wait!” Ivy started toward the door of the bus, but was abruptly halted when the thick mud refused to release her foot. Staring in desperation at the retreating bus, she gave her foot a yank. With a sucking sound, it pulled free from the slip-on sandal, which remained entrapped in the churning muck. Ivy grimaced as she half ran, half hopped after the bus.
“Wait! My suitcase!” Grasping her overnight bag in one arm, she frantically waved her free arm, but knew the likelihood of the bus driver’s seeing her was slim to none.
When the bus finally vanished into the driving rain and surrounding forest, Ivy stopped, her shoulders sagging in defeat. Great. Her larger suitcase had contained the majority of her clothing and cosmetics. The smaller suitcase, now lying open to the elements like a split melon, held mostly her underclothes, nightwear and three swimsuits.
Peering through the torrent, she saw she’d been deposited at the beginning of a narrow road that was little more than a rutted path through the dense undergrowth. A low stone wall curving alongside it was the only other sign of civilization. The bus driver had said this was Pancho Viejo, but there wasn’t so much as a shanty in sight. How was she supposed to get to the hacienda? The passengers who had disembarked before her had seemingly melted into the surrounding vegetation, leaving Ivy completely alone. A hundred different thoughts raced through her mind, each one more disturbing than the last. Impossible as it seemed, the bus had left her in the middle of nowhere. Pushing down her rising panic, Ivy turned back to her suitcase—and stopped dead in her tracks.
Despite the deluge of rain, the man was hard to miss. He was bending over her damaged luggage and it looked as if he was rifling through her belongings.
With a gasp of indignation, Ivy swiped the wet hair back from her eyes and blinked rapidly as the rain pelted her face. If the man was aware of her presence, he gave no indication, and Ivy was torn between confronting him and slinking into the vegetation in hope that he wouldn’t notice her. Were there bandits in Mexico? Or, worse, guerrillas? Surely Finn MacDougall wouldn’t shoot a movie in a dangerous area. Would he?
She wished now she’d spent more time paying attention to world events and less time reading the celebrity pages of the newspaper. Her imagination surged with all kinds of lurid scenarios. She could almost see the headlines: B-List Actress Abducted By Mexican Bandits. Wealthy Director Refuses To Pay Ransom.
As she stood there, uncertain and wary, the man swiveled his head in her direction. With his eyes still on her, he flipped her small suitcase shut, then lifted it and tucked it beneath his arm, pressing it against his body to keep it closed. He rose slowly to his feet. Dark-red mud clung to the suitcase and stained his white shirt, running in rivulets down his pant legs, like blood.
Despite the fact that he stood perfectly still, the air around him thrummed with energy, like the hum of high-voltage current. Even through the downpour, she felt his eyes on her.
She shivered.
They stared at each other for a long moment, before Ivy gestured helplessly at the piece of luggage he carried.
“That’s—that’s my suitcase you have there,” she said, struggling to keep her voice from wobbling. “There’s nothing in it except lingerie. I—I doubt it will fit you.” She had a insane urge to giggle at the idea of this man donning her intimate apparel. When his expression didn’t change, she instantly sobered. “But you can keep it if you want to.”
He didn’t answer—he probably didn’t even speak English. His black hair was long and framed a jaw covered by at least two days’ worth of dark growth. He reached up and pushed his fingers through his hair to slick it back from his square forehead. Rain sluiced down the chiseled planes of his face and glistened on his cheekbones and throat. His soaked white shirt was plastered against his body. Through the thin material, she could see every ridge of muscle that layered his chest and stomach.
The wet fabric emphasized the wide thrust of his shoulders and the impressive bulge of his biceps as he held her suitcase. He wore a pair of khaki cargo pants, also soaked, that hugged his trim hips and strong thighs.
He bent to where her sandal was anchored in the mud and plucked it free. Dangling it from the end of one finger, he began walking toward her.
Ivy shifted her weight. The toes of her bare foot squished in the soggy ground and her wet clothing clung to her skin, but she barely noticed. She hugged her overnight bag tighter against her chest and watched him approach. He had a slightly uneven gait, but she couldn’t tell if he was limping or he was compensating for the awkward suitcase he carried.
Despite his dark hair and tanned skin, he didn’t really look like a bandit. At least, he didn’t look like the Mexican bandits she’d seen in any Hollywood movie, unless you counted Zorro, she amended silently.
The guy was a total hunk.
As he drew closer, she realized he was bigger than she’d first thought. It wasn’t so much his height—he was probably just over six feet—but he radiated strength. He could probably bench-press her with one hand and never break a sweat.
She swallowed hard.
He stopped less than a foot away, and it was only then that she noted there wasn’t anything remotely Mexican about him. Unless, of course, you counted his eyes, which were such a light shade of brown that they reminded Ivy of Aztec gold. As she stared at him, something stirred deep in her subconscious—a recognition of sorts. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but his eyes disturbed her. And right now, they were traveling over her in a way that could only be called predatory.
Hungry.
Ivy shivered and her heart rate kicked into overdrive. Her breathing quickened and she was acutely conscious of a fight-or-flight response surfacing within her. But even more alarming was her awareness of the male appreciation in this man’s heated eyes, and that secretly she thrilled to it.
As his gaze traveled lazily over her, a small voice urged her to neither fight nor flee, but surrender willingly to whatever it was he might have in mind for her.
2
GARRETT STOKES KNEW he made her nervous, but, damn, he couldn’t stop staring at her. He knew he should introduce himself, assure her that Finn Mac-Dougall had sent him to transport her to the Hacienda la Esperanza. But the ability to form words had suddenly abandoned him. Seeing Ivy James in the flesh exceeded every erotic fantasy he’d ever had about her, and he’d had his share.
She stood watching him with a mixture of apprehension and curiosity in her wide eyes. The rain plastered her dark hair to her head in a sleek cap, while her clothing had taken on the appearance of wet tissue paper. Too bad she’d shifted her overnight bag around to her front. He’d really appreciated the view before she’d hidden her body from his sight.
She was taller than he remembered, and more slender, but her eyes were what really did it to him. Looking into them was like having somebody sucker punch him in the gut.
He felt winded and a little weak.
He couldn’t recall having had this reaction to her the first time he’d seen her two years earlier. Then again, he’d been too busted up and hazy from the pain meds they’d given him to feel much of anything. But his own injuries had been insignificant compared with those of the soldier in the bed next to his at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Devon James had been a tank gunner deployed with the 10th Marine Regiment in Iraq when an IED—an improvised explosive device—had hit his convoy. The explosion had taken his right arm and shredded his body. He’d lain in bed with wires and tubes protruding from what remained of him.
On Devon’s second day at Walter Reed, his sister had arrived at the hospital, pale but determined, reassuring her brother that he’d be okay. Devon had been conscious, but heavily sedated. Through the gap in the curtain that had separated their beds, Garrett had observed her. Even in his own foggy state, he’d thought her beautiful. Her calm demeanor had been so impressive; he’d almost believed she could be right and that her brother would survive. But when she’d left