TRAPPED (8 page)

There were so many more that she’d probably seen before but couldn’t name and many that she was probably seeing for the first time. Bird enthusiasts flocked to the Amazon to see the many species.

She should probably be more appreciative.

It was hard to remember that when she had to swat at something that grazed her chin. Even with the repellent on, the bugs found her. They were everywhere. All a nuisance. Most harmless. Some likely more dangerous.

After another half hour, Brody stopped. He turned, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. “Doing okay?” he asked.

Her legs hurt, she had sweat in places that polite women didn’t talk about, and she was still thinking about the coffee that she hadn’t had. “Dandy,” she said. “You?”

“About the same. I think we’re still pretty much on course.”

“I think so, too.” She pulled her water bottle out of her backpack and took a drink, careful not to overindulge. “I’m guessing that even with all the twists and turns, we’re still doing a twelve-or thirteen-minute mile.”

“I’d say so. That’s good,” he added.

Once again, he was being positive, trying to keep her focused on what was going well. It was his nature. He’d been like that in med school. Even when he was bone tired and he still had three hours of homework to do, he’d been able to find something positive in the situation. If they went to a restaurant and the food was bad, he’d focus in on the drinks that were good. If they went to a movie that was bad, the popcorn and soda were just what he’d been craving. He wasn’t stupid about it—and he wasn’t over-the-top with it—but he simply chose to try to find something positive in every experience.

She often wondered what he’d found positive in her leaving.

“Ready?” he asked.

She put away her water bottle. “As ever,” she said.

And things went pretty well for the next half hour until Brody stopped so fast that she literally ran into his back.

He turned fast, grabbed Elle’s arms and steadied her, keeping her from bouncing backward and him from tumbling into what looked to be a fifty-foot-deep ravine.

“Oh, hell,” Elle said, looking around him.

Indeed. The gorge was impressive—deep and stretching as far as he could see in both directions. Going around it wasn’t an option.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“I’m not sure that going down is going to be any easier than going up,” she said. “But we have to get across. And,” she added, putting her hand up to shade her eyes from the stream of sun that managed to sneak through the canopy of trees, “that may be water.” She pointed deep into the ravine.

Brody looked. The plant growth was heavy in the bottom and he couldn’t be sure. It would be wonderful if it was water. They’d both been careful with their supply, but they needed more.

“I’ll go first,” Brody said.

He got about ten feet and looked back. Elle had shifted over at least three feet and was taking her first step.

“Is that a better path?” he asked.

“No. About the same.”

“I’d prefer it if you’d stay behind me.”

“That’s what I was trying to avoid,” she said. “Just keep going and don’t worry about me.”

Right. As if that was going to happen. He knew what she was doing. She was afraid that she was going to slip and if she did, she’d tumble into him and they both might end up rolling down the damn hill. But if she slipped now, she’d roll past him and he wouldn’t have a chance in hell of catching her.

“Stay behind me,” he said. “In the same path.”

She looked as if she wanted to argue.

“Please,” he said.

She rolled her eyes but then stepped diagonally, once again lining up with him.

“Thank you,” he said. It was slow going and he knew that if he and Elle were both not in good shape, they would simply have not been able to do it.

By the time they got to the flat portion of the ravine, they were both panting. If it had been that much work getting down, going up would be a real bitch. “Well, that was fun,” he said, not expecting an answer. But Elle had been right. He could hear water. He walked twenty feet to his right and, sure enough, behind a big, sprawling palm tree, water was trickling over a shelf of rock that jutted out from the canyon wall.

He turned to tell her. She was half bent over, her hands on her thighs, absolutely motionless.

“Elle,” he said.

“Yes,” she responded, her voice small.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, taking big steps toward her.

“Stop,” she said. “Don’t come any closer. Snake.”

Chapter Eight

He looked. Sure enough. Winding through the long grass, its color blending in with nature so that it was difficult to immediately discern, was a snake, almost six feet long, with slightly pink skin that was heavily dotted with brown squares.

