Make Mine a Marine (45 page)

Hawk never explained his answer, and he hadn't spoken another word to her since Luis's death two hours before. But he knew what had happened; she was sure of that. He understood the horrid, unspeakable thing that had killed Luis. It probably had killed Antonio, too. Maybe even Hernandez.

But she had no answers to the puzzle. A freakish phenomenon of nature had choked the life out of a man right before her eyes, an impossibility to her learned mind. She had a million questions.

Only one man had the answer.

And he wasn't talking.

And the potential consequences of that secretive knowledge frightened her.

"Are you in pain?" she asked. Maybe if she could get him to open up about something else first, she could ease into asking about what had happened. "You lost a lot of blood. You're not going to pass out on me, are you?"

At that moment she hit a rut, and the wheel jerked in her hands. She tugged hard in the opposite direction, fighting to keep her seat and keep the truck on the road at the same time. Once she had the vehicle heading straight again, she turned and offered Hawk a sheepish smile. "Sorry. I guess that's how Lyndsay ended up putting their truck in the ditch."

Still nothing. He continued to look out his window and scan the reflection in the side mirror, as though he expected that someone else—maybe some
thing
else—was following them. His right hand cradled the barrel of the rifle standing up between his knees, and his left hand rested on the hilt of his long-bladed knife, lying between them on the bench seat.

Sarah wanted nothing more than to reach across the gulf between them and touch that hand. What had once terrified her now fascinated her—the warmth of his skin, the hard lines of sinewed strength over his knuckles and down his long fingers. His touch meant reassurance. It meant strength and understanding, an anchor to latch onto to right herself through turbulent times.

She needed that anchor now

But something about his edgy silence kept her hands locked on the wheel.

"Is the bandage holding?"

"It's fine." At last, a response.

"I still think a doctor should look at it. You'll probably need a few stitches." Her brief flare of hope was absorbed by dead silence. The wild beauty of the jungle and its canopy had become an endless green tunnel leading toward civilization. This whole journey had turned into a never-ending nightmare.

Her nightmare. A lonely woman's rosy-eyed dream of adventure had ended up a surreal nightmare of danger and terror and death.

Read my aura
, she heard herself wishing.
Look at me. See my confusion and help me understand.
But her silent pleas went unnoticed.

"The girls really did their part, didn't they?" Sarah purposely steered the one-sided conversation toward a lighter topic. She needed some sound, even an inane monologue on her part, to drown out the terrifying imaginings swimming through her mind. "When Colleen said she and Denise had found this truck loaded with all the artifacts from Las Lagumas, I couldn't believe it. I've always known they were talented and smart young women, but I had no idea just how resourceful my students could be. Lyndsay and Raul saved our lives by distracting Luis. Andrea fixed the radio. Lynnette's writing it all down in her journal. She'll probably turn it into a best-seller someday."

Her forced smile faded along with her bravado. She resigned herself to passing the next two miles listening only to the warring voices speculating inside her head.

She felt as uncomfortable and bewildered as she had at the first and only dance she had attended her freshman year of high school. Her date back then had endured an equally torturous evening of awkward silence. She'd had so many ideas to talk about, so much she wanted to ask about him if she could just come up with the right words and get past the idea that any attempt at conversation on her part would be considered an intrusion or get laughed at for being inconsequential.

The man beside her now was a good deal more mature than Brian What's-his-name had been, and her feelings for Hawk ran deeper than she could possibly have imagined caring for a man back then. She, too, had changed, maybe more in the past few days than in the twenty years since that dance. She could speak her mind on the girls' behalf. She'd even risen to Hawk's defense.

But to broach the subject of her own fears, her own confusion, still terrified her. She felt raw and battered from all she had revealed to him the previous night. She needed for those wounds to heal and make her stronger before she could overcome years of shyness and self-doubt and confront a man as imposing and important to her as Hawk had become.

So she would do what she did best. She'd be patient, tuck away her fears and concerns, and concentrate on getting something useful done. Except she wouldn't be very much good to anyone if she stranded them out here.

Looking down at the dashboard, Sarah watched the gas gauge teeter toward empty. Having no idea how much farther El Espanto lay, she gritted her teeth against the jarring ride and turned to speak to Hawk.

"How much farther do you think it is? There weren't any gas cans in the back, and I doubt if there's a gas station along the way."

Instead of answering, he shifted his gaze from the open side window to the front windshield. Like a bloodhound picking up a scent, he turned his attention to a distant point ahead of them.

"What is it?" she asked, straining to see what had caught his eye.

"Stop the truck."

Hawk pushed a clip of bullets up into the rifle and slapped it with his palm.

"Hawk?" From the corner of her eye, Sarah watched the former Marine slip into battle mode. She stomped on the clutch, ground her way through the gears and killed the engine. Before the truck jerked to a stop, Hawk stepped out onto the running board and jumped down. He circled the vehicle, surveying the area, ending up in front with Raul close behind.

Sarah hurried out after him, closing her door and holding out her arm to keep the curious throng of teenage girls from joining the men.

"Hawk, what is it?" she asked again, a crawling sense of foreboding chilling her skin. He tipped his nose to the sky, sniffing the air with his preternatural abilities. With her nerves frayed from the tension of the drive, his unexplained alarm triggered a kaleidoscope of imagined dangers—and her temper. She turned to Denise. "Stay back."

The girl nodded, taking charge of the others while Sarah strode up to Hawk.

"Are you ever going to answer me?" she demanded.

The stillness of the late afternoon echoed in ominous silence. He stared down the road, his heightened senses seeing something in the distance she could not.

"Would Luis have any accomplices in El Espanto?" she asked, considering possibilities that Hawk refused to share. "Someone who might check on him if he didn't show up at a certain time?"

