Spy Hard Read online

  “Can you see me?”

  “Yes.” She could have jumped up and thrown herself into his arms, she was so happy. But she was well aware what she must have looked like—both body and face swollen out of proportion. So she pulled back instead and closed her eyes to give them a moment of rest from the light.

  Then stole a glance again.

  This time, her gaze dipped below his face and she registered the rest of his body. He had his shirt off, and soon she could see why. He’d been in the process of pulling a leech off his abdomen. The flat plane of his belly, those ridges of muscle… Hot need punched through her suddenly and caught her off guard, need she hadn’t felt since Julio had died.

  A completely out-of-place reaction.

  How embarrassing.

  Dappled sunlight glinted off Jase’s tanned skin. A drop of moisture from the branches above landed on his shoulder and ran down, following the contours of his muscles. He looked like a jungle god, while she…

  Melanie pushed to her feet and walked away from him before he could notice her ogling him and she embarrassed herself completely.

  “I’ll make a fire and we’ll eat here,” he called after her. He had his shirt back on by the time she turned around. Then he repeated his words in Spanish for Mochi’s sake, a little louder so as to be heard over Chico, who had started barking at the bushes.

  Mochi simply smiled in response, his standard answer to pretty much everything. Not that the boy seemed fond of the camp food that kept coming from Jase’s backpack. He preferred fruit he climbed to get himself, and fat white grubs he dug from under the bark of fallen, decomposing trees. He sucked those down as fast as American kids did candy. He didn’t seem to understand why Melanie turned down his offer to share each time, but he didn’t seem offended. As far as he was concerned, that meant more for him and the puppy.

  Jase moved around their small campsite to collect wood. She went to help him, but before she could pick up the first fallen branch, he froze and lifted a hand in warning, his other hand going for his weapon.

  Stopping half-bent like that sent a bolt of pain shooting across her lower back. She straightened slowly and stepped back to the edge of the clearing, sank down on a large rock as she listened for any suspicious noise and scanned the forest around them.

  Then she did catch some leaves moving in a patch of bushes, in the direction when Jase was staring. She held her breath, not knowing what to expect. The picture of an attacking jaguar flashed in her mind, but when the branches suddenly parted, Alejandro stepped out of his green hiding place.

  The man held two guns, one aimed at Jase, the other aimed at her. A terrifying grin spread on his face.

  Chapter Seven

  “What the hell did you do to her?” Alejandro’s eyes narrowed as he gave Melanie a double-take, his face twisting into a grimace.

  Not the sort of comment a girl could take as a compliment. She had the sudden urge to cover her face, but the moment didn’t allow for vanity. She scanned the ground, her gaze coming to rest on the machete, about equal distance between her and Jase. He only had eyes for Alejandro, the two men squaring off, weapons aimed.

  “You yellow-bellied bastard.” The man spit on the ground. “You ran from the fight.”

  “So did you,” Jase pointed out with a shrug. “It’s between the bosses. I came here to make a decent living without being harassed by the policía every day like I was in the city. Why should we have to die just because those two bosses decided to squabble, eh, amigo? We go someplace else,” he said, immediately reverting to camp talk. “How about that? You come with us. Plenty of bosses in the jungle. Plenty of work.”

  “I ain’t no traitor.” Alejandro spat again. “I’m here to bring Don Pedro’s woman back to him.” He glanced at her again, but couldn’t quite do it without wincing.

  How had he caught up to them so fast? Well, okay, she definitely slowed Jase down. Quite a bit. But still. This meant that Pedro must have noticed that she’d gone missing shortly after Jase had broken them out. And Roberto had probably remembered that Jase had been up in her room before. Maybe they’d put two and two together.

  The man kicked at Chico—who barked at his feet, having somehow escaped his leash—but missed. Mochi ran over to scoop the dog up and carried it to a safe distance.

  “No gringo bastard will outsmart me,” Alejandro growled at Jase. Then he gestured with the gun he held on Melanie. “Up. Get over here. You, too,” he told the boy.