“I think it’s a bushmaster,” she said.

Brody really wished he’d read his guidebook a little more closely. He tried to visualize the chapter on deadly threats. Yes. Bushmaster had been in there. Definitely poisonous.

Normally not a snake to attack, it would when provoked.

Elle had clearly provoked it by almost stepping on it. It wound around, near her feet, its head less than six inches away from her ankles.

Pamela’s socks were going to be of little assistance.

“Don’t move,” he said.

“Can’t,” she whispered.

If she got bit, he would not be able to save her. The venom would travel through her bloodstream and within minutes would begin to paralyze vital organs.

He would lose her again.

Once again, a machete would have really come in handy. Or a rope that he could swing from a tree and she could catch it and be whisked away from danger.

Here, we have to use what we have.

How many times had he heard that from his commanding officer these past several years? Even when he did surgery at a fully equipped base camp, it wasn’t like a North American operating room in a multimillion-dollar surgical suite. And those times when he’d had to go even closer to the front line, to administer aid to the most critically wounded, he’d performed miracles with even less.

What did he have? Mrs. Hardy’s knife. And steady hands. A surgeon’s hands. Used to making very accurate, precise incisions. Used to the feel of resistant flesh. Spurting blood from severed arteries was an everyday occurrence.

He pulled the knife from his pocket. Unfolded the blade.

He took another step forward, wishing for some of the steadiness to seep into his legs.

“No closer,” Elle whispered. “Go. One of us has to get out of here.”

Did she really think that he would just walk away, leave her at the mercy of the snake who might or might not get bored and slink away at some point? Assuming Elle could stay absolutely motionless for some prolonged period of time.

Still four feet away from Elle and the snake, he stepped sideways. Then again. One more step. He was at a ninety-degree angle. Then a cautious step toward Elle. Toward the snake.

One more.

Less than three feet separated him from Elle and the snake that now had stopped moving. Did that mean it was getting ready to strike? Damn it. He knew next to nothing about snakes.

He did, however, know something about human anatomy. And the weight of organs. And how much force it took to cut through that organ with a supersharp instrument.

By his best comparative guess, he figured the snake weighed between five and ten pounds. And Mrs. Hardy’s knife was sharp but not razor sharp.

“Stay still,” he said. “No matter what until I cut the snake. Then step back fast.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice stronger now, as if she’d managed to overcome her initial fear.

He took another step forward, close enough now that he could reach the snake. And in one smooth, fast movement, he raised his arm, squatted, and made a clean slice through the snake, separating the upper one-third of its body from the lower two-thirds.

And there was blood and twitching and slithering that seemed to go on forever. Of course, by that time, he and Elle were a safe six feet away.

He circled around the still-moving carcass and wrapped an arm around Elle, who looked as if she was about to fall down. He pulled her in close to his body. She was shaking.

“It’s okay,” he said. “We’re both fine. The snake is dead.”

“I can’t look,” she said.

He pulled her in tighter. “You don’t have to,” he said, his mouth close to her ear.

“I guess it’s just another average day in the jungle,” she said, her face still against his chest.

He smiled and, without thinking, bent his head and kissed her forehead. She stilled. Then raised her face.

“Brody,” she whispered.

She was so beautiful. And he could not help himself.

He bent his head and kissed her. And it was if the thirteen years apart had never happened. This was Elle. He knew her lips. Knew the feel of her teeth against his tongue. Knew the little sounds she made.

And he might have kissed her forever if the wild screech of a low-flying bird had not had them jumping back from each other.

“Oh,” Elle said, her fingers touching her lips.

Hell. Now his legs felt really weak. He tried to summon the memory that it hadn’t been thirteen days or weeks or even months since he’d seen this woman. Years. Thirteen years. More than a decade. They were different people than they’d been back then. It didn’t make one whit of difference how familiar her mouth felt.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” he said.

