Dangerous to Hold (4 page)

“Our Lady of Sorrows,” he murmured. “Appropriate.”

Sarah stiffened. “What's that supposed to mean?”

He flicked a glance at the children, now crouched down in front of the food and busy filling their empty bellies. “Only that we're both going to experience a lot more sorrow than
we can handle if we don't keep a real cool head for the next few days.”

A sharp splinter of hope pierced Sarah's heart. “The next few days? Do you mean we'll only be here a few days? Then you'll let us go?”

“I don't know how long you'll be here,” he replied flatly.

The hope in Sarah's chest exploded into tiny shards of a disappointment so painful she choked.

His brows drew into a dark slash. “Look, Sister Sarah, if it was up to me, I'd put you and the kids on a packhorse right now and get you the hell out of Dodge. I'm not exactly thrilled to have the four of you on my hands while I'm trying to conduct a…business operation.”

The hesitation was so slight that Sarah almost missed it. Bitterness and frustration curled her lip. “A business operation? Is that what you call it? There's a word for people like you, you know, and it's not
entrepreneur.
”

He rose to his feet and took a slow step toward her.

Sarah swallowed, but refused to back away.

“You've got a real mouth on you, for a nun,” he commented softly.

He was so close Sarah could smell the tang of healthy male sweat emanating from his chest. She stared up at him, seeing the hard line of his jaw under the stubble that shadowed it. She realized suddenly that tall and lean translated into overpowering and rather dangerous at such close quarters. Rubbing damp palms down the sides of her skirts, Sarah took a deep breath and summoned up the last tattered remnants of her courage.

“Is that so? Just how many nuns do you know?”

Something glimmered in his eyes. Sarah couldn't tell whether it was surprise that she refused to let him intimidate her, or reluctant admiration at her stand, or amusement. The thought that her desperate struggle to contain her fear might amuse him sent her chin up another notch.

“Not many,” he admitted. The ghost of a smile tugged at his lips. “In fact, I've only met one other. She caught me
snitching fruit from the corner grocery store and whacked me over the head with her umbrella. When she marched me home, my staunch Methodist father agreed with the good sister that I needed a little more forceful guidance and took me out behind the garage. Since then I've tended to avoid your kind.”

Waves of relief coursed through Sarah. She just might make it through this mess after all. Lifting her chin, she gave a disdainful sniff. “Obviously, both the whack over the head and your trip to the garage failed dismally to curb your ways.”

“Obviously,” he drawled, turning away. “Go eat. Then we'd better get what sleep we can before the heat gets too unbearable. I'll string some hammocks for the kids, and we can make do with the bedrolls.”

“You're going to sleep here? With us?”

“Right the first time.”

“I don't think that's either necessary or appropriate, Mr…. Gringo.”

He didn't even bother to turn around. “What you think in this instance doesn't matter a whole lot, Sister Sarah. You see, that ferret-faced little runt out there who leads this band of so-called revolutionaries isn't exactly pleased that I dragged you back here. He's made me personally responsible for you, and I'm not a man who takes his responsibilities lightly.”

Ignoring Sarah's inelegant little huff of derision, he looped the end of a hammock rope around an exposed wooden roof support. “Go eat,” he ordered, in a voice that brooked no further argument.

While he moved about the small hut, Sarah joined the children. They scooted aside to make room for her around the impromptu table. Remembering his warning about things that went boom in the night, she lowered herself gingerly onto the edge of the crate, then glanced around for something to eat with. There wasn't anything except her fingers. Sarah wiped
them on her robe and tried not to think of what might be clinging to either her skin or her skirts.

Her first scoop of cold beans and rice lodged in a throat still dry with the residue of fear and exhaustion. Sarah unscrewed the plastic top of one of the canteens and washed the lump down, grimacing at the taste of tepid water laced with chemical purifiers. She wiped the mouth of the canteen with her sleeve and passed it to little Teresa, then scooped up another few fingerfuls of food. Within moments, she was gobbling the hearty fare down as hungrily as the children.

