Dangerous to Hold Page 12

  Sarah’s first instinct was as old as time. A feminine response to the danger she sensed in the man stripping her with his eyes. She lifted her arms, intending to shield herself. Then a second urge—as old as, and even more powerful than, the first—gripped her. The woman in her responded to his hunger, and an answering need shivered down her spine.

  She’d been ashamed for so long. Of her complicity in another woman’s tragic attempt to end her life. Of her inability to deal with the relentless media in Washington, who’d hounded her every move. Of her own ineptness during these weeks in Cartoza. Jack’s hot male look stripped away her shame and doubt and fear. What was left was basic. Elemental. Cleansing in its raw power. Whatever else she might or might not be, whatever strengths or inadequacies she possessed, Sarah Chandler was a woman.

  Her arms dropped to her sides. Slowly she straightened her shoulders.

  Jake held himself rigidly still. A bead of sweat rolled down his cheek. Hard and aching, he fought the urge to stalk around the pool, haul her up, and carry her into the jungle. More than he’d ever wanted anything in his life, Jake wanted to see her on a bed of green springy ferns, her white legs spread and a woman’s smile of welcome in her luminous blue-green eyes. He ached to lose himself in the damp valley between her thighs.

  She couldn’t know, he thought savagely. She couldn’t know how that wet shirt clung to her skin. She couldn’t know what the sight of her beautiful body did to a man. She couldn’t have any idea of the searing lust that blazed in his belly.

  Or could she?

  The vague, unspecified tension that had kept him awake most of the night sharpened into a sudden, gut-wrenching doubt. He stared at Sarah a moment longer, then forced himself to turn away. He moved slowly, as if the smallest step pained him—which it did.

  “Here,” he said brusquely, handing Eduard the canteen he’d forgotten to leave with him earlier. “The pool water is probably safe, but there’s no need to take chances.”

  He left the clearing without looking at Sarah again. He didn’t have to. Her image hovered in front of him as he retraced his steps down the trail and rejoined Xavier. With each step, suspicion curled in Jake’s mind like a damp, pervasive mist. Just what exactly did he know about Sister Sarah Josepha?

  Suppressing the aching male need that had gripped him the moment he saw her wrapped in that wet blouse, Jake forced himself to step back and assess the situation. Methodically, ruthlessly, he reviewed every moment since he’d parted those damn palmettos and seen her white, terrified face staring back at him. Had he missed something vital, something he should have seen?

  He’d shrugged off her stumbling Spanish with the explanation that she was new to the area, not long in country. That made sense. The dialect used here in the mountains was difficult even for Cartoza’s coastal city dwellers to understand, let alone outsiders.

  He’d understood when she gritted her teeth and treated the minor ills of the men in the camp with a superficial skill. They’d murdered her friends, after all. He didn’t expect her to show a tender, caring bedside manner.

  He’d ascribed her sometimes gentle, sometimes exasperated care of the children to the natural stress of their situation. She’d cleansed them, fed them, heard their prayers with a determination he could only call dedication.

  No, Sister Sarah hadn’t given Jake any reason to think she wasn’t the frightened nun he thought her to be.

  Until last night. Last night, when she’d blazed with fury and challenged him, woman to man.

  And today, when her eyes had met his across the silvery green surface of the pool. When she had responded to the raw hunger that must have shown on his face by straightening her shoulders.

  At the vivid image of Sarah’s small, rounded breasts thrusting up against the wet cotton, the ruthless agent and the fierce, hungry male in Jake merged once more, painfully. Swearing viciously, he concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other.

  A hundred meters down the trail, he stopped in his tracks.

  Ahead of him, Xavier froze and dropped into a crouch. “What is it, gringo?” he whispered, pivoting on the balls of his feet.

  “I thought I heard something,” Jake answered quietly. He jerked his chin toward the left. “In there.”

  Xavier swung the barrel of his weapon toward the area Jake had indicated.

  “Don’t fire!” Jake ordered. “You’ll detonate the charges.”

  The man’s thin shoulders slumped even more as he swallowed and stared, wide-eyed, at the dense undergrowth.

