Mission Made For Two (20 page)

Nevertheless, the feelings churning inside her chest deserved
a label other than
desire
.
  Trust maybe?  She knew she cared about him.

Jake applied some anti
biotic ointment,
then
bandaged her
.  He picked up the bottle of aspirin and shook out a co
uple tablets. “Take these and
we’ll get going.”

Sierra washed them down with a mouthful
of water, pulled her shirt in place
and stood. “Give me a minute in the bushes and I’ll be ready.”

Jack shoved the canteen and first aid supplies into his backpack.  Sierra talked as though not having pare
nts was no big deal
.
  What had she been like as a little girl?  She was smart and tough now, but had she been so tough when she was three?

Visions of a small girl, scared and lonely, ran through his head.  How could a parent simply abandon
their child?
Jake shook his head, and zipped his pack closed.  More visions of Sierra being backed into a corner entered his head.  She hadn’t merely taken it.  She’d come out swinging and hadn’t stopped.
  Her smart mouth had probably been a result of that too. 
A way to cover her hurt.

“Okay, I’m ready,” Sierra said behind him.  

Jake nodded and stood. 
“Me, too.”

He turned to face her.  “The traveling’s going to be a little tougher today.  There’s a small ridge we have to cross.”

She shook her head. 
“I can do it.”

Jake shook his head and smiled. “I know you can.  Come on.”

~***~

Sierra concentrated on Jake’
s back
as they
trekked up the ridge
.  Perspiration dampene
d her shirt
.  At least Jake’s shirt was wet
,
too.  Her stamina wasn’t a hundred percent, but she felt better than she had yesterday.
Still, she worried she was slowing him down. 

Fin
ally, they made it to the top.  Jake stopped. 

Sierra leaned over and placed her hands on her knees, letting her breathing return to normal.  She looked down the hillside.  A sea of trees covered the landscape.
 
“How much farther?”

“I think we can get there by nightfall if we keep moving.”

“What about Diaz’s men?”

“They’re out here.  I can feel them.”
  His mouth was set in a hard line.  He looked at her. 
“How you feeling?”

She straightened.  “I’m okay.”

Jake’s right eyebrow hitched up. 

“Really.
   A little winded, but I can go,” she reassured
h
im.
  She’d keep telling herself she could make it and she would.  She had to.

He nodded.  “Keep your senses on alert.
It’s been too quiet
.”

Si
erra glanced around them.  The squawks and screeches o
f native parrots echoed through the
trees
,
and beneath that the quiet hum of various insects.
  Wind rustled the leaves
and cooled her neck. 

The calm before the storm.
  She’d been in tight spots before, but this was by f
ar the most dangerous situation
she’d ever encountered.  She’d done this to herself though.  The only thing that really bothered her was the thought they might die and anything they’d gotten on Diaz would be lost.  She couldn’t let that happen.  Daniel deserved retribution. 
And those poor children.
The ones he took and sold, they deserved something different too. 

Somehow, some way, they would get out of this and bring Diaz down.

Jake crouched low behind a Cypress tree.  Three men in camouflage fatigues hunkered down twenty-five yards ahead of him.  They were talking quietly and sharing a flask. One of the men he recognized from Diaz’s compound. 

Jake needed to get back to Sierra.  He’d been gone longer than he’d expected, but so far he’d counted fourteen men in all. 

Without guns, he and Sierra were sitting ducks. 
Which meant they needed to acquire some weapons.
  But taking on the three bozos in front of him wouldn’t be that smart. Not by himself.  Two, he was pretty sure he could handle, but three armed men, would be pushing his luck. 

And he couldn’t leave Sierra alone out here to battle them.  Plus he had the backpack with him.  Getting that cell phone and the other documents back to headquarters was their priority. 

He turned and made his way quietly back to where he’d left Sierra.

~
***~

Sierra leaned against
a
larg
e
tree
and listened.  Jake was running a check around the area, l
ooking for signs of Diaz’s men.  Why she’d let him t
alk her into staying here, she
didn’t know.  Somehow, he’d convinced her
she’d be better off to him
if s
he rested.  And since she
felt weak, she couldn’t very well argue.

They still had several hours before night fall
and probably fifteen miles to cover
.

Sierra tried to make
herself
relax.  She wasn’t used to sitting idle while someone else took on the danger.  She was used to action. 

She hadn’t said anything to Jake, but she thought her fever was back.  Her skin was prickly and she felt achy again.  Jake would be better off leaving her behind. 

The important thing was getting the evidence to Trent, stopping Diaz and finding out who was selling them out. 

She’d just closed her eyes, when she was jerked up. A hard arm went around her neck and a sweaty beefy hand
closed over her mouth. The stench of sweat clogged her nose. 
One of Diaz’s guards.
  He was as big as a tank.

She instinctively kicked out, catching him in the shin, but she’d been caught off guard.  He grunted, cursed in Spanish and tightened the arm around her neck.

Black spots danced in front of her eyes.  He threw her to the ground, knocking the breath out of her.  Before she could react, he was on top of her.  He was damn fast for someone so big.

