Running Wild (22 page)

She gave him a delighted smile. “I can do that!”

“Damn straight you can. In the dead of night, blindfolded.”

She stilled. “Da-a-amn, Finn. You are probably the nicest guy I’ve ever met.”

He bit back a grimace. But, please...again with the nice? Even knowing she considered it a bona fide compliment, he couldn’t help but think that
nice
from the mouth of a pretty girl was usually the kiss of death. It meant they wanted to be friends with a guy.

Which was Kiss of Death II, The Overkill.

And didn’t his timing just suck the atom bomb? Because after all his do-I-or-don’t-I’s, he’d solved his dilemma about whether to seek a monogamous relationship or to carry on with his long-standing, comfortable man-ho ways.

He wanted a relationship. With Magdalene.

What a kick in the pants. It felt like a revelation, yet it wasn’t out of the blue. From the moment he’d clamped eyes on her, he’d been drawn like he was the magnetic needle and she true north. Still, whenever he’d found himself hung up on her smile, her fit body, her eyes when the sun hit them or her uncomplaining way of getting things done—even the curve of her
cheek
, for God’s sake—he’d assured himself he’d known her for a couple of
days
and the way she made him feel was likely simple lust or part of the adrenaline rush of their mad scramble across El Tigre.

And, shit, who was to say that wouldn’t turn out to be the case? Maybe his feelings wouldn’t carry over to real life when things went back to normal and they left this country behind.

But he didn’t believe that. Because he got it now, why people committed to just one person—he totally did. He’d never known he could feel about a woman the way he did about Magdalene. Yet suddenly he could visualize something he’d never even imagined. He could truly see them settling into a regular everyday life—hold the big adventure—and still couldn’t imagine himself not wanting to commit to her alone for the long haul. And where the mere thought should have been enough to make him break out in a cold sweat, it instead made him feel...great. Shockingly, amazingly great.

Except for that part where she thought he was fucking
nice
.

So, that’s it?
his subconscious demanded.
You just pack up your toys and go home?

Oh, hell no
. He squared his shoulders. He had the woman he—holy shit—just might
love
on his lap with her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. A guy would have to be a much less strategic planner than he was to let that opportunity pass him by. Bending his head, he kissed Mags’s neck.

She shivered and tipped her head to give him wider access.

He licked the hollow at the base of her throat, then lowered his head farther to graze her collarbone with his teeth. “I’m not
nice
, Magdalene—get that through your head once and for all.”

“Not nice,” she murmured agreeably. “Even if it’s not a
bad
thing. Got it.”

“Would a nice guy do
this
?” Both of them were covered from head to toe to avoid the lively insect life in the rain forest, but he slid his hands up her back beneath her long-sleeved T-shirt and popped her bra. Before he could bring his hands around to cup her breasts, however, he heard a rustling in the woods.

Ardor promptly sidelined, he lifted her off his lap, held a finger to his lips in the universal “don’t say a word” as he set her back down, then moved to put himself between her and the trail, from which he was 99 percent certain the sound was originating.

“Finn,” she breathed in protest, but he shot her a steely-eyed don’t-even-think-about-arguing look over his shoulder. And, wonder of wonders, it was actually effective, since she settled behind his back without further argument. Finn reached into his backpack and pulled out Joaquin’s gun. He’d never imagined himself actually using it except in the diversionary way he’d described to Mags, but his aversion to the weapon paled in comparison to his fear for her, so he checked the clip, removed the safety and steadied his grip on an up-drawn kneecap to take aim at the point where the path opened to their camp. The continuing muffled noises were definitely coming from that direction. Sweat trickled between his shoulder blades at the thought of a troupe of cartel soldiers stepping into view.

It was an older man and woman, however, who rounded the bend, and they looked the worse for wear. “Hold it right there,” he said in a flat voice and they stumbled to a stop.

The woman had a graying blond braid and wasn’t dressed for the rain forest. Instead of being covered up the way Mags had decreed they must, she was dressed only in a lightweight dress. It was made of dark material and had a modest cut, but her arms, exposed from elbow to fingertips, and her legs, exposed from calf to her bare feet, were swollen with insect bites. The man also wore no shoes, but he looked in better shape than she.

