seen.
He couldn’t relate to a life that sheltered.
He was drying off when he heard a crash come from the bedroom. He didn’t stop to dress, just burst through the door without thought, ready for fighting. He swore viciously at the sight that greeted him.
Zak was tied up on the bed, a rag in his mouth keeping him quiet. Megan stood in the middle of the room, dressed in shorts and a black tank top, boots on, hair pulled back into a no-nonsense ponytail, looking like the lead character in a kick-butt video game. A fierce scar ran from her ear to her throat, a pink line her tumbling locks had covered up until now.
All uncertainty was gone from her fiery amber eyes, all paleness gone from her face as she glared at Mitch and pointed his own gun at him. She held a matching weapon in her other hand.
Where did she get that from? “Put them down,” he ordered.
Instead, she stepped closer.
“Who are you?”
“Who are you?” She turned the question on him. “Definitely not a hiker from Panama.” She shoved one weapon into the back of her waistband, pulled a plastic cuff from her back pocket—one she had to have stolen from his backpack—then gestured toward the water pipes in the bathroom behind him.
“No.” He measured the distance between them, judging it too great to be covered in a single leap. He was going for it anyway.
Or not.
She squeezed off a shot that passed so close to his ear he could feel the wind of the bullet.
“Hey, all right.” He stepped back, knowing no help would be coming. In a place like this, people knew enough to walk away from gunfire, not toward it.
She tossed him the plastic tie. “The pipe.”
He took a step back, held his left hand up to the pipe and cuffed himself to it. He swore under his breath, not taking his eyes off her for a second. He’d been had. He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.
What in hell had he been thinking? But of course, he hadn’t been thinking at all. She’d short-circuited his brain the moment she’d stepped into that clearing.
He flashed her his most lethal glare. “The money I have on me ain’t worth it, honey. I’m going to track you down. That’s a promise.”
She gave him a cocky smile, keeping her gaze above his shoulders, then turned away, leaving him handcuffed and naked.
But if he thought this was about cash, he realized his mistake a second later when she untied Zak roughly and yanked him to his feet, not paying any attention to the boy’s muffled groaning.
“You let him be,” Mitch ordered on a voice that usually brought results.
She didn’t even bother with a backward glance as she shoved Zak out the door. The next thing Mitch heard was the door slamming behind them and the key turning.
The sound of a car’s motor coming to life reached his ears a minute later, as he desperately searched the bathroom for a tool that could set him free. Under his breath, he cursed Megan Cassidy—if that was her real name—a hundred different ways, each singularly inventive.
Chapter Three
The rumble of the ancient motor drowned out the sounds of the rain forest, but not the strange noises the kid made behind the gag.
“Are you going to keep quiet if I take it off?” Megan glanced over as she drove the geriatric pickup down an uneven dirt road that cut through the jungle.
Zak glared at her and sounded as if he were trying to swear around the cloth.
“Then I’m sorry, but you’re going to stay this way.” Not that she enjoyed making anyone uncomfortable on purpose.
But he could breathe. She was going to save herself from having to listen to more of the threats and the names he’d called her when she’d tried to take out the gag the first time. She wasn’t going to put up with that from some two-bit drug dealer who got on Juarez’s bad side.
She didn’t know who he was and she didn’t care. All she cared about was returning him to the boss and getting that next promotion, the next level of trust that would allow her to accompany Juarez to the meeting at Don Pedro’s hidden stronghold next week.
The logging road she was on was about to end, which meant they would have to hoof it thirty miles south to the next passable road she knew, the one she’d left her ATV on before she cut through the jungle to cut off the kid at the river. She had figured that would be the way he would go if he knew anything.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t found him alone, which had required some quick thinking and cost her a lot of wasted time. Mitch was … Never mind that. She didn’t have all the details and she didn’t need them, not even if he had the most amazing body she’d ever seen and the most dangerous bedroom eyes she could imagine. Juarez’s orders were only for the kid.
She drove to the point where the jungle became impassable, left the pickup and shoved Zak forward on the foot trail ahead. His head was red with fury as he dragged his feet.
She shoved him harder. “I’d prefer if you walked. It’s easier than dragging a dead body over terrain like this. Of course, the boss probably wouldn’t want the whole body.”
She pretended to ponder the point then put a smile on her face. “As long as I take some vital organ that proves you’re dead, it should be enough for him.”
The kid’s eyes went wide. He picked up the pace.
She undid the snaps at her hips and rolled down her pant legs, transforming her shorts to long cargo pants, the bottom of which she tucked into her boots to keep herself safe from bugs and scratches. Then she pulled a light shirt from her backpack, completing her preparations for the jungle. And she did it all on the go, without missing a step.
She kept an eye on their surroundings as they pushed ahead, looking for anything edible, alert to possible danger. “Watch for snakes on or near the trail. And poison frogs.”
Her stomach growled for the meal they’d missed at that guesthouse. The small chunk of bread and goat cheese they’d eaten after crossing the river hadn’t been nearly enough. But she didn’t have time to leave the trail and forage right now. Night would be falling soon, and before that happened, she had to find a place to camp and make a platform that would keep them off the ground while they slept.
Even a raised bed didn’t guarantee that they wouldn’t awake with a snake or a tarantula up their pant leg, but at least it would improve the odds in their favor. Regardless of what she’d threatened the kid with, she intended to take him back to Juarez alive and in one piece.
Which meant they were going to sit the night out. Walking through the jungle after dark was suicide. She wasn’t foolish enough to attempt that. And they both needed rest, anyway. You got tired, you made mistakes.
Then you were no help to anyone.
They walked an hour before she found a good spot, a clearing with bamboo nearby and big-leaf palms that had gathered rainwater she could collect in her safe-filter water bottle. She’d forgotten to fill it at the guesthouse. Okay, not forgotten. But once Mitch had been cuffed to the pipes, it hadn’t seemed too smart to go near the sink.
She wasn’t going to think of the way she’d left him. Naked.
She’d almost dropped her guns when he’d busted out of that bathroom, all muscles and tanned skin.
“Here.” She hung her backpack on a branch and used her short machete to cut enough bamboo for a double bed and enough vines to suspend it. When she was done, she pulled the rag from Zak’s mouth.
“Keep quiet,” she ordered before she showed him what she wanted him to do. “I’d recommend you do a good job. You don’t want to sleep on the ground here, believe me.”