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  Not for the boy’s father. Maybe her brief marriage had been… What? What was he hoping for here? That she wasn’t still in love with Julio? What difference did it make to him?

  Don’t be stupid.

  Just because he’d had a few hot dreams about her, a new one last night, and because the more time they spent together, the more he was starting to like her gentleness with Mochi and Chico and her grit of never uttering a word of complaint while other women would want to be fussed over and spoiled at this stage—

  Fine. He liked her. Nothing wrong with that. For the next few days, they were in this together. They were teammates.

  But then he was going to drop her off, put her from his mind and focus on the op again.

  “Sorry about your eye.” She looked up at him, wincing.

  “Forget it,” he said, but then he grinned. “We must make an odd-looking couple.” Her eyes were getting better little by little, but were still plenty swollen.

  “The best thing about the jungle is that it doesn’t have any mirrors,” she told him. Then she asked, “What was that gunshot earlier?” Apparently she hadn’t forgotten, either. “Who else is out there?”

  “No idea. But whoever they are, they’re not our friends.” He knew that for a fact because he had no friends in the jungle. He’d been dropped in on his own, on a solo mission, no team to back him up. You didn’t take an entourage with you when you went undercover.

  Mochi came to help, the puppy jumping around at their feet. Jase turned in the direction where the gunshot had come from, but could hear nothing else. So, as he lowered Melanie down to a fallen log, he turned his attention back to the spot where Alejandro had disappeared.

  He could probably still catch up with the man. He’d always been able to outrun him.

  He looked at Melanie, her tortured eyes and soggy clothes, which, oddly, detracted nothing from her beauty. She was such a lovely mess. Her eyes filled with trust as she looked at him, and that strange fluttering feeling started up in his chest again.

  No time to think about that now.

  He considered the distant gunshot. Someone or, most likely, a whole group of people walked the jungle not far from here. Maybe half a mile to the north. Could be poachers or illegal loggers.

  Either way, he couldn’t leave Melanie and Mochi to chase after Alejandro.

  “I should have shot the bastard when I had the chance,” he said under his breath, mostly to himself. Should have taken aim when the idiot had jumped from behind the log, ripping at his shirt. But the man was jiggling around so much, he’d been afraid that a bullet could go astray and hit either Melanie or Mochi.

  He raised an eyebrow. “What did you two do to him?”

  “Fire ants.” Melanie grinned. “Mochi did it.”

  He nodded at the boy with appreciation.

  “You should have shot him,” she said.

  “I thought about it.” But even beyond not wanting to take the chance that a shot would go wide… “I was hoping to ask him a few questions first.” You never shot someone without first trying to gain useful intelligence. The U.S. was desperate for information about the Don’s terrorist contacts.

  Which he wasn’t going to get now, dammit.

  He couldn’t go back to camp after he’d dropped off Melanie and Mochi. They’d be waiting for him. They knew he’d taken her. He couldn’t talk his way out of this one. He swore silently.

  The op was speedily going to hell in a handbasket. He needed a plan B.

  Melanie squeezed water from her shirt. Once again, she was soaked to the skin. They both were. “What do we do now?”

  A light breeze was blowing from the north. Whoever had squeezed off that shot wouldn’t smell their smoke. “We start a fire and dry our clothes a little. I want you to have a little more rest, anyway, before we get back on the trail. And we all need to eat something.”

  “Shouldn’t we get moving? Alejandro knows where we are.”

  “It’ll take him a while to get back to camp. And the Don can’t afford to send a whole group after us just now. He’ll need every man for the battle. We have some time to rest.”

  He started the fire, using the inside of an abandoned termite mound for kindling. He’d spotted the mound from up in the tree when he’d been preparing for his swing.

  While he worked on getting the flames going, Melanie peeled off as much clothing as she could without completely stripping. He kept his gaze off her, giving her privacy. Of course, even without staring, he caught enough from his peripheral vision to get his body humming.

  Even with the hornet stings and a couple of new bruises, she had a certain serenity and definite beauty about her. She had strength, although he wasn’t sure she realized just how much. But she was also vulnerable. He responded to the first quality, but it was the second that seemed to draw him irresistibly.

  He always wanted to protect everyone. Just didn’t know when to give up, especially when it came to saving damsels in distress. This wasn’t the first time his savior complex had jeopardized a mission.

  He had an idea where it came from. He was the only son of a widowed mother. The last thing his father had made him promise before he’d died was that Jase would protect her. He’d been five years old. He’d grown up fantasizing about a million ways in which he would save his mom and make Dad proud in heaven.

  Instead of crying when he missed his dad, because boys weren’t supposed to cry, he would lose himself in those fantasies. He’d watched his father’s extensive superhero movie collection a million times. Dad had been a major comic book addict.

  Sometimes Jase wondered if he’d ever even had a choice other than to become a special ops soldier. Sure, he didn’t have superpowers, but he had supertraining. Where else did you get to save the world on a daily basis?

  He looked at the pregnant woman, the kid and the three-legged puppy, more than aware that by not going after Alejandro, he’d just ruined his mission and instead chosen the motley crew in front of him.