“You’re American,” the woman said in a dazed, yet somehow no-nonsense, voice. In English.

Mags gave his back a shove, but until he was positive these two weren’t armed he wasn’t about to expose her, so he merely tightened his back muscles and refused to move.

“Dammit, Finn,” she said and shoved to her feet behind him.

The woman looked shell-shocked as she said, “Magdalene?”

At the same time that Mags blurted, “Nancy?
Brian?
”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

O
N
THE
HEELS
of her shocked outburst, Mags felt as though someone had nail gunned her feet to the ground. For the space of several long heartbeats she could only stand there and gawk at her parents.

Ever since Joaquin let slip that Munoz had Nancy and Brian, she’d been operating with tunnel vision, her sights firmly set on one goal alone: to locate the farm where her parents were being held and get them away from it. It was an eye-opening shocker when Finn asked how she planned to do that once they found the grow farm and she’d realized she didn’t have the sketchiest of strategies. And worse, that she had dragged him into something with a very real potential for getting them both killed.

She knew their run-ins with Munoz’s goons should have drummed that into her head from the get-go—knew it, knew it, knew it. Instead, even as it had scared the pants off her, she’d found it kind of exciting. God knew she hadn’t taken the threat to their lives seriously enough.

Now here her folks stood, alive, relatively unharmed and close enough to touch if she could get her feet to move. So aside from keeping the heck away from anyone connected to Victor Munoz, it slowly sank past the muzziness in her brain that a game plan was no longer needed. And it was a relief—God, such a relief.

So, why, at the same time, did it feel kind of...anticlimactic?

She shook her head to shoo the thought away. “We heard Munoz had you stashed on his grow farm.”

“And you were coming to get us?” Nancy demanded incredulously. “Oh, Magdalene. Don’t you know how dangerous that is?”

She was beginning to. But in an admittedly knee-jerk reaction toward her mother in particular—since Nancy was the more iron-willed of her parents and in Mags’s mind Brian had always done as she wished—she shrugged. Sulkily, God help her, as if she’d taken a page straight out of her angry-adolescent playbook.

“What were you thinking?” Nancy continued with crisp schoolmarm-to-student use-the-brain-the-good-Lord-gave-you diction. “Munoz wanted nothing more than to get his hands on you so he could use you as a bargaining chip to control us. He knew—”

“Is this really the way you want your reunion with your daughter to go?” Finn demanded in his most clipped, authoritarian voice, and Mags watched as her mother’s mouth first dropped open, then snapped closed as the older woman turned to face him, chin elevated and her expression loaded with a steely authority of her own.

Which clearly didn’t affect Finn in the least. “You honest to God want to treat her like the irresponsible thirteen-year-old you shipped off to the States?” He met her mother’s gaze with level-eyed disinterest in her umbrage. “Except, wait. She wasn’t actually irresponsible then, either, was she?”

His voice went hard. “She knocked herself out and, yes, put herself in danger, all in order to save your ass—and all you can do is stand there and tell her how wrong that makes her?” Without awaiting a reply, he turned his attention to Mags and his tone gentled. “Grab the first-aid kit. Let’s see if we can’t make your folks more comfortable.”

She turned numbly to follow his instructions. Holy crap, he’d said “ass” to her mother. Her
mother
! And he’d stood up for her. She smiled slightly as she unzipped the backpack to find the medical kit.

Behind her Nancy demanded, “Who are you, young man?”

“My name is Finn Kavanagh. Finnegan, if you feel the need to be formal.”

“Really?” Mags craned to look at him over her shoulder. “Finnegan? I never knew that.”

He hitched a muscular shoulder. “Why would you? It’s not like anyone in the known universe ever calls me that except for Ma when she’s mad at me. And then it’s all—” his voice went vaguely falsetto
“—Finnegan Declan Kavanagh!”

Clearly impatient with what she deemed nonessential chitchat, Nancy firmly inserted herself between them, blocking their line of sight to each other. Hands on her hips, she glared up at Finn. “Are you a mercenary?”

