Then, abruptly, his weight struck her in the side, bowling her over, and she barely bit off the instinctive scream that surged up from her throat. She didn’t have a chance. She tried automatically to kick him in the throat, but he moved like lightning, blocking her attack. Then a hard blow to her arm numbed it all the way to her elbow, and a split second later she was thrown to the floor, a knee pressing into her chest and making it impossible to breathe.
The man raised his arm and Jane tensed, willing now to scream, but unable to make a sound. Then, suddenly, the man paused, and for some reason lifted his weight from her chest. Air rushed into her lungs, along with a dizzying sense of relief, then she felt his hand moving boldly over her breasts and realized why he’d shifted position. Both terrified and angry that this should be happening to her, she moved instinctively the split second she realized his vulnerability, and slashed upward with her knee. He sagged to the side, holding himself, and she felt an absurd sense of pity. Then she realized that he hadn’t even groaned aloud. The man wasn’t human! Choking back a sob of terror, she struggled to her feet and grabbed her supplies, then darted through the open door. At that point she wasn’t escaping from Turego so much as from that dark, silent demon in her room.
Heedlessly, she flung herself across the plantation grounds; her heart was pounding so violently that the sound of her blood pumping through her veins made a roar in her ears. Her lungs hurt, and she realized that she was holding her breath. She tried to remind herself to be quiet, but the urge to flee was too strong for caution; she stumbled over a rough section of ground and sprawled on her hands and knees. As she began scrambling to her feet, she was suddenly overwhelmed by something big and warm, smashing her back to the ground. Cold, pure terror froze her blood in her veins, but before even an instinctive scream could find voice, his hand was on the back of her neck and everything went black.
Jane regained consciousness by degrees, confused by her upside-down position, the jouncing she was suffering, the discomfort of her arms. Strange noises assailed her ears, noises that she tried and failed to identify. Even when she opened her eyes she saw only blackness. It was one of the worst nightmares she’d ever had. She began kicking and struggling to wake up, to end the dream, and abruptly a sharp slap stung her bottom. “Settle down,” an ill-tempered voice said from somewhere above and behind her. The voice was that of a stranger, but there was something in that laconic drawl that made her obey instantly.
Slowly things began to shift into a recognizable pattern, and her senses righted themselves. She was being carried over a man’s shoulder through the jungle. Her wrists had been taped behind her, and her ankles were also secured. Another wide band of tape covered her mouth, preventing her from doing anything more than grunting or humming. She didn’t feel like humming, so she used her limited voice to grunt out exactly what she thought of him, in language that would have left her elegant mother white with shock. A hard hand again made contact with the seat of her pants. “Would you shut the hell up?” he growled. “You sound like a pig grunting at the trough.”
American! she thought, stunned. He was an American! He’d come to rescue her, even though he was being unnecessarily rough about it…or was he a rescuer? Chilled, she thought of all the different factions who would like to get their hands on her. Some of those factions were fully capable of hiring an American mercenary to get her, or of training one of their own to imitate an American accent and win her trust.
She didn’t dare trust anyone, she realized. Not anyone. She was alone in this.
The man stopped and lifted her from his shoulder, standing her on her feet. Jane blinked her eyes, then widened them in an effort to see, but the darkness under the thick canopy was total; she couldn’t see anything. The night pressed in on her, suffocating her with its thick darkness. Where was he? Had he simply dropped her here in the jungle and left her to be breakfast for a jaguar? She could sense movement around her, but no sounds that she could identify as him; the howls and chittering and squawks and rustles of the jungle filled her ears. A whimper rose in her throat, and she tried to move, to seek a tree or something to protect her back, but she’d forgotten her bound feet and she stumbled to the ground, scratching her face on a bush.
A low obscenity came to her ears, then she was roughly grasped and hauled to her feet. “Damn it, stay put!”