  “Do you want me to check it,” Jake asked, “or will you do it yourself?”

  Xavier glanced from Jake to the jungle, then back to Jake. “You do it, gringo. I will cover you.”

  Jake eased his machete out of its scabbard. “Give me ten minutes. If I’m not back by then, get the woman and children back to camp, pronto.”

  The rebel’s fingers tightened on his weapon. “Sí!”

  Ten minutes was all Jake needed. It would take him two minutes to reach the huge strangler fig where he’d stashed his backup transceiver. Even less to update his OMEGA control on the operation. And that would leave him plenty of time to pump Maggie for details about Sister Sarah Josepha.

  Jake knew Maggie wouldn’t have wasted these past few days. By now, she would’ve uncovered every existing detail about the nun’s life. How much Sarah had weighed at birth. The exact date she’d had her wisdom teeth extracted. And, Jake was sure, she’d have an explanation for why a woman with Sarah’s delicate beauty and plucky courage had chosen to become a nun. Jake wanted to hear the explanation. Badly.

  Jaws clenched, he reached into the dark cavity formed by the roots put down by the strangler fig from its perch on a high branch of the host tree.

  “OMEGA control, this is Jaguar.”

  “Howdy, Jaguar. This is Cowboy. Good to hear from you, pal.”

  Jake’s brow furrowed. He’d recognized Cowboy’s distinctive Wyoming twang even before the agent identified himself. Tall, rangy, and seemingly easygoing, Cowboy disguised a razor-sharp mind with a sleepy smile and tanned, weathered skin. Jake had worked with the former air force fighter jock on a couple of operations and thoroughly respected him. Still, it was disconcerting to change controls in midoperation.

  “Where’s Chameleon?”

  “She’s on-scene, close enough to spit. Stand by while I patch you through.”

  Maggie was here? In Cartoza? The knowledge that she would lead the extraction team to pick up Sarah and the children sent a shaft of relief shooting through Jake.

  “Chameleon here. Glad you finally decided to check in, Jaguar. What took you so long?”

  “My transmitter experienced a slight…technical malfunction. I had to wait a few days until it was safe to recover the backup unit.”

  “Anything you want me to relay to the lab?” Cowboy inquired. “They’ll go nuts when they hear their equipment failed.”

  As Jake recapped the problem with the boot, Maggie’s laughter echoed Cowboy’s.

  “They’re going to love that,” she said, still chuckling. “Now they’ll have to come up with a seal that’s waterproof and piddleproof. I’m glad to have confirmation that the children are with you, though. The Cartozan authorities only had a sketchy ID on the kids and weren’t sure they were with the woman when she was taken. How’s she holding up, by the way?”

  Jake’s muscles tensed. “As well as can be expected,” he replied evenly.

  “Good. Given her background, I was afraid you’d have your hands full.”

  Chapter 9

  Still shaken by the intensity of what had passed between her and Jack, Sarah sat cross-legged on the flat rock. She barely heard the children’s splashing pursuit of an orange-colored frog or Eleanor’s murmured response to their gleeful shouts. All she could think of was the way she’d responded to the raw hunger she saw in the mercenary’s eyes.

  She couldn’t want him, she told herself fiercely. She couldn’t!

  He
r fingernails dug into the bar of soap she clutched as she tried to convince herself once more that what she felt for him sprang from hostage-dependency syndrome. From the emotional upheavals she’d been through. From sheer proximity!

  She couldn’t be on fire for a man who refused to take her and the children to safety because he still had some blood money to earn. She couldn’t want to feel his mouth against hers, his legs entwined with hers.

  She couldn’t!

  Oh, God, she could! She did!

  Sarah gave a silent groan and buried her face in her hands, overwhelmed by the all-consuming desire that coiled in her stomach.

  What was wrong with her? Hadn’t she learned anything from her busy, brittle, empty life? She’d been courted and flattered and stroked by men of charm. Men of power and wealth. But none of the men who’d said they loved her—not even the one she had loved so desperately in return—could make her pulse hammer and her thighs clench together in a spasm of desire with just a look. How could this one man wake instincts in her she’d thought well buried? He was grimy and hard and made his living in a way she despised. He…

  “Sometimes it’s best for a woman not to fight what happens.”

