Make Mine a Marine (44 page)

The memory of Hawk's chocolate-flavored kisses stirred, unbidden in her mind. Despite the gnawing emptiness in her stomach, her hunger vanished. The natives and conquerors who had settled this island and much of the tropical Americas called chocolate "the food of the gods." But the sweet tenderness and gentle urging of Hawk's mouth and hands had been a far more addictive pleasure.

Walter's erudite kisses had been a perfunctory formality. He would drop a tantalizing tidbit here and there to pique her curiosity, and once he had her full attention, he tried to teach her what she needed to know about the differences between men and women. She had once imagined that by pleasing him, she would find pleasure for herself. But her repeated failures left her wanting as much as Walter did. He took care of his needs elsewhere, while Sarah broke the engagement and embraced her impending spinsterhood with forced relish.

But Hawk's touch had been a gift, one she dared not ask for again, unless she wanted to risk his refusal. He asked for nothing from her, out of consideration, perhaps. But maybe from compassion. Maybe he had tried to spare her the embarrassment of not being able to give him all he needed.

Sarah tried to reason away Hawk's kindnesses, to convince herself he might really want her. When Hawk spoke of her hips and breasts, he made her pear-shaped figure sound like a sensuous, irresistible temptation.

But memories of Walter intruded, drowning out the beautiful compliments Hawk had given her. Let me take you shopping sometime. My treat. There are certain clothes that can camouflage those little imperfections.

"Can't you do anything to make that static go away?" The shrill question pierced Sarah's downward spiral into self-pity. She glanced up to see Lynnette pacing in tight circles around her pack.

The young girl rubbed at the back of her neck in a nervous motion as tight and deliberate as her footsteps. Sarah rolled onto her feet and stood, tossing aside the berries left in her hand. "Lynnette, you need to calm down so you don't overheat." Sarah nodded toward the radio, and noticed Hawk and the others focused on Lynnette, as well. "The static means the radio is working."

"We don't know that." The girl stopped in her tracks, stared wild-eyed daggers at Sarah, then resumed her pacing. "We can't hear anybody else on that thing. Maybe it's not broadcasting at all. Maybe we walked all this way, and the only ones who can hear us are Senor Salazar and all those other men who went off and—” she sobbed a gasp of air, “—left us.”

"I have a cat at home," she continued on the next sob. "And if I don't get home at the end of the week, Peanut Butter might run away."

Sarah reached out and wrapped her fingers around Lynnette's wrist. "Calm down. You're not making any sense. Peanut Butter will be at home when you get there, Lynnette. We'll all be home very soon." Although she was taller in stature, the younger girl stopped at the light touch and glared down at her teacher's hand as though she'd been trapped.

"No, we won't," she argued, her reasoning skewed by heat and stress and fear. "We keep stopping every half hour."

Hawk stepped forward, then halted in his tracks when Lynnette jerked her hand away from Sarah. In a low, soothing voice tinged with the cool affirmation of authority, he explained their slow, erratic pace. "With this temperature, we need to take frequent breaks to keep up our strength. If one of us passes out, the others will have to carry him or her. And then, yes, we will be delayed. But we'll all get home, I promise you."

"No, we won't. At this rate we'll never get home. Never!" In a swirl of dark brown hair and high-topped sneakers, Lynnette dashed into the trees, running as hard and fast as her long, coltish legs could carry her.

Sarah waved Hawk back down to the radio. "You stay here. I'll go get her."

She cursed herself as she jumped the ravine and ran into the trees after Lynnette. What was she thinking? She should have seen this coming. If she'd been paying more attention to someone besides herself, she would have recognized that Lynnette was about to snap from all the stress. She'd lost sight of her responsibility to these girls, her charges, all because of a man.

All right, so he might be heroic and handsome. He might be gentle and caring… and strange. She might love him…

Sarah would have stopped at the admission if she had the time to think about it and talk herself out of it. She loved Hawk. But she couldn't have him. And if he would somehow give her a chance, she knew she'd never be able to keep him. She wasn't the kind of woman a man pledged eternal devotion to. The kind of woman a man made passionate love to, shared silly little secrets with, made babies and grew old together with. She wasn't that kind of woman.

She was a teacher, a woman who nurtured the minds and spirits of children beyond a parent's love. Right now, she wasn't even doing a very good job of that.

"Lynnette!" She yelled, losing track of the girl when she veered back toward the road. The heavy air and sudden exertion were evident in the painful wheezing of her lungs. Her steps slowed, and Sarah had flashes of telling Lynnette's mother how she'd lost her daughter in the jungle down on Isla Tenebrosa.

An unexpected scream curdled the blood in Sarah's veins. She stumbled over her own feet in her hurry to stop, pausing to get her bearings over her own labored breathing. Lynnette screamed again. "Miss Mack!"

