Dateline: Kydd and Rios (14 page)

Still, when he looked at her, nervous and overwrought, chewing those damn tablets as if her life depended on them, he knew he cared. And when she kissed him, he still wanted her with a fierce possessiveness he’d never felt for any other woman;

Certifiable, he thought, letting out a heavy breath.

They were on the verge of getting lost again—Nikki tasted it in the air, felt it in her bones—and this time they would run out of gas for good. She kept well to her side of the seat and tried to figure out what to do when the Chevy gasped its last drop of petrol. She made a point of ignoring his offer of compromise. Her plan, however messed up it had gotten, had no room in it for compromise. Arriving in Sulaco alone would get her nothing, not her mother’s freedom, not Josh’s safety, nothing.

“That’s it,” he announced as he steered the car to a stop under the tangled branches of an overgrown tree. Dirt and gravel crunched beneath the tires with ever-lessening sound until the dusk’s silence fell completely about them.

They sat listening to each other breathe, Josh with his hands on the steering wheel, his arms straight and stiff, his, shoulders up around his ears, Nikki with her fists clamped around the map, both or them staring out the windshield.

One way or the other, whatever it took, she had to get him to Sulaco.

And he was taking her to the border if he had to hog-tie her and drag her there.

“We—”

“You—”

They had both spoken at once, not much, just a single word apiece, but enough to cause her to reconsider her hastily formed demand. She wasn’t in a position to demand anything of him. She’d have to think, use her head and probably part of the truth to get him to Sulaco.

“We can’t stay here,” she said, gathering up her stuff. Any step forward was still a step in the right direction until they passed Sulaco, which she was determined not to do. She’d think of something. She always thought of something.

“Don’t forget your Life Savers.” He lifted his hips and shoved the car keys into his back pocket. Then he reached behind them for his satchel.

His arm brushed her shoulder. Their eyes met for an instant before she quickly glanced away, chiding herself for foolishness and an oversensitivity to his touch. She leaned forward an unnecessary degree to retrieve her antacid tablets from the glove compartment.

Josh swore silently and dragged the satchel into his lap. She didn’t have to worry about him touching her. He’d learned his lesson the night before. Every time he touched her crazy things happened, things they didn’t finish, and things he couldn’t forget. No, he was better off keeping his hands and his foolish thoughts to himself.

Little was said as they transferred supplies from the trunk to his satchel and her duffel bag. They’d prepared for a hundred camping trips in much the same manner. Nikki took the food and the sleeping bag, and Josh took the bottles of juice and beer, and a poncho to use as a ground sheet. Neither commented on the lack of a second sleeping bag. They’d make do. They always had before without any problems. Of course, that had been when they were both more wrapped up in any story they were investigating than in each other.

The forest began to thicken twenty feet off the road and continued to thicken until Nikki thought somebody should mention the fact.

“I think we should stick with the road.” She slapped back at a leaf slapping her.

“I don’t.”

Okay, she thought, and tried another tack. “It will take us days to get through this stuff.”

“One night and one day,” he corrected her.

A twig caught in her hair, jerking her to a stop. She swore and snapped it off, leaving a piece tangled around a few sweaty strands of hair. “You’ve got all the answers, haven’t you,” she muttered.

He whirled around so fast, she bumped into him. “No, Nikki,” he ground the words out and jabbed the air with his finger.  “
You’re
the one with all the answers, and until you give them to me, we’re doing things
my
way.  So either start talking or save your energy for walking!”

She stumbled back a step, startled by his tirade. He dragged a hand through his hair, shaking his head and swearing through closed teeth. Then he turned on his heel and crashed forward, breaking tree limbs and stomping foliage into the mud.

Nikki watched him, catching her breath and nervously wiping the back of her hand across her mouth. She was going to have to tell him the truth, and soon. One more lie, one more evasion, and he’d walk right out of her life.

The sun hung in the sky, holding back the night and any chance she had of dropping with exhaustion. They’d been trudging through the tangle of undergrowth for only an hour, but little sleep, less food, and a heavy burden of guilt were taking a toll on her waning reserves of energy. Following his advice, she wasted none of it on talking.

She crawled the last few yards up a crumbling limestone shelf to the top of a hill. Josh lay flat on his stomach, perusing the landscape through his binoculars.

“Glad you could make it.”

“I bet,” she gasped, dropping to her knees beside him. Either he’d burned off his anger with the strenuous hike or it had been sweated out of him by the same heavy, wet heat drenching her skin and making her head pound. She pressed her hands against her thighs, her fingers clenched, her chest rising and falling with shallow breaths.

Even without the binoculars, she could see the village of Sulaco, nestled into a curve of the valley bisected by the river. Makeshift barracks spread across part of the valley floor, surrounded by transport trucks and the occasional decrepit jeep. Delgado’s stronghold was still intact. She wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but was too busy breathing period.

Josh rolled over to check behind them and swore softly. He was no tracker, but a child could have followed the trail they’d left. Suddenly, he swore again, but loudly.

“What’s the matter?” She scooted closer, narrowing her eyes and peering into the far distance.

Low-hanging clouds scudded across the sunset colors of mauve and purple dipping down to meet the lacy treetops rising from the mountainous terrain. Past the forest, the savanna stretched eastward into dusk and darkness, a rippling plain of burnished grass. She scanned the view, looking for and not finding whatever had triggered his anger.

“Get down,” he ordered. “Cardena got his truck going. He followed us.”

Uttering a choice phrase in Spanish, Nikki flattened herself into the dirt.

He snorted in disgust. “You still swear like a drunken sailor.”

She threw him an irritated glance. It was a little late for him to start policing her mouth.