Mags snorted and Finn threw back his head and laughed with uninhibited amusement. He quickly got himself under control, however, and said politely to Nancy, “No, ma’am. I’m a contractor. My brothers and I own a construction company in Seattle.”

“Finn came to El Tigre to hike the Andes and got caught up in my problems when he came across one of Munoz’s soldiers threatening me. He intervened and we’ve been on the run from them ever since.” Mags gave her head an impatient shake. “But that’s not the important thing here. How on earth did you and Brian get away from the farm?”

“That would be your mother.” Her father spoke for the first time, then smiled wryly. “Well, in a backward sort of way.” He crossed to Mags to carefully gather her to his chest and give her a gentle hug. “It’s good to see you, kiddo. You’re so grown up.” He stroked her hair. “And even more beautiful than I imagined.”

Mags closed her eyes against the rush of warmth of being in his arms, and at his scent, which, although faint beneath a bitter, masking aroma of whatever he had smeared on his skin, was still familiar even after all these years. Cautiously, she slid her arms around his waist and hugged him back.

They stood thus for a moment before he stepped back to hold her at arm’s length. Brushing a tendril away from her temple, he looked down at her. “She finally drove Munoz’s cousin to the breaking point.”

“I merely pointed out that the prostitutes should have access to medical care and frequent checks for STDs,” Nancy said hotly. “It was in his own best interest, and the way they treat those women is
criminal
!”

“Yes, it’s a worthy cause, as was your agitating for the crop workers to strike for more money. But even you realize that you have a way of ordering people around that puts their backs up.”

She sniffed indignantly, but admitted, “Perhaps I could have been more diplomatic.”

“That’s like saying perhaps Genghis Khan could be a tad ruthless in his drive to create an empire,” Mags interjected, and stood her ground when her mother whirled on her.

“These injustices need to be addressed,” the older woman said coldly.

“No one knows that better than I, Nancy,” she replied with equal chilliness.

“Mother! Not Nancy, I’m your
mother
!”

She shrugged and agreed in a tone that leaned to the left of agreeable, “No one knows that better than I,
Mother
. After all, it’s the reason you sent me away from home when I was thirteen—to have more time for your causes.”

She saw her mother open her mouth and jumped in before Nancy could climb on her political high horse. “I was under the impression the reason they kidnapped you in the first place was because you kicked up a fuss against Munoz’s conscription of the neighborhood kids into his organization. I’m kind of surprised you weren’t murdered outright. No, no!” she hastened to add when she saw the look of horror on her mother’s face, as if she’d actually believed Mags would be
okay
with that. “I’m gratified beyond words that you weren’t hurt! I just meant that drug lords aren’t exactly known for their mercy.”

“For reasons that nobody truly understands, Munoz’s mother decreed that Nancy was not to be harmed,” her father explained. “And since everyone’s terrified of Senora Munoz, Victor sent us to Juan Carlos, the cousin who manages his farm for him.”

“So, I don’t get it. This cousin was holding you both prisoner, then he just suddenly let you go?”

“You know your mother is constitutionally incapable of
not
stumping for socioeconomic reform, and as we said, she fomented one rebellion after another. The health check for hookers was apparently the last straw for Juan Carlos. He had a couple of his men drive us into the rain forest about an hour’s distance from the farm and they turned us loose without water, food or proper clothing.”

A chill chased down Mags’s spine. “Therefore being able to tell Victor Munoz that while he hadn’t killed you as ordered, you had still somehow managed to escape. But that, sadly, you hadn’t taken anything with you to aid in your continued well-being, so your chances of survival were virtually nonexistent.”

She couldn’t help her sense of pride when she looked at her parents. They’d definitely taken a beating, so were in less than tip-top condition. But for a man and woman in their late sixties who’d been in the Amazon without proper equipment and zero supplies, they were still much healthier than they likely had any right to be. Certainly more so, she’d wager, than Juan Carlos had anticipated when he’d tossed them out like a couple of unwanted mongrels. “How long since they dumped you in the rain forest?”

“Two days, maybe three,” her mother said, still sounding stiff.

