River of Desire: A Romantic Action Adventure/Thriller (10 page)

Leah strained her eyes, but was unable to see anything but branches and leaves. 

Even with the binoculars he handed her, it took a few moments to recognize a round, brown ball of fur on one of the uppermost branches. The large, lazy animal looked like it lived an envious life. “How did you see that with your naked eye?”

“
Trained eye. Sloth’s are notorious for sleeping high in the canopy and rarely moving. You learn to spot them.”

She placed the binoculars under the seat and realized that the distraction had eased her tension a bit. More relaxed, she sat back, resting her head against an arm. Birds flocked overhead, water gurgled around them. The surging pace of their raft and the beauty of their surroundings soothed her frayed nerves.

She had begun to dismiss Dylan’s warning of tumultuous waters as an exaggeration when they curved a bend in the river and a terrifying scene played out in front of her. They headed straight toward a sharp drop-off in the river where it cascaded down the sides of a steep mountain gorge with soaring, carved gray cliffs. Below them, water leaped and fell over boulders in white spume-capped swells. The sudden roar of the river deafened her, spray drenched her face and arms.

She hunched over her heaving stomach, trying to catch her breath. The pulse in her head pounded so loudly it almost drowned out the river. She grabbed handholds in the raft’s sides.

The raft surged through currents, slammed down over jutting rocks, swirled through reckless eddies. Leah was thrust against the raft’s sides and tumbled forward. She had trouble remaining fully below the gunwales as ordered. The moment she righted herself, she was knocked again off-balance.

Dylan steered the raft around a huge boulder before glancing back. The concern in his eyes informed her how deeply they could now communicate with just a look.

They continued to hurtle down the first set of rapids without a hitch. Shaken, but not really stirred, her confidence in him soared. At the bottom, the river quieted and they descended over less choppy water, the main threat behind them. She sat back, gloating with pride, trembling with released tension.

And then they rounded another bend.

Before them plunged the most alarming sight she had ever seen, could ever have imagined in her most terrifying nightmare.

The falls were so steep, they were twin to Niagara. Precipitous. Deadly. She wanted to tap Dylan on the shoulder and yell, “Let me off here,” but the words froze in her throat. Paralyzed, she could only hold on for dear life.

The raft bounced about, tossing them repeatedly against the jagged rocks. Foaming water slammed on board, soaking her. It assaulted her eyes, blinding her for seconds at a time. With so much water smashing into her face and up her nostrils, she could barely breathe, only sputter.

The raft smacked into a tree bending low along the river’s edge. Branches whacked her across her chest and side. Blood oozed from torn skin, but failed to distract her for long from her focus on remaining in the boat instead of being flung into the raging river.

Dylan yelled, “Duck!”

Before she could obey, a branch slapped her in the head, lifting her up and hurling her overboard. She hit the turgid river with a violent jolt. A cyclone of icy water shocked her alert and she fought violently against the current’s suction under. She grasped at water to keep her head above the surface. Instinctively flailing to remain afloat, she frantically sought the raft. She saw nothing but water. The maelstrom sucked her under, screaming. Water stilled her scream.

She began to choke, but clawed her way to the surface and managed a breath before the swirling current drew her back under. Just before her lungs exploded, she managed to get her head above water for one more breath. That’s when she spotted the huge boulder directly in front of her. She was being forced forward and would slam into it. She resisted the undertow; strained to move out of the rock’s path. The water countered with all its force. She was dragged beneath the surface, toward the rock. She could neither see, hear, nor breathe. If the rock didn’t crush her, drowning would. 

She fought hard, but unsuccessfully. The current drove her inexorably forward. No matter what she did, it didn’t work. She was at the river’s mercy.

And if the river had its way-she was a dead woman.

Chapter Eight

From the moment Leah slammed into the river’s icy foam and disappeared beneath, Dylan desperately strained his eyes and craned his neck trying to find her. He readied to throw himself into the river after her, but without a target, he would accomplish nothing except to be swept away himself. He wanted to do something. Anything. But stood a better chance of saving her if he remained on board.

He scoured the area for a flash of her neon green slicker. An eternity of seconds passed without sight of her. Fear filled him. Every muscle tensed in alarm coupled with readiness. He couldn’t stand the thought of losing her.

Something bobbed just below the surface of the water and Leah came up screaming and choking. He extended himself as far out over the side of the raft as he could and reached for her. Before he could make contact, she submerged again in the roiling rapids.

Damn. He had to get her. He furiously pried the craft closer to where she had surfaced. Every part of him shrieked with fear and worry. What if he never saw her again!

Just as he was about to reach for the hook, she emerged, flailing. He stretched toward her only to have her thrash so violently she pushed him away. She disappeared before he could seize her.

He fixed his eyes on the foam-and spied the rock. This was his last chance to save her from the water’s grasp before she smashed into the boulder. 

