To the Brink (21 page)

Dallas looked back down at Amy. His face was less than an inch from hers. Her eyes were still wide and wild with terror. But she was quiet. It was killing her, but she was quiet. And still he didn't lift his hand from her mouth.

He just nodded. Mouthed,
It's okay. It's okay. You're doing fine.

Freckles. At this range, he couldn't miss them beneath the sunburn. They feathered across the bridge of her nose, drifted wide over her bruised cheeks. And made her look all of twelve years old.

The breasts poking against his chest put an end to that notion in short order.

And the beginnings of a boner pressing into her stomach damn near sent him into orbit.

What the fuck?

Whoa. That was just wrong.

As slowly and inconspicuously as possible, he lifted his hips, balanced his weight on his knees, and broke the belly-to-belly-contact. The last thing she needed was to get all freaked out because he had a temporary unexplained testosterone surge. Not to mention a lapse in rescuer-to-rescuee protocol.

Protocol, hell. There was no protocol for this. And there was no excuse for him going off half-cocked— literally—and giving her another reason to spook on him.

He chanced a look at her face. Realized he still had his hand pressed over her mouth. He swore under his breath. It was a wonder she could breathe.

He lifted his hand fractionally—a test to see if she was going to keep quiet.

When she just lay there, her eyes still wide and searching his with a wariness shot through with a tentative trust, he let up on the pressure on her mouth.

She licked her lips, blinked, and turned her head to the side. But not before her cheeks flushed hot pink.

Dallas hung his head. Let out a deep breath.
She hasn't had enough humiliation, asshole? You had to add to it?

Long moments passed as he sort of straddled her in a modified push-up on his knees and elbows. Long moments when he was aware of her breathing, the warmth of her skin from the fever and exertion, and how very, very still she was.

He made himself tune back into the tangos. From the sounds of things they were all zipped and tucked again and heading down the embankment for the stream.

Once there they seemed to be arguing. He didn't speak the language, but he didn't have to to realize that somebody was pissed off.

They were still muttering when the sound of their voices finally faded away.

He let out a pent-up breath.

He should move. He should move off of her now.

But for some reason he didn't. He needed to say something. Explain, somehow, what was freaking un-explainable. At the very least, he should apologize.

Um, yeah, about that, um, flashlight in my pocket.

"I... I think they're gone."

He snapped his gaze to her face. And yeah, they were gone. And yeah, he should still move.

"There could be trailers," he said, and stayed exactly where he was.

Amazing.

Only moments ago he'd wanted to put as much distance between them as possible. Now he couldn't come up with a remotely plausible reason that he should move even an eighth of an inch.

Then she licked her lips again—and he thought about how those lips had felt pressed beneath his. Something he hadn't had a chance to digest when he'd been relatively certain they were both going to get their heads blown off if he didn't shut her up.

Her lips were wide and full. Nicely shaped. Angelina Jolie lips. Soft and supple beneath his.

Shit.

He was getting hard again.

He scrambled off of her in a flash.

Sitting on his ass, his elbows on his knees, he hung his head in his hands—and breathing was a helluva lot harder than it had been a second ago.

Silence settled like a bomb.

"I'm sorry," they finally both said at the same time.

He looked at her over his shoulder. "
You're
sorry?"

"For flipping out on you. I almost got us killed."

He shook his head. "Like you don't have reason to flip out? Forget it," he added. "You did fine."

Several more moments passed while he tried to figure out how to apologize. "About what happened," he started, staring straight ahead and away from her.

"Nothing happened," she said quickly but so quietly that he knew it had freaked her out, too.

He drew in a deep breath. Let it out. "Yeah. Something happened." He shook his head. Lifted a hand.

"Things . . . things happen, you know, in the heat of the moment. Under stress. It's not an excuse. I just... I just want you to know. I'd never do anything on purpose, you know... to make you uncomfortable, okay?"

He'd begun to think she wasn't going to respond when she very softly said, "Okay."

He felt way too much relief. "Okay. Good."

And then he looked over his shoulder. And almost lost his breath.

She was sitting there. Just sitting there framed by a curtain of trailing yellow orchids and pink bromeliads. The sun had broken through the cloud cover. Dappled rays slanted, down through the vines and played along the rise of her cheekbones, flickered at a jawline that was purple with bruising.