So he was still there. How could he see? What was he doing? No matter who he was or what he was doing, at that moment Jane was grateful for his presence. She could not conquer her fear of darkness but the fact that she wasn’t alone held the terror at bay. She gasped as he abruptly lifted her and tossed her over his shoulder again, as effortlessly as if she were a rag doll. She felt the bulk of a backpack, which hadn’t been there before, but he showed no sign of strain. He moved through the stygian darkness with a peculiar sure-footedness, a lithe, powerful grace that never faltered.
Her own pack of pilfered supplies was still slung around her shoulders, the straps holding it even though it had slid down and was bumping against the back of her head. A can of something was banging against her skull; she’d probably have concussion if this macho fool didn’t ease up. What did he think this was, some sort of jungle marathon? Her ribs were being bruised against his hard shoulder, and she felt various aches all over her body, probably as a result of his roughness in throwing her to the floor. Her arm ached to the bone from his blow. Even if this was a real rescue, she thought, she’d be lucky if she lived through it.
She bounced on his shoulder for what seemed like days, the pain in her cramped limbs increasing with every step he took. Nausea began to rise in her, and she took deep breaths in an effort to stave off throwing up. If she began to vomit, with her mouth taped the way it was, she could suffocate. Desperately she began to struggle, knowing only that she needed to get into an upright position.
“Easy there, Pris.” Somehow he seemed to know how she was feeling. He stopped and lifted her off his shoulder, easing her onto her back on the ground. When her weight came down on her bound arms she couldn’t suppress a whimper of pain. “All right,” the man said. “I’m going to cut you loose now, but if you start acting up, I’ll truss you up like a Christmas turkey again and leave you that way. Understand?”
She nodded wildly, wondering if he could see her in the dark. Evidently he could, because he turned her on her side and she felt a knife slicing through the tape that bound her wrists. Tears stung her eyes from the pain as he pulled her arms around and began massaging them roughly to ease her cramped muscles.
“Your daddy sent me to get you out of here,” the man drawled calmly as he began easing the tape off of her mouth. Instead of ripping the adhesive away and taking skin with it, he was careful, and Jane was torn between gratitude and indignation, since he’d taped her mouth in the first place.
Jane moved her mouth back and forth, restoring it to working condition. “My daddy?” she asked hoarsely.
“Yeah. Okay, now, Pris, I’m going to free your legs, but if you look like you’re even thinking about kicking me again, I won’t be as easy with you as I was the last time.” Despite his drawl, there was something menacing in his tone, and Jane didn’t doubt his word.
“I wouldn’t have kicked you the first time if you hadn’t started pawing at me like a high school sophomore!” she hissed.
“I was checking to see if you were breathing.”
“Sure you were, and taking your time about it, too.”
“Gagging you was a damned good idea,” he said reflectively, and Jane shut up. She had yet to see him as anything more than a shadow. She couldn’t even put a name to him, but she knew enough about him to know that he would bind and gag her again without a moment’s compunction.
He cut the tape from around her ankles, and again she was subjected to his rough but effective massage. In only a moment she was being pulled to her feet; she staggered momentarily before regaining her sense of balance.
“We don’t have much farther to go; stay right
behind me, and don’t say a word.”
“Wait!” Jane whispered frantically. “How can I follow you when I can’t see you?”
He took her hand and carried it to his waist. “Hang on to my belt.”
She did better than that. Acutely aware of the vast jungle around her, and with only his presence shielding her from the night terrors, she hooked her fingers inside the waistband of his pants in a death grip. She knotted the material so tightly that he muttered a protest, but she wasn’t about to let go of him.
Maybe it didn’t seem very far to him, but to Jane, being towed in his wake, stumbling over roots and vines that she couldn’t see, it seemed like miles before he halted. “We’ll wait here,” he whispered. “I don’t want to go any closer until I hear the helicopter come in.”
“When will that be?” Jane whispered back, figuring that if he could talk, so could she.
“A little after dawn.”
“When is dawn?”
“Half an hour.”