She resurfaced with a scream. He leaned over the side of the raft, straining the hook toward her. She again went under, but was close enough to spot beneath the white caps. He wouldn’t give up no matter what. He leaned farther forward, almost losing his balance, and grasped her arm with the hook, pulling her close enough to clasp her. To his relief, she clutched him with her free arm this time and fought to raise herself above the omnivorous flow. With his last ounce of strength, he hauled her out of the water.

He tugged her limp body onto the raft, but had to react quickly before the raft ran into the gigantic rock. He jammed an oar against the rock and furiously levered the craft away from the outcropping. The raft snagged an obstacle, hesitated, then slid silently around the boulder. More rapids lay ahead. He maneuvered the raft around rocks and great felled trees to a safe spot downstream.

In a calm eddy, Dylan could finally turn his attention back to Leah. She sprawled, head to the side, eyes closed, too quiet for comfort. It worried him. Without hesitation, he turned her onto her back and pressed on her chest to discharge water from her lungs, stopping every few seconds to give her mouth to mouth resuscitation, but his attempts to revive her didn’t seem to be working. She lay like a rag doll, limp and deadly still. He pounded on her chest harder again and again, and then, much to his astonishment, she began to cough and sputter fluid through her open mouth.

“
Yes!” he yelled, continuing to press on her solar plexis. She tossed her head from side-to-side deliriously spitting up copious quantities of river water.

Finally she stilled. Her eyes opened and fixed on the sky. She scarcely looked alive. He shook her gently. “Leah. Snap out of it. You’re okay! You’re alive!”

Slowly she turned her head toward him. A small smile touched the corners of her lips.

God, she was a trooper! He stroked tangles of wet hair from her face. “We’ve made it. We’re through the worst of the rapids.”

Her weak smile broke into a wide grin. “This trip has taught me a thing or two about survival. The first rule is to have Dylan Hart on your side.” She tried to sit up.

He pressed her back with a firm hand on her shoulder, surprised by his pleasure at her compliment. “Rest and recover. I’ll steer toward
Alta Garcia
where a small craft will take us to Iquitos tomorrow.”

At this promise, she curled into a fetal position, locked her forearm through a hand-hold, and, with a trusting sigh, closed her eyes.    

* * *

Late afternoon they docked as Dylan had predicted at the tiny settlement near the confluence of the Maranon and Huallaga Rivers. Leah opened her eyes in the calms and gazed up at Dylan. Against a backdrop of blue sky, he guided the raft to shore. His tanned, rugged face wore a smile that mirrored her own relief at coming into harbor and touched off a tender glow deep inside her. The thought that he had saved my life again infused her with gratitude.

“We’re back in Kansas, Dorothy, or what passes for civilization along the Amazon.” Dylan sprang from the raft and tied it to a pole. “This settlement is run by an order of nuns. It’s a small mission school for the area Indians. It’s as close to Kansas as we’ll get. We can stay the night and catch the boat into Iquitos in the morning.” He helped her out of the raft and into a small stucco house above the shoreline.

A short, swarthy nun, in heavy habit despite the tropical heat, showed her to a back room as calmly as if half-drowned battered American women showed up daily.

The nun gestured to a cot. “I must apologize for our simple accommodations.”

“
This looks as good to me as a suite at the Hilton,” Leah said to the nun.

“
I am pleased you like it.” The nun started toward the door. “I will leave you alone to refresh yourself. Please call on me if you need anything.”

As soon as the nun left the room, Leah glanced at herself in the bamboo framed mirror. The woman who stared back could have easily been mistaken for a domestic abuse victim. Bruises and knots covered her arms and legs, scratches and contusions disfigured her face. Her ribs and hipbones had begun to ache in the hours since her dunking. She wanted nothing more than to fall onto the cot and sleep for a week, but first she had to clear the schedule with Dylan, who waited outside. Now that she had survived the worst, she had begun to worry about their many delays and how that would affect her assignment.

As soon as he saw her, Dylan flashed Leah a beguiling cockeyed smile showing straight white teeth. He had to be at least as relieved as she after their hell week. Or perhaps he just looked forward to dumping her off in Iquitos and heading back to his next meal ticket. The thought hurt, then angered. She had to chide herself for wanting to be more than just another paying customer to him.
Ban the thought. You’re nothing more to him than a month’s living expenses and he should be nothing more to you than a trek through the trees.

So why couldn’t she convince herself of this?

“I wanted to lie down for awhile, but didn’t know if you’d need me to help with preparations for our trip tomorrow,” she said.

“
You might as well rest. I have things under control.”

She swatted at a sting on her forearm. “Darn! Another mosquito bite. DDT aside, I already have a few hundred from lying on the raft.”

“Typical. It’s more humid here than in the mountains.” Dylan looked at the angry red swelling on her arm. “These creatures are more ferocious than the piranha, and they carry all kinds of exciting germs.” He pulled a bottle of calamine lotion from his pack. “Let me treat you.” He smeared it on her arm and on another bite on her neck. As he did, the smallest smile touched his lips.”    

She shook off an exciting, but unwelcome sensation. “I’m immunized against malaria and yellow fever, but I do need to reapply my repellent.”

He started to move away. “Why don’t you do that while I arrange for a motorboat for the morning?”