  She stayed where she sat. “I can’t. I’m too exhausted. Everything hurts.” God’s honest truth.

  The man scowled at her. “Try harder. I’m here to save you from this hombre.”

  For a second she didn’t know what he was talking about, then realized that he thought Jase had kidnapped her. Don Pedro had probably made that claim to save face. He would never admit that she’d run away from him. But if Alejandro took her back, Pedro would punish her in private, about that she had no doubt.

  The last thing she wanted was to be saved from Jase, but she kept her mouth shut. Maybe she could use the fact that Alejandro thought she was here under duress to her advantage.

  She made a show of pushing herself up. Groaned. She rubbed the side of her belly. “I don’t think this is good for the baby.” She sank back down. “I can’t do it. Sorry. I need time to rest. He’s been pushing me too hard.”

  Instead of going to Alejandro as ordered, Mochi moved closer to Melanie.

  The man’s scowl darkened. He hesitated, probably weighing his options. He had to know that if anything happened to the baby while he brought Melanie back to camp, Pedro would blame him.

  “We’ll wait,” he said after a long, tension-filled second.

  He stepped closer to Jase, but still held the second gun on her. Either he wasn’t 100 percent sure about Pedro’s claims of her kidnapping, or he figured that if Jase cared enough about her to kidnap her, he might be kept in check with threats to her life.

  The weapon in his right hand was aimed straight between Jase’s eyes. “Drop your gun right now.”

  Jase didn’t move.

  She hadn’t thought he would. He wouldn’t allow himself to be disarmed that easily. She reached out and grabbed Mochi’s arm, pulled the boy and the puppy closer, ready to roll behind the large rock she was sitting on if bullets started flying.

  Alejandro’s finger twitched on the trigger.

  Jase dropped and rolled in the blink of an eye, ducking behind a tree.

  She slid behind the rock at the same time, pulling Mochi and the puppy with her. The baby kicked inside her, protesting the sudden movement. She kept her head down as she patted her belly. Everything’s going to be okay, she told herself, and tried to keep her breathing steady, tried not to give way to panic.

  “You better be ready to die,” Alejandro shouted to Jase from behind a fallen log, the words followed by some choice obscenities. “Don Pedro doesn’t forgive. And I don’t either. You stole that kid from me.”

  Jase didn’t respond. And as Melanie popped up for a quick peek, she could no longer see him in the spot behind the palm tree.

  “Show yourself!” Alejandro screamed, enraged, as if he, too, just noticed that his opponent had gone missing.

  He got no response. An eerie silence settled on the jungle around them. The shouting had quieted the animals around. They were smart enough to sense the danger in the air.

  Melanie kept hidden. But she could hear as Alejandro began moving, making the bushes rustle. A minute passed before she realized that the man was moving toward her. Still, when his head popped out from behind the leafy branches, she gave a startled cry. Then he lunged forward and landed next to her behind the rock, got down immediately, holding his gun ready.

  She crouched low, unsure whether she could get up without help. Jumping up and running away from the man was out of the question. She held Mochi’s arm to make sure the boy wouldn’t bolt, either. She wouldn’t have put it past Alejandro to shoot at the kid.

&nbs
p; He called out again without showing himself. Smarter than he looked, obviously. “I got the woman and the kid. How you gonna sell them now?” He jeered. “I got your money.”

  Mochi burrowed his head against her shoulder, obviously scared of Alejandro as he’d never been of Jase, making her wonder if the man next to them had given the boy reason to fear him. She folded her arms around the little boy who’d stolen his way into her heart with his cheerful smiles and resilience. Nobody would hurt Mochi, not if she had anything to do with it.

  Then something moved in the bushes to their right.

  Alejandro aimed his gun that way. She held Mochi closer, her heart lurching into a mad rhythm.

  Oh, God, don’t let Jase get hurt.

  Endless minutes ticked by. No other movement or sound came from that direction. It might have been just a snake or some other small animal.