And for a moment there, despite the bruising, despite the snarled dirty hair, despite her sunburned skin and the suffering in her eyes that she refused to let defeat her, she was one of the prettiest things he'd ever seen.

Finally,
Darcy thought. Ethan was coming around. It was almost noon. He'd been out for nearly two hours.

"Ethan. Come on. Stay with me. Please, stay with me this time."

She'd found smelling salts in the first-aid kit and passed them under his nose again.

He jerked and batted her hand away. "Fuck. Uncle ... uncle, okay?" He blinked several times and finally opened bloodshot eyes.

He stared into space, then slowly shifted his unfocused gaze to hers. "Well, hey. Aren't you just the prettiest damn thing? You
are
real, right?"

Darcy said a silent prayer of thanks. "I'm as real as it gets, cowboy."

He sliced her a bleary grin. "We goin' for a ride?"

She laughed because crying wasn't an option. Even though she wanted to. "Not this very moment, no. How are you feeling?"

He rolled his head on his neck. "Ready to leap tall buildings."

"Yeah, well, let's not put that to the test just yet."

He looked down at his leg, squinted like he was trying to get things in focus. "You've been busy. I slept through all that?"

"I suppose
some
people would call it sleep."

Darcy called it passed out. For a while she'd even considered calling it comatose. It had scared her to death. All the while she'd cleaned the wound, applied the antiseptic ointment she'd found in the first-aid kit, and then packed it with gauze she'd prayed. She'd apply pressure, loosen the tourniquet, swear, tighten it again, and apply pressure again.

An hour, then two had passed.

It had given her a chance to look at him. Really look at him. Even through the camo face paint and beard stubble, Ethan's face was beautiful, familiar. She'd thought when she saw him again that she'd see a stranger's face.

Five years, however, wasn't that long even though it had seemed like a lifetime.

They had loved so much. And screwed things up so badly.

He had a scar over his left brow that hadn't been there the last time she'd seen him. She wondered what other scars he carried—outside and in.

And that was a road that led exactly nowhere, she'd finally told herself, relieved when the bleeding had stopped.

"How are you
really
feeling?" she asked again.

"Couple of quarts low."

"Think you can drink something?"

He nodded, still looking a little fuzzy around the edges. When he tried to boost himself up so he could sit up a little straighter, he finally gave it up with a disgusted, "Fuck."

"Might want to bump that estimate to three quarts," she said, watching him carefully when she positioned the tube from his Camelbak to his mouth.

"Just need some fluid." He made a valiant effort to take on as much water as possible. "I'll be good as new."

Yeah, and she was the tooth fairy.

He let his head roll back against the dirt wall, exhausted from the effort of drinking. "How long was I out?"

"Hour and a half ... maybe two," she guessed.

"You should have woke me up."

She grunted. "If they gave medals for effort, I'd have a chestful. You scared the hell out of me, Ethan."

When he met her eyes, she saw regret in his.

"You need to try to eat something."

"Hold that thought." He leaned over to the side and promptly heaved up a good portion of the water he'd just drunk.

He sagged back against the wall, spent from the effort. "Oops."

"Oh God." Blood seeped through the bandage in an ever-widening circle.

"What are we going to do?" Darcy quickly straddled his thigh. She centered the heel of her palm against the bandage, applied pressure. "If that little bit of movement started the bleeding again, there's no way you can walk out of here."

"No word from ... Dallas? Or Manny?" His voice was weak. His breathing labored.

"Word?"

"Didn't we ... didn't
I
contact them?"

"Contact? You have a way to contact them?"

He looked like he needed toothpicks to keep his eyes open. "Could have sworn I raised them on the SAT phone."

"You have a phone?" She didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"Sweetheart, I've got everything but blood."

And then he passed out again.

"Hang on, Ethan," Darcy whispered. Of course he didn't hear her, but it made her feel better to tell him just the same. "Manny's on the way."

She'd found the SAT phone, figured out how to operate it. When she heard Manny Ortega's voice on the other end of the line, she almost cried with relief.

Manny had walked her through activating the GPS and had been able to get a fix on them.

"I'm not more than a click or two away," Manny had assured her. "Be there in half an hour."

Half an hour. Manny would get them out of here in a half an hour.

Darcy checked Ethan's watch. Not even five minutes had passed. It felt like hours.

And when, a few minutes later, she heard what sounded like footsteps above their little hideout, she almost ran out in the open.

Almost.

Until she heard someone speaking Tagalog.