The minute he disappeared she went to her room and collapsed on the cot, luxuriating in the joy of having a roof over her head and a mattress beneath her back. She had forgotten how delightful such simple pleasures could be. She tried to turn off her mind and rest, but couldn’t shut down thoughts of Dylan’s imminent departure. She tried to talk herself out of her growing attachment to him, but it had become as difficult to shut off the flow of her feelings as it would be to halt the flow of the river.

Reality struck. If her own father had failed her when she needed him most, how could she expect more from Hart, a raft passing in the night. Her new-found feelings for him were merely a symptom of what they had been through together. A river crush, that was all. How silly of her to have a romantic fantasy about him because he had saved her life.

Unable to sleep, she rose and left the building for the quay where the water ran shallow near shore. To refresh herself in the heat, she rolled up her jeans and dipped her feet in warm river water. A glance at her bared legs reminded her she hadn’t shaved in a week. The thought of trimming the forest germinating on her shins inspired her to retrieve a razor from her pack and wade back into the shallows. She propped a leg upon a handy rock and glided the blade over the craggy and blackened terrain on her calf left by her bout with the river. Over one particularly swollen spot, the blade nicked skin. Blood poured from the cut and ran down her leg.

She submerged the leg in water to wash off the blood, then heard, “No! Stop!” Startled, she looked up to see Dylan racing toward her. “Don’t do that!” He reached her before she could react to his furious shout, gathered her up in his arms, and hoisted her entirely out of the water.

What the hell was he doing now?
Sometimes she could make no sense at all of him. She squirmed, trying to free herself. “Let go of me, you big oaf!” The harder she wiggled and twisted, the more firmly he clutched her.

Away from the river’s edge, he released her to land. “Are you crazy? Do you want to be Cayman food?”

She had never even considered the South American alligators. Sheepish, she shrugged. “I didn’t realize...”

“
For God’s sake be cautious. I don’t want to lose you...” he shot her a stern look. “...before I collect my last twenty-one hundred dollars.”

His remark only proved her earlier point. He saw her solely as a paycheck. Why should she feel any differently toward him? “Don’t worry,” she snapped. “You’ll get what’s coming to you.”

* * *

That night was no different than the afternoon. No matter how hard Leah tried, she couldn’t fall asleep. Tomorrow she would say her goodbye to Dylan Hart and find another guide into the jungle of northern Peru. If only she didn’t have such a hard time imagining a jungle excursion without him.

Even as she entertained this thought, she knew something more cemented her to her quirky guide. She didn’t want to think what that something could be.

When she considered separation from him, a lump filled her throat. If she dwelt on it long enough, the lump would melt into tears. She tried to swallow but the lump stuck.

She couldn’t quite reconcile her present feelings with her past. Hadn’t she always been the one to laugh at her friends when they foolishly drooled over a man? She had prided herself on being different. More goal directed. More motivated. Yet here she was acting like a silly teenager, helpless to cope with her own emotions. What had gotten into her? She wanted to snap herself back to sanity, but nothing she could do-nothing she could say-would alter her yearning.

Then she remembered Robert. Sweet, but dull, Robert. She had agreed to think over his proposal of marriage because he had qualities she liked. He was hardworking, sincere, ambitious. But when she put him alongside Dylan in her mind, she could no longer fool herself into thinking she might ever consider marrying him.

A rustling outside her window drew her to the sill. To her surprise, Dylan was also awake, pacing back and forth on the moonlit grounds not far from where she stood. His restlessness gave her a flush of hope. Perhaps he, too, dreaded their impending separation, felt the knot in his stomach she did. But it was more than likely he was just anticipating the next trip on his agenda.

Suddenly something shifted. She no longer cared about his reason for being awake because a new resolve had hardened inside of her. She had convinced Dylan to take her this far, why couldn’t she convince him to take her all the way up the Napa? She had always persisted in whatever she did, no matter the cost.

Why should she quit now?

* * *

Leah looked over the ancient motorboat. “Do you care where I sit?” She turned to the younger-than-expected motorboat captain, Armando.

“
Sì, Senorita
.” Armando, in a baseball cap and
Levis,
made a gesture toward the boat. “
Por favor.
”

She took the indicated seat. Dylan tossed their luggage into the stern and joined her.     

Armando jerked the red
Johnson Eighteen
a half-dozen times, primed the sputtering engine. The boat plunged down river toward Iquitos.

For a time they passed no one on the river. The wind lifted Leah’s hair and tossed it around her face and she had to hold it back so she could see the miles of flat palm-lined jungle bank that flew past. Closer to Iquitos, tiny outcroppings of human settlements sprang up along the riverbank and more carved-out canoes floated by with fishing families and couples. Dylan referred to the passing people with straight bowl-type haircuts as the river people. The name was as descriptive as any. They all traveled in the same small canoes, all wore a similar minimalist-style clothing. Leah smiled and waved as they sailed by.

Soon smokestacks appeared on the horizon and large riverboats replaced the canoes as river transportation. Dylan pointed ahead. “Iquitos.”