Still clutching the waistband of his pants, she stood behind him and waited for dawn. The seconds and minutes crawled by, but they gave her the chance to realize for the first time that she’d truly escaped from Turego. She was safe and free…well almost. She was out of his clutches, she was the only one who knew what a close call she’d had. Turego would almost certainly return to the plantation this morning to find that his prisoner had escaped. For a moment she was surprised at her own lack of elation, then she realized that she wasn’t out of danger yet. This man said that her father had sent him, but he hadn’t given her a name or any proof. All she had was his word, and Jane was more than a little wary. Until she was actually on American soil, until she knew beyond any doubt that she was safe, she was going to follow poor George Persall’s ironclad rule: when in doubt, lie.
The man shifted uncomfortably, drawing her attention. “Look, honey, do you think you could loosen up on my pants? Or are you trying to finish the job you started on me with your knee?”
Jane felt the blood rush to her cheeks, and she hastily released her hold. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize,” she whispered. She stood stiffly for a moment, her arms at her sides; then panic began to rise in her. She couldn’t see him in the darkness, she couldn’t hear him breathing, and now that she was no longer touching him, she couldn’t be certain that he hadn’t left her. Was he still there? What if she was alone? The air became thick and oppressive, and she struggled to breathe, to fight down the fear that she knew was unreasonable but that no amount of reason could conquer. Even knowing its source didn’t help. She simply couldn’t stand the darkness. She couldn’t sleep without a light; she never went into a room without first reaching in and turning on the light switch, and she always left her lights on if she knew she would be late returning home. She, who always took extraordinary precautions against being left in the dark, was standing in the middle of a jungle in darkness so complete that it was like being blind.
Her fragile control broke and she reached out wildly, clawing for him, for reassurance that he was still there. Her outstretched fingers touched fabric, and she threw herself against him, gasping in mingled panic and relief. The next second steely fingers grasped her shirt and she was hurled through the air to land flat on her back in the smelly, rotting vegetation. Before she could move, before she could suck air back into her lungs, her hair was pulled back and she felt the suffocating pressure of his knee on her chest again. His breath was a low rasp above her, his voice little more than a snarl “Don’t ever—ever—come at me from behind again.”
Jane writhed, pushing at his knee. After a moment he lifted it, and eased the grip on her hair. Even being thrown over his shoulder had been better than being left alone in the darkness, and she grabbed for him again, catching him around the knees. Automatically he tried to step away from her entangling arms but she lunged for him. He uttered a startled curse, tried to regain his balance, then crashed to the ground.
He lay so still that Jane’s heart plummeted. What would she do if he were hurt? She couldn’t possibly carry him, but neither could she leave him lying there, injured and unable to protect himself. Feeling her way up his body, she scrambled to crouch by his shoulders. “Mister, are you all right?” she whispered, running her hands up his shoulders to his face, then searching his head for any cuts or lumps. There was an elasticized band around his head, and she followed it, her nervous fingers finding an odd type of glasses over his eyes. “Are you hurt?” she demanded again, her voice tight with fear. “Damn it, answer me!”
“Lady,” the man said in a low, furious voice, “you’re crazier than hell. If I was your daddy, I’d pay Turego to keep you!”
She didn’t know him, but his words caused an odd little pain in her chest. She sat silently, shocked that he could hurt her feelings. She didn’t know him, and he didn’t know her—how could his opinion matter? But it did, somehow, and she felt strangely vulnerable.
He eased himself to a sitting position, and when she didn’t say anything, he sighed. “Why did you jump me like that?” he asked in resignation.
“I’m afraid of the dark,” she said with quiet dignity. “I couldn’t hear you breathing, and I can’t see a thing. I panicked. I’m sorry.”
After a moment he said, “All right,” and got to his feet. Bending down, he grasped her wrists and pulled her up to stand beside him. Jane inched a little closer to him.
“You can see because of those glasses you’re wearing, can’t you?” she asked.
