Nowhere to Hide (20 page)

As Lia came out of the mud pit, they were met by another pool of water, which Cav gladly swam into. He washed the mud off his body along the way and by the time they reached the other side of it, they were in a huge cavern. Slowly standing, the water dripping off him, Cav came and stood next to Lia. The hours to get here to Boca del la Culebra had been worth it.

Sunlight flooded through a huge opening halfway up a landslide area of rock and debris with soil at the bottom. Shafts of powerful sunlight made his eyes water; he held up his hand to shade his eyes while they adjusted. The hole was huge. Tons of limestone rocks had broken up and created a path that could be climbed out of it.

The sun’s rays within the cave created an amazing sight as Cav turned slowly around, absorbing the natural beauty surrounding them. There were caramel, cream, sienna and stark white limestone in the rounded cave. He could hear the water running nearby, above the blue sky, filmy white clouds and the sun made him want to go one step further.

“Well?” Lia asked, turning, smiling, “was this worth it or what?”

He grinned and held her shining eyes. “Oh yeah, every second of it.” Without thinking, he took his thumb and gently removed a smudge of mud from across her cheek where the scar lay. He briefly felt the scar itself and too late, realized what he’d done. Instead of moving away, Cav made a smooth movement of his thumb and removed the remainder of the mud. For a moment, he saw a flicker of fear in Lia’s eyes, but she hadn’t jerked away from him, nor had she gasped or acted shocked by his touch.

“Mud,” he said, keeping his smile in place, holding her gaze, watching her reaction over his gesture. “Do I have any on me?” he teased.

Lia made a wry movement with her lips, trying not to be overwhelmed by this seductive dance between them. He’d touched her scar and hadn’t winced like Jerry had. His smile never changed, nor did the tender look in his eyes that burned with need for her. It took her a moment to absorb what had just taken place between them. Then he leaned down so she could inspect his face.

“Oh, you’re muddy all right,” she laughed, and removed her red neckerchief from around her neck. “Just can’t take you anywhere,” she teased, dipping the already damp cloth into a nearby pool. Straightening, she placed her hand on his recently shaven cheek and said, “Hold still.”

T
he moment Lia
slid her hand along the hard line of Cav’s jaw, her heart and her need thundered simultaneously. Cav stood very still while she worked to get the mud off his broad brow, down his other temple and jaw. She knew that Cav wanted her and she wanted him.

Her hand trembled slightly as she cleaned off his face. His pure male scent entered her as she inhaled it deeply into herself, feeling her entire body go on red alert.

She could feel the tension radiating off his body, but he stood stock still, unmoving, except that his gaze was upon her face and she could feel it as she concentrated on removing the mud from him.

“There!” she breathed, releasing him as if he were a hot stove and her fingers were being burned. It had been so long since she’d really touched a man, and it sent a hunger through her that she could no longer ignore.

Before she’d had her kids to take care of, and with so much to do, she didn’t have time to dwell on herself, or the fact she was a twenty-six year old woman with a sex drive. All of that got sublimated and ignored.

“Thanks,” Cav said gruffly, rubbing his jaw. “Now I think I’m being treated like one of those children you take care of,” he teased, a crooked grin tugging at his mouth.

Crouching down over a small pool, she quickly cleaned her neckerchief. “I do a lot of runny noses,” she answered, looking up briefly, meeting his warm gaze. Heat sheeted through her from the burning look Cav gave her. Lia wished she could call him on what was going on between them. He was obviously drawn to her, for whatever his reasons. And her reasons? Why was she drawn so powerfully to Cav? She had never been treated so well by any man. Cav was like a fevered dream that Lia was sure was pure fantasy. But he really did exist. And he wanted her.

“Thanks for cleaning me off,” he said gruffly.

“No problem.” She pulled the damp neckerchief around her neck, tying it loosely. “I have a special surprise for you,” she said. Taking a huge chance, she reached out, curling her fingers around his, tugging him forward. “Follow me?” Lia felt his strong hand curve warmly around hers, and Cav gave it a squeeze, and then released her. Her heart was in her throat—Lia was shaky after being so bold. Before the assault, she’d been a bold and confident woman. Afterward? A mere shadow of her real self and she hated it. But Cav was helping her regain her old self, and for that, she was grateful. Looking up, she saw that hunger banked in his eyes. It felt so good to be wanted but she felt trepidation mingling with her hopes.