“You should have outgrown that kind of language by now,” he added.

Her irritation gave way to disbelief. “You haven’t.”

He lowered the binoculars a fraction of an inch and leveled flinty blue eyes at her. “We’re not discussing me.”

“Now, there’s an idea,” she shot back. “When did you decide to take my advice and finally learn Spanish?”

Turning away from her, he settled the binoculars back over his eyes. “A couple of years ago.”

“Why?”

“I got tired of Washington.”

“And you couldn’t make it back here without me,” she finished for him. She stated the truth bluntly, without a trace of satisfaction or the triumph she’d sworn on a long-ago night would be hers. His tense silence prompted her to continue. “I never did understand how you grew up on the Rio Grande without knowing at least conversational Spanish. What did your parents do, Josh? Keep you locked up?”

“They did what they thought was right,” he said, biting off the words.

“What do you—”

“Lord, Nikki!” he interrupted, dropping the binoculars to his chest. “Didn’t you ever look at me? Joshua Rios! Black hair, dark skin, and blue eyes?”

“Of course I’ve looked at you!” she blustered in self-defense. “I spent a year of my life looking at you!”

“And you still don’t get it?”

“Get what?”

“Prejudice.” He spat the word out, as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. “My maternal and paternal grandparents have never been in the same room together. Not for my mom and dad’s wedding, not for my christening or for any of my brothers’ or sisters’ christenings.” He put the binoculars back to his face, effectively hiding any emotion his memories might have caused.

“So you put cotton in your ears to make your mom’s folks happy?” His explanation had quite a few holes in it as far as she could tell, unless his parents really had locked him up and put blinders on him.

“I didn’t have to. There was enough insulating cotton in our very exclusive neighborhood and in my very exclusive private schools to keep the taint of the barrio off me. Nobody ever mistook me for a wetback . . . except once.”

The edge in his voice caused her glance to go directly to the pale scar tracing his hairline. “They don’t teach knife-fighting in private schools, do they?”

“No. They don’t.” His tone said “Let it drop,” but she’d been too curious, too concerned, about that thin white line to back off when she was this close.

“Did it hurt?”

“Not at the time.” He let out a labored sigh. “I was too damn scared. I thought they were going to cut my throat.”

“How many were there?”

“Three. One to hold my legs, one to hold my arms, and one to slice me up. They weren’t much older than I was, just a group of teenagers from the barrio with no place to go but down. They thought I was a Mexican putting on airs in my fancy clothes, hanging around with a bunch of white kids.”

“I’m sorry, Josh,” she whispered, wanting to reach out and touch him, to comfort the boy he no longer was.

“As I recall, you weren’t there.” The binoculars came down to reveal a wry grin. “If you had been, I’m sure you wouldn’t have gone running off like my prep-school buddies.”

The words were no sooner out of his mouth than the truth struck him like a lightning bolt. Nikki
wouldn’t
have run off and left him alone. She’d have fought them tooth and nail, verbally abused them into shame, kicked and clawed. She never would have left him alone in that alley with three boys who were bigger than both of them.

The anger he’d been nurturing with every lie she fed him slowly melted away, leaving him open to all the better memories and stronger feelings she inspired.

“You’re the best friend I ever had,” he admitted softly.
And the only woman I want. What am I going to do, Nikki?

She read everything in the shadowed depths of his eyes, the honesty of what he’d said, and the pain of what he hadn’t said. Sometimes it hurt to know someone so well. She tore her gaze away. She didn’t know where they would go from there, except to Sulaco and betrayal.

“Is he coming this way?” She lifted her head to look in the direction of the road.

Reluctantly he followed her lead out of the dangerous emotional ground. Whatever happened between them wasn’t going to happen on that rocky hilltop.

The binoculars framed the patch of road below them where her Chevy and Cardena’s truck were parked. Or rather, where Cardena’s truck had been parked. Josh swung the binoculars up the road and caught a dust plume arcing up behind the rapidly moving vehicle. The rancher was driving as he had earlier, like a man with someone hot on his tail.

Josh refocused on the Chevy just as a convoy of jeeps pulled up in a cloud of flying dirt and skidding tires. The peaceful quiet of the mountain made an eerie backdrop for the commotion he witnessed. Men scrambled out of the vehicles, guns at the ready. One man directed them all with flailing arms and barked orders. Brazia.

A sick feeling worked its way up from the pit of his stomach when he saw what the men were doing to Nikki’s car. “Is your insurance paid up on the Chevy?”

“Yes,” she said warily.

“Well, get ready for a helluva show.” He slipped the strap over his head and packed the binoculars away in his satchel.

“What do you mean?”

In answer, he nodded toward the road.

Nikki waited, her anxiety increasing with each passing minute. A tickling stream of sweat ran down the side of her face. She brushed her cheek and kept staring at the line of trees bordering the road.

“I’ve changed my mind about the border, Nikki. We’re going to need more than a political boundary to discourage Brazia. Even the artillery in Sulaco might not be enough. The man is overly enthusiastic.”

“Brazia’s down there?”

“Frothing at the mouth,” he added, alluding to the man’s “mad dog” reputation. “Just to satisfy my curiosity”—he paused for a moment, his voice unsure—“will you tell me what you did to get so many people so damn mad at you?”

There it was, her chance to come clean, and she wasn’t quite ready for it. “I don’t think Cardena is mad at me,” she hedged.

“Sure, Nikki. He was shooting at us because we skipped out on breakfast.”

“Maybe he just wanted us to stop running.”

“A couple of bullets in the back would have accomplished that real successfully,” he said dryly.

“What I mean is, if he’s involved with the rebels, if the phone call was to Delgado, then he might have wanted to escort us.”