Dangerous to Hold Read online

  A sobbing whimper wrenched Sarah from her self-absorption. Teresa twitched in her hammock, caught in the throes of a bad dream. Sarah rolled over and started to rise, then hesitated as a dark shadow moved toward the girl.

  “Hush, niña, it’s okay,” Jack whispered. “Don’t be afraid.”

  His low, calming voice sent waves of longing rippling along Sarah’s nerves. She would’ve given anything she possessed, which admittedly wasn’t much at that particular moment, to hear him whisper like that to her. To have him hold her gently and soothe away her fears.

  She watched, breath suspended, while he stooped to pick up something from the floor. Sarah couldn’t see the object, but she knew instinctively it was the root, in its frilly dress. Jack tucked the doll in Teresa’s arm, then melted back into the darkness.

  Oh, God, Sarah groaned to herself as she eased back down onto the bedroll. Why did the blasted, infuriating man have to be so damned contradictory? Why couldn’t he be totally evil, so she could hate him? Or totally good, so she could love him?

  Her thought came zinging back to mock her. She couldn’t love Jack if he was a plaster saint. She couldn’t love him if he didn’t possess the hard, biting edge that made him so different, so unlike any other man she’d ever known.

  She loved him just the way he was.

  Sarah’s stomach lurched, and she flung up an arm to cover her eyes. She’d done some stupid, useless things in her life, and this ranked right up there among the worst of them. For all her so-called sophistication, for all her determination not to become emotionally dependent on this man, she’d merged more than her body with him this afternoon. Somehow, sometime during those searing, soaring moments, she’d merged her soul.

  What in the world was she going to do about it?

  What could she do about it?

  She groaned again, not quite as silently this time, and flopped over to bury her face in the bedroll.

  The sharp tang of cosmolene, the grease used for packing and shipping weapons, permeated the still morning air outside the hut. Jake wiped the last residue of grease from a blue steel barrel, frowning slightly. He’d dug through several crates to find something halfway acceptable as a replacement for his bartered rifle.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  He glanced up at the sound of Sarah’s voice. She stood in the doorway of the shack, one foot tapping under the skirts of that damn black robe.

  “So talk,” he said, resting the barrel across his knees.

  Her gaze flicked to the children playing in the shade a few feet away. “Not here. We need to speak privately. About…about yesterday.”

  He sent her a mocking look. “I thought you didn’t want to discuss yesterday. Ever.”

  “Yes, well, I’ve had some time to think, to come to a few decisions. I didn’t get much rest last night.”

  “No kidding. Do you always toss and turn in bed like that? You keep a man awake all night just listening to you.”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Jake could’ve kicked himself. Who was he kidding? Any man who shared a bed with Sarah wouldn’t want to get much sleep. His hormones shot into overdrive at the vivid image that leaped into his mind, an image of a small, curved body sprawled across a wide, rumpled bed.

  A flush stained her face. “I didn’t realize I was such a restless sleeper. No one’s ever mentioned it before.”

  “No one, Miss Chandler?”

  His soft, taunting drawl surprised Jake as much as it did Sarah. He cursed himself when she drew back, hurt reflected in her expressive eyes.

  Dammit, what was the matter with him this morning? Jake’s hand tightened on the gun barrel as he realized exactly what had triggered his mocking response. Old-fashioned, gut-level jealousy. A destructive emotion he hadn’t known he was capable of, and sure as hell didn’t like acknowledging.

  With brutal honesty, Jake forced himself to admit he’d spent the long hours of the night struggling to reconcile the Sarah he knew with the one whose picture had been plastered across the dailies for so many weeks. The woman the press had crucified had been made to look shallow, selfish, immoral. The woman he knew was no saint, but her courage and determination to care for the children had tugged at Jake’s heart. It had taken him a while to accept that whatever she’d been or done before had shaped her into the remarkable woman she now was. But that was as far as he’d gotten.

  Sarah, however, tackled the issue head-on. She came to stand before him, planted both hands on her hips and sent him a steely look.