“It’s fine,” she said, dismissing it with a wave of her hand. “Adrenaline.”

Well, that certainly sounded better than
lust
. He stared at her.

“It was just a kiss, Brody. Let’s forget it. We need to find that water,” she said.

It hadn’t been just a kiss. It had been a startling hot rush and his body was still humming.

But Elle was acting as if it had been nothing, meant nothing.

He turned and started walking. And by the time they found the stream ten minutes later, his pulse had slowed down and was once again beating pretty normally. The water was running off a ledge of rock that extended from the ravine wall. Brody looked up and tried to trace the flow. “Hard to tell where the source is.”

“Which means it may or may not be fresh water,” Elle said.

“Which means that finding it is good but we need to boil it before we drink it. I have a couple empty bottles in my bag,” he said. “We’ll gather it now and boil it tonight when we make camp.”

She nodded and held out her hand for a container. “Maybe we should finish off our bottles of water so that they’re empty, too. We can collect more then.”

He shook his head. “We’ve got a long walk ahead of us. Let’s combine our good water in one bottle and share that. That will give us one more empty.”

It took them just a few minutes to hold their bottles under the running stream. Then they crossed the narrow bottom of the ravine and started the hard climb up the steep hill. They were about a third of the way up when it started to rain.

There was no gentle ramp-up to the storm. No little drizzle that turned into a light shower. It was immediate and it was a full-blown drenching. It was as if the damn sky had opened up.

Elle could not even see Brody through the driving rain. She didn’t know what to do and had a momentary feeling of panic. She was just getting it under control when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Hang on,” he said.

He pulled her under a big tree with full foliage. It didn’t protect them totally, but it cut the impact of the driving rain. “Wow, that came up fast,” Brody said, wiping his streaming face with the back of his forearm.

“It’s always like that here. One minute, nothing. The next, a monsoon. We’re lucky,” she added. “June is the end of our rainy season. If this was March, this ground might be flooded. The Amazon River floods every year.”

“I’d rather walk it than swim it.”

“Definitely. There are piranhas and anacondas and all kinds of nasty things in the river.”

“Not to mention the crocodiles,” he added.

The conversation had her glancing down, looking for more snakes. It was hard to see, but nothing popped out at her right away. “I imagine it’s going to take me a while to forget the sight of a bushmaster wrapping itself around my feet.”

“You handled it like a champ,” he said.

“I was this close to wetting my pants,” she said.

Which reminded him that neither one of them had gone to the bathroom all day. “Do I need to turn my back?”

“No. I think I’m sweating out all my excess water.”

He was, too. Which was not good. “How long will this last?”

“Probably not that long. Maybe a half hour. It feels good, but our clothes are going to be damp now, which isn’t going to be very comfortable.”

He turned to look at her and his gaze settled on her. Her shirt was wet and clinging to her. He could see her full breasts through the thin cotton shirt. Could see the outline of her nipples. She was not wearing a bra.

Hell. One little kiss had made him smolder for hours. This was likely to cause a full-blown implosion.

If somebody took his vitals right now, his temperature would be off the charts. His blood pressure would be screaming stroke.

“I think comfort was ten miles back,” he said, his voice husky.

He’d meant it as a casual comment but realized immediately, when she crossed her arms over her chest, that she’d picked up on the double entendre.

“Brody?” she asked.

“What?” he responded innocently. He stuck out his tongue and tried to catch a few rain drops, hoping to let the awkward moment pass.

It worked. “You look ridiculous,” she said. She cupped her hands and held them out from her body. It was raining hard, but still she captured a ridiculously small amount, barely enough to lick off her palms.

“Oh, yeah. Your method is
much
better.”

She ignored him. “How do you think they’re doing back at the plane?” she asked.

“I think they have shelter and access to water and food. They’ll be okay.”

“I hope so.”

