Show No Fear (10 page)

Maybe you could fight fire with fire, he marveled.

But then Buitre viciously slapped her hand away.

Biting her lip, she stepped back, squared her shoulders, and raised her chin.

Gus saw red. He found himself stalking onto the field, battling down the illogical impulse to bludgeon Buitre’s ugly face.

Carlos headed him off. “Easy, easy,” he said with a firm hand on Gus’s shoulder. “It’s just a game,” he added.

It took Buitre several more minutes to roll to his feet. He sent Lucy a murderous look, as if she were the reason he had fallen.
Shit,
thought Gus. This was just what they didn’t need—an enemy in the rebel ranks.

Turning his back on his team, Buitre limped toward his hooch to nurse his injured pride.

Back on the field, the rebels shyly approached their opponents. By humiliating Buitre, the Spaniards had unwittingly won them
over. One youth trotted off, returning minutes later with hard-boiled eggs for the winners.

Lucy accepted her egg with relish, peeling off the shell with hands that shook. As she stuffed it in her mouth in one bite,
she swung a guilty look at Gus, who hadn’t been given an egg.

“Go ahead,” he told her, ignoring the rumble in his stomach. “You’re the one with a runaway metabolism.”

He spent a second memorizing the names of the young rebels: Julian, Estéban, Manuel, and David, all of whom were eager to
tell their tale of woe. Two had been kidnapped by the FARC and forced into service. Manuel had been sold by his family for
three bags of rice. David, who wore the insignia of a squad commander, admitted that he had dropped out of college to join
the rebel cause. His father had been a white anthropologist, his mother an Arhuacan Indian.

Gus held his intelligent brown eyes a moment, reading both caution and youthful idealism in their depths. As the product of
disparate social classes, he had chosen to identify with his mother’s people, the downtrodden indigenous, whom the FARC allegedly
represented.

Lucy startled Gus by throwing out the million-dollar question. “Do you know where the American hostages are kept?”

The younger boys shook their heads with credible ignorance. Manuel joked that he didn’t even know where his own home was.
As an illiterate
campesino,
that likely was the sad case. David merely shrugged and said, obliquely, “
¿Quién sabe?
”

Who knows?

And Gus realized Lucy was a step ahead of him. She’d already ferreted out their best informant. Question was, would the kid
confide in them, or would he hold out?

Just then, Buitre burst from his shelter, disrupting the congenial conversation.

He stalked toward Manuel, who’d been the one to dole out eggs. “Why do you waste our food on these strangers?” he raged. Seizing
the youth by his collar, he shook him forcefully. “Our own people are starving. We have no medicines, no way of looking after
ourselves. Do you think they are here to help us? They are friends of the American spies.” He began pulling Manuel toward
the dreaded shed, the keychain on his belt loop jingling.

Lucy shook off Gus’s arm as she trailed after them. “Excuse me, Deputy Buitre,” she called out, her voice surprisingly strong.
The guerrilla leader stopped and turned, eyeing her incredulously. “I’m the one who made you fall,” she added, taking the
blame for his slip, “Perhaps you should take your anger out on me,
chamo.
”

She snapped her mouth abruptly shut, and Gus’s antennae for danger went straight into the air. What had she just called him?
Chamo.
What was that? Even Carlos looked perplexed.

Buitre cocked his head to one side. “
Chamo?
” he repeated. “You talk like a Venezuelan bitch.”

Lucy’s face struck Gus as suddenly pale, the confidence she’d displayed only moments ago all but gone. She gave an awkward
shrug.

Buitre released Manuel abruptly. “You wish to take his place?” he threatened, marching up to her even as Lucy bravely stood
her ground.

Gus stepped between them, pushing Lucy behind him. “Careful,” he warned, staring the man down. “The eyes of the world are
upon the FARC at this moment,” he reminded him quietly.

Buitre sneered, pretending Gus’s gentle reminder made no difference to him. But then he spat on the ground at Gus’s feet and
stalked off, slamming into his quarters seconds later. The rest of the rebels drifted away.