  “That’s another thing I want to talk to you about. How you discovered who I am. And how my identity figures into this little…situation we have.”

  “Situation?”

  Jake didn’t much care for her choice of words. He wasn’t exactly sure what was between them or where it was going, but he’d describe it differently.

  Not affair. It was too intense to call an affair.

  Not relationship. That was too pansy.

  “Situation,” she replied firmly, then ran out of patience. “Are you going to get off that crate and take a walk with me, or do I have to do something totally unnunlike and knock you on your backside?”

  Jake stared at the diminutive figure before him. Whatever had kept Sarah tossing and turning, whatever decision she’d come to in the dark hours of the night, had put a fierce spark of determination in her eyes. He stared at her, impressed in spite of himself.

  There probably weren’t two women in the world more dissimilar than Sarah Chandler and Maggie Sinclair in appearance, background, or current employment, but at that moment he could have sworn they were sisters. Maggie was the only woman who’d ever taken Jake down during the defensive-maneuvers training he conducted for OMEGA agents. Right now, Sarah could probably toss him on his head—and would definitely enjoy doing it.

  The fierce protectiveness that had colored Jake’s feelings for Sarah since the night of the raid shifted, altering subtly in shape and substance. Jake hadn’t planned to tell her about the extraction until just before he left camp tomorrow. He’d hoped to minimize her worry and fear and lessen the chance that she might inadvertently let something slip. But, seeing the determination in her eyes, he knew it was time.

  Jake set the gun barrel aside and wiped his hands on the stiff khaki shirt he’d been using as a rag, the one so stained with Eduard’s blood that it was good for nothing else, and rose.

  “You’re right. We need to talk. Is Eleanora well enough to walk to the pool?”

  She nodded. “I think so. She doesn’t speak, but she got up and insisted on dressing herself this morning.”

  “I’ll go let Pig-face know I’m taking you out of camp for a little while.” Jake thought rapidly. “I’ll tell him you need to gather some fiddlewood bark to soak and use on Eleanora’s face.”

  Sarah slanted him a wry look. “More prehistoric medicine?”

  He grinned down at her, feeling the tension that had sprung up between them ease. “Indian shamans in the Amazon rain forest still use the bark in a sort of herbal bath to cure sores caused by tropical parasites. I doubt if it would have any real usefulness on bruises, but I’m betting that Pig-face won’t know that.”

  He didn’t.

  The big man grunted, not happy at being awakened this early to be informed of Jake’s plans. The animosity between the two men hadn’t lessened since the night the lieutenant had stumbled into the little hut, but he’d kept his distance since then. Still, Jake knew it was only a matter of time until Enrique erupted.

  Twenty minutes later, he left the smaller children splashing happily in the pool, Eleanora sitting silently on the rock, and Eduard on guard.

  “We’ll only go a little way down this trail,” Jake told the boy. “You just have to call out, and I’ll be back within seconds.”

  The boy nodded.

  “Wait for us here. We may be a while. Sarah and I have much to discuss, but we’ll hear you if you need us.”

  Jake led the way down the
narrow, twisting trail. After the first bend, they were out of sight, but not out of earshot. He could hear Ricci shrieking as Teresa splashed him, and Teresa’s answering cry when the boy dunked her precious doll. Using his machete, Jake hacked the twisting vines from a toppled tree trunk, then whacked the wood once or twice with the flat of his blade to dislodge any occupants.

  Nothing more threatening than a small ctenosaur emerged, its scaly, blue-banded skin and spiny back quivering in outrage. The lizard, which Jake knew could grow to the size of a small dog, bobbed its head up and down as a signal that the tree trunk was private territory. Jake smiled at Sarah’s involuntary “Ugh,” and nudged the creature on its waddling way with the toe of his boot.

  Holding her skirts up with both hands to make sure nothing slithered underneath them, Sarah approached the trunk. She settled herself gingerly, then reached behind her neck to untie the strings of the veil.

