he and Pepe got up, and he shone a flashlight over the railing. A startled turtle promptly disappeared underwater again. The nightly serenade hummed on undisturbed.

Ben settled into his hammock again. The interruption had served to take his mind off Jillian. He yawned and finally went to sleep.

The howler monkeys made certain that no one slept past dawn. At the first screech, Jillian bolted up from her hammock, swiping away the cocoon of mosquito netting as she whirled to face the attack she was sure was coming. Next to her, Ben grunted and cursed but showed no alarm as he swung his feet to the deck.

After her initial response she quickly realized what the uproar was; she had read about the howlers, but hadn't realized their dawn ritual to establish territory was so loud. The howls quickly spread until the monkeys sounded like thousands of people screaming at once. She was embarrassed by her fright, though a quick glance at the other boat, moored next to them, showed that both Rick and Kates had also started to their feet. From their expressions, she could tell that they still didn't know what was going on.

"Scared you, huh?" Ben asked, yawning as he rubbed his hand over his face.