After half a lifetime of dining at Washington's elegant restaurants and quaint eateries, Sarah had been surprised at how well she adapted to the steady diet of rice and black beans that formed the basis of every meal in this part of the world. In the evening the villagers augmented the dish with chicken or, occasionally, pork cooked in a spicy tomato sauce. When scooped up in still-warm corn tortillas and finished off with the plentiful fruits of the area, the food was nutritious and filling.

Or maybe Sarah's easy adjustment to it had stemmed from the fact that, for the first time in her life, she wasn't giving much thought to either her weight or her appearance. The humidity had wreaked such havoc on her once-shining cap of long platinum blond hair that she'd taken to simply dragging it back with an elastic band. Moreover, she'd found a degree of comfort and a strange sense of freedom in the baggy cotton trousers and shirts her Peace Corps sponsor had told her to bring. Sarah smothered a silent groan, wishing she could shuck the hot, sticky black habit and pull on one of those lightweight shirts right now.

Even Maria herself had rarely worn these suffocating robes, donning them only for infrequent visits to her chapter house in the capital city. In the interior she wore sensible lightweight cotton work clothes—and the bright red ball cap with the Washington Redskins logo emblazoned on the front that Sarah had given her.

At the memory of the ball cap, Sarah's fingers stilled half
way to her mouth. She closed her eyes against the familiar wave of pain and guilt that washed through her. André had bought the ball cap for her on one of their delightful, illicit outings. Sarah had thought to use the anonymity of the huge crowd at a Skins game to teach the suave, sophisticated Frenchman a little about the American national pastime. Instead, he'd shaken his head at her incomprehensible enthusiasm for what he considered a slow, pedestrian sport and whisked her away during the third quarter to a discreet little hotel to demonstrate what he laughingly called the French national sport.

She'd been so in love with him, Sarah thought in despair. She hadn't stopped to think about the pain and tragedy her selfish need for him could cause. She'd believed him when he caressed her and adored her with his skilled hands and clever mouth. She'd—

“Don't forget to shake your bedroll out before you lie down.”

Sarah blinked and slewed around to see the gringo stretched out, his long legs crossed at the ankle and a floppy-brimmed camouflage hat covering his eyes.

“What?”

“Shake out the bedroll,” he murmured, without removing the hat. “It's a safe bet the last inhabitant was a snake, either the slippery, slithery variety or one of his two-legged cousins.”

Sarah eyed the stained mat beside his in distaste. “Maybe I'll share a hammock with Teresa.”

“Suit yourself.”

After the children finished their meal, Sarah wiped ineffectually at the smallest ones' faces with the dampened tail of her sleeve. Eduard disdained her ministrations. He folded his thin body into the hammock, then pulled Ricci in beside him. Sarah draped a tent of mosquito netting the gringo had rigged over both of them.

She approached the second hammock with the assurance of a woman who danced with a joyful, natural grace and played
a mean game of tennis. She soon found, however, that negotiating her way into a swinging hammock with a child in one arm and heavy skirts draped over the other took more than grace or coordination. It took a skill she didn't seem to possess.

On her first attempt, the lightweight net swung out from under her, nearly dropping her on her bottom. On her second attempt, the knee she'd lifted to anchor the net swayed away, causing her to hop a few steps across the dirt floor on one foot to keep from losing her balance. Six year old Teresa clung to her neck, like one of those stuffed toys with the long, strangling arms, and giggled.

The sound tugged at Sarah's heart. She smiled down at the child. “Think that's funny, do you?”

Teresa put a dirty hand to her mouth to cover the gap from her lost front teeth. Her black eyes sparkled.

“Let's try this again. We'll do it scientifically this time. One step at a time.”

Grasping the edge of the net in a firm hand, Sarah rose up on tiptoe and swung her hips into the net. She gave a startled squawk as the hammock rolled high up in the air and dumped her on the floor.

Teresa came down on top of her, giggling helplessly. Childish snickers from the other hammock told Sarah that Ricci was getting as much enjoyment out of this as Teresa. Even Eduard was smiling, she saw when she sat up and shoved back the once-starched white headband that held her veil out of her eyes.