  Jake stabbed the machete into the dirt beside the tree to keep it close at hand and propped a foot up on the impromptu bench. Leaning easily on arms crossed over his knee, he watched while Sarah loosened the tie that held her hair. Her fingers raked through it, lifting the soft, fine curtain of pale silk off her neck. Sighing, she unhooked the top few buttons of her habit and flapped the material against her heated skin.

  “When and if I get back to civilization, I don’t think I’ll ever wear black again,” she murmured.

  Jake, who had entertained more than one fantasy about Sarah’s small, deliciously curved body in a black lace garter belt and little else, smiled ruefully to himself.

  “You’ll get back,” he told her quietly.

  She stopped fanning the material and tilted her head to look up at him. “Will I?”

  “I’m doing my best to make it happen.”

  Jake hesitated, then took the first step in what he knew would be a difficult explanation. There was so much he wasn’t cleared to tell her—about OMEGA, about the mission, about himself.

  “I contacted someone yesterday who’ll arrange to take you out of here,” he told her slowly.

  Her fingers curled around the fabric, scrunching it in her fist. “You contacted someone yesterday?” She wet her lips. “Was that before or after you recognized me?”

  He shrugged. “Let’s just say my contact confirmed the doubts I had about Sister Sarah.”

  “And from the description you gave him, he recognized Sarah Chandler.”

  The bitterness in her voice made Jake frown.

  “It couldn’t have been that difficult,” she continued when he didn’t respond. “I suppose the press has already picked up the story of the raid. My picture is no doubt splashed all over the dailies again.”

  She shivered. It was a quick, involuntary shake, so much like that of a small, trapped animal that Jake’s jaw tightened.

  “There aren’t any news stories. Not yet.”

  “Never mind. I guess it doesn’t really matter how you recognized me. What matters is what you’re going to do about it.” She rose and faced him, nose to nose. “Just tell me how much this is costing my father.”

  “Your father?”

  “My father. How much are you and this contact of yours charging him to arrange this little escape of mine?”

  Jake straightened. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Her chin jutted out. “It didn’t take you long to cash in on the prize that was right under your nose, did it? You wouldn’t let the welfare of a nun and three children interfere with your business deals, but you can arrange something overnight for a senator’s daughter.”

  “Oh, for crissakes!”

  “So how much did you ask for, gringo? You can tell me. I’d like to know what you think a senator’s daughter is worth.”

  “I’m not ransoming you, dammit.”

  “Keep your voice down!” she hissed. “I don’t want the children running down here until you and I get a few things settled between us.”

  “It sounds to me like you’ve already got everything settled in your mind.”

  Jake told himself that he shouldn’t blame her for leaping to conclusions. Hell, he’d done everything in his power to make her think he was a conscienceless expatriate who’d sell his country for a few dollars. But somehow the fact that he’d succeeded so well didn’t give him one iota of satisfaction.

  She drew in a deep breath, as though steeling herself for some unpleasant task. Jake sensed that he was about to learn what had kept her—and him—awake so long into the night.

  “I don’t want you to do it, Jack. I don’t want you to blackmail my father. I don’t want you to sell yourself to the scum you’re working with. I have some money of my own. Not a lot, but enough to stake you until you find some…some other line of work.”

  Jake’s eyes narrowed. A sudden, incredible suspicion curled in his belly and wound its way up to his heart. “What makes you think I want some other line of work? What if I told you I make a good living at what I do?”

  “Look at you!” she exclaimed, flinging out her arms in exasperation. “You call this living? You haven’t shaved in three days, your shirt looks like something that…that lizard wouldn’t even wear. Obviously you haven’t had a good whiff of yourself from downwind, and…and…”

  “And?” he prompted, his pulse pounding a slow, heavy rhythm.

  “And you act about as civilized as some jungle creature,” she finished in a huff. Then she sighed, and put a hand on his arm. “All the money in the world isn’t going to make up for what this place and these people you work with are doing to you, Jack.”