He could hear the uncertainty. “We’re going to be okay, too, Elle,” he said, suddenly desperately wanting to assure her. “We kept up a good pace today. If we can do the same tomorrow and if your calculations were correct, we should be having a drink with your friend by tomorrow night.”

“It’s a lot of ifs. And you forgot some. If one of us doesn’t twist an ankle. If we don’t get sick from bad water. If some native doesn’t get mad that we’re walking across his family’s sacred graveyard, we should be okay.”

“Family’s sacred graveyard,” he repeated, one corner of his mouth lifted.

“You know what I mean,” she said, waving her hand.

“I do. I’m just giving you a hard time. Yeah, there’s lots of obstacles. But we’re tougher.”

She let out a loud sigh and was quiet for several minutes. Finally, she pushed her hair back from her face and gave him a smile. “Okay. I think I’m over my pity party. I just needed to get that out of the way.”

He stared at her. “You have been incredibly brave, Elle, from the beginning. You’re entitled to have a few nagging doubts. It doesn’t make you weak.”

She looked off into the distance. “If anyone would have told me that I was going to be in a plane crash and have to walk my way out of the Amazon, I’d have laughed at them.”

“What if they’d told you that you were going to have to do it with me?”

It took her a full minute to shift her gaze. When she did, her eyes were bright. “I’d have said that it would never happen because whatever direction I walked, Brody Donovan would go the opposite way. Anything to keep some space between the two of us.”

“That’s not true,” he said. Maybe at one time he’d have thought that but not now. Not after seeing Elle in action, not after realizing that she was more than equal to the task. Not after realizing that he...that he still...thought a lot of her.

Chicken.

Maybe. But he wasn’t ready to go further than that. Thirteen years ago he’d been dealt a blow, one that might not have been fatal to his other organs but had certainly damaged his heart.

“Brody, you have every reason in the world to hate me.”

She’d always had this uncanny ability to read his thoughts. She was on the right track but a little off course. “I never hated you, Elle,” he said, his voice cracking on her name. There had been so many emotions following her leaving, but hate hadn’t been one of them. He’d loved her too much. “The way you did it was wrong,” he said.

“You’re right,” she said. “I took the coward’s way out.”

That surprised him. He expected her to have a thousand reasons why that had been the only way she could have done it. “I tried to find you,” he admitted. “I talked to your mother, to your stepfather.”

Her head whipped his direction. “What did they tell you?”

“Not much. Your mother said that she hadn’t spoken to you for months. She didn’t recognize my name. I thought that was odd given that we were supposed to be married in just weeks and that we were supposed to be visiting her in days.”

Elle blinked rapidly but didn’t say anything. That made Brody crazy. He wanted to demand to know the truth. Why hadn’t she told her mother about him? Why hadn’t she been honest about her relationship with her mother?

When it was apparent that she wasn’t going to offer up any explanation, he went on. “Your stepfather said he hadn’t heard from you and didn’t expect to.”

“Hoped,” she said.

“What?”

“Hoped he didn’t hear from me. Never mind. It would have been difficult to find me. I moved around a lot,” she said. “Especially in those first years.”

He couldn’t imagine not keeping in contact with his parents. Even when he was in Afghanistan and Iraq, he’d stayed in touch through email and regular telephone calls.

She’d been too busy
moving around.
But she’d stayed long enough in one place to get pregnant, to have another man’s child. “What happened to your daughter’s father?” he asked.

She looked startled, as if that hadn’t been the question she’d been expecting. “He’s...dead,” she said.

He was a bad person because even that didn’t make him hate the man any less. Elle had loved him enough to have his child. “I’m sorry,” he managed.

She didn’t say anything until finally she lifted her pretty chin. “So is her mother.”

What? And Brody’s thoughts might have been a little sluggish from general dehydration, but it still clicked into place. “She’s adopted? Your daughter is adopted?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Mia is a student at the school where I teach. Her parents were killed in a bus accident several years ago and she’d been living in an orphanage since that time. I adopted her about a year ago.”