  The soft murmur pierced Sarah’s swirling, chaotic thoughts. She lifted her head sharply and turned to find Eleanora watching her. To her surprise, she saw that the woman’s brown eyes had lost their dull flatness and held a deep, soul-shattering awareness.

  “He is much a man, the gringo. At least if he takes you to his bed, you will find pleasure in it.”

  Sarah gaped at Eleanora, translating and retranslating the older woman’s words in her mind. “He…he won’t take me to his bed,” she answered in halting Spanish. “He thinks I’m a… I mean, he respects that I’m a sister.”

  Something incredibly close to amusement flickered across Eleanora’s face. “We are all sisters,” she said softly. “Here, give it to me.”

  “Huh?” Sarah struggled stupidly with the other woman’s thick mountain accent and her own astonishment.

  “The soap. Give me the soap. I will wash your hair for you. Then we will wash the children, yes?”

  Dazed, Sarah passed her the yellowed bar of soap. At Eleanora’s nod, she slipped off the rock and sank to her knees in the shallow basin. Miraculously cool water eddied around her thighs.

  Sarah sat back on her heels, then slowly bent forward and dunked her head under the surface. She was too confused to sort out the emotions whirling through her right now. She decided not to think, not to try to understand anything that had happened in the past few minutes. She’d just remove her layers of sweat and dust, one by one. She’d let Eleanora wash her hair. She’d play with the children. That was about all she could handle at this particular moment.

  Sarah sensed rather than saw Jack’s return a half hour later. One minute she was sitting quietly on the flat rock, her knees tucked under her chin, her hair clean and damp under the veil that covered it once more. The next moment the skin on the back of her neck began to prickle.

  Sarah didn’t move for a long moment, alarmed but not unduly frightened by the odd sensation. When it didn’t go away, she swiveled slowly on the rock, trying to discover its source.

  At first she didn’t see anything that would account for it. Two squeaky-clean children sat on the bank and made cakes out of wet, soggy fern leaves with Eleanora’s quiet assistance. Eduard dozed, his back against a tree trunk and his still-bandaged arm cradled against his chest.

  Sarah swiveled a few more degrees.

  For the second time in less than an hour, she met Jack’s eyes across the width of the pool. Only this time they didn’t glitter with a searing masculine desire that called to the woman in her. This time they held a deadly rage that made Sarah’s throat go dry. She stared at him, stunned by his anger.

  A shadow moved behind him, and then Xavier appeared at his shoulder. Jack’s expression became so swiftly, so carefully, blank that for a moment Sarah thought she’d imagined the cold fury in his eyes.

  “Eduard,” he called softly.

  The boy sat up, rubbing a hand over his face. “Sí?”

  “Xavier will take you and Eleanora and the children back to camp.”

  Both Sarah and the slope-shouldered rebel stared at him in surprise.

  “I will stay with the religiosa while she gathers the white fungus that she needs for treating fevers,” he said, in a low, deliberate tone that rasped along Sarah’s nerve endings. She didn’t understand why just the sound of his voice should suddenly make her so nervous.

  The guerrilla glanced from her to Jack, then shrugged and walked toward the boy. Sarah knew that the men weren’t quite sure about her relationship with the mercenary, but no one had challenged him or tried to molest her since the big, beefy lieutenant. After catching a glimpse of his face, Sarah wasn’t surprised.

  “Go with Xavier, Eduard.”

  The boy rose, clearly not happy at leaving them.

  “Now.”

  The absolute authority in the single syllable convinced Eduard. He walked over to Eleanora, who stood watching the scene with the children. Lifting Ricci onto his hip, Eduard turned without another word and started back down the trail. Eleanora hesitated, then took Teresa’s hand and followed silently.

  The small sounds they made as they left seemed unnaturally loud to Sarah. Teresa’s protest that she hadn’t finished making her cake echoed hollowly. Ricci’s sleepy murmur seemed to reverberate in Sarah’s ears. The flap of a toucanette’s wings as it soared off the branch Eleanora brushed against sounded like a rattle of distant thunder.

