Merline Lovelace - Course of Action - The Rescue - Jaguar Night / Amazon Gold

The hardness she detected didn’t translate to the way Josh had touched her earlier, or the way he’d gently embraced her. He’d invited her to come into his arms. He hadn’t forced her. Her heart kept opening up a little crack more at a time.

Aly had thought she was so done with men. But this man seemed to naturally trigger every female hormone she owned. It was so embarrassing. They were running for their lives and she was thinking about sex?

“Ready?” Josh asked, turning to her after tightening the straps on his ruck.

“Do you still want me to hold on to your belt? I know I’m slowing us down.”

He smiled a little. “Yes, hold on. Because if you trip or something, you can grab on to me and I’ll try to catch you. And—” he arched a brow “—you’re doing the best you can, Aly. I’m fine with it.”

Pursing her lips, Aly wanted to say, You have already caught me and held me, but she nodded and kept her eyes on the ground in front of them instead. To look into Josh’s golden gaze would make her weak with longing.

* * *

Two hours later the mist that always hung silent in the jungle, glowed with the golden light of an unseen sun as Aly struggled to keep up the rhythm Josh had set for them. Her breathing was better and it allowed her to go further this time without collapsing. Josh seemed to realize she had pushed as far as she could and slowed. He guided them over to what looked like a flying buttress tree. The roots were like the wings of a plane, the buttresses tall enough on each side to hide a person easily from sight. He led her over to the tree and gestured for her to settle inside the U-shaped area.

Aly never welcomed sitting more than now. She wiped the sheen of sweat off her face, her T-shirt drenched and sticking to her skin and breasts. She tried to pull it away but the fabric hung heavy and so she just let it go. Now she wished she’d thought to put on her bra. At least she had panties on. Josh eased out of the huge ruck and set it gently on the ground. He opened it, pulling out a gallon of fresh water in a plastic jug. Handing it to her he said, “Drink all you want.”

He pulled a sat phone out of his harness and continued to look around, always circumspect that someone might see them. Right now, the birds and monkeys were singing and calling. If something threatened them, they’d immediately stop singing. The monkeys would start their screaming warning. She watched him as he wiped his brow with the back of his arm, turned on the sat phone and punched in numbers, connecting, she presumed, with Langley.

Aly sat with the jug in her lap, listening to him talk in a low tone. His profile was strong-looking. She closed her eyes, tipping back her head against the wall-like root, feeling exhaustion steal upon her. In moments, she was dozing.

* * *

Josh looked down as he put the sat phone into the harness. Aly was asleep. His heart tugged in his chest. She was pale and now, in brighter light, he could see the damage done to her throat, her cheek and the bruises on her upper arms. She’d been pretty well beat up, threatened either with death, rape or both. Her long, slender hands were relaxed in her lap, the jug between them. He didn’t have the heart to wake her and carefully lifted the gallon jug off her lap. Moving quietly, he refilled his CamelBak and then finished what was left of the extra jug of water.

They’d traveled another five miles in two hours. Worrying about Duarte’s soldiers tracking them, he looked at the regional maps and plotted new courses to throw them off. The Amazon River was a hundred feet below them, about five miles to the north. It would be tough, even dangerous, to try to scale a hundred-foot cliff with someone who didn’t know what to do or how to rappel. Further, the cliffs were nothing but sand. If one of them accidentally hit a weak area, thousands of tons of sand could bury them in an instant, suffocating them to death. It wasn’t an option.

Meeting the Riverines at the LZ down below would be safe. But the real question: Could Aly keep up this kind of trotting and fast walking? He looked at her long legs and smiled. What he’d give to undress her, run his hands up and down those slender legs of hers—

The monkeys started screaming.

* * *

Aly jerked awake, confused. She’d heard the monkeys. Scrambling to her feet, she handed Josh his hat and gulped. She watched as he packed the ruck and quickly pulled it over his shoulders. His face was expressionless, his eyes glittering, as he took out his M-4, released the safety and loaded a bullet into the chamber.

Aly’s heart bounded. Her father had been right: she’d been foolish to come here knowing it was a hotbed of drug activity.

Josh made a gesture for her to grip his belt and they took off at a fast trot. Adrenaline shot into her and she suddenly felt more afraid. The look in Josh Patterson’s eyes scared her. Now, she was seeing the man who would protect her at all costs.

Josh had committed the maps to memory. He crossed several small streams, sometimes trotting down their sandy depths, ankle-deep water wetting their boots. He kept Aly in the water for nearly an hour before pulling up on the land. She was panting hard, her hand pressed to her chest, head down, holding on to his belt as if her life depended upon it. He eased her fingers off his belt, taking her under his arm because she was trembling with fatigue. Guiding her to another large buttressed tree, he sat her down, and pulled off the ruck, retrieving the gallon of water for her to drink from.

He looked at his watch. It was 10:00 a.m. The jungle was bright, the sunlight stopped by the perennial mist that hung in the equatorial region. Glancing at Aly, he saw that she had gone even more ashen. She kept touching her neck. Damn. He turned, kneeling down. Taking her hand away, he rasped, “Let me.” She nodded, allowing him to examine the larynx area of her throat. When he pressed a little too much, she winced. But she didn’t pull away. Aly trusted him. He dropped his hands to his knees and studied her.

“You’ve got some cartilage damage to your larynx. It has to be hurting you.”

Aly nodded, feeling stricken. “I’m slowing us down. I’m having trouble breathing because that area’s swollen.”

“You’re doing damn good, Aly. Stop cutting yourself down.”

She frowned. “Are they still coming?”

“They will. Being in the stream for an hour will buy us some good time.” He glanced down at her soaked leather boots. “How are your feet holding up?”

“Okay.”

He cupped her uninjured cheek, smiling into her eyes. “Who taught you to never speak up for yourself, Angel?”

Aly blinked once, digesting the roughened endearment, the warmth radiating from Josh to her. She was exhausted but in those moments she felt as if Josh was invisibly feeding her the strength to get up and move. She knew they had to run some more. His touch was so healing. Even her heart stopped pounding so hard in her chest. His palm was callused, warm, supportive, and without thinking she closed her eyes and laid her cheek into his opened hand, seeking just a moment of safety because that’s what radiated from him like sunlight.

Josh closed his eyes. Aly was a trooper and she did have heart. A huge, giving heart with no thought or regard for herself or her own suffering. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her brow. “We’re going to get out of this,” he rasped, tucking some strands of her hair behind her ear.

He watched Aly’s eyes slowly open, saw the tiredness in them coupled with desire. Josh had no idea what the hell was going on between them except that it was. Now, he had a personal reason to get Aly to safety. Because—general’s daughter be damned—he wanted to know this courageous woman a lot better. He smiled faintly as she sat up and rubbed her eyes. Wondering if she wanted to cry, Josh watched her scrub away any telltale evidence.