He told her in Spanish what he was going to do with her. Revulsion swirled through her belly. She bucked against him.  She would scream for Jake, but she feared that would only bring more of Diaz’s men.  

She threw a punch that collided with his nose. 
“
Puta
!”
  He grabbed
her
right hand. Then he got her left hand as she swung that one.  Both of them were secured over her head.

The pain in her side was nothing compared to the fear that she was about to be raped by this sweaty, revolting man.  She bucked against him.

He just laughed. “Go ahead. Fight me.  It
make
it better,” he said in heavily accented English. 

Where was Jake?  Damn it! She’d let her guard down.
She struggled more, but it only seemed to excite her attacker.

A hand went up her shirt. Her skin crawled from the contact.  He squeezed her breast and then leaned down and tried to kiss her.  She turned her head and he connected with her jaw.

Her strength was waning as she
fought.
She might have finally
ran
out of luck, because she had no idea how she was going to stop him.

Without warning, the big man was off her. 
Jerked away.
Sierra sucked in a breath and scrambled to a sitting position.

Jake had his arms around the man’
s neck.  He
twisted and the guy went down.  Sierra met Jake’s gaze and she shivered at what she saw. 
It was almost uncivilized. 

And Sierra actually started to cry.

Ja
ke couldn’t ever remember being so angry.  A few more minutes and he would have been too late.  And seeing Sierra break down twisted his gut into a knot.  Since he’d known her, she’
d made sure to appear so
tough and capable. 

He went to her, pulling her against him.  She burrowed against his chest. Her body shook
.  “It’s okay,” he whispered against her hair.  “I’ve got you.”

Several heartbeats later,
s
he took control of her emotions. He felt her body still as she sucked in air. Then she pulled back. Seeing the tears against her lashes unleashed emotions he’d buried for years. She was all tough talk and bravado.

She’d long ago learned to hide her feelings, but they were there.
He could
feel the heat radiating off her skin. Her fever was back and she’d just been brutalized by one of Diaz’s men.
He knew that was why her emotions were so close to the surface.
But she was human.
 
A woman, beneath all that stee
l.
 

She scrubbed the tears away roughly.
“
I
’m okay.”  She blew out a breath. “
You have good timing, Harding,” she said and he could see her gathering all her defenses to put them in place. 

Jake didn’t think.  He leaned in and kissed her.  Trying to erase whatever
Diaz’s man had done.  She stiffened for all of five seconds,
then
she melted into him.  Kissing him back with the kind of passion he’d come to expect from her.

He pulled back, enjoying the slightly dazed look in her eyes. He knew she wasn’t on top of her game. Between the loss of blood and the fever, she was only running about seventy percent. 
Which was still a lot more than most people.
  And he was a bastard for taking advantage of it.
   

“What was that for?”

“Because you were about to put your tough girl image back into place and pretend you’re weren’t rattled.” He touched her cheek. “You don’
t always have to be so in control
.”

She stared at him and he could see the wheels in her brain working.

“I would never use your weaknesses against you.”

“Good to know,” she said and pushed up to her knees. “But I told you I’m fine.  Not that I’m not thankful. I think you’ve more than repaid your debt to me for rescuing you in South America.” 

She stood. She tried to hide a wince, but Jake wasn’t fooled.  She was hurting.
No doubt she’d ripped open her side again in her struggle with the big goon.

The
y had a lot of ground to cover to get
to the clearing
.  To get there by nightfall, they would have to
keep a good pace. Sierra wasn’t going to be able to go full out.

Jake pushed to his feet and walked over to the
big man
who’d attacked Sierra.  He’d broken the man’s neck. He should feel some remorse, but he didn’t. When he’d seen the guy pawing Sierra on the ground, any self-control he might have possessed had snapped.  The man worked for Diaz, which meant he was a killer anyway.

After searching the guy, he came away with
a
9mm pistol with three extra clips of ammo,
a knife and a grenade.

“I found this lying over there,” Sierra said beside him.  He looked up to see her holding an Ak-47. 

“I’ve got a 9mm
with extra ammo
, a knife and a grenade.  That’ll at least give us some protection.  I counted fourteen men
about a click
behind us.”  He looked down at the lone man dead on the ground.  “I guess he
was scouting out a head and ran right into you.”

“I think you should go on ahead without me.”

Jake looked straight at her.
“I’m not leaving you.”

She shook her head. “As hard as it is for me to admit, I don’t think I can keep up with you to the clearing.  The clock is ticking and you need to get the evidence we found to Trent.  I’ll just slow things up.  You can leave me the
9
mm and I’ll find a place to hide.”

“No!  I’m not leaving you. We’re in this together. That’s what you wanted and that’s what you’ve got. So forget it.”

Jake stalked over to where he’d dropped their backpack and picked it up. “We’ll go as far as we can today and stop when we need to. I’ll carry you if I have to.”

Sierra’s mouth thinned.  “And you say I’m stubborn.
  That bag you’re carrying is more important than me.  If we don’t find out who’s selling out our identities, more agents could die.  And not just that, but it compromises
all the good we do. 
Like ending
Diaz’s illegal child trade.”