Changing course, Sarah ran out across the road and stopped, almost knocking Lynnette to the ground when she crashed into her. The girl had stopped at the far ditch, glaring down at something hidden there. Sarah hugged her tightly to calm her and then looked down.

A dead body lay face down in several inches of standing water. Recognizing the white cotton uniform of Salazar's men, Sarah knelt down and turned him over. Lynnette's gasp echoed her own at the man's blue-lipped, bloated features. Sarah could see no other obvious marks on the body. He'd drowned! In six inches of water, the man had drowned!

"Oh, my God." Sarah murmured her prayer, then stood to turn Lynnette away from the gruesome sight. The girl's overt calm worried Sarah more than her hysterical screaming had. "It'll be okay, hon. Let's go find Hawk. He'll take us home."

"That is right, senorita." A falsely charming, accented voice stopped her. Sarah bristled, suddenly on guard, and turned to see Luis Salazar walk out of the trees.  He cradled a gun like the one she’d shot Martin de Vega with in his hands. "Let us find that Indian friend of yours who has killed all my men."

"Hawk hasn't killed anyone." Her protest was automatic. She had no trouble imagining Hawk capable of killing a man to protect himself or someone else. He'd been a Marine, after all. But he wasn't the type of man to kill another in cold blood. To track a man down and drown him at the side of the road for no better reason than revenge. Was he?

Besides, he'd stayed with her all through the night. And she'd followed the broad, steady rhythm of his back all morning. Hawk had never left them long enough to find Antonio and kill him.

"So what happened to my men, then?" He asked the question in jest, sounding as though there could be no other explanation. "Someone is tracking them down, one by one. Tailing us through the jungle. Is this something you or your little girls can do, senorita?"

"Hernandez died in an accident."

Luis laughed out loud. "Senorita, you have quite the imagination." His laughter stopped with the abrupt foreboding of a rattlesnake's silence before it struck. He gestured toward the road with his rifle.  "Now go. I want to take care of your friend before he eliminates me as well."

Ignoring the shock of the dead body and Luis's ridiculous accusation, Sarah resigned herself to his unwelcome company. She needed to think of some way to warn Hawk, some way to alert him to protect himself and get the others to safety. But what could she do that wouldn't get her or Lynnette killed? She thought long and hard and fast, coming up with possibilities, then quickly discarding them. In the end, she simply prayed, and hoped that Hawk's uncanny intuition would pick up on the terror coursing through her.

She wrapped a sheltering arm around Lynnette's shoulders and walked slowly along the mud-packed road, silently obeying the rifle pointed at their backs.

Chapter
Eleven

"I don't know where they are," Sarah repeated.

The radio still sat on a rock, crackling with the static of unanswered petitions. Packs and scattered palm fronds littered the flat rise between the rutted ditches. The temporary camp lay ready, like the set and props of a stage, waiting for the actors to walk on and assume their roles.

Only there were no players in sight.

"I am in no mood for games, senorita." Salazar's accent sounded thicker, less refined, couched in that menacing whisper. "Call to him."

Sarah glanced over her shoulder at Luis, using the opportunity to check the perimeter of trees to see if, by some miracle, Hawk had sneaked in behind their captor, poised to attack. But the jungle closed around them like an isolating green curtain, and there were no allies to be found. At least he had gotten the others securely hidden away. Now she had to see to Lynnette's safety. She hugged the frightened girl around the waist, pulling her close to her side and angling her own body between Lynnette and Luis. "Let her go first."

Luis shook his head. "You are in no position to bargain. Call him."

She knew little about the design of Luis's weapon, but she understood the universal function of the trigger and was keenly aware of how his right index finger caressed the black metal loop framing it. With her gaze pinned to that finger, she raised her voice and spoke. "Hawk? If you're out there, we need you."

Luis turned away, on alert, scanning their surroundings for any sign of movement. Sarah seized the sudden opportunity. She spun around and shoved Lynnette ahead of her, forcing her to run for the trees.

But Luis reacted quickly. "Enough!"

A deafening blow of thunder exploded in the air behind her. Falling to her knees, Sarah pushed Lynnette across a ditch into the protective underbrush. But before she herself could scramble to her feet or crawl to safety, the hard bite of metal tapped the base of her skull. She froze.

"Get up on your feet."

"You're not a killer, Luis." Playing for time, full of blind hope, she tried to reason with him. Appeasing his desperation, she slowly stood and turned around to meet the sleek black tip of the rifle pointed at her forehead. It was mere inches from her face, the hot odor of gunpowder stinging her nose, sickening her as much as the senseless, unending threat of this man's greed did.

He shook his head, but the gun remained steady. "It was all so simple. We open the tomb and take the treasure while you sleep. In the morning, you and your students dig up the artifacts we have uncovered."