  He rubbed a hand over his face. Oh, man. The colonel was going to kill him. Right after he fired him.

  He shrugged out of his shirt, then hung their clothes on the branches around the fire. He handed out some venison jerky. Then he took his gun apart, dried it, put it back together. Anything to keep his mind and hands busy. After that, he repacked the backpack Melanie had stolen from him earlier. He liked things in their place. There was a science to packing for a long trek in the jungle.

  “Sorry about that,” she apologized again when she realized what he was doing. “I shouldn’t have run away.”

  True, but he couldn’t blame her for it. She’d thought he was one of Don Pedro’s conscienceless thugs. All her actions proved was that she had good survival instincts.

  She watched him. “I’m glad that you were at the right place at the right time to rescue us from Pedro. I don’t think either of us would have made it without you. It’s nothing short of amazing that you could get us all safely away from camp.” She smiled. “I guess that’s why you’re the expert.”

  The acknowledgment felt good, especially coming from her. But he had to be careful not to let it go to his head. “I don’t normally do search-and-rescue missions,” he told her before she could get too carried away.

  “Can you tell me what you do? If you can’t, I understand.”

  She would. But knowing a little bit about him would probably make her feel better, safer. After what she’d been through, she deserved that. “I do about 30 percent intelligence gathering, 60 percent search-and-destroy, 10 percent wild-card ops.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Either too many unknown parameters in an op, or constantly shifting parameters. Basically, you figure out your course of action as you go.” Which this deal here was rapidly turning into.

  Chico hobbled over to him and he remembered the wooden peg in his pocket. He pulled it out, set it into the hole he’d cut in the chunk of leather he’d made for this purpose, then tied the thing into pl
ace over the dog’s shoulders—a makeshift prosthetic leg.

  Chico sat, sniffed the wood first, then chewed on it.

  Jase lifted the puppy to his feet, gave him a gentle shove. And damned if Chico didn’t hobble forward, then look up at him with a comically surprised look on his face.

  Mochi, who’d come up to see what he was about, laughed out loud, threw himself to the ground and rolled around in glee.

  Jase glanced at Melanie, who was looking at him like he was some kind of hero.

  “He’s going to need some practice,” he said gruffly, but deep down he was just a little pleased.

  Mochi immediately started training the puppy to move forward, engrossed in the task. Jase watched for a few more minutes, then busied himself with the fire.

  When their clothes were semidry, at least not dripping, he handed them out. After they all got dressed, he put away Chico’s peg leg—didn’t want to hurt the puppy by having it on too long too soon—then led Melanie and the boy back to the path. They backtracked to their original trail that went straight north and followed that.

  He kept his eyes open. Whoever had squeezed off that shot earlier could be far away by now—it was a big jungle—but still…

  “Let’s keep as quiet as we can,” he told the others, hoping the puppy would mind his words, too.

  He kept listening for any unusual, out-of-place noises. But peeling his ears didn’t help much. The birds and the bugs were loud enough to drown out most everything else. There could be people ahead of them on the trail, and he wouldn’t know it until they practically bumped into each other.

  Since they were pushing through a thicker patch of vegetation again, visibility was maybe six feet. He marched forward quietly, all his senses alert, until they reached the area from where he thought the gunshot might have had originated.

  He stopped, looking for any sign of an ambush waiting ahead. He glanced up at the tall trees around them and shot Mochi a questioning look. Mochi grinned at him, immediately understanding his meaning. As bad as his circumstances were, Mochi smiled more than anyone Jase had ever seen. He appreciated that about the kid. He was a tough little guy, for sure. He was going to be a great warrior someday.

  He gave Mochi a boost up the tree and the boy took it from there. The kid could have outclimbed a monkey. He weighed practically nothing and his limbs were flexible. And he had no fear, apparently, which helped a great deal.

  Jase put his gear down and stood ready to catch him should the boy slip, although he didn’t expect that to happen. The boy stopped when he was about forty feet up, and looked around in every direction. Then he pointed straight ahead.

  Jase signaled to him to come back down.

  “How many?” he asked Mochi in Spanish, after the boy landed in the soft leaf mold, jumping from the lowest branch, and bounced back up to his feet.

  “Many.” Mochi puffed out his chest, apparently very proud of himself for the well-done recon mission.

  Of course, many could mean absolutely anything. Jase had met natives who had only three counting words: one, two and many. The government didn’t even attempt to educate the forest-dwelling Indians. And they sure didn’t trust any fancy white man’s learning, anyway. They had the skills they needed to survive. If they wanted anything from outsiders, it was to be left alone.

  “This many?” Jase held up all five fingers on his right hand.

  Mochi rapidly nodded, smiling wide.

  “Or this many?” Jase added the fingers of the other hand.

  Mochi kept nodding.

  Great.

  Jase gave Melanie the machete, then put his backpack back on and grabbed his gun, kept it out as he started down the path. He wanted to see what exactly they faced, so he knew how wide a berth to give the men when they went around them.

  “You better fall a little behind,” he told the others. “If anyone starts shooting at us, I’ll return fire. You take off running and keep on running. Do you understand?”