  Maybe Jase had taken off. The dark thought hit her out of nowhere. Mochi and she had nothing to do with his mission. Saving them was nothing but an inconvenient detour for him. He didn’t have to risk his life for two strangers.

  One of whom had been less than grateful, admittedly. She’d stolen his supplies and left him in the jungle just this morning. She’d been nothing but trouble, slowing him down, mistrusting him.

  Yet, something deep inside her told her that he wouldn’t abandon them. Ridiculous. She hardly knew the man well enough to predict what he would or wouldn’t do.

  She peeked over the rock and looked at the machete again, at least six feet away, out in the open. Too far. The second she moved, Alejandro would pull her back.

  She glanced at Mochi on her other side and caught him looking at the machete as well, pulling away from her. She tightened her hold on him. No way would she let the boy risk his life. They would wait for a better opportunity to break away.

  Mochi sent her a pleading look. She gave her head a barely perceptible shake. The boy sat back on his heels, understanding the message. But a minute later he was pulling away from her again, inching toward the bushes behind him.

  She was ready to stop the boy, but then noticed at last what had gotten his attention this time. A line of ants was marching along the layers and layers of dead leaves that covered the ground. The small, reddish insects moved in an endless line, one following the other.

  She had no trouble recognizing them: fire ants. She’d seen them in Texas growing up, had been taught to avoid them since their stings hurt like the devil.

  She knew from one of the lectures her older sisters had given her that once the first ant bit, it sent some signal to the others and they all attacked at once, en masse. She pulled as far from the line as possible without drawing Alejandro’s attention. She had enough painful stings already.

  Mochi silently placed a small stick in their path. After a moment of confusion and a minor pile-up, the ants crawled over it.

  She glanced at Alejandro, but the man was busy scanning their surroundings for a sign of Jase, his gun ready to shoot the second he spotted his enemy.

  She went back to watching Mochi from the corner of her eye, careful not to direct Alejandro’s attention to him. The boy picked up the stick and gouged a line in the ground, filled it with water from his canteen. The ants didn’t like the water. They went around that.

  Which seemed to make the boy happy. He extended the miniature ditch all the way to Alejandro’s boots. While the man stared straight forward, Mochi poured out the rest of his water, creating a handy little moat. And there the ants went, looking for a way around the water, marching toward Alejandro.

  They reached his boots pretty quickly. Since that was a dry land obstacle, their tactic was to climb it. Up and up in a neat row. They couldn’t get into the man’s pants. He’d tucked in his pant legs as anyone who knew anything about the jungle did, but up they climbed onto his back, until they reached his collar. Then in they went, one after the other.

  Mochi shot her a pleased, impish smile.

  She gave him a big grin.

  They waited, looking anywhere but at the man. She didn’t want him to suddenly turn and catch her staring, and realize that they were up to something. An agonizing minute passed. Then suddenly Alejandro jerked and whacked his back with his free hand. And then the next second, he was jumping up and vaulting over the log, dropping his second gun so he could rip his shirt off as he swore like a bandit.

  For a moment nothing else moved, and her fears that Jase had left seemed confirmed. But then he swung out of the trees on a jungle vine, knocking Alejandro off his feet, and she started to breathe again.

  The two tangled in a snarl of limbs, each trying to get the upper hand. They both still had their guns, so she stayed in cover and kept Mochi with her in case one of the men got off a shot and it went wide. But Jase had Alejandro’s right wrist in a firm grip, and Alejandro had Jase’s. Since they couldn’t use their weapons, they butted heads, kicked, elbowed and generally tried to break each other’s ribs instead.

  Alejandro rolled Jase over a small pile of sharp rocks that ripped his pants. And his skin, she realized a second later when she saw red spreading on the fabric. Jase barely grunted at the injury. He focused completely on his enemy as the two rolled toward the creek.

  Then rolled right into the rapid water.

  Jase held Alejandro’s head under for a long minute, before Alejandro heaved him off and returned the favor. And kept Jase under way too long. A dark, demented smile began spreading on the man’s face.