"The few you leave behind for us, you mean." If Luis wanted to talk, she'd encourage the distraction. Anything to give Lynnette time to reach the others and be safe. "How many expeditions have you used as a cover to raid Las Lagumas? The authorities in El Espanto think you're some kind of savior, rescuing the national treasures of King Meczaquatl and Queen Prini."

"They were easy to fool. Eager to be 'a part of history.' “He quoted the very brochure that had lured Sarah here in the first place. Her stomach flipped over in self-loathing for how gullible she'd been to fall into his plan so easily and so completely. "And the government believes what I tell them."

"How can you endanger children like this? How do you justify using them?"

"The children were never in any danger. No one ever got hurt until this expedition. Until your Indian friend decided to come along. He is no teacher. No student. He is like no human I have ever seen. He is unnatural." Sarah bristled at the derogatory description, feeling the slur in Luis's voice as painfully as if his words had insulted her instead of Hawk. "He's been a danger to me from the beginning. But I will put a stop to him. Now."

Luis's finger brushed the trigger. Sarah's breath lodged in her chest. She braced for the impact of the bullet, prayed for forgiveness when she reached the hoped-for peace on the other side.

"Put down the gun."

In the blinding light of midday, Hawk emerged from the trees like a shadow from the darkness. Darkness from darkness, she'd once thought with fear. But no more. Her breath seeped from her lungs with blessed relief. Hawk's reassuring presence fortified her like the cooling relief of evening settling in on a hot day.

He moved as silently as a wraith into the clearing, holding up both hands high enough for Luis to see them, high enough for him to see the thick, gleaming blade of the knife he held in his hand.

Without moving his rifle from Sarah, Luis spoke. "Drop it."

Hawk swung his midnight gaze over to Sarah. In that briefest of contacts, she saw deadly conviction and something else. Something deeper, fiery, and full of promise. A feeling of cherished protection washed over Sarah. The sensation was as welcome as it was foreign.

He would die for her, she realized. The predatory gleam in his calm expression held no mercy for Luis. Yet she knew he would willingly sacrifice himself to protect her. Something altered deep inside her, an infinitesimal shift in her spirit that changed her perception of the world, that shone new light on her perception of herself.

Hawk could not die. This gentle, soul-healing man whom she loved could not die. She pleaded with her eyes. She pleaded with her heart. "Hawk, no. Don't do anything—"

"Silence!" Luis shook the gun scant millimeters from her face. Sarah gasped and staggered back a step. "The knife, Indian."

"Do what you want with me," Hawk said in a throaty whisper. The words were barely audible, but they vibrated through the air with unmistakable clarity. "But you hurt her, and I'll track you down. There won't be any place in this world you can hide from me."

The threat earned Hawk a thin-lipped sneer from Luis. He knew he had the upper hand as long as he controlled Sarah's fate. "Brave words for a man who is about to die. The knife?"

With his fathomless, unblinking gaze locked on Luis, Hawk knelt down and laid his weapon on the ground. When he straightened, he shook out his arms and shoulders with the controlled, calculating, predatory finesse of a big jungle cat.

But the older man refused to be intimidated. "Kick it away," ordered Luis.

Hawk obeyed. With the weapon now twenty feet away in the underbrush, Luis's expression broadened into a self-satisfied smile. "I cannot allow you to stop me. You might outsmart my men, but you will not get the best of me. I know this jungle as well as the man who tamed it. I know all its secrets, all its treasures. Meczaquatl built an empire out of rock and gold and ambition. He eliminated those who defied him, carved them up as offerings to the gods. I have studied the master. I have learned his lessons by heart. I will follow his example. The scavengers will not even be able to smell what is left of you."

Hawk dropped his hands to his sides. "You don't know him at all. You have no respect for what he accomplished. No idea of the power he still commands."

Laughter bubbled from deep in Luis's chest. It moved up his throat and spilled out in a devilish roar. "You are a madman! Meczaquatl has been dead for centuries. I told you he was crazy. Loco, this one. I am about to do you a favor, senorita." Luis's gaze darted from Hawk to Sarah. "Face down in the dirt."

Sarah looked at Hawk, not fully understanding Luis's intentions, but certain the results would be fatal. The granite mask of Hawk's expression never changed, but he gave her the slightest of nods.

"No—" She leaned forward, but a reminding tap on the shoulder from Luis's gun stopped her protest.

"Sarah, please. Do as he says." In that softest of voices, like a lover's call, he begged her to do what he asked.

Left with little choice but to comply, Sarah went down on her knees, sharing one last look with both men. She didn't know which frightened her more, the murderous intent in Luis's expression, or the stalwart look of acceptance on Hawk's. Briefly, she hoped the girls were hidden well enough so that they couldn't witness this execution. But her last thoughts centered around her heart and the painful rendering of knowledge that she had learned to love and trust a man, but that she had learned too late. She spread flat on her stomach and turned her cheek into the mud.