"No," Raul answered, readying his rifle and moving in to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Hawk. "My uncle trusted very few people. The man to whom he arranged to sell the artifacts is not Tenebrosan. He would not know his way here."

A ripple of unease quickened Sarah's heart. "Should I put the girls back in the truck? Hide them in the trees?"

She exchanged a look with Raul. The young man shrugged his shoulders and frowned, looking as clueless as she. He was simply following Hawk's lead, unwilling to let down his defensive duty.

Sarah clamped down on the urge to strike out at Hawk for frightening them all this way. Bracing her fists on her hips, she turned on him. "Damn it, Hawk, talk to me! I don't know what's going on, and you're scaring the hell out of me!"

His stony features softened when he looked down at her, his eyes scanning her upturned face. But he didn't smile. "Not very ladylike, schoolmarm. But always courageous, aren't you?" What he might have intended as a compliment sounded more like a whisper of regret. "I'm sorry." He nodded up ahead. "I think we're about to get rescued."

"How do you know?" she asked, her ire diminished by his odd lack of joy at the news.

"I just know."

He offered no further explanation. He walked forward a few steps, braced his legs and stowed his weapon over his shoulder, forming an imposing sentinel to greet the tan Humvee just now coming into Sarah's view.

The squat, sleek vehicle zipped toward them, unmindful of the road conditions. As it came closer, Sarah could make out the silhouettes of two men behind the windshield. When it came within fifty yards, the driver honked the horn several times. Hawk lifted his hand in greeting.

"It's okay." Sarah waved the girls forward.

The Hummer skidded to a halt, and the driver popped up from behind the wheel. The faded blue Kansas City Royals baseball cap perched on his tobacco-brown hair softened the crisp, mercenary formality of the jungle fatigues he wore.

"Shadow Man!" He vaulted over the door to the ground, a trim, six-foot-plus package of coiled energy
. A pair of silver aviator-frame sunglasses only partially hid the devilish glint in his eyes. He held his hand outstretched as he bounded over to Hawk, who met him halfway.

"Rafe." Sarah marveled at the subtle easing of tension around Hawk's shoulders when the two men shook hands. "I wondered if anyone got my message."

The man named Rafe pulled off his glasses, revealing a pair of sparkling green eyes. "It was about time you called in. We'd been in El Espanto a whole twenty-four hours, wondering whether to bide our time or hire a reliable guide to come look for you."

"He
is
the only reliable guide."

Along with the others, Sarah shifted her focus to the second man. He climbed more slowly out of the vehicle and walked toward them, swaying from side to side in a stiff-legged limp. Despite his irregular gait, he carried his shoulders with the regal pride of a military man. His close-cropped cinnamon-brown hair reinforced her observation even before Hawk spoke.

"Major."

"Those days are long past, Hawk." He extended his hand, taking the sting out of his clipped correction.

"Kel."

"Good to see you in one piece." Keeping hold of Hawk's hand, Kel pulled his arm to the side and looked at the hanging tatters of Hawk's bloody shirt. Lifting one brow with a cynical twist, he revised his greeting. "Good to see you, at least. Is that the medical attention you mentioned?"

"Nothing a shot of penicillin won't fix." Hawk pulled his fingers back and splayed them across his hips, nodding to either side and, for the first time, including Sarah and the others in their conversation. "We've got minor scrapes and abrasions, probably a few blisters. Not that any of them would complain."

Hawk's compliment garnered tired, proud smiles from the girls and Raul. "I'm more concerned about the preliminary stages of dehydration and exposure. I'd like to get a solid meal into these kids."

"How do cheeseburgers sound?" Rafe walked past Hawk, introducing himself to each of the girls, one by one.

"Cheeseburgers?" echoed Lynnette.

Rafe's smile crooked with boyish enthusiasm. "Complete with high-fat French fries and the paper wrappers to match."

"Yes!"

"Real food."

"Do you have any ketchup?"

The enthusiasm of the girls' responses to his tempting offer would have misled a stranger about the level of their fatigue.

"American cheeseburgers?" questioned Raul. Sarah's heart warmed at the sound of lust in his voice. He'd acted as a man on their trek, but he still had the bottomless stomach of an eighteen-year-old boy. "I have never eaten one."

Rafe turned and clapped him on the shoulder, smiling. "You can eat as many as you want. Only the best for Kel Murphy. When we heard Hawk put teenagers on his team, he had the banquet flown in from Florida."

"Quit flirting, Del Rio. They're just kids," warned Kel.

Rafe stepped in front of Sarah, removing his hat and capturing her hand in one smooth gesture. "Not all of them."

With a flourish of old-world charm, he brushed a kiss across her knuckles. He tilted his head up and winked at her. Suddenly she was keenly aware of the chapped condition of her lips, the sunburn on her nose, and the unkempt wildness of her hair. Sarah's gaze flew up to Hawk, questioning the sincerity of the appreciation reflected in Rafe's eyes. But the heat in her cheeks went unnoticed, as Hawk had taken Kel aside for an urgent, whispered discussion.

Uncomfortable with Rafe's close scrutiny, she licked her dry lips and pulled away, thrown off-kilter at the sudden change of events. She'd been in survival mode for so long, enduring physical stress and emotional upheavals, that it left her struggling now to remember some basic rules of social etiquette—such as answering when spoken to.

But this wasn't a man with a gun threatening her students, and it wasn't a journey across miles of unfamiliar terrain.  This was just a man. A man with enough boyish charm to remind her of one of her students. She breathed in deeply and forced herself to look into Rafe's striking green eyes.

"I assume you're friends of Hawk's?" she asked, embarrassed by the shaky quality of her voice.

"I'm Rafael Del Rio," he said, easily excusing the lull in the conversation. "We served in the Corps together a few years back. My friends call me Rafe. The serious guy's Kelton Murphy."