Under the Wire (19 page)

For long moments she stared into his eyes, searching for some indication that he was folding on that point. Nothing. He gave her nothing. Because, she finally realized, he had nothing to give.

"Let go of my arm." She had to get away from him before she did something really stupid—like beg him to forgive her for a sin she hadn't even committed.

Silence sang between them like a bowstring, taut, quivering, suspended until he finally let her go. He gave no indication that he'd understood or even considered the sense in her words.

"We'll rest here for another hour. Then we're heading for Kandy."

She blinked. Blinked again. "That's it? That's all you have to say?"

A muscle in his jaw tightened.

She shook her head, almost feeling sorry for him. "You are so wrong about me." She no longer cared that he had the ability to hurt her. "And so help me, if Adam spends even one more second in harm's way than is necessary because of
your
problems with
me,
I'll never forgive you. And when you finally figure out the truth, you'll never forgive yourself."

"Hey, you okay?"

Lily hadn't seen Darcy approach her. She was pretty much lost in an anger that blocked everything around her.

She'd stomped away from Manny—yes, stomped, although she wasn't exactly proud of it—to the Suburban, where she'd sat down on the grass, cross-legged, and leaned against the front bumper. Fuming. She'd figured no one would notice her there.

"I'm fine," she said without glancing up.

A moment of uncertain silence passed. "Want some company?"

It was on the tip of her tongue to say "Thanks but no thanks" when Lily realized she would actually welcome the opportunity to vent with someone who had something other than testosterone running through her system. And Darcy had been kind. More than kind. She'd been the only one in the lot who hadn't judged Lily.

She motioned to the ground beside her. "Enter at your own risk."

"He's having trouble coming to terms with things," Darcy said as she eased to the ground beside Lily.

Lily didn't pretend to misunderstand. They were five people in close confines. The others had to have heard, if not actually witnessed, her little—in Manny's words— "meltdown."

"He's pious and judgmental." She let her head fall back against the bumper, made a sound of frustration.

"And maybe hurting?" Darcy suggested carefully.

Lily shook her head but finally conceded, "Okay. Yeah. Maybe."

They sat in companionable silence for a while before Darcy turned to her. "Tell me to bugger off if you want to, but I've got to ask. What's the story with you and Manny?"

Lily glanced over at Darcy, saw sincere interest and concern on her face, and decided what the hell. At least she wanted to know. That was more than anyone else in camp.

"I was working with a Doctors Without Borders team in Managua," Lily began at the beginning. "We met at a state dinner—a media event orchestrated by the Sandinistas. A command appearance—we saw it as insurance that they wouldn't pull our visas before the team's work was done."

She breathed deep of the cooling mountain air, smelled campfires and pine and the earthy loam of the forest floor. "I'd lost a friend that day. A nurse who went down on an evac chopper that I was supposed to have been on."

"That's a tough one." Darcy's pretty green eyes were filled with understanding.

"Yeah. No matter how often I replay it, it always comes down to I should have been the one who died."

Even though the gradual coolness of the night was refreshing, Lily shivered. Swatted a mosquito off her neck. "That night... well, I was hurting pretty badly ... pretty messed up, you know? And then, out of the blue there was this amazing young soldier who wanted to make me forget. Who promised to do things to me to make sure I forgot. And because I needed some promises that night... I stepped out of the box. Big-time. And I let him."

"A man like Manolo Ortega could make a woman forget a lot of things," Darcy said with a soft, knowing smile.

Lily actually laughed, though there was nothing remotely funny. She stared into space, remembering how he'd taken her breath away.

He still took her breath away.

"Yeah," she said with a slow nod. "He could. He did. We were together a week. It was pretty intense. And then he just disappeared. I looked for him. Was finally told by the Sandinista general in charge that he'd died in a firefight."

She shook her head. "From what I've pieced together since, the Sandinistas figured out he was a spy for the Contras and arrested him. Manny's convinced I'm the one who turned him in."

"But you didn't."

Lily glanced at Darcy again, not surprised exactly but certainly pleased that Darcy had made a statement, not asked a question.

"No. I didn't. I searched for him, but, like I said, they told me he was dead." Even now, even after she'd found him, seen him, knew he was alive, that memory had the power to shake her.

"I was already back in the States when I realized I was pregnant. And I didn't know until a few months ago that he was alive." She expelled a deep breath. "He'd actually arrived back in the U.S. before I left Nicaragua. And he'd never contacted me."

She drew her hair over her left shoulder and absently brushed at the snarls with her fingers. It still hurt to know that. Ached deep inside ... an ache that had intensified since he'd accused her of betrayal.

She glanced at Darcy. "All those years. He was alive. Hating me."

"I think maybe he's rethinking things, Lily." Darcy's voice was thoughtful in the darkening night. "He hasn't said anything. He wouldn't, but... sometimes I'll catch him watching you. It's not with the eyes of a man filled with hate. Anyway, I think maybe he's figuring out that he was wrong about you."