“Yeah. There’s not a lot of light, but enough that I can make out where I’m going. Infrared lenses.”
A howler monkey suddenly screamed somewhere above their heads, and Jane jumped, bumping into him. “Got another pair?” she asked shakily.
She could feel him hesitate, then his arm went around her shoulders. “Nope, just these. Don’t worry, Pris, I’m not going to lose you. In another five minutes or so, it’ll start getting light.”
“I’m all right now,” she said, and she was, as long as she could touch him and know that she wasn’t alone. That was the real terror: being alone in the darkness. For years she had fought a battle against the nightmare that had begun when she was nine years old, but at last she had come to accept it, and in the acceptance she’d won peace. She knew it was there, knew when to expect it and what to do to ward it off, and that knowledge gave her the ability to enjoy life again. She hadn’t let the nightmare cripple her. Maybe her methods of combating it were a little unorthodox, but she had found the balance within herself and she was happy with it.
Feeling remarkably safe with that steely arm looped over her shoulders, Jane waited beside him, and in a very short time she found that she could indeed see a little better. Deep in the rain forest there was no brilliant sunrise to announce the day—the sunrise could not be seen from beneath the canopy of vegetation. Even during the hottest noon, the light that reached the jungle floor was dim, filtered through layers of greenery. She waited as the faint gray light slowly became stronger, until she could pick out more of the details of the lush foliage that surrounded her. She felt almost swamped by the plant life. She’d never been in the jungle before; her only knowledge of it came from movies and what little she’d been able to see during the trip upriver to the plantation. During her days at the plantation she’d begun to think of the jungle as a living entity, huge and green, surrounding her, waiting. She had known from the first that to escape she would have to plunge into that seemingly impenetrable green barrier, and she had spent hours staring at it.
Now she was deep within it, and it wasn’t quite what she’d expected. It wasn’t a thick tangle, where paths had to be cut with a machete. The jungle floor was littered with rotting vegetation, and laced with networks of vines and roots, but for all that it was surprisingly clear. Plant life that lingered near the jungle floor was doomed. To compete for the precious light it had to rise and spread out its broad leaves, to gather as much light as it could. She stared at a fern that wasn’t quite a fern;
it was a tree with a buttressed root system, rising to a height of at least eight feet, only at the top it feathered into a fern.
“You can see now,” he muttered suddenly, lifting his arm from her shoulders and stripping off the night-vision goggles. He placed them carefully in a zippered section of his field pack.
Jane stared at him in open curiosity, wishing that the light were better so she could really see him. What she could see gave wing to hundreds of tiny butterflies in her stomach. It would take one brave hombre to meet this man in a dark alley, she thought with a frightened shiver. She couldn’t tell the color of his eyes, but they glittered at her from beneath fierce, level dark brows. His face was blackened, which made those eyes all the brighter. His light-colored hair was far too long, and he’d tied a strip of cloth around his head to keep the hair out of his eyes. He was clad in tiger-striped camouflage fatigues, and he wore the trappings of war. A wicked knife was stuck casually in his belt, and a pistol rode his left hip while he carried a carbine slung over his right shoulder. Her startled eyes darted back up to his face, a strong-boned face that revealed no emotion, though he had been aware of her survey.
“Loaded for bear, aren’t you?” she quipped, eyeing the knife again. For some reason it looked more deadly than either of the guns.
“I don’t walk into anything unprepared,” he said flatly.
Well, he certainly looked prepared for anything. She eyed him again, more warily this time; he was about six feet tall, and looked like…looked like… Her mind groped for and found the phrase. It had been bandied about and almost turned into a joke, but with this man, it was deadly serious. He looked like a lean, mean, fighting machine, every hard, muscled inch of him. His shoulders looked to be a yard wide, and he’d carried her dead weight through the jungle without even a hint of strain. He’d knocked her down twice, and she realized the only reason she wasn’t badly hurt was that, both times, he’d tempered his strength.