The next few seconds played out like eons. "On your knees, Indian," she heard Luis command.

Hawk made no sound, but she could tell by the shifting of Salazar's feet that he had his unresisting target in the sights of his gun.

"The treasure of Meczaquatl is mine."

A grinding roar crashed through the trees, startling into flight a raucous chorus of birds and sending a skittering, slithering army of tiny animals deeper into the safety of the jungle. Sarah lifted her head and saw a grimy white truck clunking over ruts and barreling toward her. The rapid report of gunshots reverberated loudly above the wild cacophony.

She screamed and rolled into the ditch, narrowly dodging the crushing wheels. Ignoring the slimy water that filled her boots and soaked her clothes, she clawed her way to her feet and watched the truck fly past. She glimpsed a flash of red behind the wheel, noticed a second person hanging out the passenger window, and realized that was where the shots had come from. Lyndsay? Raul? They'd stolen Luis's truck!

New hope surged through her. She dug her fingers into the earth as the truck sped past and climbed out of the ditch, desperate to see if Hawk had survived. The two men tumbled back and forth in a twisting heap on the ground. She saw Hawk raise up, watched his fist go down.

Luis jerked beneath him. But then the older man's legs kicked, and suddenly Hawk was in the mud and Luis dove at him. Hawk coiled at the last instant, and Luis crashed to the ground.

Sarah looked around for some way to help Hawk. His knife lay on the opposite side of the brawl from her. But Luis's rifle was closer at hand, in the middle of the road. With the instinct to survive guiding her steps, she ran and picked it up. A resounding thud diverted her attention. Luis flew back toward her, hitting her legs and toppling her to the ground.

"Sarah!"

Hawk's bellow reached her the instant Luis realized his advantage. Suddenly she was clinging to the gun and struggling to hold on to it. But Luis ripped it from her grip.

She scrambled backward, crablike, as he rolled onto his haunches at her feet. In the space of a heartbeat, he had the gun leveled at her and his finger pressed to the trigger.

"Sarah!"

Hawk leaped at them the same time the gun went off. Luis's rifle sailed through the air, and Hawk's dark form crumpled in a lurch, crushing her beneath the rangy shield of his body.

"Hawk! No!"

She felt the warm, sticky ooze seeping between her fingertips. In a catch of breath somewhere between a gasp for air and a cry for help, she twisted beneath him to free herself and check his injury. With his right arm he propped himself above her, his chiseled bronze features looking ashen around his mouth when he looked down at her.

Sarah sat up. She touched his face, ran her hand down along his arm and flanks, and found the wound in his left side. She lifted her gaze to the powerful midnight promise in his eyes, then looked over his head and beyond.

Luis staggered to his feet, his weapon in hand. His bloodied mouth hung open, gasping in lungfuls of air. Then he closed it with a laughing smile and trained the gun on them both.

"
Adios
, senorita."

From out of nowhere, a swirling chimera of distorted light rushed at Luis. As startled as she, Luis watched the vortex whip around his head. Then it seemed to spread out around him. The temperature dropped. The strange phenomenon glowed. It grew and ebbed around Luis, spinning more quickly, gathering light. Gathering strength.

The light was alive. The light...

Luis screamed. The hovering entity closed in on him, attacking him with a force that knocked the gun from his hands. He clawed at his chest, gurgling for air as the thing sucked itself down his throat.

"Don't look." Hawk wrapped his right arm around her, pulled her down and tucked her beneath him. Sarah buried her face in his shoulder, clutching him tightly and shielding her eyes from the blinding prism of colors that careened around their would-be killer.

She shivered with the cold, and Hawk wound his body more securely around her. He bent his head to her neck and chanted something into her ear. Foreign words. Indian words. Powerful medicine. A prayer to keep that thing at bay.

Seconds later, minutes later, maybe a lifetime later, the shrieks stopped. She became aware of the warmth of Hawk's body surrounding her, and sensed the jungle air adjusting itself to its normal, sunny hues.

The thing was gone.

As suddenly as it had appeared, it had vanished.

Breathing heavily, Hawk loosened his hold on her and they helped each other to a sitting position. She looked past him and saw Luis Salazar's twisted, pale body lying on the road. The fixed terror in his sightless eyes told her he was dead.

Stunned, she lifted her gaze to Hawk. His sad, pitying stare focused on the corpse of their attacker.

"What was that?" she asked.

Several silent moments passed before he answered.

"Retribution."

Retribution
?

Sarah gripped the steering wheel harder and tried to switch her concentration back to the road. But the deep, meditative silence of the man beside her filled her thoughts.