Lily tugged at a blade of grass. "Yeah, well, if he's figured it out, he's sure not giving me any signs."

"No. I don't suppose he is. I don't expect he can. Not yet, anyway. It's not going to be easy for him to let go of those feelings. Add to the mix that he hasn't yet had time to adjust to the idea that he has a son ... well. It's a lot. Even for a man like Manny."

Yeah,
Lily thought. It was a lot. It had been a lot for her to absorb. "I was scared to death to come looking for him," she confessed. "When I realized Manny was alive, I was ... hell, I don't know what I was. Shocked. Elated. Hurt. Scared."

"I imagine it takes a lot to scare you."

Lily pushed out a grunt. "I'm not so sure about that anymore. I used to think so."

"And I imagine it took you some time to come to terms with all of those feelings about Manny."

Lily closed her eyes. "Yeah. It took some time."

Darcy touched a hand to Lily's shoulder. "Give him some time, too, okay? I know it hurts. But give him some time."

Darcy was right. Manny did need time. But time to what? To decide if he wanted Adam to be a part of his life? To decide if he wanted to pick up where the two of them had left off?

She didn't think so. She didn't even know if she wanted that to happen. Couldn't see the sense or the wisdom in it. She suspected that he couldn't, either. Chemistry—even chemistry as explosive as theirs—did not a relationship make, regardless of their emotional connection. She was ten years older than him, for God's sake. Ten years and a vast chasm of cultural and lifestyle differences between them.

Besides, there was the survival factor. She'd lost Manny once. She hadn't even loved him and the pain had been crippling.

She hadn't even loved him.

Okay. So she'd been
pretending
she hadn't loved him.

Working her damnedest to convince herself she didn't love him when, in fact, she was over the moon for the beautiful boy who was so much a man.

What about now? Was she pretending again? Was that what this was all about? Was she still in love with Manny Ortega and half scared to death with it?

And if she was, could she bear to admit it? To herself? To him, when she was fairly certain there could be no happily ever after in a story that involved the two of them?

"So . . . what's the story with Ethan and Manny?" she asked, because she didn't want to think or talk or consider her history—or her present—with Manny anymore. And because she needed something to take her mind off the ever present fear for her son.

For the next half hour, Lily did manage to forget about Manny's hostility. She even stopped thinking about Adam for a moment or two as she listened in fascination while Darcy told her about Ethan and Manny's history in the Special Forces. How Darcy had met both Manny and Ethan in Peru, where she and Ethan had gotten married, how their marriage had crumbled several years ago, and how, as fate would have it, the Garrett men and Manny had recently rescued her from a terrorist cell in the Philippines.

"That's why I know they'll find Adam," Darcy assured her again. "They found me. Against impossible odds. These guys don't know defeat, Lily. They never will."

"I pray to God that you're right."

The night had settled in like a tepid, damp blanket. The muffled, undistinguishable conversations of distant campers, the rustle of the wind through the trees, the residual weight of the day, encompassed them.

Somewhere out there was her son. It would soon be over seventy-two hours since it was discovered he'd gone missing. Each additional hour, she knew, diminished the chances of finding him alive.

A sick longing filled her chest as she looked toward the sky. Was he looking to the sky for answers, too? Was he alone? Was he afraid? Was he sick or hurt or... She couldn't think that way. She had to think positive.

More than anything in the world, more than she needed to sort things out with Manny, she needed Adam back. And she needed to believe he was alive.

CHAPTER 13

Outskirts of Kandy

"Okay, here's the plan." Manny pulled up to the gates of a small airport just outside of Kandy at 4:00
a.m.
He cut lights and the motor. "We split up here."

Lily couldn't hide her surprise. "Split up?"

"So we can cover more ground." The overhead light came on as Ethan opened the door and got out. Dallas did the same, followed by Manny.

So that's why they'd been divvying up the money,
Lily thought as she joined the men and Darcy at the rear of the Suburban. They'd hatched this plan back at the campground last night.

The situation had always been urgent. This shift of tactics, however, spelled out exactly how urgent. These men knew things about terrorists and hostage situations that most people would never have to know. They knew they were racing a clock here. Trying to get in under the wire to save lives. To save her son's life.

With Ethan holding a flashlight, Dallas dug into his ALICE pack and pulled out three phones that looked like forerunners to the modern cell phone. "Satellite phones," he explained when Lily frowned. "Not the newest models, but we should be able to stay in touch with these."

The men did a quick check to make certain the SAT phones were working. Then the others helped Dallas stow a disassembled rifle into his pack along with a handgun and various provisions.

"Wait," Lily stopped him, and raced around the vehicle for her medical bag. She quickly pulled some of everything from her stash of supplies. "Take these. Just in case."