  She worked herself up to her knees, fear coursing through her, quickly growing into panic. The fight between the two men would decide her fate. And Alejandro looked to be winning. She couldn’t bear thinking what would happen to her, to her baby, to Mochi…

  No, a determined voice bubbled up from somewhere deep inside her. You can take control.

  For a second, she fought that voice. That she could do anything in the current situation sounded crazy. She wasn’t like Jase, hadn’t been trained for this, had never been in a fight in her life.

  But hadn’t she resolved to take charge of her life?

  Then do it.

  So this was a rough situation. Yes, she had a better than good chance of getting hurt. But the price of remaining passive was even greater.

  She gestured to Mochi to stay put, hoping he would understand what her upheld palm meant. Then she slipped around the rock as quietly as she could with her big belly, went for the machete and hid it behind her back. She approached the men from behind.

  And then she was close enough, had made it to within reach. Alejandro was too focused on Jase to notice her.

  So far so good. Now what? She balked at the actual violence part of the deal.

  She didn’t dare use the blade. If she missed Alejandro, she could easily slice something off Jase. But she had to do something. She’d gotten this far. She was going to fight, dammit.

  She lifted the weapon over her head, meaning to bring the handle down hard on the back of Alejandro’s head and knock him out, except Jase had made his move at the same second and came up from the water to roll Alejandro under again.

  So the butt of the machete glanced off Alejandro’s cheek, and she hit Jase in the eye with all her strength. She could have easily blinded him but, thank God, the machete had a wide handle and his cheekbone took the brunt of the hit.

  Alejandro roared and shoved her back, into the water, then went for Jase, but the sound of a gunshot had him whipping his head in the direction of the sound. That moment of hesitation was enough for Jase to wrest control of the situation again.

  He grabbed Alejandro, going for the man’s throat.

  Melanie struggled to stand, but her feet kept slipping, her considerable weight pulling her back. She floundered in the middle of the creek where the water was deeper and the current swifter. Swift enough to move her.

  She stifled a moan of panic, but Jase heard her anyway and looked at her.

  Alejandro used the distraction and tore away from him, lurching toward the opposite bank.


  She struggled for control. “I’m fine.”

  Jase threw himself after the man.

  Then the hand she braced herself with slipped and she suddenly lost the fight. The rapid flow of water washed her downcreek. She did her best to protect her belly with her arms, cried out on instinct, without meaning to. “Jase!”

  The current rolled her to the side and she swallowed some water, her ungainly body impossible to maneuver.

  * * *

  JASE GAVE UP on Alejandro immediately and leapt back into the water, sloshed to where she struggled with the current. He pulled her up carefully, making sure she didn’t slip again, didn’t hit her belly. “Are you all right? Where are you hurt?”

  He looked for cuts and bruises, silently swearing at himself for not paying closer attention to her. She could have been hurt. Her baby could have been…

  It was the first time he thought of the baby as a real person instead of a remote concept. A baby that might have her eyes. The thought made him feel all weird.

  “He’s getting away!” She pulled away from him to point at the spot where Alejandro was running for the bushes on the opposite bank. He no longer had his weapon. Must have dropped it in the water. He dove into the forest, and judging by the way the branches were moving, he didn’t stop. Probably heading back to camp.

  Jase grabbed his gun and aimed. Too late. The dense vegetation swallowed his target. He didn’t want to squeeze the trigger blindly. He hadn’t forgotten that shot in the distance earlier. Better not draw attention to himself until he knew who was out there.

  He helped Melanie to shore, careful that she wouldn’t slip again and hurt herself. He tried not to notice how nice it felt to have her tucked into his arms. She fit perfectly.

  “So do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?” he asked, not knowing why exactly, as he tugged her toward dry ground. Her baby was none of his business.

  “Boy.” She smiled even as she gasped for air and braced her back, dripping wet and leaning on him. “I’m going to name him William. For my grandfather.”