So was the mercenary. He leaned on one elbow, the floppy hat pushed to the back of his head. Even through the draped mosquito net, Sarah could see the crooked slash of white teeth that cut the darkness of his unshaven cheeks.

Sarah had perfected a lot of skills during her years as a Washington political hostess. One of the most valuable was a ripple of musical laughter that went a long way toward minimizing any social disaster. André had often told her that her
ability to smile and shrug off domestic crises that would mortify other hostesses was among her most charming traits.

So the answering smile she gave the gringo began as a well-learned, deliberate response to an embarrassing situation. But as her mouth curved, Sarah found relief from her fear and fatigue in the simple act. Her smile deepened.

For a moment, their eyes met, his gray and shadowed by black lashes, hers free of the fear that had haunted her for so many hours. They weren't mercenary and nun, but simply a man and woman enjoying a ridiculous moment. He broke it off first. Still grinning, he lay down again and tugged the hat over his eyes.

Sarah dragged herself to her feet and plunked Teresa into the hammock. “It's all yours, sweetheart.”

The little girl grabbed at her hand. “Sarita!”

“Don't worry. I'll be right here beside you.”

Gently disengaging her hand, Sarah pushed aside the mosquito netting draped over the stained, uninviting bedroll. She lifted the sleeping bag by one corner and shook it once, twice. Something fell out and scurried away between the stacked crates. Sarah gasped, then grabbed the other corner and shook the mat for all she was worth.

The man on the other bedroll grunted and rolled over on his side, his back to Sarah.

After a vigorous shaking, she laid the edges of the limp bedroll down and sat back on her heels, eyeing it distrustfully. When nothing moved under its surface and no hissing lump appeared, she smoothed it out with short, swift and very cautious pats.

“For Pete's sake, will you lie down?”

Sarah threw his broad back an indignant look. Slowly, gingerly, she stretched out, then reached up to tug the mosquito netting back down. It settled around them both like a white cloud, enclosing them in an airy, strangely intimate cocoon. After a few moments, the exhaustion seeping through her bones caused her rigid muscles to relax. She dragged her sleeve across her face to wipe away the moisture generated
by her exertions and closed her eyes, sure she'd be asleep within moments.

She was wrong.

As tired as she was, her body wouldn't, couldn't, slip into blessed semiconsciousness. Instead, an insidious need crept through her, stiffening her limbs and keeping her eyes wide open in the hazy light.

The boys' breathing evened out. Little Teresa whistled once or twice through the gap in her front teeth, then snuggled down in the hammock and grew still.

Sarah stared up at the rusted tin roof. She listened to the scurry of forest mice scuttling up and down the walls in their never-ending search for insects. From a few feet away came the rumble of deep, sonorous breathing. Not a snore, exactly, but pretty darn close to it.

Desperately Sarah willed herself to ignore the sounds around her and go to sleep. She squeezed her eyes shut and began to count, as she'd done so often as a child, when her father had gone to some political fund-raiser or another and she'd lain awake in her big, flower-patterned bedroom, waiting for him to come home and read to her.

At two hundred and forty-seven, she gave up. Worrying her lower lip with her teeth, she rose up on her knees, then inched to her feet. She lifted her skirts and moved as quietly as possible across the hut.

She didn't even hear him move. She was just bending toward an object near the wall when a hard hand spun her around. The veil whipped at her face, causing the headdress to tilt haphazardly to one side of her head.

“What the hell are you doing?” Suspicion blazed in his eyes and singed his low, furious voice. “I thought you said you didn't know how to use a weapon.”

“I don't!” Sarah gasped.

“Then why were you reaching for it?”

Sarah glanced down at the automatic rifle propped against the wall beside the backpack. “I wasn't reaching for your precious weapon!”

“So what were you after, lady?”

No
Sister Sarah
this time. No crooked grin that coaxed an answering response from her. At this moment, he radiated a hard, cold authority that made Sarah gulp.

“Tell me,” he growled, giving her a shake.

The veil tilted farther over her ear, then fell off completely. He sucked in a quick breath, his narrowed eyes on her hair.