  Then there was only stillness.

  And Jack.

  He watched her with the silent intensity of a predator that had spotted its prey. Just as silently, he began to move toward her. His lean, taut body radiated an aura of barely leashed power.

  The nervous tension that had collected along Sarah’s nerve endings seemed to explode in tiny, stinging pinpricks. She tried to think of something to say to break the tense silence between them, but no words came.

  Never taking his eyes from her face, he circled the edge of the pool. Slowly, deliberately, he stalked her.

  With each step, Sarah felt the fluttering of some primitive inner fear. She wet her lips nervously, not understanding either his menacing approach or her reaction to it. The sunlight reflected from the pool cast his face in hard, uncompromising planes and angles. His eyes glittered with a fierce light that seemed to sear her skin wherever it touched. A maleness so raw, so potent, emanated from him that Sarah reacted instinctively.

  She whirled and tried to flee.

  Before she’d taken three steps, his fingers closed over her wrist and spun her around. She struggled against his hold, panting with fear and some indescribable, undefinable emotion.

  “Jack, what—what is it?”

  The noise he made far back in his throat sent ripples of sensation down Sarah’s spine. Without speaking, he pulled her slowly toward him.

  Sarah battled his hold, like a frightened creature staked out at the end of a rope. She resisted his pull with all her strength, but knew even before his other arm wrapped around her waist that it was hopeless.

  Still without saying a word, he hauled her up against him. His arm tightened, banding her, molding her. His free hand reached up and tore the veil away. Sarah gasped and flung her head back.

  “Jack, for God’s sake…”

  “Oh, no,” he snarled. “This is for my sake.”

  The hand tangled in the fall of her hair. Wrapping a length of it around his fist, he held her steady while his mouth took hers.

  There was no other way to describe it. Sarah had kissed and been kissed by her share of boys and men in her time. She been made love to by a skilled, considerate Frenchman. But she’d never felt so taken before. This was a kiss meant to dominate, to subdue, to possess. And it did.

  Thoroughly alarmed now and deeply ashamed of the liquid heat that rose inside her, Sarah wedged both hands aga
inst his chest. Using all her strength, she managed to lever her upper body a few inches away. She was bent backward over his arm and her hips were thrust intimately up against his, but at least she could see his eyes. What she saw in them made her heart trip.

  “What are you doing?” she panted. “Have you lost the last shred of decency you possessed? I’m a nun! A—a bride of Christ!”

  A sharp, slicing derision hardened his eyes to tempered steel. “Some bride,” he sneered. “No, don’t bother to protest. I know all about you, Sister Sarah.”

  “Wh-what do you know?”

  “I know that three months ago you were caught in bed with a French diplomat. A very married French diplomat.”

  Sarah felt the blood drain from her face.

  “I know that the wife who’d come to Washington to surprise him ended up being very surprised herself. She subsequently tried to OD on sleeping pills.”

  Sarah fought to force some sound out of her closed throat. “Jack, how did—?”

  Relentlessly he ignored her feeble whisper. “I also know that the son of a bitch returned to France with his wife. At which point the spoiled, pampered little socialite he’d been screwing felt so sorry for herself she went on a bender and slammed her Mercedes into a busload of Girl Scouts who were touring the capital.”

  For a bleak, endless moment, Sarah felt as though she were back in Washington. She cringed as she relived those moments of devastating shame when she’d realized that André had never told his wife he wanted a divorce, as he’d led her to believe. When his young wife’s shocked, stunned face had burned itself into her conscience forever.

  She could see again her father’s pain as he’d come to the darkened bedroom she’d retreated to, bringing her the news that Madame Foutier was in Georgetown Medical Center’s emergency room and had linked Sarah to her hysterical, sobbing suicide attempt.

  She saw the flash of cameras, heard the shouts of the reporters who’d dogged her every step for weeks, until she’d refused to leave the house. Until, finally, alcohol had brought a stupid, foolish bravado that made her say to hell with them.