“Lead on,” Cav urged, following her across the debris-strewn floor toward the slope that led up to the hole in the cave wall.

Lia led Cav up the rocky slope and took him outside of the cave. There was a narrow V-like precipice outside it, covered with thick green grass and a few trees. “This is what I wanted to show you,” she said smiling, pointing toward the West.

Cav turned and saw the volcano, Arenal, the canopy of the cloud forest and a plain beyond it, plus a lake. “Beautiful,” he murmured, catching her gaze. Lia stood near enough to him that their hands almost brushed against one another. He belatedly realized that when he’d touched her ankle, something had changed subtly between them. At the time, he didn’t catch it. Maybe when he’d wiped the mud off her scarred cheek? Whatever it was, it was good, and he could feel something magical throbbing between them. It was something he wanted to act upon.

“Isn’t it remarkable that inside the cave system, we’re always climbing up and down, but we’re not that aware of the elevation differences unless our ears pop?” Lia turned, gesturing around the panorama. “We’re roughly two thousand feet above the jungle and plain. Did it feel like we were climbing that much?”

“At times, yes,” Cav said, enjoying her excitement. Outside, the sunlight cascaded down upon them between the transparent wafts of clouds below them, just above the jungle canopy. The breeze was humid and it felt good to be outside breathing in fresh, clean air. Inside, the cave had an odor. Not a bad one, but a musty one. All caves smelled. It was just a question of how good or bad the odor was. There were a lot of bats living in Venado, so bat guano was pretty acrid and present, especially if they moved past a colony area. At a few spots, Cav’s eyes had burned and watered with tears from the intense smell.

“You did bring along those peanut butter sandwiches, I hope?” Lia unbuckled her pack around her waist, dropping it into the grass. She slid her fingers through her damp hair, trying to tame some of the curls from sticking to her face and temples. Looking around, she found some flatter rocks to sit on.

“I did,” Cav said. He brought out two hard plastic cases from his pack and sat down beside her. Handing her one, he said, “This is an incredible sight.” She was, too, but he swallowed the rest of his words. Their fingers briefly touched as he gave her the sandwich.

“Thanks,” Lia said. “I love coming up here,” she admitted. “It’s a place where I can think. Where I can’t be disturbed. I guess I’m one of those people who are deep thinkers at times, and I hate being jolted out of my line of thought.”

Cav watched her sink her teeth into the thick sandwich he’d made earlier. He was hungry, salivating to taste that protein rich peanut butter. Between bites, he said, “This is a good place to do just that.”

Lia seemed happier than he’d ever seen her. Her hair was drying beneath the sunlight, the red and gold highlights dancing in her curled strands. Her cheeks were pink, and she looked luminous to him even though they were bedraggled-looking in their damp, soiled clothes. Mud was still here and there on the fabric they wore.

Lia stretched her legs out before her. Funny, she was no longer hesitant about Cav seeing her scarred legs. “I have so many questions for you,” she said, catching his sideward glance.

“Oh?” Cav chewed on the sandwich, seeing a wicked look come to her eyes. In the past week he’d revealed more of himself to her than he ever done with anyone. By doing so, it had opened a door between them.

He’d trusted her first with information. Cav wasn’t sure Lia had always been this closed up, or whether it had been more recent because of that assault upon her?

“Like what?”

“Well,” she said, “I’d like to know more about you. I mean, I know you were a SEAL, but that’s a job you did. And I know it speaks to you, who you are, but there’s far more to you than that.”

Shrugging, Cav said, “I think we’re all who we are because of many things coming into play.” Discomfort moved through Cav because he saw the focus of her gray eyes darken upon him. He could feel Lia reaching out to him. This was the first time she’d openly asked him questions about himself. If he wanted their trust to grow, he knew he was going to have to remain open to her.

He worried what she’d ask him. “If you’re going to ask me about my time as a SEAL, everything I did was top secret, and I can’t answer your questions.”

Wrinkling her nose, she said, “Oh, I know that. I was in the Army and a mechanic, but I was aware all black ops were top secret. No,” and she tilted her head, really studying him, “we’ve talked about some of my growing up years. You talked about your Mom. I know you’re an only child like me. But I was wondering where you lived, what your father is like, and if you have other family nearby?”