Gus turned toward Lucy, including Carlos in his questioning look. “What does
chamo
mean?” he asked her as he led her toward the low burning fire in the fire pit.

“Buddy, pal,” she translated into English. “It’s Venezuelan slang. Sorry,” she added, rubbing her forehead with obvious self-recrimination.
“I forgot where I was.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Gus said, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “No damage done. Come on, let’s check out the
sleeping accommodations.”

They all faltered at the sight of Fournier standing at the bungalow door, looking harried. “Is there a problem?” he asked.

“No, no,” Carlos assured him. “Buitre’s a sore loser, that’s all.”

“Ah,” said Fournier, but his troubled gray eyes remained locked on Lucy.

♥ Uploaded by Coral ♥

CHAPTER 6
      

W
e’ll sleep here,” Gus decided, choosing the cubicle at the far end of the building, adjacent to a rear exit.

The long, leaf-covered bungalow consisted of cubbies divided by bamboo blinds. The alcove Gus had chosen had probably been
passed over by the others because it brushed up against the jungle.

“Then I’ll take this one,” said Carlos, disappearing into the cubicle beside them.

Lucy noted the sparse accommodations without reservation. Each team member had been given a thin mat, a blanket, and mosquito
netting. She’d slept in worse conditions in urban settings, and with Gus to keep her warm at night she had nothing to complain
about.

Dragging her gaze up from the mat, she found him watching her with a hint of amusement. “Take your clothes off,” he told her
in Spanish as he unbuttoned his own jacket. “Jungle ticks,” he reminded her, zapping any erotic images before they had a chance
to fully form. “Leeches. We need to search each other daily, when there’s plenty of light to see by.”

“Oh.” She fumbled to release the buttons on her jacket, sneaking a peek at him as his T-shirt came off. Light slipped through
the leafy ceiling to dapple his bare chest. All that chest hair and rippling muscle must have made him irresistible to women.
She wondered how many there had been, whether he’d ever been as close to any of them as he’d been to her.

“Boots, too?” she asked as he bent over to scrabble at his laces.

“Everything,” he said.

Everything?
She complied, watching curiously from the corner of her eye to see if he would remove his boxer briefs. She wasn’t sure if
she was relieved or disappointed when he didn’t.

“Okay, pay attention,” he said, inspecting their cubicle. “Set your boots over here where you can find them, even in the dark.
Never put them on without turning them upside-down and shaking them first.”

She wasn’t sure she really wanted to know, but…“Snakes?” she guessed.

“Bats. Rodents. Beetles. Could be anything.”

“Of course.” She shouldn’t have asked.

“There are several venomous snakes in the jungle, but you’ll probably never see one. Different story with the other creatures.”

As she placed her boots in the corner, he pointed to her clothing. “Never leave your clothes on the floor,” he instructed.
“Hang them up. Right there.” He pointed to a hook hammered into the crossbeam.

She followed his directions to the letter, her awareness notching several degrees as they brushed against each other while
hanging up their clothing.

“Step over here,” he instructed, drawing her into a patch of sunlight. “Hold your arms up,” he added, running an all-seeing
gaze over her torso.

Lucy’s breath caught as he hooked a finger behind each panel of her bra and peeked inside. “Do you mind?” she sputtered. “I
think I’d know if a tick or a leech was in there.”

“Check the undersides of your breasts every day,” he said, ignoring her and spinning her around.

“Don’t—”

But it was too late. He’d already pulled her panties from the small of her back to peek at her bottom. Catching sight of her
incision, he paused to inspect it and she glanced back, distracted.

“It’s red,” he said, sounding none too pleased.

“It’s just chafed from the walk. I had to take off the bandage.”

“Does this hurt?” he asked prodding the skin around the wound.

It did, but she didn’t want him worrying. “No,” she assured him.

He sent her a hard look. “Keep it covered and clean,” he ordered grimly. “Damn it, Luce,” he added quietly, “if it gets infected,
then we’re both in trouble.”