  Melanie nodded, concern on a face that was steadily improving, probably from Mochi’s mushroom treatment. She glanced at the boy.

  “Don’t you worry about him,” Jase told her. “He can keep up and then some. If I don’t come right away, just watch what he eats and where he drinks. Whatever he does, you just copy him. He knows the jungle.”

  Not that he planned on engaging anyone in a fight. He hoped to scout out the enemy, then find a way around them.

  But the more he progressed, the shakier that plan seemed. Soon he could smell the smoke from at least two dozen fires. He could hear voices. He signaled to Melanie and Mochi to pull off the trail, hide in the bushes and stay still. Then he stole forward on his own, crawling the last few yards on his stomach.

  What he saw when he got close enough sobered him quickly. Their path wasn’t blocked by a small group of poachers or rival drug runners or loggers. The men, way too many of them, all wore gray uniforms with the familiar red insignia on their armbands. The Republican Army. Soldiers were spread out as far as the eye could see in every direction.

  He considered this new bit of intelligence carefully.

  The chances of them being here at this spot at this time on a random military exercise were slim to none. Most likely, their presence had something to do with the drug wars. Either the government had gotten wind of the fight and sent the troops in to take out both Don Pedro and Cristobal in the same offensive, or one of those crime bosses had bought enough politicians to send in the troops to take out his enemy.

  Either way, the jungle crawling with soldiers made everything much more difficult. At the very least, going around the troops was going to add miles to their trek, which was the dead-last thing they needed.

  Chapter Eight

  Melanie plodded forward, wet and miserable.

  “Do you want me to carry the puppy?” she asked Mochi in a mixture of Spanish and hand gestures, but the boy shook his head.

  Just as well. Her feet felt like lead. Not that the puppy would have added much weight. She liked the wiggling fur ball. She shuffled on, trying not to show how tired she was. Jase called for too many breaks on her account. If she slowed them down any more, they would never get to their destination. Bad enough that the detour would add another day to their journey.

  They marched on until nightfall, which came way too fast. Then Jase set about making them a campsite to spend the night, starting with a fire. She helped as much as she could, then sat down once her back started to hurt. She patted her belly as her son shifted.

  “Are you okay?” Jase asked immediately as he rummaged through his bag for their dinner.

  “Baby is kicking. Let’s hope he finds a more comfortable spot for himself tonight. He spent last night sitting on my kidney.”

  He blinked, an uncomfortable expression crossing his face. His mouth opened, then closed as he cleared his throat, obviously unsure how to respond.

  “Sorry.” She flashed him an apologetic smile. “I was planning to have my girlfriends around me at this stage.” She missed not being able to talk to anyone about all the things she was experiencing, not being able to compare notes.

  If there was a time in a woman’s life when she needed her friends around her, pregnancy was it.

  “It’s okay.” Jase pushed the bag aside, then moved to make some herbal tea to go with their meal. “You’ll be fine.”

  “Will we?” Suddenly she felt an overpowering need for reassurance. “This is not how I pictured it. I had plans…” She blinked back a rush of tears. Hormones brought them on at the most inopportune moments.

  He left the water to boil and came over to her, took her hands. He rubbed a callused thumb over the back of her fingers. She soaked up the comforting touch, then she turned his hand over. His palm was a mess of blisters and calluses. He’d been working that machete hour after hour, every single day.

  He didn’t seem to notice. His full attention was focused on her. “Stress is probably the worst thing for both you and the baby at this stage.
I know it’s rough, but if you can, just try to roll with the punches. You made it this far. It’s almost over.”

  He was right. She nodded.

  “I know this is not what you’re used to, but it’s everyday business to the native tribes. Millions of women walked through endless woods like this through history, carrying their babies. And the overwhelming majority of those babies were born in good health.” He gave a flat smile. “Well, that’s what I tell myself, anyway, when the urge comes to freak out completely. I don’t have all that much experience with this.”

  She smiled back and nodded. At that moment she wouldn’t have traded his company for any number of girlfriends.

  “I’m going to keep you safe,” he said. “I’m going to make sure this turns out all right.” His gaze bore into hers.

  “You’re good at this rescue thing, you know that? Maybe you should change specialties.”

  He shook his head. “Not my strength. It’s better to keep a little distance when you’re a professional soldier. I get too involved. I get carried away.”

  “You have a weakness? No way,” she teased.

  “It’s okay to have a weak spot, as long as you’re aware of it so you can work around it.”

  She knew all about weak spots. “I was going to save myself, for once. I was going to escape and walk to safety. I swore that I wasn’t going to need anyone to take care of me again.”

  “How about you start that quest for complete independence when you get back home?”

  “I can take care of myself, you know,” she said, her defenses rising.

  “I know you can.”

  Huh? Nobody had told her that before. She looked at him with some suspicion, wondering if he was just humoring her, but his expression seemed earnest.

  “I don’t even doubt that you could walk out of the jungle by yourself,” he said after a moment. “The research station is not that far. You know the direction. There’s plenty of rainwater to drink, and a person can go days without food.”

  That’s right. She sat up a little straighter on her log. She could.