His gut clenched and Cav stopped eating his sandwich, staring out over the bucolic scene of the jungle and the volcano. What was he going to do? Say? He heard the sincerity in Lia’s husky voice, saw she clearly cared about him and wanted to know more.

Dammit.
He frowned. “Honestly? My childhood was nothing to write home about, Lia. It wasn’t anything like yours.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” she murmured, reaching over, fingers brushing his shoulder. “I just wondered what has made you who you are, Cav.”

Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to eat. Maybe it would buy him some time. His skin warmed beneath her unexpected touch. Lia was reaching out, her confidence growing enough that she made physical contact with him. Cav wanted so much more than that from her, and he knew damn well if he didn’t remain vulnerable with her, that growing intimacy between them would stop.

Cav didn’t want that, and desperation made him swallow a lot of bitterness her question had dug up.

Lia was one of those people who wore her heart on her sleeve. She couldn’t help being who she was, and God knew, Cav was constantly reacting to this woman’s maternal care she shared so lovingly with others. She fed his darkened soul in ways he couldn’t express in words. And Cav did NOT want to lose the ground he’d opened up with Lia.

He reminded himself that she was deeply wounded and he wasn’t, so he was the one who needed to step up to the plate. Not her.

He finished off his sandwich and rubbed his hands down the thighs of his damp coveralls. “Okay, I hope you’re ready for this,” he warned her grimly. “If you think I had a happy childhood? I didn’t, Lia. My old man was a drug addict. From the time I could remember, he took cocaine. It was his drug of choice.”

He searched her wide eyes and saw instant sympathy come to them. Clasping his hands between his open thighs, staring out at the jungle, unable to hold her gaze, he said in a low tone, “He beat the shit out of my mother and me when he was high on drugs. Even as a young kid, I tried to stop him from beating up on my Mom. But then, he’d turn on me.”

“I’m so sorry,” Lia whispered, reaching out again to rest her hand on his shoulder.

Something broke open in him then, and Cav relaxed a little. “My mother was a victim of constant abuse. I hated and feared my father, and tried so many times when I was a kid to get her to leave him, but she’d never finished high school and had married my father after she got pregnant. All she could do was work at a fast food restaurant, with no way of climbing out of the poverty we were in.”

Lia sighed and slid her arm around his shoulders, leaning against his right arm. “How did you survive?”

Cav was aware of her arm around him, as if to protect him. He had a broad set of shoulders and she was much smaller than he was. Now, her fingers were curling gently against his damp shirt.

“Sometimes…” he cut her a quick look, “I wasn’t sure I’d wake up to see the next morning. It was that bad.”

“Couldn’t your Mom do anything? Couldn’t she get him put in jail?”

He snorted and looked down at his tightly clasped hands. “My Mom put out a restraining order on him once. He came back to the house, busted her nose and blackened her eyes. When the cops came, she wouldn’t charge him and there was nothing they could do.” His mouth flattened. “I was ten at the time. And I knew it was going to be hell from then on.”

“My God,” she whispered. “It must have been awful for both of you.”

“School was my escape,” Cav admitted, clearing his throat. If he looked into Lia’s eyes, he was going to haul her into his arms and hold her so tightly he’d probably squeeze her to death. So he kept his gaze anywhere but on her.

Just the movement of her hand against his back, her caring, dissolved the shield he’d hidden behind all his life. Lia had a way of sliding quietly into his heart and holding it gently in her hands. In that blinding moment, Cav realized that Lia was healing to him. This wasn’t a one-way relationship, either. He was helping her get back on her feet as much as she was helping him. A lump formed in his throat.

“I imagine you were glad to escape at age eighteen and go into the SEALs?”

“Better believe it.” His words were loaded with relief.

“What about your Mom? Is she still with him?”

Shaking his head, he said, “She died of a sudden heart attack a month before I left to go into the Navy.”

A low gasp came from Lia. “Oh, no!”

Cav made the mistake of looking in her eyes. They were filled with tears—for him. For his abused mother. “Hey,” he growled, turning, using his thumbs to push away the tears trailing down her cheeks. “Don’t waste your tears on us.”