“It was two, dear.” Brian’s voice came from directly overhead and Mags looked up to see her father had drifted across the clearing to stand next to her.

Mags handed him the water bottle and rose to her feet. “Sip that slowly,” she instructed and, seeing that Finn was keeping an eye on him, she took the tube of cortisone cream over to her mother, whose insect bites appeared in most need of attention.

For a while, as she gently treated the worst of them, she maintained her silence. Ultimately, however, she said, “I take it this Juan Carlos guy didn’t know you and Brian spent years ministering not far from this very area and actually know your way around it quite well.”

She noticed how much less plump and pliable her mother’s skin was than it’d been the last time Mags had seen her. Observed as well that veins snaked beneath the thin flesh on the backs of Nancy’s spotted hands. These were the first signs of aging Mags had ever noticed in her, and something about viewing them now made her heart hurt.

For a brief moment, she thought she felt her mother stroke her hair. Then Nancy made an un-Nancy-like rude noise, and she nearly snorted as well at how active her own imagination was.

“He cares for and knows nothing beyond that godforsaken coca farm,” the older woman scoffed. “He is a city boy at heart. And since
he
wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance of surviving the rain forest without every amenity known to man at his disposal, he clearly believed the chances of old coots like your father and me were even bleaker.”

Finn came over and squeezed some of the cortisone from Mags’s tube onto the back of his hand. “For your dad,” he said as he handed it back and flashed Nancy a small smile of approval. “Guess you proved him wrong, didn’t you?”

“Yes, we did,” she said with grim satisfaction at the same time that Brian murmured, “Oh, she determined we’d do that within minutes of being pushed from the car onto an old defunct road in the rain forest.”

She turned to him. “They tied you up like a roped heifer—you with your bad hip!—and just tossed you out like so much garbage!”

“They did the same to you, dear.”

“Indeed. But I don’t have a tricky sciatica.” She made an impatient erasing motion as if that were hardly the point, when patently it was. “We couldn’t let them get away with that, could we?”

Mags was surprised at the depth of her fury. She had to unclench her teeth before she asked, “How did you untie yourselves?”

“Fortunately, when they trussed our hands, they did so in front rather than behind us. They obviously didn’t expect us to get loose either way, so being senior citizens in this instance worked in our favor.”

“The fact they weren’t particularly skilled at knots didn’t hurt, either,” Brian said.

Nancy’s lips curved up in a slight smile.

Mags concentrated on doctoring her mother’s bites while she wrestled her anger under control. “A couple of these are infected,” she observed with laudable briskness to disguise the emotions roiling inside her. “But most of them aren’t too bad.”

“The infected ones are bites we got before we found the andiroba tree.”

It took her a second to remember the significance of the andiroba. Then the bitter smell she’d caught on her father’s skin kicked up memories of her youth and her mother concocting remedies from the local flora. “You managed to make oil from the seeds?”

Nancy nodded. “It’s supposed to ferment for a week or two but obviously we didn’t have that kind of time. Luckily, even fairly raw it was beneficial. As you can see, as an insect repellant it didn’t work as effectively as a properly made batch would have. But none of the bites we got while wearing it are infected.”

She and Finn finished doctoring her parents and fetched warm tops and socks from their supplies for the older couple to put on. And not a moment too soon. They had barely finished donning the garments when the sun went down and the temperature dropped what felt like—and likely was—a good forty degrees.

As Finn built a fire and cooked them dinner he asked Brian and Nancy whether they’d be able to give directions to the grow farm to the Santa Rosa authorities.

“We can’t go to the police there!” Nancy said in alarm.

“I know,” he agreed in his most soothing voice and Mags watched his deep tones calm them the same way they always did her. “Mags told me Munoz’s cousin is a high-ranking officer there. I was thinking more along the lines of the US consulate. Do you think you can remember well enough to make them a map?”

Her parents claimed emphatically that they could, but as they both showed signs of nodding off during the meal, Finn declared tomorrow soon enough to pursue that avenue and ushered them into the tent. He was back out a moment later with a handful of items he’d fetched to set up a rudimentary bed for the two of them.