“It won’t,” she assured him, hoping she was right.

He squatted abruptly, sweeping a hand down, then up the length of her legs. “No hair,” he commented, oblivious to the awareness
fizzing inside her. “How do you do that?” He stood up with a frown.

“It’s called waxing. A man couldn’t handle it.”

His eyebrows rose at the challenge. “Is that right?”

“Trust me,” she assured him with a smirk.

“Check your crotch every morning,” he continued, deliberately crude. “Centipedes like to crawl into warm, moist places at
night.”

“Eww!” Lucy exclaimed in a very American-sounding protest. She quickly followed up with a “
¡Qué asco!
” and an apologetic grimace at Gus, who, with a shake of his head, spread his arms wide. “Now you check me. Ticks like to
hide in hair, obviously, so if you don’t mind, comb your fingers through my chest hair and my…armpits,” he added, groping
for the Spanish word.

Lucy just looked at him in disbelief. “Why can’t you do that yourself?”

He cast his eyes upward. “I can’t see as well as you, obviously. We’re married now,” he reminded her. “We look out for each
other.”
Teamwork,
he mouthed in English.

Lucy huffed out a breath but relented. Stepping closer, she sifted through his surprisingly soft, cinnamon-brown chest hair,
relieved to find it parasite-free. The fuzzy trail that disappeared into his boxers was tempting to trace. Giving his armpits
a cursory inspection, she hauled him around the way he’d done to her and checked his back, snapping the elastic of his boxers
as she stole a peek at his smooth, gorgeously honed buttocks.

Was it hot in here, or… “What now?” she demanded, aware that the Colombian army could be striking the rebel camp and she’d
never even know it.

“Feet,” he said, turning around to point down at the sturdy double-layered socks she’d bought with hiking in mind. “Take those
off.”

He’d already taken off his own socks. “We wash them when we can, but not if they won’t dry. Wet feet cause jungle rot, and
that’s the last thing you want. Hang up your socks every night, upside down unless you want to invite something inside them.
Any blisters? Cuts?” He frowned down at her pale, narrow feet.

“No.”

“Good. If you get them, you do whatever it takes to keep them clean and covered.”

“Got it. Can we get dressed now?” she asked, painfully aware of how vulnerable she felt on so many levels. Once upon a time,
she and Gus had known each other’s bodies as well as their own. This quasi-intimacy brought it all back, the pleasure, the
playfulness, only the emotional bond they’d once shared needed to stay in the past. There wasn’t any place for it now.

“Sure. Do I make you nervous?” he asked her mildly.

“No, why would you?” she retorted, suppressing a shiver of longing as she recalled their kiss on the plane.

His brandy-colored eyes gleamed with mockery. “Just checking.”

Lucy caught a whiff of boiling rice. With her stomach growling, she stuffed her feet back in her socks. “Come on. I think
they’re cooking lunch, and I’m starving!”

As she reached for her clothing, she was conscious of Gus’s thoughtful gaze sliding down her rib cage. “What?” she prompted,
sensing his disapproval.

“You should have fattened up before making this trip,” he scolded.

“I did. I ate like a pig.”

“And then you ran every night.”

“I did not.” Did he just assume that or had he been spying on her again?

“Do you ever ask yourself what you’re running from?” he persisted, that same probing light in his eyes.

Memories of the bombing in Valencia ripped through Lucy’s thoughts, causing her to flinch and draw back. “I don’t know what
you’re talking about,” she muttered, turning away from his astute gaze. What was he implying—that she’d been emotionally damaged
by the bombing, too? Hell, no. The CIA’s psych staff would have caught that years ago.

To her relief, he dropped the subject and concentrated on getting dressed.

Lacing her boots up tightly, Lucy left their cubby without a backward glance.

God, she was hungry!

“Luna!” Hours later, Gus found her squatting in the drizzle behind the bungalow trying to coax one of the fat chickens out
from under the building.