  Jake stared down at the small, fine-boned hand. He remembered suddenly that that was the first glimpse of Sarah he’d had in the daylight, that morning after the raid—her work-roughened fingers trembling as she lifted a black sleeve to wipe her face.

  He remembered, also, how that same hand had touched him yesterday. How it had speared through the hair on his chest. Slid up to his neck. Pulled his head down for her kiss. The pounding rhythm of his blood grew more intense.

  He smiled down at her, wanting to hear just how she’d decided to reform him. “You didn’t have any complaints about my uncivilized actions yesterday.”

  She sucked in a quick breath and snatched her hand away. “Okay, so I didn’t exactly scream in maidenly outrage when you touched me. So I, uh…”

  “So you went up in flames, and took me with you.” A grin tugged at Jake’s lips. “I’ve been in the arms business a long time, Sarah, but I’ve never seen or felt a detonation quite like that one.”

  Flushing, she turned away. “Let’s not get too technical here.”

  Jake laughed and slid his arm around her waist, drawing her back against his chest. “It was good between us, Sarah. More than good. I couldn’t sleep last night, either, thinking about it.”

  She laid her head back against his shoulder, sighing. “I don’t know how or why I let that happen between us. I’m confused by it. I’m confused by you, and by my responses to you. I only know that I can’t run away from it, like I’ve run away from everything in my life.”

  She twisted in his arms and placed her palms on his chest. “Let me help you, Jack. Don’t extort money from my father. Don’t do whatever it is these men want you to do with that arms shipment. Have this contact of yours arrange to pull you out of here at the same time he pulls me and the kids and Eleanora out.”

  Jake smiled. He’d known she would consider it a package deal. Her and the kids and Eleanora.

  “I can’t do that,” he told her gently. “I can’t leave with you.”

  “Why not?”

  “I have a job to do here.” He firmed his hold when she would have pushed herself away. “No, not the one you think. I’m here on government business.”

  “Right,” she said bitterly. “You and Ollie North.”

  “Sarah, listen to me….”

  “No, you listen to me. My father heads the Senate Intelligence Subcommittee on Latin-American Affairs, remember? I know da
rn well that no government agency would be selling arms to this scruffy little band of guerrillas, not when official U.S. policy is to support the Cartozan government.”

  “We’re not selling. We’re trying to stop the sale. I’ve been undercover with this group for almost three weeks now.”

  Sarah’s face registered first disbelief, then skepticism.

  Jake kept his voice low and deliberate, trying to convince her. “My mission is to take out the middle link in the international chain that trades stolen U.S. arms for drug dollars. I intend to do that tomorrow night, when he makes his drop.”

  “My God!” she breathed, staring up at him. “You’re…you’re serious?”

  This, time when she pushed away from him, he let her go. Jake felt a wrench at the dazed expression in her eyes.

  “I’m deadly serious. You know how shaky this country is. If we don’t stop the arms flow, fast, Cartoza will probably see the same wave of political assassinations and drug wars that have torn Peru and Colombia apart.”

  “You…you really are under cover? With the CIA?”

  “Close enough.”

  Jake felt a curious sense of relief to have it out at last. He waited for some confirmation, some sigh of relief, or a welcome laugh.

  “You bastard!”

  Jake was so surprised by her explosive fury that he didn’t even see the punch coming.

  In any other circumstance, a blow from Sarah’s small fist wouldn’t have even dented stomach muscles that were conditioned to take karate kicks and powerhouse punches. But she hit him with just enough unexpected speed and force to send him stumbling backward.

  His heel thumped against the fallen tree trunk, and his momentum carried him the rest of the way over. Jake landed on his duff on the dense, springy layer of vegetation, his breath whooshing out of his lungs.

  Chest heaving, fiery blue-green sparks shooting from her eyes, Sarah clambered over the log.

  “You rat! You despicable, chauvinistic, arrogant rat!”

  Jake levered himself up. “What in the—?”

  Her foot planted itself square on his chest and shoved him back down. “How dare you! How dare you let me think you were the scum of the earth!”